Faith Martin is one of the best mystery writers, and A Fatal End is a worthy addition to her body of work.

In this book, she has combined a well plotted mystery with Dr. Clement’s decision to retire as a result of health reasons. Still, he wants to close out his career on one last positive note and is determined to do so, but decides to have one more investigation when he disagrees with the coroner’s jury. He believes he knows better because of his medical understanding of the medical evidence.

He drafts his resignation, but avoids telling Trudy while moving forward with her boss to persuade him the case needs to be surveyed. The captain reluctantly agrees and allows Clement and Trudy to do a short investigation. While Trudy is aware that there is something wrong, she becomes enthusiastic about working with Dr. Clement again. To her pleasant surprise, Vincent, his son, also accompanies them, hoping to help his father work through his health problems for this last case.

Trudy and Clement begin their investigation and soon find reason to suspect the death of a band mate is not suicide, but murder. Their investigation begins in earnest, as they start interviewing band members and fans who had navigated their way into the sleazy nightclub where they perform. When Clement and Trudy wander into the nightclub, they swiftly uncover the nightclub has lots of questionable activity.

One of the questionable things they uncover leads them to several underaged people who manage to wink their way in the bar They also learn there are some adult cruisers who are well known to the authorities and more suspicion becomes part of their investigation. They cast a wider net for their investigation and things become more complicated.

As this continues, Trudy learns Cryder’s medical information and about his resignation. This seems to be a tough problem, and the need for Cryder to resign. Trudy sheds her tears while Cryder deals with the information, but still steps up to dealing with the closing of the case.

This is probably the best book in the series, but hold off before you get it. There are lots of developmental parts in the books leading up to this one. While the mystery, which is written with excellent pace and vivid characters, you may prefer to read the books in the series prior to this one. Various side stories and relationships developed will be much easier to understand.

An excellent book all around, I recommend this and the entire series. My thanks to Net Galley and HO Digital for an advance copy of this book. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.