Police Procedural

Cop-turned novelist, Nathan Blackwell (true identity hidden due to covert police operations) has written a debut novel, THE SOUND OF HER VOICE, which is intense, unsparing, realistic, brutal and will stay with the reader for a long time.

Every year the Ngaio Marsh awards for New Zealand crime fiction throw up an unexpected perspective, something brave and unusual that will set you back on your heels and make you think. For this reviewer, this year, that book was THE SOUND OF HER VOICE. In what's a combination of police procedural, and tragic police perspective, Detective Matt Buchanan has been in the job too long, and he's had a gut full of the nastiness of human nature. Unsolved murder cases haunt him, people being bastards haunt him, everything haunts him. He's bitter and he's well on the way to being twisted, and the murder of 14 year old Samantha Coates puts him on the trail of something big, and even nastier than he had even thought possible.

If you're a fan of crime fiction that glosses over reality, pulls punches, draws veils then THE SOUND OF HER VOICE isn't the book for you. This book is real to the point of "drag you down a back alley, whisper abuse in your ear and belt you over the head" real. It's also a book in which the central hero is flawed and tricky, a man surrounded by bad, with right on his side, and decisions to make. Every step of the way in Buchanan's head is an uncomfortable place. It's impossible to not empathise with a man dealing with all this crap on an hourly basis, it's even possible to understand some of the wrong moves he openly chooses to make. If it's possible to empathise with the end justifies the means, then this is a novel that gives the reader a lot of opportunity to go down that path, hotly pursuing Buchanan's own conclusions.

Obviously this is dark, unrelenting reading, and it's a debut. It's not a 100% pitch perfect, slick as, totally perfectly crafted piece of crime fiction, but then again I'm not sure any of that would have served this author's aims. What we have here is raw, full of realistic emotion, reactions and voices. It's as about as authentic a police perspective as you'd get, somehow managing to maintain it's essential Kiwiness, whilst exploring a descent that's probably all too real for law enforcement the world over.

You’ve heard a fair bit of buzz about this novel? There’s an excellent reason for that! THE RUIN is a ripper of a read and remarkably polished for a debut novel.  Additionally, it is impressive as series entries face a much harder task in engaging instantly the fickle minds of crime readers.  The series read is (happily) prolific in the crime fiction sphere. There is a huge demand for police procedurals in particular and this rides largely on the strength of that immediacy of engagement with the cast of characters.  The reader needs to be sold as quickly as possible, and this is achieved here in THE RUIN with gratifying ease.

THE RUIN is so confidently written with fully rounded characters that we are assured of some great reading from this series in the future.  Cormac Reilly is a refreshing change from the rumpled, often archaic male protagonist that we are used to seeing leading our fictional crime investigations.  It does feel like the days of encountering that kind of protagonist might be over.  The novel does seems a bit over populated perspective wise at times but the dual lead of Aisling and Cormac gives a good balance to the investigation and its corresponding impact on the bereaved left behind. 

Launching into this book you might think there had been a series predecessor as it is well threaded with lots of scope for possible future plot points to come.  Looking forward to catching up with the cast of THE RUIN soon!  Congratulations to us all, here is the newest addition to our stable of favourite crime authors. 

When I read this back in January I posted a review. Or at least I thought I did. Imagine my surprise when I found it here in the draft queue. Whoops.

NOW WE ARE DEAD is a spinoff from the Logan McRae series featuring the glorious DS Roberta Steel. I say glorious in a "slightly ironic / well of course she's a bit gross but she's unapologetically over the top about everything / has a heart of gold / seriously / if you can't handle your women strong, forceful, and a bit sweary what are you doing reading Stuart MacBride books - especially one about Roberta Steel" way.

I love Roberta Steel. I love everything about the woman from her constant mining in her not insubstantial bosom, to her terrorising of the "deserves to be put upon half the time" Logan McRae, right down to her determination that no scroat will go unpunished on her watch.

Honestly, if you've not read any of Stuart MacBride's books then you really do need to be getting on with them. This is a series that's unashamedly right versus wrong, with a twist. They are police procedurals with the procedures manual propping open the door, and a hefty dose of dry, dark, slightly grotty humour. DS (yep she's been demoted from DI) Roberta Steel deserved her own book yonks ago and I, for one am extremely pleased she's got it.

I'm particularly pleased that NOW WE ARE DEAD is it as well. Of course Steel's not going to be happy when somebody she firmly believed did something, gets his sentence quashed. She's obviously going to take demotion personally as well, and there are times when everybody could be forgiven for thinking she's more than a bit obsessed about all of this for the wrong reasons. But Steel is, aside from everything else, a copper and she's got a copper's nose for a villain, and quite possibly, a big appetite for sacrifice in the line of duty. 

