DI Tom Mariner reminds me a bit of Stuart Pawson’s DI Charlie Priest. Another nice lonely middle-aged cop looking for the love of a good woman. Unlike Charlie, Mariner has got a woman he loves, Anna, whom we met in Chris Collett’s first book Worm in the Bud. He just hasn’t got round to realising it and therefore hasn’t told her how he feels. His sidekick, DI Knox, is even more desolate, driven to drink after being dumped by his wife because of his constant womanising and serve him right too.
The detective novel has certainly moved on since the days of Mickey Spillane and Hank Jansen. Probably Philip Marlowe in 2005 would be a social worker.
The heart of the plot is the disappearance of a young Asian girl whose strict parents want her to remain a virgin until they can arrange a wedding for her. Thus, when she goes on the pill, it has to be for medical reasons connected with her menstrual cycle rather than as a contraceptive device. It is at this point that you realise this is really a woman’s book that happens to contain a In fact, more than one crime, as a teenage boy is missing as well. Ricky Skeet has had a row with his mother’s latest lover. His mother, an old acquaintance of Mariner, rightly feels that, as a single Mum on a housing estate, she isn’t getting a fair deal from the police who prefer to concentrate on the wealthy Asian kid.
To the sharp-eyed reader, the title might give too much of a clue as to the
childrens’ fate but, luckily, Chris Collet’s characterisation is so good that,
after a slow opening, you really get drawn into the plot. The Birmingham setting
makes a change from the usual London and Scottish backgrounds, and events take
many an unexpected twist before the final, surprising, denouement, leaving one
with a feeling of satisfaction at all ends neatly tied up.
-----
Ron Ellis
The author’s first book is Worm in the Blood.