Whole Life Sentence by Lynda La Plante

Whole Life Sentence by Lynda La Plante
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 454

Publisher - Zaffre

Source - Arc

Blurb from Goodreads

IT ENDS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN . . .

THE FINAL DETECTIVE JANE TENNISON THRILLER - AND THE PREQUEL TO TV HIT PRIME SUSPECT - FROM SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING CRIME FICTION ICON, LYNDA LA PLANTE. Now available to pre-order in hardback, eBook and audiobook.
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Newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison has elbowed her way into the Area Major Incident Pool, or AMIP, an elite team investigating non-domestic murders.

With her new position, she hopes things will the rampant sexism, the snide remarks, the undermining. Then she gets her first a five-year-old cold case of a missing teenager no one else has any interest in investigating, and an assumed suicide Tennison suspects is, in fact, murder.

But as Tennison gathers the crucial evidence to secure arrests, her new colleagues watch like vultures circling prey. And one by one the cases that she has built from the ground up are taken from her - and the glory along with them.



My Review

Aw man I am so gutted this is the final book, I want Tennison to go on and on and absolutely could so going to live in hope the author may change her mind some day and give us more. Anyway I digress, lets get to the book. So Jane has always had aspirations when it comes to her career despite always being told she couldn't do X,Y,Z because she is a woman. She has never let it stop her and this time it is no different, now a DCI Jane has made plenty of menamies in the job but also got respect even if grudgingly so from some of her male colleagues. This time she has her eyes on "Area Major Incident Pool" team (AMIP) and even her guy colleagues who respect her tell her she has no chance and yet Jane continues to prove them wrong. This time though it seems to be the ultimate boys club and despite her getting an in she is treated with contempt, rudeness, misogyny and all the badness we have seen in the previous books, I hate some of these so called cops!

Given a cold case they hope to keep her out of their hair but Jane does what she always does, gives it her all and soon is fighting an uphill battle to investigate properly and get the access she needs.
Add to that she feels that a current case - a suicide isn't as straight forward as it looks and yet instead of gratitude she is ridiculed Honestly they think she is rubbish and so toxic towards her yet have no issue pinching any credit if they can get to it first. They are absolute cretins and I was desperate for comeuppance towards them. She was constantly meeting attitudes, walls, dodgy witnesses, toxic work environments and road blocks at almost every corner. I think we get as frustrated as Jane at times yet she is like a dug with a bone and is such an advocate for victims/families, she is an absolute force to be reckoned with. I did like her colleague Wendy, despite being a bit wet around the ears she is keen, respects Jane and also held herself in an environment I cannot imagine walking into every day to try and work with people like that!

Jane really shows her mettle in this with the new position/colleagues but the book isn't just the two cases although the focus/investigations are central. We do get a bit of Jane's personal life which adds dimension to the character and you see the vulnerable side to her too as I don't know how she manages against so much negativity. 4/5 for me this time, I have a fair few La Plante books on my tbrm and I will be bumping them up, this series reminded me how much I enjoy her writing!

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