Scan barcode
A review by ridgewaygirl
The Carrier by Sophie Hannah
3.0
The Carrier continues Sophie Hannah's series of crime novels loosely centered around a small group of detectives working in the fictional Culver Valley in England. In this one, a businesswoman named Gaby discovers that a man she had had a sort of relationship with has confessed to the murder of his disabled wife. Gaby is certain that he could not have killed her, which causes her to rush back to save him. Returning to a group of old friends, she finds things are quite a bit more complicated than she'd assumed, but her faith in the man's innocence is undaunted. Meanwhile, the detective leading the investigation, Simon Waterhouse, is dealing simultaneously with his conviction that something is wrong with the case as well as the machinations of his somewhat unhinged boss.
Hannah writes as though Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine had combined their novels (yes, I do know they are the same author), with Vine's odd and compelling psychological suspense forming the heart of each novel, but with Rendell's solid and intuitive police work going on simultaneously. Of course, Wexford and Burden would be shocked and dismayed by the sheer unprofessionalism of Waterhouse and his colleagues, but their determination and interest in motivations are similar.
Hannah's plots are growing more convoluted, and I'm not sure that she entirely sold me on the resolution to this one. But her books are always fun to read and to puzzle out and I'm happy that she's allowing both Zailer and Waterhouse, her lead detectives, to become more rounded as characters and to begin to give the reader the background needed to understand why Waterhouse is such a repressed and angry individual. Secondary characters were also fleshed out, which makes the crime-solving team much more enjoyable to spend time with. I really enjoy this series, in part because Hannah is willing to create central characters who border on the unlikeable, although they are growing on me.
Hannah writes as though Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine had combined their novels (yes, I do know they are the same author), with Vine's odd and compelling psychological suspense forming the heart of each novel, but with Rendell's solid and intuitive police work going on simultaneously. Of course, Wexford and Burden would be shocked and dismayed by the sheer unprofessionalism of Waterhouse and his colleagues, but their determination and interest in motivations are similar.
Hannah's plots are growing more convoluted, and I'm not sure that she entirely sold me on the resolution to this one. But her books are always fun to read and to puzzle out and I'm happy that she's allowing both Zailer and Waterhouse, her lead detectives, to become more rounded as characters and to begin to give the reader the background needed to understand why Waterhouse is such a repressed and angry individual. Secondary characters were also fleshed out, which makes the crime-solving team much more enjoyable to spend time with. I really enjoy this series, in part because Hannah is willing to create central characters who border on the unlikeable, although they are growing on me.