'Absolution' by Caro Ramsay
Published by Michael Joseph.
ISBN 978-0-718-15002-0
Caro Ramsay is a new crime writer on the block and Absolution is an impressive first crime novel. She is one of a number of writers who choose to set the scene in Scotland, and in Glasgow in particular, and she bears comparison with other such writers, especially Ian Rankin. As Val McDermid comments on the cover, Glasgow comes alive in this thriller, and this is true not only of Glasgow but also of the Scottish background of mountain scenery, Scottish characters and pubs, and cold weather.
There is a gap of twenty two years between the events of the first forty five pages and the rest of the book. The novel starts in a Glasgow in 1984 where a newly-fledged policeman, Police Constable Alan McAlpine, has been sent to guard a young woman, the victim of a cruel acid attack. What happens as a result of this commission sets in motion
a series of events and personal responses that will never leave him.
The action moves on to 2006 where a seemingly unrelated pair of murders involves the middle-aged McAlpine, now a Detective Chief Inspector in charge of the case with his team of officers. The murders are of two women, severely mutilated and left with outstretched arms, giving the press the opportunity to name the murderer the Crucifixion Killer. McAlpine, married to an artist, Helena, and with a distinguished career behind him, has never lost his obsession with the young victim, whom he had monitored and establshed a kind of relationship with twenty two years earlier. In a complicated, intelligent plot Ramsay establishes the connection. There is a wealth of people involved from the police, the church, the social services and the murder suspects and characterisation is excellent.
In spite of a number of murders, suicides and accidental deaths this book makes good reading. As Ramsay says she prefers writing about the aftermath of violence rather than the violence itself. I look forward to reading more of her novels.
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Rosemary Brown