Customer Reviews

Clean Cut: An Anna Travis Mystery (Anna Travis Mysteries)

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Lynda La Plante is well known to mystery/suspense readers. Her BBC television series, PRIME SUSPECT, ran for seven seasons and starred award-winning actress Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. In addition to being an actress herself and writing movie and television scripts, La Plante has written several stand-alone and series novels.

The author's latest book, CLEAN CUT, is the third in her Anna Travis series. RED DAHLIA and ABOVE SUSPICION. I hadn't read either of the previous books, but I had no problem diving into this one regarding backstory. La Plante delivers well-developed characters with a tremendous amount of internal conflict. What I needed to know about the two primary characters, Anna and her lover Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Langdon, was quickly supplied, and I was immersed into the new problems that faced them as a couple and as police officers.

After a rather slow-paced launch at the start of the book, though deep in character complications, Anna starts questioning her relationship with Langdon. She's gotten irritated at the way she seems to have turned from lover to caretaker for him, all without appreciation. Then she gets the phone call that turns her life inside out: Langdon was attacked at his latest crime scene. She's told that even if he lives, Langdon will probably never walk again.

The book centers at the outset on the test of the two wills of Anna and Langdon. She wants to help, but he's so cynical and bitter that she can barely stand to be around him. Not only that, but she finds out that Langdon is going behind her back to get information about the man that attacked him. Anna fears that Langdon is engaging in a vendetta that will land him in trouble with the law. If the wheelchair doesn't get Jimmy Langdon, it looks like prison will.

I liked the characters a lot because they have obvious history and "feel" real. I hated the way Langdon treats Anna, but I totally understood where Langdon's mind is while in the hospital. People in situations like Langdon's strike out at those that love them because those people are the only ones willing to put up with them. This bitterness spreads throughout the novel as Anna's own murder case suddenly intersects with the investigation Langdon was pursuing when he was nearly killed.

La Plante uses the novel to point out how vulnerable countries are these days. Transient populations drift through major cities, like London in this novel, and bring a lot of danger and crime because that's a big part of what those people have to rely on for employment. The presentation of La Plante's views may be unsettling for some, but there's now denying the existence of the problem.

The book remains steady throughout, and its solid police work that breaks the cases wide open and connects them. There are no car chases, martial arts battles, or shootouts. The action La Plante relays in her pages is propelled by emotion and the reader's driving curiosity to find out what's going to happen next. The author has a great ear for dialogue, and her police characters talk the way those people do, in rough vernacular tinged with black humor.

CLEAN CUT is a good book, but it's made even better by the stress on Anna and Langdon's relationships. The final few pages will come as a shock to some. And it will leave readers wondering what's going to happen for Anna in the next book.

Another great book by Lynda LaPlant, who should get much more recognition for her writing. Yes it is graphic, but there is much worse out there. LaPlant holds the reader from the beginning. I was torn by wanting to race through the book and not wanting it to end. Bravo!

In London Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Langton interrogates prime murder suspect Somali expatriate Idris Krasiniqe. The illegal immigrant claims two gang members were involved in the killing of teenaged prostitute Carly Ann North. Jimmy questions the two when one of them stabs him with a machete. The cop is lucky to be alive.

Jimmy's lover and subordinate Detective Inspector Anna Travis helps him physically recover, but mentally he wants revenge by bringing his attacker, alleged to be drug dealer Clinton Camorra, to jail. Meanwhile Anna investigates the slashing murder of librarian Irene Phelps; sex offender Arthur George Murphy confesses. When his sister Gail Sickert and his infant niece are murdered and two other relatives vanish, Anna thinks voodoo practitioner Camorra is the culprit in all the crimes.

With Jane Tennison taking a needed breather, Lynda La Plante turns to her other tough yet vulnerable heroine (see THE RED DAHLIA and ABOVE SUSPICION). Anna Travis is a terrific lead character who holds the extremely complex police procedural story line together. She accomplishes this remarkable feat in spite of several major fascinating subplots and the strong stance on illegal immigration that runs throughout. Fans will appreciate Ms. La Plante's superb English police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

DI Anna Travis and DCI James Langton have worked on two cases together, both of them problematical at their end. Now, they have been living together for eighteen months. Their relationship and indeed their lives are unalterably changed when, as Langton is about to make an arrest, he sustains horrific wounds when attacked by a machete-wielding man. [The title derives from the wounds inflicted by that instrument.] Anna oversees his care while in rehabilitation and takes over that care in her small apartment after his release from the institution.

