Tag: police stories

Book Review: Cutters End by Margaret Hickey – a gripping new Aussie Noir series with a troubled cop

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

It’s hard not to pick up a book with a cover showing a dry Aussie outback setting. Those small towns in the rural backwaters of Australia just seem to seethe with all kinds of tension. Broken hearts and lost dreams, the struggle with a harsh environment wearing people down, young people abandoning home for the cities. You can’t help wondering if the author will be the next Jane Harper (author of The Dry).

With Cutters End, we’re in opal mining country, an industry on its last legs, the kind of place you pass through on the Stuart Highway heading north to Alice Springs. It’s also the place where a local hero and father met an unexplained death, discovered trapped beneath his vehicle and apparently burned to death. Back in 1990 this was explained as an accident at the inquest, but Suzanne Miller, a TV host with a flagging career, says it’s time for a reinvestigation. Michael Denby saved her and her mother from floodwaters when she was a small child and he deserves better.

DS Mark Ariti, similarly with a flagging career, is on leave when his superior officer discovers that he knew one of the witnesses at the time – one Ingrid Mathers who Mark dated at high school. Mark’s bumped up to Acting Inspector and sent to re-interview Ingrid and to see if he can jog her memory about the days around New Year 1990 when she was hitchhiking with her friend Joanne. But Ingrid’s not very forthcoming, although the reader has the inkling that she’s got a secret or two.

Mark catches up with Joanne, now living the high life in Sydney, similarly reticent. Why don’t the two women talk to each other any more? More clues pull Mark back to Cutters End, and the Mendamo Roadhouse, once owned by creepy Gerald, where Ingrid hitched a ride with somebody called Ron or Don. He bounces ideas off his new sidekick, DC Jagdeep Kaur, and picks up gossip at the three rather disappointing pubs in Cutters End.

Finally, Cutters End. The Stuart Highway a blade cutting through the centre of town, railway line alongside it like a rival sibling. Two main streets, a petrol station, the town hall, council offices, a supermarket, dingy motel, a primary school and, in the back streets, houses with sad facades and secret interiors.
The opal mining boom was bust, had been for decades, and although the welcome sign read ‘Cutters End, a town on the move!’ Mark doubted it. This town, like many across the country, had the look of a dying dog waiting to be shot. But still, he knew too well that dogs don’t die easy – those pleading eyes, that sense of loyalty and long history. The faded pride of what they once were.

When the woman at the service station where you get the best coffee in town tells Mark to find out about the two missing girls, the story goes in an interesting new direction. More than a couple of young women seem to have disappeared from the area, all of them hitching a ride and chancing their luck with whoever picks them up. Did they just move on and then take off overseas without letting anyone know? Build a better life? Or is there a more sinister explanation?

The story is peppered with interesting local characters: John Baber, the kindly ex-school teacher turned van driver who local businesses rely on for deliveries; mentally damaged Foobie who takes inappropriate pictures of people and becomes a source of useful information; Sergeant Darryl Wickman, the town’s long-serving police officer who has a way with the townspeople and a wise-cracking relationship with Jagdeep.

But it’s the undercurrent of evil so typical in these stories that has you on edge. The ugly circumstances of Denby’s death, the casual misogyny and disregard for vulnerable young women, the tight-lipped attitudes of the locals. Mark is struggling to make headway in all directions, either with his case or in his marriage, and like so many cops in these sorts of novels, never seems able to say the right thing.

There are evocative reminders of the time, not only the terrible haircuts and ugly sweaters, but also the real-life backpacker murders in New South Wales and the serial killer Ivan Milat. These crimes happened around the same time that our fictional Denby was killed. They conjure up all kinds of thoughts and feelings around how we protect our young people from predatory behaviour, about violence against women and whether anything much has changed for the better.

Cutters End is the first in a series about troubled cop, Mark Ariti. It’s a terrific read if you enjoy authors like Jane Harper, Garry Disher, Chris Hammer and Sarah Bailey, and a welcome addition to the genre. There are a couple more to look forward to (Stone Town and Broken Bay) with The Creeper out later this year. Can’t wait. Cutters End is a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Hunting Dogs by Jorn Lier Horst – a detailed police procedural with a likeable Norwegian detective

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When it comes to Scandinavian crime fiction, I’ve often thought if only there were more Wallander novels published by Henning Mankell before his death in 2015. I’ve tried other Scandinavians of course and enjoyed them – Jussi Adler Olsen’s Department Q series is worth a look. But for a more psychological read with an engaging policeman, Norwegian author, Jorn Lier Horst’s William Wisting’s novels seem to capture much of that atmosphere I’ve liked so much with Wallander.

