Duncan Percival had been in a vegetative state for five years before finally dying of his injuries, sustained in a vicious attack. DCI Hennessey, DS Yellich and DS Ventnor, who investigated the original crime, are now considering this a murder investigation that requires going back over all the previous evidence, re-interviewing suspects and witnesses, and so on. They find a tie-in with another murder five years earlier, a double murder actually of an elderly couple, for which a person was convicted but perhaps was innocent after all. And when a fresh corpse appears, a young man apparently executed with two gunshots to the head, it seems the cold cases must take second place to the urgent need to solve this one before more people die…. I think that this is the first time in this long-running series (of which “Chelsea Smile” is the 15th) in which the idea of organized crime as an element of the City of York comes into play; of course any large city will have such criminals, but most of the plots in this series involve individual crimes rather than intertwined ones. In any event, the story is compelling, and Mr. Turnbull’s plain writing continues to be a delight to read, so recommended! ( )