It's been a few years since I read this series but was fortunate enough to find two books that I hadn't read yet at my local library. Such joy!!

An old high school friend of Frieda's has asked her to speak with her teenage daughter who she believes is acting up and possibly using drugs. Through Frieda's careful questioning we discover that the daughter was raped in her own home recently while her mother was downstairs but the mother cannot accept such news and still believes her daughter is just acting out for attention. The rapist said something to the daughter that was said to Frieda 23 years earlier when she was raped in the same type of circumstance. Frieda believes the daughter.

Thus starts her investigation into her own rape that occured years earlier. This is an amazing book I loved the London atmosphere and Frieda's home and friends. ( )

By reading their stand alone mysteries I became a fan of husband and wife team, Nicci French, many years ago. More recently I have been introduced to their excellent series that features Dr. Frieda Klein, a psychotherapist who has assisted the police in a number of cases. In Thursday’s Child, the fourth instalment of the series, the story becomes much more personal to Frieda. She is asked to speak to the daughter of an old friend, and this daughter, Becky, revels that she has been raped in the exact same circumstances that Frieda herself experienced when she was sixteen. No one believed her at the time and no one is believing Becky either. When Becky turns up dead she is written off as a suicide but Frieda is certain she has been murdered and vows to find the perpetrator and see that justice is done.

Confronting her past in her abrupt and forceful way causes many of her old acquaintances to wonder what she is up to. Of course there is one who knows exactly what she is doing and plans to ensure that she isn’t successful. Meanwhile Frieda’s difficult relationship with her mother isn’t helped by the realization that her mother is dying from a brain tumor, or by the fact, that psychopath Dean Reeve is still taking an active interest in Frieda’s life.

Thursday’s Child is a chilling and disturbing mystery that is peopled with well-rounded characters, vivid descriptions and plenty of twists and turns. While Frieda herself remains annoying and cold, this book goes a long way to explaining why she is like that. For me, having Dean Reeve turn up again as judge and jury against Frieda’s enemies required me to let go of a certain amount of disbelief but overall Thursday’s Child is a good psychological mystery. ( )

Also Frieda Klein's fourth case is thrilling from the first to the last page. In this story you learn a lot about Frieda's origins, because the daughter of a former schoolmate was raped. The young woman opens Frieda, while notes Frieda that she has experienced exactly the same only 23 years before. Frieda goes to the scene, from which she has fled. She not only meets former classmates and has to face what happened then, but also meets her dying mother, with whom she no longer had any contact. She is grateful that her London friends are always on her side, especially Joseph, but her nemesis Dean watches over her as well. ( )

THURSDAY’S CHILDREN: A FRIEDA KLEIN MYSTERY is the 4th installment in the series. The series is written by Nicci French, a pseudonym of the English husband and wife writing team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. This title (as, indeed, the entire series) is a very complex, fascinating, psychological suspense thriller. The stories revolve around Frieda Klein, a solitary, complex, kind, gifted psychotherapist living and working in London.
Frieda has a chilling memory from the past when an acquaintance from her home town of Braxton shows up on her doorstep asking Frieda to help her daughter, Becky. The story is very suspenseful and threads from other titles weave their way slowly into THURSDAY’S CHILDREN.
Some of the old ‘school friends’ blurred together a bit. I stopped reading frequently in order to get everyone’s personalities straightened out. Frieda’s return to her family home and home town took a lot of courage. Some of the bits were hard to read, especially of her mother’s character.
The plot points were also hard to read because of the subject matter. It is infuriating and frustrating to keep reading about the harassment and rape of young women and the coverups or non-investigations that follow.
I find myself checking out the map first thing, to see what ‘lost and buried’ river Frieda is following on her solitary, night time walks. The River Walbrook features in this title. This thread is fascinating to me and I look forward to learning about some of the ‘lost places’ of London.
DCI Karlsson, Josef, Sasha and Sandy have minor supporting roles in this title.
An interesting, mysterious, psychological, dramatic read in this brilliant series. ( )

Thursday's Children is book #4 in the Frieda Klein series. This one moved slowly. I'm glad it wasn't my first acquaintance with Frieda Klein as I may have put the series on the back burner. So, having read five books in this eight book series, I will still say the Sunday book is still by far the best.

Looking at the positives first, I will say I learned more about our elusive main character in this book than any of the others. It dragged a bit when she went back to her childhood home of Braxton and I think the story line could have been abbreviated.

I like how her friends gather to bring her nice meals, the support they show her, the wine, the mystery aspects of the story and the English setting. Both London and the little rural town of Braxton.

My favorite supporting character is still Josef. Hoping to see more of him in the next few books. I felt very sorry for Frieda's boyfriend and thought she was too cold with him. Don't want to reveal spoilers but I will be adding my thoughts on Goodreads where I can hide the spoilers. I had it narrowed down to two characters as the main perpetrator but have to say I was actually surprised who the baddie turned out to be.

Side note on an unrelated documentary: The musical group Thursday's Children was focused on in the book, however, Thursday's Children was also a documentary about the Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent. It won an Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short of 1954. The subject deals with hearing-handicapped children. They learn what words are through exercises and games, practicing lip-reading and finally speech. Richard Burton was the narrator.

It doesn't appear the name of the fictional band has any relation to the documentary. There isn't a mention or connection in the novel.

Food mentioned:

Hot buttered tea cakes
Avocado, arugula, sun –dried tomatoes and hummus on focaccia bread.
A sandwich of goat cheese, tomato and salad leaves.
Butternut squash soup with rolls
Garlic- mushroom soup and eggplant and red pepper flan.
Oysters, scallops with bacon and risotto.

"Reuben cooked only four or five dishes and he served them in rotation. Frieda had eaten them all, over and over again. There was chili con carne, lasagna, baked potatoes with sour cream and grated cheese. Tonight it was pasta with the pesto he bought from the local deli."

"There was a bowl of thick red soup with dumplings, there was something wrapped in cabbage, large sausages, pickled fish, beetroot salad, chopped potatoes and unfamiliar kind of little mushroom, a huge wheel of bread, small pastries, a whole duck, pancakes……….."

Representative meal is a risotto with wild rice, herbs and bay scallops. A glass of Chardonnay is a great pairing here.
(Photo at Novel Meals blog) ( )