The Enzo Files is set in France and is centred on the work of half-Italian, half-Scottish Enzo Macleod. This former forensic scientist, now working as a biology professor at a French university becomes involved in applying the latest scientific methods to solve cold cases. [14]

In 2003, the skeleton of a young woman is recovered from a dry riverbed in France, but her murder remains unsolved. Until the cold case falls into the hands of forensic expert Enzo McLeod, who has vowed to solve six cold cases as part of a bet with his son-in-law, journalist Roger Raffin. But the closer Enzo gets to uncovering the truth, the more dangerous the game becomes, and soon he finds that his own family is in danger from people who will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. This book, which closes the story of Enzo MacLeod, forensic scientist, and his bet that he would solve 6 cold cases from his adopted homeland of France, was competently written. The descriptions of the French countryside and towns were especially well done. But because this is the last installment of a series and loose ends needed to be tied up, we ended up with a barely credible mess of soap-opera materials. For instance, Enzo had 3 children... no, wait, his daughter may not be his biological daughter...and then, wait, now the suspicion arises that his young son may not be his biological son after all. It boggles the mind that this esteemed professor of forensic science has never thought about doing a simple paternity test to solve these questions. Then it appears that over the course of the series, several attempts have been made on his life, or on that of his loved ones, which seem to have been foiled by others taking a bullet for him, or intervening in some other heroic way. It's just too much! The same is true about Enzo's love life: we hear him mooning over his dead second wife, then about the spoiled relationship with his son's mother, then he muses about an almost-liaison with a police commissioner, and finally he ends up with a beautiful ex-gendarme he met in a previous case and who just shows up on his doorstep and - surprise, surprise, ends up with a bullet in her chest. Too much ! This is like one of those restaurant desserts that piles together chocolate with pecans, caramel, whipped cream, vanilla, cinnamon and a dozen other ingredients, and ends up being a cloying mess. When I first pitched the idea to my then UK publisher, the editor dismissed it out of hand. Enzo, she said, was far too old to be the leading character of a series. I took umbrage. It was almost like saying that I was too old to be a writer. That might have been the end of Enzo right there and then, but ironically it made me all the more determined to write him, and I am happy to say that time, and sales, have proved me right. Enzo is probably one of the most popular characters I have ever written.

Cast Iron

Enzo Macleod is an interesting protagonist. Half Scottish, half Italian and brought up on the mean streets of Glasgow, well maybe not so mean if his parents could afford private education he has pursued his career in Toulouse where he is a professor of forensic science and yet, in this novel at least, forensics don't play a large part and when they do it is at someone else's instigation as he seems to prefer the old fashioned methods of questions, shoe leather and deduction. He is an appealing man - smart, attractive and very human with his rather dysfunctional family life (3 children with different mothers).

Enzo a professor of forensics in France has a well-earned reputation for solving the unsolvable cases, but finds a flaw in the original investigation. Little does he realise that he is about to open a Pandora’s box of hell on his family, and that endangers the lives of his daughters. It is his knowledge and belief that the Bordeaux Six and the murder of three prostitutes have been ascribed to the convicted killer Regis Blanc. Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 December 2021 . Retrieved 16 July 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) Cast Iron is the sixth book in the Enzo Macleod Investigation series by Scottish journalist, screenwriter and author, Peter May. After refreshing himself on the details of Roger Raffin’s sixth cold case with him, Enzo heads in the direction of Bordeaux to meet the parents of Lucie Martin, whose unexplained disappearance in 1989 became a murder case when a nearby lake dried up during the drought of 2003, revealing her skeleton. EXCERPT: It smells of animal here. Dead animal. Something that has been hung to ripen before cooking. Hundreds of years of fermenting grapes have suffused the earth with odours of yeast and carbonic gas, stale now, sour, a memory retained only in the soil and the sandstone and the rafters. like all the forgotten lives that have passed through this place, in sunlight and in darkness.

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DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Hachette Australia, Quercus via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Cast Iron by Peter May for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.