Have read two detective stories over the weekend and both in settings that could not be more different. The first is Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. I first read this book a couple of years ago and, as the author has a second in the series due out soon, decided to give it another read as I had rather forgotten all the details. I found myself enjoying it all over again and my original reaction that it was well written and pacy was confirmed.
Painters Mill is a sleepy rural town where its citizens, both Amish and 'English' live together quite happily. As with the Ice Princess, the germ of this story lies in the past where a series of brutal, unsolved murders shattered the lives of this community. When the killings stopped Painters Mill settled back into its quiet existence until sixteen years later a body of a young woman is found in a snowy field with numerals carved on her abdomen as in the previous deaths. Do we have a new murderer on the loose playing copycat or has the old killer re-emerged?
In this novel, once again we have the stock characters, the town councilors resenting the fact that the new Chief of Police is Kate Burkholder a former member of the Amish community, a self aggrandising local Sheriff out for re-election and enjoying the publicity this series of new murders brings, and then the maverick detective from out of town who is foisted on Kate. He is a widower, burnt out after his family were murdered and he went to seek revenge, on the brink of alcoholism and on his last chance mission.
The usual mix, but it works. It is a bit Grisham like in that every car is 'gunned' away from the kerb and phone numbers are 'punched' in and there are a fair few cliched sentences. However, it is exciting stuff and as the bodies pile up and the reader starts working out who could have done it, the momentum doesn't stop until an exciting, incredibly filmic denouement.
I did guess who had done it working on the premise of the most unlikely yet likely suspect, if that makes sense. When you have read as many crime novels as I have patterns do emerge, so I suppose from that point of view this story is a tad predictable. However, this does not stop it from being very well written, tightly plotted and a darn good read.
Then I turned to a detective story by Barbara Nadal an author who is new to me. A Noble Killing dropped through my letter box a week or so ago and is published by Headline who have sent me some stonking reads so I was ready to give it a chance and see what I thought of it. As with the Wallender stories and some of the Icelandic ones I have tried, the names can be very confusing and it took me a while to sort out who was who. In the end I wrote down the names of the characters on a piece of paper as I was beginning to mix up the police with the villains and that would never do. A Noble Killing features Inspector Cetin Ikmen, a charismatic detective and is set in Istanbul. He has a partner, Suleyman, who is the necessary unhappily married cop without which the thriller genre cannot seem to exist.
They are investigating the brutal murder of a young girl, set on fire and left to die and it becomes clear that this is an 'honour killing' and the family know well who was responsible and may well have been involved. Then a homosexual piano teacher is murdered and it seems there may be a link between the deaths. This is a pretty gruesome and unpleasant story and though I finished it because I wished to found out the outcome, I cannot say it is an enjoyable book. It is, however, well written and impeccably researched and I note that the author has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years so she certainly knows what she is talking about and has the background and atmosphere spot on.
I visited Istanbul last year and so had a good idea of location for parts of the book which I find always helps. There is one scene set in the Yerebatan Saray, an underground water system built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. My daughter and I visited this when we were in the city and found it spooky and slightly surreal.
"They continued on as if moving towards the two columns in the north west corner of the cistern, known as the Medusas. Each was supported by a large carved head at its base, providing a very good site for numerous tourist photos"
Well, I was one of those tourists as you can see......
