This is a well told story in the thriller-whodunnit genre and it shows all the hallmarks and possesses all the cliches of that genre.
Enzo Macleod, of mixed Scottish and Italian descent working in France, is investigating a set of cold cases made famous in a book written by the ex-lover of the woman by whom he has had a baby who (the author) has just impregnated his older daughter who is not actually his daughter but is the daughter of his ex-wife and her lover, establishing his credentials as a policeman with a horrendously muddled genealogy.
This particular cold case involves the murder of a three-star Michelin chef. Enzo goes to live in the hotel (after placing his younger daughter undercover as an apprentice chef) which gives him ample opportunity to demonstrate his remarkable palate for wines and his own cooking ability.
Another character is the attractive lady gendarme with whom Enzo has an affair and who enables him to show off his knowledge of forensics.
So Enzo is your typical master sleuth, able to fill pages with detail to show off the author's research in an effort to make the whole story seem believable. It's a shame that he himself, the main character, is too good to be true.
There's quite a lot of action: Enzo is shot at twice and his daughter is taken hostage but a surprising dearth of clues. Solving the puzzle is not a major priority for the author.
It is quick and easy to read but it isn't a patch on the other Peter May book I have reviewed on this blog which is Lewis Man.
July 2015; 352 pages
Showing posts with label May. Show all posts
Showing posts with label May. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
Sunday, 10 May 2015
"Lewis Man" by Peter May
This is the second book in a trilogy; I haven't read the first but it seems to stand by itself. There was quite a lot of back story. I hope they weren't spoilers!
A body is discovered in a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. At first it is assumed that the body is hundreds if not thousands of years old ... until they discover a tattoo of Elvis. Fin Macleod, retiring from the polis is Edinburgh, returns to his native home on the Isle to discover that the closest DNA match to the body is his first girlfriend's father. Unfortunately, the father, Tormold, has dementia and cannot tell what he knows.
This book is brilliantly evocative of the wet and windy Hebrides and the hardy people who hunker down in bungalows in the face of eternal gales. The people scratch a meagre living in the face of poverty and hardship but in the end they cannot bare to be torn away from the bleak and barren beauty of their land. It is brilliant on dementia: Tormold has little idea of what is happening to him and gets even his closest relatives confused but he has detailed memories of the past (although he rarely voices these aloud, leaving tantalising clues for his daughter). It is wonderful in describing the intermingled relationships in the close-knit community where everyone seems to have slept with everyone else, and betrayed everyone else, and fought everyone else. It is fascinating in its dissection of religion: a single isle can have five different warring Protestant sects. It is haunting in its sense of loss and in its description of the awful things that happened to orphans in Scotland in the not-too-distant past. And it is a pretty good whodunnit too (although I had it worked out about two thirds of the way through and I was a little disappointed at the ending which seemed to reduce a work of powerful literature to a thriller).
Definitely one to read. May 2015; 373 pages
A body is discovered in a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. At first it is assumed that the body is hundreds if not thousands of years old ... until they discover a tattoo of Elvis. Fin Macleod, retiring from the polis is Edinburgh, returns to his native home on the Isle to discover that the closest DNA match to the body is his first girlfriend's father. Unfortunately, the father, Tormold, has dementia and cannot tell what he knows.
This book is brilliantly evocative of the wet and windy Hebrides and the hardy people who hunker down in bungalows in the face of eternal gales. The people scratch a meagre living in the face of poverty and hardship but in the end they cannot bare to be torn away from the bleak and barren beauty of their land. It is brilliant on dementia: Tormold has little idea of what is happening to him and gets even his closest relatives confused but he has detailed memories of the past (although he rarely voices these aloud, leaving tantalising clues for his daughter). It is wonderful in describing the intermingled relationships in the close-knit community where everyone seems to have slept with everyone else, and betrayed everyone else, and fought everyone else. It is fascinating in its dissection of religion: a single isle can have five different warring Protestant sects. It is haunting in its sense of loss and in its description of the awful things that happened to orphans in Scotland in the not-too-distant past. And it is a pretty good whodunnit too (although I had it worked out about two thirds of the way through and I was a little disappointed at the ending which seemed to reduce a work of powerful literature to a thriller).
Definitely one to read. May 2015; 373 pages
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