Dead End Street

By Trevor Wood https://trevorwoodauthor.co.uk/

Published by Quercus Publishing https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/

432 pages ISBN 9781529414783

Publication date 20 January 2022

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley.  Thanks to the author and publisher for organising this.

From the blurb/synopsis

A group of vigilantes are carrying out a campaign of harassment against the homeless, hounding them both verbally and physically to get them off the streets. Jimmy Mullen is approached by his friend Gadge, who wants to confront the people behind it but Jimmy has finally got his life back on track. He’s working at a hostel for 18 to 25-year-olds and he’s reluctant to get involved in anything dodgy.

Gadge decides to go it alone but is attacked by two of the vigilantes. The police find him unconscious in an alley, covered in blood. Problem is, there’s a dead body in the alley too and it’s his blood that Gadge is covered in. He’s also got the murder weapon in his hand.

Convinced that Gadge has been set up, and feeling guilty that he didn’t back him up in the first place, Jimmy returns to the streets to try and find out who’s behind his friend’s difficulties. Unfortunately, he’s about to discover that Gadge has a lot of enemies to choose from.

My thoughts

Trust me to jump into a trilogy in the third instalment, a little late but I’m glad I joined the party. The trilogy revolves around three mismatched friends who have come together through their common past of homelessness. Reading the acknowledgements (in this case I recommend that you do because they are enlightening) I can see that the first novel ‘The Man on the Street’ centres on telling Jimmy’s back story, the second ‘One Way Street’ was the turn of Deano. So ‘Dead End Street’ naturally tells Gadge’s tale, and what a torrid tale it is.

Like most readers I am fortunate never to have had to sleep on the streets, the nearest I’ve ever been is unpleasant all night stay at Monastir airport, so I have no first-hand experience but this novel feels truthful. If anything, I’m sure it has been sanitised for publication, this is entertainment after all, but the reader is left with the feeling that thanks to the grace of god we are not in that position, though many are only a few steps away. One thing that shines through the writing is that the author has compassion and empathy for these unfortunate people, and it comes as no surprise that he volunteers at the Pit Stop.

The plot places alcoholic and homeless Gadge in the wrong place at the wrong time as he is set up for murder whilst in an alcoholic stupor. Homeless people are being beaten up by vigilantes trying to demonstrate that they are fakes merely begging and then going to a home at the end of the day. There is anecdotal evidence of professional begging going on, how big an issue it is is unclear, but I can imagine frustrated shop or bar owners, or just callous bastards resorting to force. Luckily for Gadge, his friend Jimmy Mullen aka Sherlock Homeless agrees to help his solicitor, Charlie Gascoigne a smart young woman, by working as her investigator. Jimmy with Deano in tow end up unearthing far more than they expected.

The strength of the book is the relationship and interactions between the Three Musketeers (Jimmy, Deano and Gadge) which is beautifully captured. Here are three men who have little in common but able to bond together with fortitude and some humour. They have little in material terms but do have great generosity spirit looking after others as well as themselves. It is said that those with little are often the most generous, sometimes a kind word and a little support can make all the difference.

In Jimmy we have a man who has hit the bottom and though he still has his problems, particularly with his PTSD, is well on the road to his personal redemption. Yes, he does try to fix everyone’s problems, but he is clearly a man who is consciously trying to do the right thing even when he is unsure of each step. There is much to like in Jimmy as a wise reformed character.

Gadge’s (who gets his nickname from Inspector Gadget) story is grim. Here is an inventor, an 80s entrepreneur, close to a life changing success who has it snatched away from him by the control of others and his own pig-headedness. From there his demons take hold and his life spirals out of control into alcoholism and homelessness. Even at the bottom though he continues to mine a seam of black humour.

Yes, even though the subject matter is serious and uncomfortable these are balanced by nicely judged lighter moments. There’s the odd lame joke, some ribald expressions and one lovely scene that put this mature (in years) reader in mind of the classic The Goodies episode ‘Ecky Thump’. I will not spoil it by revealing more, if you don’t recognise the reference ask your grandad.

By ending the series as a trilogy Mr Wood has done something quite brave which should be appreciated and applauded. I understand the commitment and personal investment an author puts into establishing a character in a series of novels but some, in my opinion go to the well too often. Ending at the top whilst the series is still fresh is no sin and some situations are self-limiting, but perhaps we shall hear more from Jimmy another day.

 A very enjoyable novel with a serious background which hopefully will get readers thinking about their life and the lives of those less fortunate. I will definitely be reading the first two novels in the series and looking out for the author’s next creation.

The Blood Tide

By Neil Lancaster https://neillancastercrime.co.uk/

Published by HarperCollins Publishers https://harpercollins.co.uk/

384 pages ISBN 9780008518462 Publication date 23 February 2022

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley.  Thanks to the author and publisher for organising this.

From the blurb/synopsis

You get away with murder.
In a remote sea loch on the west coast of Scotland, a fisherman vanishes without trace. His remains are never found.
 
