DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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Deadly Pleasures
novels has made me want to visit Shetland and see the
locations for myself (one quibble is that a map would have
been a welcome inclusion; I understand that one is due to
appear in the American edition.) This book begins with a
mysterious masked man, dressed as a Pierrot, handing out
leaflets to tourists arriving at Lerwick from a cruise ship.
Then the attention shifts to Perez and his lover Fran,
attending an art exhibition at which a stranger falls to his
knees and begins to weep. Soon afterwards, local man
Kenny Thomson looks into a hut on a jetty and finds a man,
dead from hanging. He is wearing the mask of a clown.
Like the late Julian Symons, I’m fascinated by the
idea of masks, and the intriguing nature of this plot device
was one of the elements that drew me into the book. A
second murder soon follows, and the momentum is maintained
throughout, whereas the pace in the first hundred
pages of RAVEN BLACK was rather more leisurely.
There are a couple of features of the plot that struck me
as a little unlikely, but perhaps legitimate given that the
story-line involves performance and playing a part. The
great merit of this book is that the people and places are
described with such conviction as to ensure that the tale
told never becomes unbelievable. This is a first rate crime
novel.
THE BLOOD PIT by Kate Ellis (Piatkus, £19.99).
The latest entry in the Wesley Peterson series by this very
reliable author is arguably the best yet. Once again, there
is dirty work afoot in Tradmouth (a fictionalised Dartmouth.)
A serial killer’s first victim is a highly unpleasant individual,
but the next man to die is much more agreeable. There is
evidently a link between them - but what can it be?
Meanwhile, Wesley’s archaeologist friend Neil Watson
(are all the best sidekicks called Watson?) receives a string
of disturbing messages about gruesome events of the past.
All the familiar ingredients of an Ellis novel are here:
complex plotting, a love of history and a cast of characters
that is distinctive yet memorable. Complicated story-lines
are worked out with considerable skill and the result is a
first rate example of the traditional mystery brought up to
date. A thoroughly enjoyable piece of work.
OUT OF A CLEAR SKY by Sally Hinchcliffe
(Macmillan, £12.99). Bird-watchers are an obsessive lot,
and obsessives make great characters in a crime novel. In
her debut offering, Sally Hinchcliffe has started with this
premise and fashioned a neat novel of psychological
suspense. The protagonist is Manda, a woman with a
troubled past and an equally challenging present. She’s
just been dumped by her lover Gareth, a fellow birdwatcher.
But there are two other men in her life – Gareth’s amiable
chum and the spooky David, who seems to be stalking her.
Haunted by the mysterious death of her mother as well as
the loss of Gareth, Manda is, despite her strength of
character, a born victim. When someone starts to menace
her, the question is whether she will survive and, if so, at
what cost. This is a well-written book, which the publishers
compare to the work of Nicci French and Barbara Vine.
But French and Vine are highly accomplished plotters, and
this book is rather short of plot. Hinchcliffe compensates
with a mass of detail about bird-watching, and although this
is very well done, it is not quite enough. The major twist will
be foreseen by most seasoned mystery readers, but
Hinchcliffe is a writer of real potential and this first outing
augurs well for the future.
The Cath Staincliffe and Martin Edward reviews
appear on the Tangled Web website and appear
here by permission of the authors.
Karen Chisolm Review
THE ADVERSARY by Michael Walters (Quercus,
£12.99). For more than twenty years a hidden hand has
ruled the backstreets of Ulan Baatar, but now Muunokhoi,
the once untouchable head of Mongolia’s largest and most
powerful criminal empire, has finally been caught. It
should be the Serious Crime Team’s finest hour. But
nothing is ever that simple in the new Mongolia.
THE ADVERSARY is the second book in the
Nergui / Doripalam police procedural series set in Ulan
Baatar, Mongolia. The first was THE SHADOW
WALKER. Fans of police procedurals who haven’t
caught up with this series should give it a go. Whilst it is set
in Mongolia, and there are unusual names and settings
which give it a slightly exotic feel, the basis of the book is
a sound procedural with the same sorts of issues that
plague police departments the world over.
THE ADVERSARY finds Nergui moved on
from the Serious Crimes Squad with Doripalam, his one
time protege, taking over as head. When the crime lord
Muunokhoi is acquitted because of problems with the
validity of evidence against him, the issue of corruption
within the Serious Crimes Squad can’t be ignored any
longer. Nergui is bought back to try to get to the bottom
of the fiasco. Tunjin, old, obese and totally responsible for
the faked evidence is suspended. Judge Raadna, who
presided over the aborted trial, turns out to be an old
Nergui acquaintance and she is being threatened. Meanwhile
an elderly woman -- member of a nomadic family is
beaten to death when she has stayed, refusing to move on
with her family, waiting for her missing son to be found.
Set within the partly exotic world of the Mongolian
steppes and the sometimes drab post-Soviet environment
of Ulan Baatar, THE ADVERSARY takes the elements
of a really good police procedural, sets a cracking pace,
adds some insight into the clash between the traditional
and post-Soviet / Western influence and then tops it all up
with characters that it’s almost impossible not to like.
Probably the standout character and story is
Tunjin -- the failed, obese, alcoholic, compromised policeman
who starts out saving his own skin, and ends up the
most unlikely hero. But don’t sell Nergui short -- inscrutable,
contained, besuited and elegant -- he and his
protege Doripalam are a new force to be reckoned with
in detecting partnerships.
If you haven’t read THE SHADOW WALKER
then THE ADVERSARY will still work for you, but
there’s really no reason not to read them both. [Karen
Chisholm is an Australian fan and webmaster of http:/
/blogs.sakienvirotech.com/AustCrimeFiction]