5 March 2016.
ISBN: 978-0-7515-5489-2
Assisted suicide is a contentious issue, and rich fare for any crime fiction author. Alex Gray, one of the foremost proponents of that growing sub-genre Tartan Noir, picks up the subject and runs with it in this fast-moving, highly readable police procedural.
Centre stage this time is Kirsty Wilson, observant and competent rookie detective constable. Kirsty has the right pedigree for the job; she is the daughter of a well-respected senior detective on the verge of retirement, and by the end of the book is set fair to follow his lead and become one of Glasgow’s finest.
One of her first cases appears to begin as a death from natural causes; an elderly woman with advanced cancer is found dead by the district nurse. But an observant neighbour and a post-mortem reveal that all is not as it should be; and when other similar suspicious deaths occur soon afterwards, the resulting investigation brings up far darker questions.
When Kirsty’s abrasive mentor Detective
Sergeant Murdoch has personal issues to deal with, Gray’s popular series
character Detective Superintendent William
Lorimer becomes more closely involved than he finds strictly comfortable: an upside for Kirsty, who finds herself and her embryo career in safe hands. The focus of the narrative also alternates with Sarah Wilding, recently released from prison and determined to put the past behind her.
The result is a tense, far-reaching tale with a very well-developed sense of right and wrong. Alex Gray’s ‘good’ characters are almost unequivocally on the side of the angels, with few reprehensible surprises up their sleeves; the ‘bad’ ones are equally well signalled and clearly defined. Whatever your view on assisted suicide, the aspect of it shown here is very much on the wrong side of the law.
Gray tells a good story, albeit one that’s perhaps a tad more black and white than much of modern crime fiction. Her characters are interesting and well-observed, and she evokes Glasgow in all its variety with a sure and highly experienced hand. She leaves a few loose ends at the end of the case, though it’s unclear whether these are meant to leave the way clear for Kirsty Wilson’s next outing, or just to show that policing doesn’t necessarily wrap everything up neatly.
For those of us who read the genre in the
search of optimism in a world which seems to be on a slippery slope, she offers
reassurance that good really can prevail. And that’s always a good thing.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick
Alex Gray was born 27 May 1950,
Glasgow. She was brought up in the
Craigbank area of Glasgow and attended Hutchesons' Grammar School. She studied
English and Philosophy at Strathclyde University and worked for a period in the
Department of Health & Social Security before training as an English
teacher. In 1976 she lived in Rhodesia
for three months, during which time she got married, and she and her husband
returned to Scotland. She continued teaching until the 1990s, when she gave the
profession up and began to write full-time. Alex is a member of the Femmes
Fatales crime writing trio, together with Alanna Knight and Lin Anderson. Her
novels are all set around Glasgow and featuring the character of Detective
Chief Inspector Lorimer and his psychological profiler Solomon Brightman.
Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.
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