Prime Suspect

Jane Tennison, a newly arrived female Detective Chief Inspector, is handed the Scotland Yard inquiry into the death of Della Mornay, a sex worker. Almost at once she notices two troubling things. Her male colleagues are set on obstructing, belittling and undermining her at every opportunity, and the body the police have is not Mornay's after all. The investigators are already a step behind a killer who prowls the London night and preys on women.

To catch him, Tennison must withstand the open resentment of the officers around her while keeping quiet about her intense drive to climb the ranks of a male-dominated force. Departmental politics, a faltering relationship and an evasive prime suspect all put her position and her personal life at risk.

Prime Suspect is the first novel in a bestselling series by Lynda La Plante, an Edgar Award-winning author with an international readership. Tennison later became the central character of a television drama starring Helen Mirren. Readers who enjoy the novels of Sue Grafton, Kathy Reichs or Karin Slaughter are likely to find Tennison a blunt, determined detective whose work opened the way for the female investigators who followed her.