Pan

This is an earlier book from J.R. Carroll (although later books are thin on the ground now as well), set in Melbourne, where the discovery of eight bodies in the scrub at Kinglake is only part of what is happening.  This book revolves around the man in charge of that investigation - Kerry Byrne.  It's about him and his mates in the squad.  It's about the problems that police have in staying uninvolved when what they deal with is indescribably horrible, and it's about the difficulties they have with their personal lives.

 

Sometimes the private life problems are self-inflicted though and Kerry is in serious hot water when he helps a mate - one of the squad - cover up the truth about a domestic incident.  He's also in trouble in his own home - but that's less self-inflicted, although his work schedule doesn't help.  In the meantime there are two possible options for the serial killer of all those women - although the truth behind who is killing them becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly for the reader.

 

As with all J.R. Carroll books - the pace of the story is rapid fire, the circumstances pretty horrendous, and the events complicated.  There's also a lot of sex in STINGRAY and whereas in some other books I can refer to it as slightly entertaining, in this one, it's frequently overtly violent and quite nasty - and could well put some readers off.  The resolution of the case was well done - with an element that was fairly telegraphed, but still somewhat surprising, and a great flawed, conflicted, difficult, prickly hard man character in Byrne.

 

The mutilated body of a young girl is found hidden in a wood by ex-Scotland Yard Detective Inspector John Madden. Her face has been brutally battered and she has been raped. Whilst the local police are concentrated on searching for a tramp known to be in the area at the time, Madden is not convinced this is a one-off opportunistic killing.

 

THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE is the second book in a series based in the 1930's, incorporating now retired DI Madden and his wife, Helen. John Madden now works as a farmer and his wife has a local GP practice in the small village just down the road from where the girl's body is recovered. Scotland Yard, and Madden's old colleagues are bought into the investigation and more bodies are discovered far away from this location. The investigation moves from the local police and villages to a much wider area across England and into Europe with Scotland Yard taking responsibility and focus ultimately shifting to the Diplomatic Service.

 

In this book John Madden discovers the body, has his doubts about the direction that the local police take and is ultimately in at the conclusion. Other than that, the investigation centres around the Scotland Yard team. The steps taken by the Yard detectives to identify a likely suspect were just a nice old-fashioned piece of strong detective work, without the availability of wiz bang forensics and resources that would be available in this day and age. The timeframe of the book sets it between the wars and there is a general feeling of menace with the build up towards the Second World War being felt in relations between England and Germany. The tramps and people's reaction to them adds a level of complexity.

 

The plot showed attention to detail and, in particular, the Scotland Yard personnel were an interesting cast of characters. The old fashioned detecting method of solving a crime was a refreshing change and very well handled. The involvement of Madden and his wife seemed a little opportunistic, designed to keep them in the story to maintain the feeling of the series. Whilst everyone is aware that Helen Madden is very protective of her husband, a few times she was in danger of just being a carping spoilsport, but ultimately the only minor quibble is that the Scotland Yard team did most of the work and Madden got the final glory.

Rather than the normal method of being called out, Commisarrio Guido Brunetti learns of the death of prominent international lawyer Carlo Trevisan from the headlines in the newspaper the next day on the way to work.

 

What starts off as a baffling investigation of a seemingly blameless victim, turns into something altogether different as a suicide and another shooting see the death of a well-known Accountant, and then Trevisan's own brother-in-law. What is not immediately clear is why these three become victims.

 

Brunetti is desperate to find some clues about the victim's background and after finding his teenage daughter knows Trevisan's daughter, enlists her help in doing some digging into the background of the lawyer, despite his wife's firm objections.

 

A little flat in the early stages of the book, the plot of this book evolves slowly and can be a little predictable. To compensate there are some wonderful observations of the landscape and the nature of the Venetian people in particular.

 

This series is as much about Guido Brunetti, his family, his food and his wine as it is about Venetian life, crime and corruption. The only possible ongoing weakness in this series can be the frequent references to the corruption of Italian society, which although valid, can be repetitive. That is, however, a minor quibble.