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tasmanian_bibliophile's review
4.0
‘The snow had started falling long before the first car departed.’
Thirty years ago, Charlie Resnick was a newly promoted Detective Inspector. Thirty years ago, in 1984, Arthur Scargill led the National Union of Mineworkers in one of the most infamous strikes in the UK’s history. And as the British Miners’ Strike became increasingly violent, Charlie Resnick ran undercover operations in Nottingham where policemen, disguised as union sympathizers were sent into the ranks of the protestors in order to gather intelligence. In 2014, the body of a young woman, is found under concrete at a Nottinghamshire home. The body is identified as belonging to Jenny Hardwick, a miner’s wife, who went missing in 1984. Who killed Jenny Hardwick, and why?
Charlie Resnick has now retired from the police force but does some work as a civilian investigator. Detective Inspector Catherine Njoroge is assigned the Jenny Hardwick case, and asks Charlie Resnick for assistance given his knowledge of both the strike and of Jenny Hardwick. Charlie Resnick knew Jenny Hardwick as an impassioned activist for the strike, imploring the wives of the miners to keep their husbands out of the pit and on the picket line. Jenny’s own husband Barry was one of the ‘scabs’ still working in the mine, complicating their own lives at the time as well as the present investigation. Some of the enmities engendered by the miners’ strike still exist, and colour people’s views of the past. All of this complicates Charlie Resnick’s investigations.
This, I read, is to be Charlie Resnick’s last case, and as the narrative moves between past and present, we can see how Resnick himself has changed over the thirty years. As he investigates the case, he struggles with his own grief over the death of his partner. And Catherine Njoroge has some problems of her own to deal with.
While this particular story drew me in, reminded me of the impacts of the Miners’ Strike and had me guessing about who killed Jenny Hardwick (and why), the character of Charlie Resnick has me intrigued. This is the first of the Charlie Resnick novels I’ve read, and I’m keen to read the earlier novels in the series.
Note: I was offered, and accepted, a copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Thirty years ago, Charlie Resnick was a newly promoted Detective Inspector. Thirty years ago, in 1984, Arthur Scargill led the National Union of Mineworkers in one of the most infamous strikes in the UK’s history. And as the British Miners’ Strike became increasingly violent, Charlie Resnick ran undercover operations in Nottingham where policemen, disguised as union sympathizers were sent into the ranks of the protestors in order to gather intelligence. In 2014, the body of a young woman, is found under concrete at a Nottinghamshire home. The body is identified as belonging to Jenny Hardwick, a miner’s wife, who went missing in 1984. Who killed Jenny Hardwick, and why?
Charlie Resnick has now retired from the police force but does some work as a civilian investigator. Detective Inspector Catherine Njoroge is assigned the Jenny Hardwick case, and asks Charlie Resnick for assistance given his knowledge of both the strike and of Jenny Hardwick. Charlie Resnick knew Jenny Hardwick as an impassioned activist for the strike, imploring the wives of the miners to keep their husbands out of the pit and on the picket line. Jenny’s own husband Barry was one of the ‘scabs’ still working in the mine, complicating their own lives at the time as well as the present investigation. Some of the enmities engendered by the miners’ strike still exist, and colour people’s views of the past. All of this complicates Charlie Resnick’s investigations.
This, I read, is to be Charlie Resnick’s last case, and as the narrative moves between past and present, we can see how Resnick himself has changed over the thirty years. As he investigates the case, he struggles with his own grief over the death of his partner. And Catherine Njoroge has some problems of her own to deal with.
While this particular story drew me in, reminded me of the impacts of the Miners’ Strike and had me guessing about who killed Jenny Hardwick (and why), the character of Charlie Resnick has me intrigued. This is the first of the Charlie Resnick novels I’ve read, and I’m keen to read the earlier novels in the series.
Note: I was offered, and accepted, a copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
raven88's review
5.0
And so after 12 novels, 16 short stories, two television adaptations and four radio plays, Darkness, Darkness marks the final appearance of John Harvey’s stalwart and long serving detective, Charlie Resnick.
Published on the 30th anniversary of the Miner’s Strike, the story centres on this incredibly divisive and emotional period of British political and social history. Neighbour was turned against neighbour, husband against wife and father against son at a time when working class families experienced economic deprivation. With a backdrop of police brutality, corporate greed and unfeeling politicians, young mother Jenny Hardwick goes missing. Set against her husband, who defied the strike, Hardwick became a vocal campaigner on behalf of the miners and their families, causing plenty of friction prior to her disappearance.
With the discovery of her body many years later, the virtually retired Resnick is drawn into the investigation. It’s a trip back in time for him, as he too was involved in this turbulent period. Recalled from his current role in cold case investigation he works alongside DI Catherine Njoroge, an ambitious and dedicated black police officer who has made her way quickly through the ranks. She grapples daily with the judgements made upon her in the profession due to her gender and race. As the contrasting characteristics of youth and experience join forces, the scene is set for a compelling and emotive investigation, revisiting the past and setting old ghosts to rest.
