Blood Line by Lynda La Plante

"Still reeling from the death of her fiance, Detective Anna Travis has thrown herself fully into her new role as the murder squad's Detective Chief Inspector. But when the station's missing person's bureau turns up nothing to help locate the son of a familiar court employee, Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton - Anna's former lover turned sometimes friend - urges her to take on the suspicious case.  

Anna agrees to take charge of the investigation under Langton's watchful eye.  But is it purely a missing persons case-- or a full blown murder inquiry? An ominous pool of blood with no locatable victim leads Anna on a desperate hunt for a man who has disappeared without a trace.  With no body, and increasing pressure to make an arrest, Anna becomes obsessed with the smallest details of the case.  Now, one man has vanished, a killer may be loose on the streets and, as Langton looks on, Anna Travis may be losing control of the case--and herself."

After reading La Plante's Prime Suspect series and thoroughly enjoying them,  I was looking forward to reading Blood Line.  However, the more I read, the less I liked it and the only reason for finishing the story was to find out who the killer really was.  The story was about 200 pages too long with way too much detail even for a police procedural.  You have to slog through the minutia to get to the meat of the story and the ending was less than satisfying.

Thank you to Harper Collins for providing me with a copy of the book.