DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

personal lives of the officers involved in the case. The
characterisations are nicely fleshed out and Devlin is an
interesting and very credible detective. The high body
count will keep most readers guessing as to the identity of
the killer and the final resolution is neatly worked out and
satisfying. Highly recommended.
THE FINAL DAYS by Alex Chance (William
Heinemann, £10.00). Rating: B+ Debut author Alex
Chance provides some interesting twists on the standard
serial killer thriller with a dual plot line that moves between
San Francisco and the Utah desert.
Psychologist Karen Wiley is concerned when she
starts receiving letters from a child crying out for help.
That concern grows when her own daughter comes under
threat. Meanwhile Mormon detective
Ella McCullers confronts a horrific crime
in the small Utah town of Canaan when
a young girl is brutally kidnapped from
a trailer park. As the killings mount Ella
and Karen find themselves drawn to an
abandoned desert church and the sinister
Cult of the Final Days.
This is a powerful thriller with
well developed characters and a good,
interesting storyline that keeps the
reader guessing for quite awhile as to
what is happening. There are also
plenty of suspenseful and exciting action
scenes. The story drags a bit in a
few parts and there is too much exposition
and flashback towards the end.
Nevertheless, it is a very good read.
A word of warning, however,
the book also features some very disturbing
violence against children.
TIMEBOMB by Gerald
Seymour (Bantam, £14.99). Rating:
A Gerald Seymour is one of the world’s best thriller
writers. His first novel, the much acclaimed IRA thriller
HARRY'S GAME, appeared in 1975 and since then
Seymour has established himself as a master of telling it
like it is with well researched novels that pull no punches
and often have downbeat endings.
He has now written some twenty-five novels, often dealing
with various forms of terrorism, and it is hard to recall a bad
one. His latest novel, TIMEBOMB, certainly shows no
diminution of ability.
Fired from a top-secret Soviet nuclear base in the
chaotic last days of the communist regime, a disgruntled
KGB security man steals a suitcase bomb, smuggles it out
and buries it in his backyard. Sixteen years later the aging
former security agent decides to put it on the market to the
highest bidder. A Mafia gangster based in England is the
buyer for a terrorist group and as he journeys to a remote
sector of the Polish–Belarus frontier to make the exchange
his moves are tracked a small MI6 team, who only have a
sketchy idea of what’s going on. Their best hope rests with
an undercover police officer who has infiltrated the crimi-
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69
nal gang, but as the deadline approaches the agent
becomes less reliable.
TIMEBOMB is a typical Seymour novel with its
multiple viewpoints and rich cast of characters, all of whom
gradually make their way to the exchange in Poland.
Despite the complexity of the plot, Seymour keeps the
suspense at a high level and the story moves to a thrilling
showdown. The characters and the scenario are chillingly
believable and the heroics are credible and understated. A
superb topical thriller that presents a chilling picture of a
feasible terrorist threat
George Easter Reviews
A QUIET FLAME by Philip Kerr (Quercus,
£14.99). Rating: A This is the fifth
Bernie Gunther novel (despite the dust
jacket indicating otherwise) in a consistently
high quality series. It is 1950
and Bernie has arrived in Argentina
along with two other former Nazis,
including the infamous Adolph
Eichmann. Through a series of fortuitous
circumstances Gunther is hired
by the secret police to find the wife and
daughter of an influential German
banker – as a favor to the ruling
Perons. As we follow Bernie through
his investigation, we get more than a
sense of how Nazi war criminals were
easily integrated into Argentinian society
and how complicit the government
was in looking the other way.
Bernie also takes on a case to
find some long-missing relatives of a
beautiful Jewess (he thinks it is to
atone for his past sins, but has to admit
that he is awfully attracted to her as well). As usual, Bernie
sticks his nose in where it not only doesn’t belong, but
where he has been seriously warned not to go.
After a sixteeen-year hiatus, Philip Kerr added to
this series last year with the highly praised THE ONE
FROM THE OTHER. One can only hope that he will
provide us with further Bernie Gunther adventures far into
the future. Good detection, a complex and admirable
protagonist and high quality writing are hallmarks of one
of the very best crime fiction series of today or any day.
RITUAL by Mo Hayder (Bantam Press, £14.99).
Rating: B+ Mo Hayder brings back the protagonist from
her first two novels, BIRDMAN and THE TREAT-
MENT. DI Jack Caffery is still suffering from the long-ago
disappearance and most likely death of his younger
brother at the hands of a pedophile. On a case involving
the discovery of two severed hands (but no body) he is
teamed up a police diver Flea Marley, another damaged
soul who is haunted by the deaths of her parents in a scuba
diving mishap.
The case takes them deep into the culture and
religious practices of the African immigrant community