Tim Sullivan is an accomplished screenwriter and director who has turned his talents to a crime fiction series featuring an autistic detective. DS George Cross works for the Serious Crime Unit in Bristol, his sometimes difficult manner with his colleagues tolerated because of his impressive case clearing rate. Paired with DS Josie Ottey, a single mother of teenagers and a more empathetic officer, the two make a balanced team, Ottey often schooling Cross in better ways to manage people, whether colleagues – like eager young Alice MacKenzie and their blustering senior officer DCI Carson – or the recently bereaved.
In The Politician we’ve got a murder that looks like a home invasion gone wrong. Peggy Frampton was a former mayor, now a kind of online agony aunt, who has been found murdered in her own home, her bedroom ransacked. Her husband, a well-known local barrister was in London at the time, but the investigation soon throws up cracks in their marriage.
Cross immediately discovers clues that throw doubt on the likelihood of a panicked burglar having committed the crime and delves into Peggy’s ongoing dispute with a property developer and his plans for a heritage building. And what about all that angry invective hurled at her online regarding her often blunt advice? It seems that although she had a lot of popular support as mayor, she has also made a lot of enemies. But it will take forever to sift through all the online messages, and in spite of a large team pulled in to work the case, it takes Cross and Ottey a while to make any headway.
‘DS Cross,’ he announced customarily, holding up his warrant card for all to see as he marched into the mortuary the next morning.
‘Clare Hawkins, pathologist,’ came the reply, scalpel held high as a further mark of identification, should there be any doubt.
‘I know who you are,’ he retorted, surprised.
‘Likewise.’
‘Likewise, what?’
‘I know who you are.’
‘I’m required to identify myself.’
‘Every time you come here? Says who?’
This had him stumped. The truth was he wasn’t sure who required it in these circumstances, or even if it were required at all. It had just become part of his routine. So he changed the subject as quickly and in as businesslike a manner as possible.
‘Have you ascertained a cause of death?’
While we are served a nicely-paced plot, reading The Politician is also about the journey as every interview, team briefing and exploration of new evidence throws Cross in a new situation to be himself. This is always entertaining as he rubs people up the wrong way, or responds to sayings, metaphors and euphemisms as if they are factual statements. Sullivan puts his screenwriting skills to good effect with some excellent and often hilarious dialogue.
But the storyline is also richly layered, with a subplot describing Cross’s relationship with his parents – his elderly father with his new passion for model railways, and the mother who left when Cross was a young child. She has recently reappeared in his life, but the mystery of her leaving is another puzzle for Cross to put together. For either mystery, it will be Cross’s ability to analyse facts objectively and without bias that will lead him to the truth.
Sullivan has come up with a brilliant character in George Cross who is both quirky and fascinating. How his mind works, how he pieces facts together and uses all the help available to him, from spreadsheets – a lot of his previous career was in Fraud – to people with specialist knowledge, show him to be a brilliant detective. His endless patience in the interview room always seems to pay off too.
The Politician is my second DS Cross audiobook – The Patient is also an excellent read; both narrated by Finlay Robertson who does a stunning job of bringing Cross, Ottey and co. to life. I have enjoyed them so much that this is now a ‘must-read’ series for me. I am fortunate that so far there are another four books, with more in the offing. The Politician is a four-and-a-half star read from me.
Judith McKinnon 