DISCLAIMER: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publishers in return for an unbiased review. My thanks to Simon & Schuster UK and NetGalley for giving me this opportunity.
A body is found bricked up in the cellar of a derelict house and the evidence seems to link the macabre find to a missing persons case from years before. For DS Adam Tyler this initially appears to be a chance to claw back some respect from his colleagues in the South Yorkshire Police and rebuild his stagnating career. When he finds out he’s more intimately connected to the case than he could have known he’s forced to make a choice – declare his conflict of interest to his superiors or stick with the case to the end. But there’s someone watching from the shadows, a sinister observer with an even more intimate link to the murder and a disturbing obsession with fire.
DISCLAIMER: I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Following on from last year’s The Way of All Flesh, this is the second outing by the writing duo of Dr. Marisa Haetzman and Christopher Brookmyre under the pen-name of Ambrose Parry, and it’s at least as good as their first.
For those who don’t already know, Ambrose Parry is the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team Christopher Brookmyre and Dr. Marisa Haetzman. He’s a veteran crime writer specialising mostly in the tartan-noir genre, while she’s an experienced consultant anaesthetist with a background in the history of medicine, and together they’ve written a pretty damned good historical crime thriller set in mid-nineteenth century Edinburgh.
This is the third in Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, and starts by giving us a flashback to the Dollmaker case that’s been referenced a few times in the first two books. The narrative then jumps forward to the present, and leads us into a court case where Bosch (and the LAPD) is being sued by the Dollmaker’s widow. As the trial gets under way, Bosch receives a letter from someone claiming to be the real Dollmaker, suggesting that Bosch killed the wrong man four years earlier. What follows is an interesting mix of legal drama meets crime thriller.
I picked this one up out of curiosity, and on reflection I have to say it wasn’t too bad. It’s a bit by-the-numbers in places (washed-up cop with a drink problem and a broken marriage), but manages to keep itself fresh with a storyline that includes more than a few twists along the way.
This is the second book by John le Carré, and the second to focus on the character of George Smiley. It is also the only book to feature Smiley that isn’t a tale of cold war espionage.
