When the body of a naked girl is found in the Thames, the only identification is a tattooed heart encircling the names Pawel and Ela. Although her colleagues are prepared to dismiss it as suicide, DC Natalie Kershaw is convinced she has a murder on her hands. Then a second young woman is found dead in a hotel room. Kershaw's investigations lead her to the Polish community of East London where her path crosses that of Janusz Kiszka. Janusz is a man used to sorting out trouble so the natural person for his priest to turn to when a young Polish waitress goes missing, but while Janusz is pursuing his enquiries, Kershaw is pursuing him, thinking he knows more than he'll admit to about the murders.
Where the Devil Can't Go is an intriguing, well-plotted thriller with two very different heroes - Natalie Kershaw, a young detective constable struggling to gain respect in the male-dominated world of policing, and Janusz Kiszka, unofficial 'fixer' for his community, with a wife and teenage son in Poland and an on/off stripper girlfriend in London. As Kershaw and Kiszka circle each other warily, so do the two separate plot threads. There are a lot of leads and characters to keep up in the air - and at times I found myself unsure about who should have known which information - but Lipska pulls it off in the end and ties all ends off neatly.
What sets this crime novel apart is the setting of London's Polish community - a mix of long-term residents and younger migrant workers, all with ties of one sort or another back to Poland, where the trail eventually leads.
Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - The Friday Project
Genre - Adult fiction, crime
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