Book Reviews - Crime Thrillers
Dead Man's Grip, by Peter James
Dead Man's Grip, by Peter James
The latest in a successful line of detective Roy Grace mysteries.
I think I've read them all and always look forward to a new one, partly because of a new plot and partly because you get to learn a bit more about the main characters; Grace, his wife Sandy who disappeared 10 years ago, his new love and of course his sidekick. But don't go thinking this is Soap with killings as these tales are far better crafted and gruesome than any soap.
Most police procedurals are based in one city and this is no exception: Rankin for example placed Rebus in Edinburgh, Dexter homed Morse in Oxford. James chose Brighton for Roy Grace. Authors often live in the cities they write about, so know them extremely well. I have fond memories of all three, but as my son lives in Brighton I tend to see more clearly the settings and imagine myself being there.
To stick with James, you only have to read his extensive acknowledgements to see how well he researches his work. Tons of advice from nice-friendly-policemen and settings based for example on friends homes - some extraordinary as in this tale where one of the villains has a bowling alley in the basement - make for a more convincing read, though we were not entertained to bowling 9 pins over with severed heads, just in case you though we might, in this tale.
And so to the tale, which revolves around the after-effects of a road accident - a bit of body severing here, right up my street - involving three vehicles, four if you include the push-bike. Two drivers are murdered leaving Carly Chase - the third driver - in mortal danger. So, the chase is on to save Ms Chase from the dangerous Yanks who lost their son in the smash. But she of course has balls, and knows better than the police on how to handle them and does not go into hiding as they advise. As if that isn't enough for Grace to worry about, he is balancing frequent flashback to a life with his lost wife with his new love's pregnancy problems while dealing with the press and his new boss.
The plot is very believable and gradually its pace increases along with the action. It ends with a good satisfying twist and a surprising revelation which looks set to figure more prominently in his next book. I can't wait.
Don't let the 115 chapters put you off as most are very short. They make for easy flipping from one scene or point of view to the next, and make it easy to pick up and carry on reading from where you had to put it down. I recommend it.
Peter James is, I understand, in the process of getting Grace onto t.v. which I think will run well. I just hope and pray that when it's screened it isn't punctuated by bloody adverts.
Love You More, by Lisa Gardner
A dead husband, a missing daughter, and two women battling each other for the truth.
In Gardner's latest, Detective DD Warren of the Boston Police is called to the home of state police trooper Tessa Leoni. Leoni's covered in bruises, and her husband's lying dead with three bullets from her service Sig Sauer pistol in his chest. Worst of all, her six year-old daughter is missing.
What looks like an open-and-shut case of domestic-violence-turned-fatal soon becomes a nightmare race against time.
This is a pacy, tightly plotted thriller very much in the Harlan Coben vein. Interestingly, Gardner splits the narrative into chapters that alternate between the police and the suspect's points-of-view. It's an effective device that gives Gardner plenty of opportunity to flesh out the characters of the two antagonists, and to drip-feed the reader clues that Warren's investigation hasn't necessarily got all the evidence.
As the woman charged with killing her husband and daughter, Leoni makes for a fascinating character, the classic unreliable narrator, and Gardner's deft at keeping the reader guessing about the truth of what she's done.
Everything hinges on the missing daughter, and Leoni's baffling refusal to tell the police where she is - or even if she's alive. Parenthood is the theme that runs through this book like a stick of rock: every character is motivated, one way or another, by the things they'd do for their children, or that were done to them as children.
Tying it together is Detective Warren, a tough, unsentimental cop for whom the mystery of maternal love is rather more perplexing than the complexities of the case. Ultimately, she needs to understand both to make progress: it's a journey that Gardner handles with honesty and skill.
It's a tribute to Lisa Gardner's writing that I didn't realise until the acknowledgments that this is the fifth book in a series featuring Detective DD Warren. The story and the characters stand perfectly well on their own, leading the reader through a satisfying maze of twists and turns, constantly undercutting expectations.
Perfect holiday reading - though you won't want to let your kids out of your sight.
by: Harry Bingham
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