If you're a fan of any of Stuart MacBride's books - the Logan McRae series, the Ash Henderson series, his Christmas series (I kid you not), or his standalones then you will have hot footed it to the bookshop for this one already. If for some reason you missed it, then off you go.

Peter May's Lewis Trilogy isn't a new undertaking, originally published in 2009, but it's one of those series I've had flagged in my audio book queue for a long time, and recently I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of available listening time and a desire for something that was dark, atmospheric and delivered in my favourite of all accents.

The trilogy is based around policeman and child of Lewis Island, Fin MacLeod. Born and raised on Lewis, he was the boy who left for a university education in Edinburgh. Raised in part by an aunt, his parents having died in a car accident when he was young, there's something more buried in Fin's attitude to the place of his birth. When he's sent back home after a murder on the island that bears a resemblance to one he investigated in Edinburgh, he is instantly drawn back into the small, deeply inter-connected and multi-generational complications that are small community interactions and history.

The island setting feels like the archetypal closed community. Insular, inter-related, and externally private, the closed room type setting is further enhanced by the shared history of the investigator, the victim and the investigated, especially as reminiscences start to fill in their shared past. Alternating chapters of past and present help in following the audio version of this book in particular, and the narrator does an excellent job in varying tone, pace and voice all the way through meaning that you don't lose the thread of who is talking, thinking or reminiscing. And it doesn't hurt at all that the Gaelic contributions are lyrical and absolutely beautiful to listen to.

There's a hefty dose of romantic entanglement in this book as well with just about everybody carrying a sad burden and a hefty dose of love lost, loved ones dead, regret and much longing. After now listening to the first couple of books in the trilogy this is a theme that continues forward and may be a little heavy-handed for some readers (listeners) as you really do find yourself being dragged back down into the personal on a lot of occasions. Given the eventual solution, and motivation for the crime(s) that have occurred in the two books so far, it kind of makes sense that the personal is a strong component, and an incredibly messy one to boot.

Ultimately though, THE BLACKHOUSE was an atmospheric, dark, brooding, overwhelmingly sad story, which worked really well as an audio book. Especially if it's tweaking the same sorts of cultural memory (longing) that it did for this reader.

A new Pufferfish novel will always be a thing of joy - whiteboard lists or no whiteboard lists and BIG RED ROCK fits the bill perfectly. Of course you will need to have a love of self-deprecating wit that's so dry you'd swear it originated in Uluru rather than Hobart. You will need to like the bear-prodding style of investigation, that's actually covering up an acute ability to observe, retain and analyse the smallest drips of information. And in this outing, be prepared for some personal revelations - in that dry, understated, not bothered sort of style that Pufferfish is the appointed monarch of.

As always, BIG RED ROCK has all the personal machinations; the working relationships with what is now a well-established, well-oiled team of 3 investigators; the romancing of long term partners; the tension with the higher-ups; and the day to day struggles of your typical hard-bitten, worn-down, put upon cop type (Pufferfish in case you were wondering), intertwined with a murder and a mystery - all in the glorious setting of Tasmania, with a smidgen of Alice Springs, and mainland capital cities included for a change of scenery. In Tasmania Pufferfish and team (minus one) are confronted with the possible accident, could be suicide, ultimate murder of Hildvi - successful woman, wife who sent her husband Wayne out for pizza and fell to her death in their fancy house in the hills above Hobart.

Meanwhile the minus one is off in the wilds of Tasmania looking into the disappearance, presumed murder of one young country singer. Pufferfish has a watching brief on that one - for reasons which become clear and present well into the story.

Along the way there's also Wayne the highly specialist, long-distance Removalist; the mysterious and frankly odd Kurt Cowboy; cocaine importation; major investigation Operation Centipede; Uluru; Alice Springs; Pufferfish and a lot of connections. Connections, crossed paths, tripped over feet, stood on toes, odd goings on, people gone missing, people showing up, and the whole damn thing. 

BIG RED ROCK is absolutely a good Pufferfish novel, in a series that's positively crowded with really good novels. They are comedic, dry as desert dust, pointed, observational and more than a bit unusual in their style and construction. If you've not read any of them, then there's now an opportunity to get on board with one of the best things (other than all those other lovely things that come out of Tasmania - cider / cheese / salmon / apples / food / pinot / oh the pinot. Did I mention pinot... Sorry, where was I...). Oh yes, earlier books in the series have now been re-released which is the perfect excuse for you to dive right in. Anywhere in the series will do nicely - there's some relationship building that expands throughout but you'll get the gist wherever you start.