You make people disappear.
A young man jumps from a bridge in Glasgow and falls to his death in the water below. DS Max Craigie uncovers evidence that links both victims. But if he can’t find out what cost them their lives, it won’t be long before more bodies turn up at the morgue…
 
You come back for revenge.
Soon cracks start to appear in the investigation, and Max’s past hurtles back to haunt him. When his loved ones are threatened, he faces a terrifying choice: let the only man he ever feared walk free, or watch his closest friend die…

My thoughts

This is the second novel to include Ross, Max and Janie of the Policing Standards Reassurance Team based in Scotland. The PSR is a small team with a wide remit and freedom to investigate. This is a police procedural, but one step removed from everyday policing that becomes two steps as they eventually investigate PIRC (Police Investigations Review Commissioner) who investigate the operations of the police. The success of Line of Duty has whetted the viewer/reader appetite for these stories and this one certainly has the ring of authenticity to it albeit it a bit beefed up. We all like an engaging or larger than life criminal and if it’s a rogue cop then all the better. What the reader certainly gets a feel for is the bureaucracy, the career minded operators, the interagency cooperation, or lack of, and the paranoia that top level infiltration engenders. The author manages this without it ever being boring or too political.

The plot centres on the importation of class A drugs and the operation of what has become known as County Lines operations. An Edinburgh drugs baron has been jailed and his patch has been infiltrated by Liverpudlians and some members of law enforcement are seeking involvement as a contact is setting up a massive deal.

This is an incident packed story, there is room for characterisation but there is an awful lot going on within the investigation and it seems likely they will be fleshed out further in following novels. The principal characters are engaging and the introduction of the analyst Norma adds to the mix and brings a certain balance, one would expect these teams to be small but three is perhaps a little too small. We also have the intrigue of Mrs Fraser as a kind of ‘her indoors’ to keep Ross on his toes and she must surely to play a bigger role in the future.

Despite all this action the plotting is tight and any excess has been trimmed off. The pacing is not so much rapid as relentless. Chapters are short (some just a page or two) the narrative constantly switches. There is action a plenty, even a moral choice involving life and death race. Its breathless stuff, read this in one or two sittings and you are going to feel worn out.

The violence at times is brutal and inevitably occasionally graphic, but after all drug trafficking is a vicious violent business that destroys life. There’s a pub scene which is unpleasant, I’ve been in some rough pubs but nothing like this one though. I have no doubt that they do exist just don’t expect to find them the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. These are genuinely menacing drug dealers, the sort of people you hope never to come across in real life.

An exhilarating and exhausting read that grabs you from the first chapter and drags you along, just remember to breathe. I have already purchased Dead Man’s Grave the first book in the series ready to read later in the year after I’ve had a long lie down.

A Loyal Traitor #TimGlister #ALoyalTraitor

By Tim Glister https://www.timglister.com/

Published by Point Blank (One World) https://oneworld-publications.com/a-loyal-traitor.html

304 pages ISBN 9780861541676

Publication date 10 February 2022 (now available as an ebook)

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley.  Thanks to the author and publisher for organising this.

From the blurb/synopsis

It’s 1966. London is swinging, and the Cold War is spiralling.

Clear cut lines have faded to grey areas. Whispers of conspiracies are everywhere. Spies on both sides of the iron curtain are running in circles, chasing constant plots and counterplots. And MI5 agent Richard Knox is tired of all of it.

But when Abey Bennett, his CIA comrade in arms, appears in London with a ghost from Knox’s past and a terrifying warning that could change the balance of power in the Cold War for good, he has to fight to save the future.

He must also face an agonising choice: who will he believe, and who will he betray – his duty to his country or his loyalty to his friends?

My thoughts

The book is set during a period of great change across the world. The United States had lost a president assassinated three years earlier and was embroiled in a war in Southeast Asia. The United Kingdom was coming to terms with the loss of the British Empire and a series of security scandals, including the Cambridge Five spy ring. In the Soviet Union the Leonid Brezhnev era had just started and there was internal jockeying for power. The Cold War was probably at its most dangerous point and there was the phoney Cold War of the Space Race. So, a great backdrop for an espionage thriller.

The plotting is intricate, there are several separate strands running in the early chapters which at first appear to be unconnected. Then around the halfway point the jigsaw pieces start to fit together and the reader starts to make sense of it all, although the endgame is not what it first appears to be. The reward for the reader sticking with it is tale of plots, counter plots, internal politicking and ultimately loyalty.

Real people are referred to but only to set the historical context rather than a full insertion into the storyline. Some of the brutal psychological torture practices of the time are included, such as the MKULTRA experimentation, as the superpowers battled to get an advantage, but without going into great detail. Here it incorporates elements from The Ipcress File and The Manchurian Candidate which impact on the story later. These combine to produce a credible fictional story with insight into the personal damage done to the individuals involved who are treated merely as collateral damage.

The 1960s setting allows for a certain aesthetic style throughout which hasn’t been overplayed by too many contemporary cultural references. This is an era when the hero wears suits or roll neck sweaters, when smoking is still ‘cool’, the classic Jaguar is a must and it was still possible to drive around London with some purpose.  Much more a Harry Palmer than George Smilie feel about it.

The writing is straightforward and pared back in the third person in the style of modern thrillers, rather than the dense prose of some espionage works. The pacing is quite breezy, it’s not a long novel and there is a lot of incident so it cannot get bogged down. The killings are dealt with dispassionately, after all these are professional killers, and the action scenes skilfully handled.

The characters are well drawn and don’t fall into the trap of being too stereotypical. The characterisations take the form of the interpersonal relationships, between Knox and Williams and Knox and Bennett. Knox cannot decide in whom to place his trust, his mentor Holland, his friend and colleague Williams or the dispassionate CIA agent Bennett.  In the end the question that Knox faces becomes one of loyalty between colleagues or to one’s country the sort of choice we cannot be sure of our answer until we are placed in that predicament.

A Loyal Traitor is a tremendous espionage thriller with a nice balance of action and intrigue which cuts its own furrow and asks difficult questions.