Thanks to Harvey’s superb control of plot and character you’ll be transported between the time when Hardwick disappeared 30 years ago and the present. The book opens with Resnick ruminating after having lost his partner, and acutely feeling the march of time. Although not fully retired, he seems to be missing the cut and thrust of his previous full time police career, so relishes the opportunity to become involved with a case that was never laid to rest, and which carries a certain weight of professional and emotional involvement for him.
Harvey portrays the developing working relationship between Resnick and Njoroge well, and they learn to understand their differences. While Resnick grapples with his mortality, Njoroge is utterly career-focused and navigates the unfortunate and violent side effects of a failed relationship. Both characters are beautifully realised, and the interplay between them is imbued with Harvey’s natural feel and skill in the realm of characterisation. As they revisit the suspects identified in the initial disappearance case, along with those involved with the original investigation, secrets kept both then and no, hinder their hunt for a killer. Why did Jenny Hardwick disappear and who was responsible for her death only recently uncovered?
Having had personal experience of Nottinghamshire during the Miner’s Strike, Harvey brings the weight of this to bear in his description of Bledwell Vale, the fractured community in which Jenny Hardwick lived. I remember this period from my childhood, and the violent scenes and the economic hardship that blighted the mining communities. Every reference to the backdrop of the dispute and the suffering it caused is drawn with absolute clarity, bringing an emotional weight and involvement for the reader throughout.
Obviously to avoid spoilers, I will make no reference to how Resnick bows out, but think I am definitely not alone in mourning the loss of this character in crime fiction arena. With Darkness, Darkness, Harvey has conjured up a fitting and emotive final outing for this long lasting and influential character. As a stolid fan of John Harvey I thank him for it – the final scene is perfect. We’ll miss you Charlie Resnick.
This review was published at Crime Fiction Lover.com
Published on the 30th anniversary of the Miner’s Strike, the story centres on this incredibly divisive and emotional period of British political and social history. Neighbour was turned against neighbour, husband against wife and father against son at a time when working class families experienced economic deprivation. With a backdrop of police brutality, corporate greed and unfeeling politicians, young mother Jenny Hardwick goes missing. Set against her husband, who defied the strike, Hardwick became a vocal campaigner on behalf of the miners and their families, causing plenty of friction prior to her disappearance.
With the discovery of her body many years later, the virtually retired Resnick is drawn into the investigation. It’s a trip back in time for him, as he too was involved in this turbulent period. Recalled from his current role in cold case investigation he works alongside DI Catherine Njoroge, an ambitious and dedicated black police officer who has made her way quickly through the ranks. She grapples daily with the judgements made upon her in the profession due to her gender and race. As the contrasting characteristics of youth and experience join forces, the scene is set for a compelling and emotive investigation, revisiting the past and setting old ghosts to rest.
Thanks to Harvey’s superb control of plot and character you’ll be transported between the time when Hardwick disappeared 30 years ago and the present. The book opens with Resnick ruminating after having lost his partner, and acutely feeling the march of time. Although not fully retired, he seems to be missing the cut and thrust of his previous full time police career, so relishes the opportunity to become involved with a case that was never laid to rest, and which carries a certain weight of professional and emotional involvement for him.
Harvey portrays the developing working relationship between Resnick and Njoroge well, and they learn to understand their differences. While Resnick grapples with his mortality, Njoroge is utterly career-focused and navigates the unfortunate and violent side effects of a failed relationship. Both characters are beautifully realised, and the interplay between them is imbued with Harvey’s natural feel and skill in the realm of characterisation. As they revisit the suspects identified in the initial disappearance case, along with those involved with the original investigation, secrets kept both then and no, hinder their hunt for a killer. Why did Jenny Hardwick disappear and who was responsible for her death only recently uncovered?
Having had personal experience of Nottinghamshire during the Miner’s Strike, Harvey brings the weight of this to bear in his description of Bledwell Vale, the fractured community in which Jenny Hardwick lived. I remember this period from my childhood, and the violent scenes and the economic hardship that blighted the mining communities. Every reference to the backdrop of the dispute and the suffering it caused is drawn with absolute clarity, bringing an emotional weight and involvement for the reader throughout.
Obviously to avoid spoilers, I will make no reference to how Resnick bows out, but think I am definitely not alone in mourning the loss of this character in crime fiction arena. With Darkness, Darkness, Harvey has conjured up a fitting and emotive final outing for this long lasting and influential character. As a stolid fan of John Harvey I thank him for it – the final scene is perfect. We’ll miss you Charlie Resnick.
This review was published at Crime Fiction Lover.com
rainierbooks's review
4.0
I appreciated the fact that Harvey took care of his character Charlie Resnick in a good way. And I really enjoyed to listen to some of the music, Spike Robinson is cool.
samhouston's review
4.0
After twelve novels (all of which I have read) and sixteen short stories (none of which I have read), Charlie Resnick has been firmly, and I assume permanently, put to pasture. Interestingly, author John Harvey chose to send Charlie out more with a whimper than with a roar in Darkness, Darkness: Resnick’s Last Case, the novel offering the last glimpse of the jazz-loving detective whose cases many of readers have been following for more than two decades now.