Wisting is a Chief Inspector in his fifties at the start of The Hunting Dogs working out of the Criminal Investigation Dept of Larvik Police. This novel has him revisiting the abduction of a teenage girl who was subsequently murdered seventeen years ago. The killer, recently released Rudolf Haglund, has employed a lawyer to prove his case for wrongful imprisonment, alleging that police tampered with the evidence. As senior investigating officer at the time, Wisting is stood down from duties while an inquiry is underway.

Meanwhile, Line, Wisting’s daughter, is aware that the newspaper she works for is about to splash this story all over the front page in the morning. She is appalled – she knows her dad would never tamper with evidence to secure a conviction and rushes off into a wet, miserable night after a better story to bump the Haglund allegations onto page two. She gets caught up in a murder – a man attacked on the street, while his dog stands guard in the rain, a bit like Greyfriar’s Bobby. Great photo material. But when Line tracks down the owner and calls round to the victim’s house, she’s assaulted too.

What can the two murders have in common? Well, in real life probably nothing, but this being crime fiction, you know they’ll intersect sooner or later. Wisting heads off to his cabin in the woods to dig through old paperwork and calls on favours from a retired crime scene investigator. He studies photos of the police team involved unable to imagine who would have fiddled with those cigarette butts.

His relationship with café owner Suzanne is going south – he’s always up at dawn, and she’s always late home, while the police crime investigators are threatening a prison sentence. So Wisting’s up against it. When another teenage girl goes missing, there are echoes of the original Haglund case, and Wisting is desperate to get back in harness to find her. So much pressure, but what can he do?

If Wisting’s hands are tied, Line is all fired up to do some snooping, particularly when she spots the link between her murder victim and Haglund. She calls in her mates, too – a couple from her newspaper and an old boyfriend who turns up out of the blue. We get a brilliant scene where they show the reader how to follow a suspect. Honestly, it was like a scene from Spooks. Yes, it seems, journalists know all the tricks.

The plot steadily builds to a showdown with plenty of danger and edge of seat action. All the while you are aware that time is ticking for the abducted girl. It’s a great read, but what I really like is the detail of the detective work and how authentic it sounds. This is probably because Horst was once himself a policeman in Larvik, so the procedures around evidence storage and forensics are carefully explained and make interesting reading. We’ve also got some well-considered points around police ethics, loyalty and morality adding depth to the story.

There is plenty to like with The Hunting Dogs; the writing is crisp and the translation (thanks, Anne Bruce) is seamless, never clunky. So you can see why Horst is one of my favourites among the Scandinavians. I’m not alone – he’s won a bunch of awards, including The Petrona, a Scandi-crime fiction award for books translated into English. This one earns a four out of five from me.

Book Review: The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

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Many readers were disappointed when award-winning crime writer, Ann Cleeves decided to call it a day with her Shetland series. I guess there are only so many crime scenarios you can imagine for a tiny place like the Shetland Islands. But if there’s a silver lining here, it has to be her new series set in North Devon, featuring local police inspector, Matthew Venn.

The Long Call is the first Two Rivers novel and I happily devoured it. The story begins when Matthew attends his father’s funeral having recently returned to the area of his boyhood with his husband, Jonathan. It’s a Brethren funeral and he keeps himself at a distance, not daring to approach his mother, having disgraced himself as a teenager by declaring himself an atheist, dropping out of university and later breaking his parents’ hearts by marrying a man. But his new case, the murder of a troubled loner, Simon Walden, will take him uncomfortably close to the people from his family’s church.

The story of Simon Walden will take some uncovering – the man had shed his life of family, friends and belongings. Plagued by guilt over an accidental death, he had become an alcoholic before being rescued by a church group run by Caroline Preece, the daughter of one of the movers and shakers behind the community centre known as the Woodyard. Caroline took him in as a lodger, helped with counselling and found him some voluntary work.

Surprisingly, Walden made a connection with a woman with Downs Syndrome who also attended a drop-in group at the Woodyard. So much seems to centre on the Woodyard, which is managed by Matthew’s husband, Jonathan. Should Matthew declare a conflict of interest and hand the case over to DCI Oldham? But his boss has his eye on retirement and will only step in if Matthew messes up – so no pressure then.

When another woman with Downs Syndrome goes missing, the first Matthew learns of it is a phone call from his mother – phone calls from his mother are unheard of. The victim is the daughter of a good friend, another member of the Brethren who remembers Matthew and his disgrace. Fortunately he has a smart team to work with. Jen, his DS is from Birmingham, a no-nonsense sort with a failed marriage and two teenagers at home. She’s good at building relationships with witnesses and getting them to spill the beans. DC Ross is young and restless, but eager to prove himself, and there are plenty of opportunities here.