Theirs has been a symbiotic relationship: Earlier in his career, "Langston was promoted as a result of a report made by Jack Travis [Anna's policeman father]. In part, that was the reason why Langton had brought Anna onto his team for her first murder case. It was also the reason he had saved her career in the Red Dahlia investigation."

Anna joins a new murder team in Brixton investigating the death of a thirty-nine-year-old librarian whose body has been found by her twelve-year-old daughter. It is a difficult adjustment: "She found it all very depressing: so different from working alongside Langton, whose energy and tireless pressure on everyone around him always paid dividends. There had been numerous other cases she had been involved in before and after Langton; none of the SIOs ever matched him, or even came close." At the end of that case and when, against all odds, Langton returns to duty, he asks for her to join his new team.

The new case in puzzling manner seems to be related to the one Langton was working on when he was attacked: the murder of a teenage prostitute. There are several other murders, involving voodoo, pedophilia, and dismemberment including decapitation, and every line of inquiry turns into a dead end. There is also a lot of information about the problem of ever-increasing immigration, legal and otherwise, in England, as well as its troubled justice system, which at times I found to be overdone. Also constantly in the background is the question of how, or even if, the relationship between Travis and Langton will evolve.


I wanted to like this book much more than I did. I've long been a fan of this author's wonderful "Prime Suspect" series with Helen Mirren on PBS. I'd not read the previous Anna Travis mysteries, "Above Suspicion" and "The Red Dahlia," and the ending hints at another to follow. But I found the pace of this book to be much too slow, with the author constantly reviewing the plot to date, perhaps to lessen in the mind of the reader the complexity of the characters and the various unspeakable acts committed by them. Clarity does not always ensue. But, as always, others' mileage may vary.

My book arrived earlier then promised and was in the condition that had been described in the ad. I'd order from this retailer again and recommend it to friends.

"Clean Cut" is a page turner. The heroine is Detective Anna Travis, a woman who is imperfect and good at her job. Her lover is DCI James Langton
who has been in previous books. He is her supervisor. It is an honest protrayal of dectective work, and at times, brutal. There is a murder to
solve and you will have difficulty in putting the book down. You cannot guess what is going to happen next. The writer, Lynda La Plante, does not
leave out the violence and brutality which is the way it is in real crime.

I thoroughly enjoy police procedurals, and was happy to discover this Lynda La Plante Anna Travis novel. Anna Travis is a flawed, believable protagonist, and although the reader is given far more clues than in most mysteries, the pleasure of the book is watching Travis sort through the complicated case and her even more complicated private life. I've already bought several other books in the series!

When live-in lover DCI James Langton is severely injured on a case, DI Anna Travis sets aside her thoughts of breaking up in order to care for him during his recovery. After going on leave for several months to care for Langton, exhausted from his mood swings, never-ending complaints, and obsession with finding his assailant, Anna returns to work on a new case.

Surprising everyone but himself, Langton comes roaring back to duty with a vengance intent on finding those who were involved in his near-death. Anna is surprised when he asks her to join his case.

In creating Anna, author Lynda La Plante plays the damaged heroine card with great success. With all her flaws, it is not difficult to understand and empathize with the myriad situations Anna finds herself involved, many times due to her own actions and reactions to what is happening around her.

The storyline is strong and the pacing steady. Along the way, there are plenty of surprises including a shocking ending that no one will see coming. La Plante is superb in laying out a quite gruesome plot and following the course of the investigation.

Fans will look forward to the next installment for further updates in the Travis/Langton relationship. Thankfully, La Plante continues to provide new stories in this marvelous series.

Clean Cut: An Anna Travis Mystery (Anna Travis Mysteries)

Love Lynda La Plante and The Anna Travis Mysteries.
Could not put down. A real page turner.

This was a great read, I couldn't put it down. Anna Travis is a great heroine