Charlie is already all but retired, just marking time “in the bowels of Central Station,” as one of his colleagues puts it, when he is offered the opportunity to help out on a thirty-year-old cold case. Thirty years earlier, during a violent coal miners’ strike, a young woman who considered her husband to be a strikebreaking scab disappeared without a trace. She was there one day, gone the next. Because none of the policemen working the strike, including Charlie, could afford the extra time it would take to look into her disappearance, it was easier for the police to assume that the woman had run off to start a new life of her own – far away from the miners’ strike and her scab of a husband. Now a skeleton has been found in the back garden of a home in Bledwell Vale, a little coal-mining village that played a prominent role in the 1984 miner’s strike – and Charlie almost immediately thinks of Jenny Hardwick, the woman who disappeared all those years ago.
Assigned to head up the investigation, Catherine Njoroge, a thirty-three-year-old detective inspector (Kenyan by birth) senses that she has been handed a political hot potato, one that could effectively end her career if she blows it. But she also knows that Charlie Resnick was on the ground in Bledwell Vale thirty years ago and that he already knows all the players – if they are still alive, and if they can be found. Given the authority to recruit her own team, Catherine makes sure that Charlie is part of it.
Darkness, Darkness is a satisfying mystery, one that offers plenty of false leads and theories for police and readers alike to ponder, but it will be primarily remembered as Charlie Resnick’s last hurrah. Harvey makes it clear that the world is starting to pass Charlie by a bit, that it is moving a little too quickly for him these days, and that he knows it. Already, Charlie has become more observer than participant. He know longer cares about promotions or raises; he is just taking life one day at a time while watching the world he was once so familiar with change and disappear forever. John Harvey, a man in his own eighth decade, beautifully and accurately portrays a mindset common to so many as they approach the end of their working days. I will miss Charlie Resnick, and I hope he spends his days listening to his hundreds of jazz recordings, drinking the good stuff, and doing whatever else pleases him from here on out.
Thank you, John Harvey, for creating one of my favorite fictional characters and a series of which I never tired. Charlie was a good one.
Charlie is already all but retired, just marking time “in the bowels of Central Station,” as one of his colleagues puts it, when he is offered the opportunity to help out on a thirty-year-old cold case. Thirty years earlier, during a violent coal miners’ strike, a young woman who considered her husband to be a strikebreaking scab disappeared without a trace. She was there one day, gone the next. Because none of the policemen working the strike, including Charlie, could afford the extra time it would take to look into her disappearance, it was easier for the police to assume that the woman had run off to start a new life of her own – far away from the miners’ strike and her scab of a husband. Now a skeleton has been found in the back garden of a home in Bledwell Vale, a little coal-mining village that played a prominent role in the 1984 miner’s strike – and Charlie almost immediately thinks of Jenny Hardwick, the woman who disappeared all those years ago.
Assigned to head up the investigation, Catherine Njoroge, a thirty-three-year-old detective inspector (Kenyan by birth) senses that she has been handed a political hot potato, one that could effectively end her career if she blows it. But she also knows that Charlie Resnick was on the ground in Bledwell Vale thirty years ago and that he already knows all the players – if they are still alive, and if they can be found. Given the authority to recruit her own team, Catherine makes sure that Charlie is part of it.
Darkness, Darkness is a satisfying mystery, one that offers plenty of false leads and theories for police and readers alike to ponder, but it will be primarily remembered as Charlie Resnick’s last hurrah. Harvey makes it clear that the world is starting to pass Charlie by a bit, that it is moving a little too quickly for him these days, and that he knows it. Already, Charlie has become more observer than participant. He know longer cares about promotions or raises; he is just taking life one day at a time while watching the world he was once so familiar with change and disappear forever. John Harvey, a man in his own eighth decade, beautifully and accurately portrays a mindset common to so many as they approach the end of their working days. I will miss Charlie Resnick, and I hope he spends his days listening to his hundreds of jazz recordings, drinking the good stuff, and doing whatever else pleases him from here on out.
Thank you, John Harvey, for creating one of my favorite fictional characters and a series of which I never tired. Charlie was a good one.
eleellis's review
4.0
Well, this is purported to be the final Charlie Resnick novel. This novel is better than most, but I didn't feel it was one of the stronger Charlie Resnick novels.
From the start, with a title of "Darkness, Darkness," I felt the tale was going to very stark and with long reaching impact.
It is the story of the discovery of a woman's body that ends up being that of a murder victim from longer than thirty years ago.
This is above standard fare when compared to mystery/murder novels, but I was hoping for just a bit more since this is the last of the series.
From the start, with a title of "Darkness, Darkness," I felt the tale was going to very stark and with long reaching impact.
It is the story of the discovery of a woman's body that ends up being that of a murder victim from longer than thirty years ago.
This is above standard fare when compared to mystery/murder novels, but I was hoping for just a bit more since this is the last of the series.
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