Published 2007 by Pocket Books
503 pages
2/5 stars
ISBN: 978-1-41652-767-1
Will I read more by this author: not sure.
Genre: crime
Keywords: murder, child molestation, prostitution, illegal immigration, voodoo, superstition, hard work, drug abuse, underworld, police work, rehabilitation,
The reason I picked this book up at the library was because the author has been awarded the prestigious Diamond Dagger 2024 for a lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language, as nominated by the members of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA).
Anne Travis, DI, is in a relationship with her boss, James Langton, DCI; it has been going on for 18 months; she has a long list of things that irritate her about him. They live together, but they do not live together, he has his own apartment. He is the most dedicated detective she knows, thorough, works without counting the hours. He reveals his trick: he keeps notes, very detailed of everything that he can go back and find new leads to follow.
The book starts with James being cut down, almost killed, by a Somali illegal immigrant, almost cut in half down his chest and also in the knee; for weeks he is between death and life, but he pulls through and gets well; his rehabilitation depends very strongly on Anne.
In the meantime, Anne is attached to another team where the boss works from 9-5 and then they all go home; which is good for Anne she can visit James at the rehabilitation center; but no so good for the case they investigate. Everybody is convinced James will not come back to active duty again, that is what the rumors say.
The book is full of underworld, the dysfunctional prison system that allows serious offenders loose on the streets to rape and kill again, without informing the police. Illegal immigrants that have been extradited from Britain, but continue to litter the streets with crime and human trafficking. How dysfunctional families create the next generation of persons without the backbone to take care of their lives, their children without work, end up in prostitution at a young age and drug abuse. How children are molested and abused as a normal way of life. In this book the illegal African immigrants believe in voodoo that it can kill you.
I believe that too strong beliefs for whatever reason are not a good thing. We must in a democracy get people to think independently for themselves, not trusting and being blinded by illogical superstition, like religion, a political party, or guru, fake information and whatever tries to control our minds. How do we make people question things and not believing them blindly? In the book there is no answer to that question.
In this book thanks to Anne in the beginning of their case of rape and murder by a recently released prisoner, is solved and as part of the investigation she stumbles also on a hint who the bad guy is that cut up James. But there are beheadings (like what the Hamas terrorists did to the Israelis near the border), rape, drug abuse, kidnapping of small children, a mother and her toddler killed, beheaded and fed to the pigs that eat anything, human trafficking, drug smuggling, becoming rich on behalf of the sufferings of the poor and the week. The police officers in the book sounds as the far-right part of the political spectrum: we need the death sentence, send them home, they take our jobs, girls and abuse them.
If you want a humane society you have to behave humanely.
This book plays out in UK, they were for hundreds of years the rulers of the word and exploited their colonies in particularly in Africa. So, I wondered whether what the African illegal immigrants are trying to pay back for what the British colonizers did to them, including slavery?
From a moral and ethical point of view the ending of the book leaves open a lot of unanswered questions, and I found that irritating, because literature has an important role, in trying to get to different solutions to difficult questions. I do not believe this book did that, it just let the status quo stay as is and left me thinking: I hope this is not customary here.
So, if you believe that a civilized society is a place where law and order are respected and uphold by common rules of conduct, including how you interact with your neighbors. How should you then behave towards groups that do not accept the common basis of what accepted as society’s rules? Should you use rule of law and order, or should groups that set them selves aside be judged by a different set of rules? That includes if a group of terrorists kill in one day 1200 people, with beheadings and rape, burning and terrorizing their neighbors because they are Israelis, should a society of rule and law be bound by those rules and laws in punishing them?
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