Flesh and Blood : A Novel of Crime

Rating:
Summary: A worthy winner of the CWA Silver Dagger Award
Review: On the Cornish coast in Great Britain, retired DI Frank Elder is faced with several problems. On a personal level his marriage has fallen apart and he is trying to foster his relationship with his sixteen year old daughter. On a professional level Shane Donald has just been released from prison and escaped from a half way house. Fourteen years ago, Shane Donald and Alan McKiernan were arrested for the brutal rape and slaying of a young girl. Now another young girl has disappeared and all fingers appear to be pointing to Shane. Elder was responsible for the original arrests and is now hired as a consultant in the case given that he knows Shane. However, as Elder investigates, things get way too close to home.
John Harvey has written a superb character rich crime novel in the same vein as Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson or Reginald Hill. Specifically I am referring to the leisurely paced novel that truly centers on the police officer almost to the subjugation of the plot. When done right there are few works that compare in terms of richness of language, character and the locale itself. This is a very impressive work and it is the subtle tension of the missing women and the subsequent murders that truly keep the pages turning. My one gripe is the truly disappointing ending which any reader of the genre would have picked out near the beginning of the book. I felt it was both a cheap and a manipulative device. However, this is one of the best books of the year,overall and a worthy winner of the CWA Silver dagger.

Rating:
Summary: haunting, chilling and compelling
Review: Fans of John Harvey's Charlie Resnick mystery novels rejoice: Harvey's new mystery novel, featuring retired police inspector Frank Elder, is as gripping and as chilling as the Charlie Resnick books. Dare one hope that this will be the beginning of a brand new series? I devoutly hope so.

When his marriage fell apart, Detective Inspector Frank Elder handed in his notice and retired to the Cornish coast. There, haunted by nightmares and his unresolved feelings about his failed marriage, Elder maintains a day to day existence, reading novels, until an ex-colleague informs him of the early release of rapist-murderer, Shane Donald. Almost 15 years ago, Elder had been instrumental in the capture and conviction of Alan McKeirnan & Shane Donald for the murder and rape of a young sixteen year old girl. The case had been especially disturbing in its brutality and violence; but what really haunted Elder was that he had been unable to get either McKeirnan or Donald to admit to having had anything to do with the disappearance of another young sixteen, Susan Blacklock. Now, with the early release of Donald, Elder finds in himself a renewed interest in trying to find Susan. Had McKeirnan and Donald been involved in Susan's disappearance? Elder had always believed that the two had met and murdered the unfortunate girl. But if so, why had they always denied any connection to her? Had the police (after all) made a fatal mistake in trying to tie Susan's disappearance to the duo? And had they missed an important piece of evidence in their rush to connect the cases? As Elder struggles to answer these questions and go over again the old clues, Donald breaks parole and leaves his halfway house, while another sixteen year old disappears. Is history is about to repeat itself?

Gritty, gripping and magnificently rendered, "Flesh and Blood" was truly unputdownable. The novel unfolds smoothly and swiftly, with authour successfully mounting tension upon tension, and plot twist upon plot twist with each succeeding chapter. Also brilliantly done was the authour's ability to relate in stark and realistic terms the depressing, painful and hopeless lives that some of the characters led and continue to lead. Obviously what carries "Flesh and Blood" through though, is Harvey's sympathetic chief character, Frank Elder -- a sensitive, decent and caring man, who hasn't quite figured out how his life has ended up the way it has. Elder may belong to the often used British police detective type, but he was totally engaging and easy to relate to and root for, and I for one, am hoping that there will be more Frank Elder books. Haunting, chilling and absolutely riveting, "Flesh and Blood" is a mystery novel especially recommended for readers who appreciate stark police procedurals, and good writing.




Rating:
Summary: Another Winner From Harvey!
Review: Harvey's last novel (In A True Light, his first after the ten-book Charlie Resnick series), left Nottingham for London and New York. This very good new book returns to familiar environs, with the majority of the action taking place in the Midlands, including Nottingham (Charlie Resnick even has a cameo walkon) and the Cornish coast. The protagonist is a familiar type for Harvey, Frank Elder is a retired Detective Inspector who left the police force to lead a hermit's life on the coast following the end of his marriage (the details of this are laid out in a short story called "Due North" which has appeared in several anthologies, including Crime in the City). He lives in a small cottage and is haunted by gruesome nightmares, as well as the knowledge of his wife's adultery and his lackluster performance as a father to their teenage daughter.

Also haunting Elder is an old case from 1988, a brutal rape and murder committed by a pair of sadistic men who may have killed another teenage girl who disappeared at the same time. The parole of one of the men spurs him to leave his hermitage and start poking around the cold case of the missing Susan Blacklock. Much of the book alternates between Elder's investigation and the parolee's fractured attempt to make it on the outside. The parolee disappears at the same time another teenage girl is murdered, and Elder is brought into the investigation as a consultant. Most of the book proceeds in the typically tight and angst-ridden prose that characterized Harvey's Resnick series. The procedural angles are all covered very well, and Harvey does an excellent job of peeling away the layers to get to Elder's inner fears and disappointments. His awkward relationship with daughter is handled very well (the father/daughter relationship drives the plot of In A True Light), as his is uncertain romance with a middle-aged woman.

There are two flaws in the book, neither major, but enough to keep the book out of the superb category. One is Harvey's succumbing to the unfortunately tendency of crime novelists to make their plots and villains intersect with the hero's friends and family. It gives nothing away to say that's what happens here, and the result cheapens the story. The other flaw is the unnecessarily pay-off of Elder's nightmares, which are revealed as being exactly prescient. This introduces an odd quasi-mystical element to an otherwise entirely gritty and realistic story, and serves no good purpose. These are minor bumps, though, and Harvey's fans and newcomers will find plenty to like about this fine crime novel. Elder returns in Harvey's next novel, Ash and Bone.

NOTE: The American dust jacket of this and In A True Light are terrible--they are garish and completely fail to convey the tone of the novels. It's a mystery as to why they don't just go ahead and use the art from the UK editions, which is much better.

Rating:
Summary: Not all it's cracked up to be
Review: I can't say that I really enjoyed this all that much. I picked it up because I had read two good reviews of it, but I feel differently. I have a lot of issues with this: one, I didn't feel anything for the characters - there wasn't much development at all; two, the plot was thin - a page-turner this is not; and three, the novel had a distinctive English feel to it (meaning it's a little boring). Maybe I would have felt differently if I had read some of the other 'Frank Elder' novels, but I haven't, and I don't. And except for the last 50 predictable pages, there's not much action here, either.