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paulabrandon's review against another edition
3.0
I initially abandoned this, because I wasn't in the mood for a police procedural. But yesterday I returned to it, and discovered it was above average for the genre. I finished it in one go, staying up all night!
The set-up is interesting, in that Steve Madden, a detective, goes to speak to a psychic, Lavinia, who claims that somebody is about to become a serial killer, but she has no real information to offer. Madden is about to dismiss it, until Lavinia turns up dead! When a four year old boy is found with his heart removed in a ritualistic killing, Madden tries to link the crimes.
While better than most in the genre, it was still about 150 pages too long, with too much repetition and too much unnecessary information. I began to skim whenever Madden returned to interview the gangster and his family, or the daughter of the psychic, yet again, while never actually getting any further in his investigation. I began to skim whenever Madden went off on an unnecessary tangent about his memories of a particular place. For example, when he goes off on a rant about how he doesn't like Essex. In a slow-paced 400-odd pages book with small font, I often just wanted the story to get on with it.
I got sick of Madden's back-and-forth with his ex-wife Clara, who has remarried. She doesn't seem to know what she wants out of life, and they both manipulate each other emotionally, and by the end, I simply wasn't interested. Emotionally and mentally, they both acted like they were five years old, and they both deserved a smack around the back of the head. They both came off as vile and selfish.
I guess because this was published in 2004, it avoids the tropes that persist in today's police procedural environment. Big winner - no vindictive journalists in sight! Madden does have a haunted past involving his murdered son, but this is handled in a less gratuitous fashion than, say, MJ Arlidge, and it informs Madden's decision-making. There is a vindictive colleague, but this trope is averted in a surprising way when Similarly, although Madden has an uneasy relationship with his boss, his boss isn't constantly trying to undermine him.
The last 100 pages were quite exciting as it all came together, with some genuine suspense. But the motives weren't fully believable, and Lavinia's psychic visions that set all this into motion are annoyingly left up in the air. Although this exasperatingly included the usual British police procedural bullsit of gangland figures, that element didn't overtake the plot.
If you enjoy British police procedurals, this is better than the norm, lacking many of the cliches associated with the sub-genre. The writer was the creator of Taggart, a long-running Scottish police TV drama, which demonstrates why this book was so confidently written. It doesn't look as if there are any further Steve Madden books after this one.
The set-up is interesting, in that Steve Madden, a detective, goes to speak to a psychic, Lavinia, who claims that somebody is about to become a serial killer, but she has no real information to offer. Madden is about to dismiss it, until Lavinia turns up dead! When a four year old boy is found with his heart removed in a ritualistic killing, Madden tries to link the crimes.
While better than most in the genre, it was still about 150 pages too long, with too much repetition and too much unnecessary information. I began to skim whenever Madden returned to interview the gangster and his family, or the daughter of the psychic, yet again, while never actually getting any further in his investigation. I began to skim whenever Madden went off on an unnecessary tangent about his memories of a particular place. For example, when he goes off on a rant about how he doesn't like Essex. In a slow-paced 400-odd pages book with small font, I often just wanted the story to get on with it.
I got sick of Madden's back-and-forth with his ex-wife Clara, who has remarried. She doesn't seem to know what she wants out of life, and they both manipulate each other emotionally, and by the end, I simply wasn't interested. Emotionally and mentally, they both acted like they were five years old, and they both deserved a smack around the back of the head. They both came off as vile and selfish.
I guess because this was published in 2004, it avoids the tropes that persist in today's police procedural environment. Big winner - no vindictive journalists in sight! Madden does have a haunted past involving his murdered son, but this is handled in a less gratuitous fashion than, say, MJ Arlidge, and it informs Madden's decision-making. There is a vindictive colleague, but this trope is averted in a surprising way when
Spoiler
that colleague unexpectedly dies of a heart attack.The last 100 pages were quite exciting as it all came together, with some genuine suspense. But the motives weren't fully believable, and Lavinia's psychic visions that set all this into motion are annoyingly left up in the air. Although this exasperatingly included the usual British police procedural bullsit of gangland figures, that element didn't overtake the plot.
If you enjoy British police procedurals, this is better than the norm, lacking many of the cliches associated with the sub-genre. The writer was the creator of Taggart, a long-running Scottish police TV drama, which demonstrates why this book was so confidently written. It doesn't look as if there are any further Steve Madden books after this one.
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