Saturday 14 January 2012

London Calling by James Craig

Already loosing count. My 10th book Of the year,

This is the first Inspector Carlyle novel by James Craig (@byJamesCraig on twitter. It's always fun actually being able to chat to the author), not the Clash song in case you are somehow confused.

The blurb on the cover says: 

Can you win an election and cover up a murder at the same time.

In the middle of a General Election, someone is targeting former members of the ultra-exclusive Merrion Club - youthful hedonists addicted to excess metamorphosed into pillars of the political establishment.

Next in the murderer's sights is charismatic, ruthless Edgar Carlton, the man poised to be the next Prime Minister. But, with power almost in his grasp, Edgar will not stand idly by while his birthright is threatened.

When Inspector John Carlyle finds a body in a luxury London hotel room he begins a journey through the murky world of the British ruling classes which leads all the way to the top. Operating in a world where right and wrong don't exist and the pursuit of power is everything, Carlyle has to find the killer before Carlton's people take the matter into their own hands.

It's a quite short novel coming in at 312 pages or 4310 Kindle segments. In a series of flashbacks we get to know more about our hero's character, he is a honest copper. 

Oh, a warning. If you don't like to know how the people die in quite graphic detail this might not be the novel for you. 

The case itself is quite brutal and entertaining, it does feel slightly weird in that when it all comes down to it, inspector Carlyle it appears isn't a genius which makes quite a refreshing change.

It's a good solid crime novel. You do feel a by sorry for Carlyle as he does spend a lot of the case just one step behind and on the back foot.  

The ending, it's one of those that you cannot really talk about as it gives the whole thing away, I did feel slightly frustrated by Carlyle, and was expecting maybe a better result in his first case, but I enjoyed what did happen. If I was ranking it I think it would be around 7.5 to 8 out of 10. Also thinking about it I am happy to say the Kindle edition was nice with no glaring errors which you seem to get in so many books lately. 

It has made me want to know more about Carlyle so I have also purchased his second novel Never Apologise, Never Explain and I'm looking forward to settling down to read this in the near future.

Also at £1.59 each on amazon whilst I am writing this they appear to be a pretty good bargain.

Steph
Sent from my iPhone

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