I like a good murder mystery and this was definitely a gripping one.

Sometimes I found the writing style to be quite simplistic, and I could see that the main thing about La Plante's writing is her pacing and the plot.

I don't think I've read any of the Anna Travis novels before, and I started with #2 instead of #1, but I really enjoyed the read and found it gripping.

I suspected that the bad guy had never left the house, but for a while part of me thought maybe he would leap out at Travis, or take her hostage or something. But it did occur to me maybe he had been murdered in a similar way to how he had murdered the girls. I was certainly not sad to learn he was dead!

I enjoyed the romance element that I wanted to see resolved. I do feel like I should go back and read #1 though. And then I'll move on to #3!

I have read a number of Anna Travis novels now, though entirely out of order, but I don't really enjoy them. The issues that I had with this novel I remember having with the other novels as well. I think 'The Red Dahlia' has convinced me not to try another.

My biggest problem is that I do not like Anna. Anna is as dull as dishwater - probably less so because sometimes dishwater has little floating bits that keep it a bit exciting. She has no spark or personality. She lives to work and has no other interests or hobbies etc to give her depth. She seems to exist just for the sake of these books, I never feel like the book I am reading just happens to occur amidst Anna's life. I'm not sure if that makes sense.
She never 'gets' anyone's jokes, she finds things inappropriate, she gets offended... she just seems like a right stick in the mud and I don't enjoy reading about her.

I also really dislike this - and I am going to heavily emphasise the use of sarcastic quote marks here - 'romance' with Langton. Langton isn't the most likeable of characters either, he seems a bit pushy and arrogant and non-committal and he is evidently an alcoholic. I think if it was written better then the addition of a proper 'romance' would give such a series a real interest point, but I didn't come away from the novel thinking that Anna and Langton were end game.

I actually enjoyed the initial plot with the really gruesome murders and the shadowing of an older crime. However, it very quickly became repetitive and the pacing dwindled away.
There was too much of the police having no progress and Anna typing up reports. Every day that passed Anna typed up her report. Good Girl, Anna. Doing your homework.

There was too much interviewing, going away, reinterviewing, going away, interview again... it was boring. I'm not saying that everyone should have just outright told the police everything that they knew, but the format could at least have changed a bit. The people being interviewed could have changed.

Once we had a prime suspect the book just became a farce. There was very little progression and quite a lot of guess work and fishing. It seemed that the two victims were forgotten and instead pages and pages were given to trying to make the suspect seem utterly deviant. Descriptions of sexual depravity that were repeated several times as if to reinforce the fact that the bad guy was a bad guy. Was it bad enough that the suspect had killed two women in a very gruesome manner? Yes. But La Plante didn't seem to think so, she she threw in familial abuse, abortions, incest, rape, group sex, suicide ... your basic tick list of things that can be used to make a bad guy, but this one had all of them.

It was all just too much.

This book was a good 150+ pages too long. The pacing massively dwindled once we had a suspect and Anna is a wet blanket. I'm not sure that I am going to read another in this series.

The Red Dahlia is 2nd in the Anna Travis series by Lynda La Plante, and after reading Above Suspicion (#1) last year I don't know why I took so long to pick this one up from the library. After giving Above Suspicion 5 stars I did have high expectations for this book and as you can see from my rating I was very impressed with this sequel.
The plot surrounds a gruesome murder by a copycat killer of an old unsolved case from LA. Anna Travis is yet again working with DCI James Langton from her first case in Above Suspicion and this follows on their relationship so I definitely recommend reading the series chronologically.
The case itself is very interesting, very disturbing and at some points graphic and hard to read. It is London crime fiction perfection, so well developed. I think that both the writing style and plots of these books are very similar to the Jack Caffery series by Mo Hayder which is one of my favourite series of all time, so very high praise from me.
I have got the third book on order with the library now and I'm very much looking forward to carrying on this series.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5

I thought it might be better than the first one, and I guess it was, but not enough?

1.5 stars

The only reason I didn't put this down as a "will not finish" is because I wanted to know who the murderer was. So the plot was ok. The writing, however, was painful. Slow paced and wooden. Don't bother.

3.5⭐️⭐️⭐️