Looking ahead, I know we will come to love Matthew Venn and his sidekicks – Cleeves is so good at character development, highlighting the pressures put on police officers and connecting them to the crime story. This book pivots on the relationships of parents and their children, not just Matthew and his mother, but our other players too. What is it like to bring up a child with severe learning difficulties? What would we do to keep them safe? How far would we go to make our children happy?

So while Cleeves gets plenty of points for character development in her fiction, I am always impressed by the way she can pick apart relationships, the secrets that imbue them and the passions – positive and negative – that they generate. The Long Call has this in spades. Easily a four star read from me.

Book Review: Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

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Sworn to Silence is the first in Castillo’s series featuring formerly Amish Kate Burkholder, the Chief of Police in the sleepy town of Painter’s Mill, Ohio. Well, actually, having read a few of these novels, I can tell you Painter’s Mill isn’t half as sleepy as it ought to be with a string of murders, hate-crimes and serial killings to rival that old TV favourite, Midsomer Murders.

What makes these novels interesting is the smart, lively writing, mostly from the point of view of Kate – a savvy, no-nonsense, yet sensitive sleuth – and the Amish connection. At thirty, Kate lives on her own with her sometimes cat, too messed up by her past to think about a meaningful relationship or any kind of settling down. She’s a bit too friendly with her vodka bottle, and sometimes it’s only the coffee, brewed by Mona, her dispatch assistant, that gets her through the day.

When a murder takes place with the same MO as a series of killings from sixteen years ago, everyone’s wondering if the Slaughterhouse Killer is back again. Everyone except Kate. The young female victims are felled by a single slash to the carotid artery, with evidence of torture and a signature mutilation. Nasty.

But Kate has a secret, one that has her convinced that the Slaughterhouse Killer is dead – a secret that would end her career and destroy the lives of her still-Amish brother and sister. There is no way she can let that happen. When the mayor’s office disagrees with her handling of the case, they send for the feds – in this case, Special Agent John Tomasetti, and so begins a beautiful new detecting relationship.

Sworn to Silence is an engaging page-turner – part police procedural, part romantic suspense. Be warned that it has its gory moments (this killer is truly evil), and with the audiobook version (brilliantly read by Kathleen McInerney), there was no skimming through the messier scenes with eyes half closed. There is still plenty to enjoy, however, including terrific action scenes, snappy dialogue, a few red herrings, last minute rescues and then there’s the snow. Snowy landscapes are always terrific for that extra chill.

The Kate Burkholder novels are an enjoyable series for a bit of light reading. Castillo seems to have done a ton of research with both the Amish way of life (including snippets of Pennsylvania Dutch) and the day-to-day workings of police teams, forensics and their connections with the wider areas of law enforcement. Somehow, I seem to have become hooked. Sworn to Silence gets a four out of five from me.

Review: The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

Set mostly in Galway, McTiernan’s debut crime novel, The Ruin, introduces Detective Sergeant Cormac Reilly, freshly arrived after a lengthy stint with the anti-terrorist mob in Dublin. He has good reason to make Galway his home – his partner, Emma, has a top-notch research job in Galway and with a more settled, peaceful Ireland – this is 2013 – it was time to look for a new career direction.

Only taking on a bunch of cold cases isn’t quite as challenging or adrenaline charged as what he’s used to. And why he does get the feeling that his colleagues are all whispering behind his back? Just as well his old friend from police school, Danny, is on the team or he’d feel well and truly isolated.

The past keeps creeping back as well. Twenty years ago, Cormac was a rookie cop, called out on a miserable night to a decrepit manor house in the middle of nowhere to rescue two children. Their addict mother is dead from an overdose, the children, five-year-old Jack and fifteen-year-old Maude, look malnourished and cold. His squad car radio is broken so Cormac can only pile them into the back seat and take them to the hospital. The scene makes a compelling opening to the novel, and you just can’t wait to find out what has happened to the three of them in the intervening years.

Flicking forward to 2013, a suspected suicide turns out to be the same Jack, now a twenty-five-year-old engineer, with a stable relationship and a baby on the way. Had the past found a way of catching up with him too?

The Ruin is a solid detective story, with engaging characters and a ton of secrets ready to be revealed. There is plenty of action to keep you engaged, with an edge-of-the-seat ending that has you biting your nails. Cormac is a good cop, without the bad habits or lurking darkness that so often beleaguers fictional sleuths. Yet McTiernan makes him interesting. As well as settling into a new job and discovering who he can trust and who he can’t, Cormac has a new relationship. There are hints around how me met Emma during a previous investigation which are yet to be revealed.

The next book, The Scholar, is already out, and with another due to appear in March, the series is off to a flying start. I shall definitely be stopping by to see how Cormac is getting on. Three and a half out of five from me.