To The Last Page

It might look as if western society is heading towards meltdown and that global catastrophe is imminent, but in his highly imaginative first novel, The Countenance Divine , Michael Hughes draws together some figures and events in history that suggest that we've only narrowly avoided a far greater threat at several significant points over the last 300 years - A Second Coming heralding the Final Days. That has all the potential to be a great subject if you can pull it off successfully, and Hughes just about manages to find a good balance between the overwrought gothic horror and the shocking danger of the apparently ordinary and mundane. The central idea has a compelling symmetry to it, one that feels authentic and not at all arbitrary.  The Countenance Divine  interweaves four different historical periods, the first starting in 1666 (now there's a year with an interesting number to start the apocalypse) and the last in 1999. In 1666 John Milton is writing his epic poem, Paradis...

" If there's one thing I've learned with age, it's that if you scratch hard enough, nobody is good all the way through. Given the right, or wrong, circumstances, most people are capable of bad deeds ". The above quote from a character in her new novel summarises very well what looks like it is going to be Jo Spain's main area of interest and intrigue in her Inspector Tom Reynolds mystery series.  Reynolds' first investigation, With Our Blessing , lifted the lid on aspects of the infamous Magdalene laundries and her second novel in the series, Beneath the Surface , suggests that there are many other bad deeds to be uncovered beneath the seemingly respectable surface of Irish society, history and politics. Politics would seem to be at the forefront of the investigation into the killing of a Minister's PA in Leinster House, but inevitably, there are deeper secrets and other motivations at play here. Ryan Finnegan has been shot dead in a corridor of Leinst...

The hero of Paul Mendelson's The History of Blood , Colonel Vaughn De Vries, is an efficient officer in the South African Police Service (SAPS) who is quick to respond to new lines of investigation and likes to get things done. Unfortunately the softly-softly workings of the various departments of the police force, their unwillingness to expose corruption for fear of it reflecting badly on them and the political legacy of the post-Apartheid reforms make life difficult for him. There's too much politics involved and too much that lies beyond everyone's remit. But he's not going to let that stop him. In The History of Blood it's not so much that De Vries is a maverick who likes to go it alone and operate outside the rules (although there is definitely something of that in him), as much as in this particular case there is a personal angle. Or perhaps it's one that he decides to make personal (no, it's not even that original). A young woman, Chantal Adams has b...

Initially, you wonder why James Henry would choose to mire Blackwater , the first of a new police procedural series, in 1983 rather than the present day. It doesn't seem like a good idea or a particularly interesting period, and - judging by the opening chapters - it just seems like an excuse to indulge in sexism and office politics of a bygone age, with old-school investigation methods that involve threatening suspects and giving witnesses a good beating to help them refresh their memory. It's not as if those things don't still persist in the police force today, or at least can still be seen as a hangover from the past (see Billingham's DI Thorne series). In any case, it's hardly an attractive selling point for a new police/crime series, but there are other interesting aspects that gradually surface in Blackwater  to suggest that this could still be a series worth following. Certainly one of the most interesting features of Henry's new series is its use of Esse...

A new crime novel or series has got to do whatever it takes to get noticed and stand out from the crowd, but I wasn't sure I liked the approach adopted by Thomas Mullen for Darktown . Set in Atlanta in 1948 and dealing with an investigation carried out by some of the state's first black policemen, the period setting is a definitely a unique one and the main characters have to deal with circumstances that are far from those in a typical crime novel. The naked brutality of the treatment however makes Darktown  difficult to like, as the Negro police officers have to overcome deep prejudice, facing stark open racism, threats and brutality - and that's just from their fellow white members of the police force. It's hard not to become emotionally involved in such a heated situation however, and fortunately, the case Boggs and Smith are involved in has a dramatic pull of its own. Initially however, Darktown  is tough going as Thomas Mullen seems to dwell on and even revel in ev...