‘The Yards’ by A.F. Carter

Published by Head of Zeus Ltd,
3 March 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-80328045-5 (HB)

The post-industrial town of Baxter is crime ridden, poverty stricken and recovering from the Covid pandemic.  It is home to trainee nurse Git O’Rourke and Baxter’s first female detective Lieutenant Delia Mariola, two single mothers trying to make a better life for their young children.  Both women have taken some knocks in their lives and careers and are now working hard to succeed in their chosen professions.  The women, however, are about to collide with a third protagonist, Connor Schmidt.  Connor is desperate to prove his worth to his father Carl, a ruthless drug baron.

Git runs two jobs to make ends meet.  Occasionally she needs a break from the gruelling schedule and seeks male company, which is precisely what lands her in trouble at the beginning of the novel.  When she visits a bar in the notorious area known as The Yards, Git finds just the guy she’s looking for and the pair make their way to the seedy Skyview Motor Court. 

The next morning a dead body is found at the motel.  The victim has taken a bullet to the head and Delia is called to the scene.  She recognises the deceased as a small-time crook with connections to drug dealing and initiates a murder enquiry.  An empty bag near the corpse suggests that robbery might have been the motive for the slaying.  Meanwhile, it turns out that the peddler was on Carl Schmidt’s payroll and Connor had been sent to pick up the missing cash.  He returns empty-handed to Schmidt senior, explains what has happened and is told to find the loot or lose his job in the firm.

As the police and the Mob set about tracing who was at Skyview, inevitably their enquiries lead them to the unfortunate nurse who was in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The story is related through the first-person narratives of the three main characters.  This adds authenticity and immediacy to the plot and allows the author to present three distinctive and fascinating perspectives.  The language of the text has a hard-boiled feel but avoids becoming imitative of Chandler and Hammett by being firmly rooted in the now.  Another refreshing aspect of the novel is the way it explores the sheer slog of the investigation for Delia and her colleagues as they try to get a breakthrough in the case. 

The Yards is a gritty, no punches pulled novel.  It races along to a thrilling and unexpected climax.  Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

 A.F. Carter lives, and works in New York City.

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction