Material Witness

REVIEW: Natural Causes by James Oswald

The Edinburgh police procedural is tough terrain for a debut author. The comparative literature in the police detective segment is as celebrated as any series in British crime fiction and so James Oswald has his work cut out. 

In my idle moments I imagine Rebus slouching into an Edinburgh pub and confronting the newcomer - Oswald's Detective Inspector Tony McLean - with a gruff, "this is my patch, son". 

Oswald proves, however, in Natural Causes that Edinburgh is more than big enough for both of them. His first novel, an online publishing sensation before Penguin stepped in to present it to the traditional market next month, takes the best elements of a procedural and ties them into a fascinating plot with promising characters and a narrative pace that never lets up.

Tony McLean, newly called to the ranks of Detective Insepctor, is called in to investigate the discovery of a young woman's mutilated corpse in the locked room of a long forgotten house. The body, which has been in situ untouched for decades appears to have been arranged as part of a cruel ritual. 

McLean is handed this coldest of cases while his immediate superior DCI Duguid investigates a spate of vicious, inexplicable killings of old men, many of them notable Edinburgh citiizens. Duguid clearly does not appreciate having the youngster on his patch and the clashes between the two men - refereed by Chief Superintendent Jayne McIntyre - are among the most enjoyable passages in the book. 

And it is largely the strong characters that carry the book. McLean himself is the anti-genre copper. He's an independently wealthy, well-educated, charming and largely calm man who appears to have no destructive relationships with addictive substances. His sidekicks, Constable Stuart MacBride and the sergeant Grumpy Bob (the nickname is used consistently and somewhat annoyingly throughout the book) are well drawn and the cast of supporting characters including the pathologist Angus Cadwallader and some of McLean's friends add a little zest to the dialogue.

If the writing is a little ragged in places and if some of the scenes feel just a little too over-engineered, it's of no great detriment to the whole. Overall, Natural Causes is a highly enjoyable read and a promising addition to the crime fiction fold. A sequel, The Book Of Souls (review to follow, but better than the first) is to be published in July with a welcome third to follow. 

In an interview with Oswald, published at Crime Fiction Lover, the author explains that he did not promote his work through social media during its amazing rise up the bestseller charts because, 'Im just not very good at blowing my own trumpet'. 

Well, I have no hesitation in doing that here: If you like Rankin, you'll like Oswald. 

In memoriam, Maxine Clarke

One of the very greatest pleasures of becoming a crime fiction blogger has been being part of a welcoming, informed and challenging community.

When I thought of this community, I typically thought of Maxine Clarke, blogger and crime fiction reviewer at Petrona, who died this week after a long illness. 

Despite being a prolific and thoughtful reviewer of crime fiction, and a diligent blogger, she found an extraordinary amount of time to encourage others, to comment and participate in debate and - to some extent - to anchor the crime fiction community.

Whenever I thought about how lax my blogging had become - no post since October - and a determination to improve it, I thought about being a lot more like Maxine, who to me set a very high standard.

I always assumed that when life calmed down a little and I had more time to devote to Material Witness, to reading, to blogging and to writing, that I'd get a chance to meet her. I figured that one year I'd get to Harrogate or somewhere and I'd finally have a chance to talk face to face and enjoy first hand the warmth and enthusiasm I'd encountered in e-mail discussions or comment debates. I'm certain that in common with those who have written so warmly about her this week, that I would have enjoyed her company. I am very sad not to have had that opportunity, and send my sincere condolences to her family and friends.

It's a strange business sometimes, being in an online community, somewhat less than real. But Maxine Clarke gave it substance and helped to make it an enjoyable and durable community for all. She will be hugely missed. 

The Twelve: the wait is almost over - Justin Cronin discusses Alan Furst

The final pages of Justin Cronin's epic post-Apocalyptic novel The Passage made for one of the most memorable endings to a novel I can recall. I wrote at the time: "(It is) an ending so chilling I couldn't sleep for hours after reading it and just could not shake it from my head for days. There is, apparently, a sequel on its way. It cannot come soon enough for me. My need to read on is so acute it is almost a physical ache."

The ache subsided, of course, but in recent weeks a sense of huge excitement came instead, because the wait is over. On Thursday the sequel, The Twelve is published, and Material Witness is delighted once again to be part of the Blog Tour - and (here's the good part) to have both a sneak preview of the book and an exclusive interview with Justin Cronin to share.

In the video, Cronin discusses his summer reading list, and as part of that his admiration for Alan Furst, the critcally acclaimed American spy novelist: "I can't recommend him highly enough. He is my favourite writer right now."

 

The influence of writers such as Furst - whose novels are heavily character driven and, as Cronin says, always stylishly written is evident in The Twelve. Cronin too is a fine craftsman, his prose is elegant and his characters hold the reader. Politics, espionage and sabotage play a huge role in the unfolding of The Twelve, as Cronin moves his Passage trilogy into new territory that explores two human societies that grow up in the wake of the military-vampire catastrophe described in The Passage, and as he plots an inevitable clash between the two.

I'll review The Twelve later this week,, but in the meantime enjoy the rest of the blog tour, which moves on tomorrow to Wondrous Reads.  

Also check out yesterday's stop at The Tattooed Book, in which Cronin reads from The Passage.

 



Review: Books to Die For edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke

First, in the interests of transparency, a warning: I have not finished reading Books to Die For. I haven't even read a third of it - and it might take another year to complete.

But I wouldn't be without it. And nor should anyone with an interest in crime fiction, its history and in particular its writers. Books to Die For is billed as a "unique, must have anthology for enthusiasts of the mystery genre" by publisher Hodder & Stoughton, and for once the blurb is a faithful reflection of what's in the tin.

Its Irish editors - John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker series, and Declan Burke, author of the The Big O - have worked their charms on more than 120 modern authors who have in turn selected more than 120 great, even landmark, mystery novels and written essays on each.

The essays (those I've read, so far) are part review and part biography of the author and her work and time, but they also offer some insight into the essayist. Individually they are an invitation to explore dozens of new writers and novels - even the most dedicated crime fiction fan should find something new. Collectively, however, they represent a comprehensive and essential living history of the genre. I've seen it described elsewhere as a "celebration" of the genre, and it is that too.

That history flows from five 19th century novels, including Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Poe - his 1840s Dupin short stories, introduced by J Wallis Martin, are the earliest works chronicled. While the anthology is somewhat back-end loaded, amost a quarter of the novels covered were published in the 1990s, it is not unbalanced. There are more novels from both the 1930s and the 1940s than the 2000s.  

It's inevitable with anthologies of this kind that readers will scour the list looking for the obvious absentees. Burke and Connolly address this in their Introduction, noting that this is neither a "potentially exhausting litany of titles", nor a "pollsters' assembly of novels, compiled with calculators and spreadsheet".

So there are notable omissions - the recent surge in popularity in Nordic fiction is not reflected, for example - and the list is somewhat monolinguistic. But as Burke and Connolly point out, "there are fewer than might be expected". 

What the editors asked their novelists for "passionate advocacy" for "one novel, just one, that they would place in the canon". And this they get in spades. Every essay I've read so far makes such an unanswerable case for the novel in question that my "to read list" has swelled by about 20 books already - and that includes a resolve to read a number of novels for a second time. These include Lawrence Block's A Dance at the Slaughterhouse ("the conclusion is possibly the most satisfying I have read, in any book, ever" - Alison Galyin) and Suzanne Berne's  A Crime in the Neighbourhood, selected by Thomas H Cook.

And of course there's an absolute wealth of new recommendations. Readers will naturally gravitate first to their favourite authors, and I'm no exception. So Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg, chosen by George Pelecanos is now high on my wish list with Dennis Lehane's selection, The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley.

This really is a terrific addition to my collection. It is full of fascinating reading and it will keep me in new books and authors for months and maybe years. The sheer breadth and depth of books included in the genre show just how wonderfully varied crime and mystery fiction is, and why it keeps so many of us enthralled, entertained and informed.

And many have eviscerated the supposed wall between literary and crime fiction, that "tired, lazy distinction", as Tana French describes it in her homage to Donna Tartt's The Secret HIstory. Indeed. 

Bravo to Burke and Connolly for putting together such a terrific anthology.

Review: The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye

The premise of Lyndsay Faye's fascinating novel, The Gods of Gotham, was always going to be difficult to resist. Set against the backdrop of the great fire of New York City in 1845 it tells a story of the birth of the famous NYPD amid a great political dispute and the tidal wave of immigrants arriving from Ireland to escape the catastrophic potato famine.

There's a great deal to like about Faye's book - not least a cracking murder mystery investigated by the nascent "Copper Stars" force - but chief among them is a great wealth of historical detail outlining one of the pivotal periods of development of one of the world's great cities.

Faye's story takes place at a time when lower Manhattan is a combustible - quite literally in 1845 - cocktail of commerce and poverty, in which great fortunes are being made and laying the foundations of the City's global financial dominance but while tens of thousands of immigrants, blacks and native (not Red Indian, you understand) Americans are hovering on a desperate breadline.

Many passages of the book take the reader into quite desperate corners of humanity: brothels exploiting orphan and other lost children; the most deprived and depraved slums, such as the Five Points where misery is a constant companion to many who have fallen through the cracks of a brutal and merciless society. These passages reminded me of The People of the Abyss, Jack London's stark 1903 account of life in late Victorian East London, which detailed the struggle of the poor living on the doorstep of what was then the world's wealthiest city.

The Gods of Gotham is also an extaordinary reminder of the youth of the United States of America in general and of New York City in particular. In 1845 New York City had a population under 375,000 but was expanding at a staggering rate (by 1860 it had more than doubled) as waves of immigrants landed from the old world in search of a better life or in flight from persecution or economic disaster. But while Faye describes life in a densely packed Manhattan she also describes the orchards, woods and farmlands that separate the City from Harlem - scenes that's are unimaginable now. 

The huge and unfettered growth of Gotham creates the conditions that make it necessary for the City's fathers to instigate its first police force: not least the religious and economic tension between the new arrivals with their "popery" and the city's existing residents who fear for their jobs, their way of life and even their lives at the hands of the demonised, dehumanised Irish.

Into this heady mess our hero Timothy Wilde is pitched. After his savings and his dreams of marriage go up in flames during the fire, his politico brother Valentine arranges a commission for Tim in the newly former Copper Star force, walking the beat in the dangerous 6th ward - "hell's privy pit". 

As Tim adjusts unhappily to his new life and circumstances, he has his world turned upside a second tiem when a young, terrified girl, covered in blood, runs into him during his rounds. Tim takes the girl to his landlady for care and shortly after is confronted with a second, bllody child - this one dead in suspicious circumstances.

Tim's investigations, gently encouraged by George Washington Matsell, a historical figure later to become the City's first Commissioner of Police, open up a can of worm that the City's political agitators are determined to turn into a religious war on the Irish.

It's a heady, raucous brew, enlivened by extraordinary characters such as the City's army of paperboy entrpreneurs, an early anatomist and Matsell himself. Early NYC is vividly brought to life and the story is further enriched by the liberal use of the "Flash" language, the Rogue's Lexicon recorded for posterity by Matsell.

Faye keeps an ambitious and involved plot moving at a good speed and doesn't let her clear fascination for the history hinder the unfolding of her story. The Gods of Gotham is a worthy addition to the historical crime canon, and I hope a second installment follows.  

Review: The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

One of the regular features of the radio news bulletins in the UK begins like this: "A British soldier was killed today in Afghanistan..."

It's become such a sadly regular occurrence that there is a danger that the public becomes immune to these bulletins, and that we forget that behind every bulletin is a young life cut short, a grieving family and an individual story. The media has little time for nuance and detail and a life lost is no more than a brief, depressing flash except for those closest to the casualty.

Kevin Powers, a poet and American veteran of the Iraq war, has told one such story in The Yellow Birds, an intense and powerful pyschological novel that follows the campaign of two young soldiers - the 21-year-old Bartle and the 18-year-old Murphy - in the battle for the town of Al-Tafar, as well as their sergeant, Sterling.

The Yellow Birds reminded me of a brief conversation I once had with an American uncle, who in the 1950s, as a green teenager from the industrial northern city of Pittsburgh, signed up for the US Army and quickly found himself fighting the Korean war, following a basic training stint in Kentucky. I rarely heard him talk about his war time experiences, but on this occasion he did offer one insight into his journey: "Hell, I didn't know where Kentucky was, never mind Korea." 

Murphy and Bartle are equally disoriented and lost - pitched into a battle they don't really understand, fighting an enemy they cannot see in a land they do not know. They move forward, one foot after another through the dust, because they have no choice. But as the violence builds and their exposure to the horror of their war grows, Murphy begins to detach from the world. Bartle - the tale's narrator - charged by his mother with keeping Murphy safe, clings on as long as he can but ultimately his friend's distress and terror is too much and their story accelerates into a tragic conclusion.

Interspersed with the story from Iraq, is Bartle's narrative of events of both before and after Al-Tafar, which provide poignant and damning bookends to the events of the battle. Collectively they tell a tale of betrayed innocence, of futility and of the closed minds and turned backs of those at home whom the likes of Bartle and Murphy supposedly fight for.

This is an important book - a timely reminder of the savage personal cost of our public wars. It is also a beautiful book, touched by poetic genius, even as it reaches deep into man's darkness, a domain of cruelty, grief, anger and despair. What makes the story all the more powerful is that Powers delivers his message without resorting to polemic. He doesn't need to, hes far too good a writer for that.

Powers had me at his opening paragraph: "The war tried to kill us in the spring as grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed... It tried to kill us every day, but it had not succeeded... While I slept that summer, the war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on. And I knew the war would get its way." And he never let up. Throughout the narrative and the description is utterly compelling.

In the prologue, Powers says The Yellow Birds began, "as an attempt to reckon with one question: what was it like over there?" only to dismiss his question, declaring himself "unequal to the task of answering it". He goes on, "if there is any thing true in this world it is that war is only like itself".

He is likely right - I, like most of us secure in our beds listening to the morning news bulletins am fortunate not t know. But his intense and moving novel should give pause to thought to everyone that reads it and persuade many that we should do everything in our power to avoid sending any more young men "over there".

REVIEW: Jack Glass by Adam Roberts

It's been about a month since I raced through Jack Glass in the space of 24 hours, and the reason it's taken me this long to review it is that I simply haven't been able to figure out how to write about it.

That has nothing to do with the writing of Adam Roberts, which is exquisite throughout - smart, witty and addictive - nor the brilliance of Jack Glass, which is a fascinating, compelling and challenging tale of personality, politics and socio-economics. I have enjoyed no novel more during 2012.

Rather it is the frame of reference that has me stumped. I don't read much science fiction - and therefore find myself struggling to write about it. It's always struck me that the canvas for sci-fi writers is so broad - given the opportunity to bend and stretch both and time and space to their will - that it offers limitless possibilities. But this opportunity is also the central challenge. And perhaps if not for the writer, then certainly for this reader.

And so it's the control of the story and the landscape that is critical for me, and the writer's ability to create a world I can understand and relate to.  That's the same with just about every book I read, of course, but sci-fi has always been somewhat harder to contemplate for this reason.  

It helps then that Roberts' narrator reveals some more familiar territory in an enticing prologue, that the story is "three, connected murder mysteries" and that in each case the murderer is "of course", Jack Glass himself.

Even so an opening chapter that has some sort of inter-galactic security service entombing seven prisoners on an asteroid could have been a challenge. But within three pages I was utterly hooked, as the seven individuals, their predicament and their quest for survival are revealed as Roberts begins spinning an extraordinary tale in which he skilfuly builds the what and the why around the already-revealed "who" of his murder mystery.

The murderous story of Jack Glass moves from this Escape from Alcatraz-esque beginning back to the oppressive gravity of earth where the second of the three murders - a classic, country house, locked room mystery - opens the central narrative of the story. This is the power struggle among the handful of wealthy families who control the earth and its resources and the revolutionary struggle to unseat them.

The final chapter takes us into earth's orbitary slums as this political battle accelerates.

Over the course of the journey Roberts uses his beautifully crafted characters and their cleverly imagined world to examine the concepts of crime and punishment, power and subjugation. As he does so he stretches the mystery out masterfully, taking the book's most urgent questions deep into its final passages and even beyond. (This despite revealing the murderer on page one).

As I read back over this review, I'm not sure it makes a shred of sense, or that I've made the case for reading Jack Glass. So let's be clear: this book is an absolute winner. It's original, provocative and superbly written. It works as crime fiction, as science fiction, as literary fiction - and eviscerates the distinctions between the three. It also has a great cover.  

Jack Glass certainly has won me over to Roberts, and I look forward to reading more. I may not, if that's OK, review too much of it.

Author warfare in the Amazon jungle - the dark side of online reviews

One of the great benefits that Amazon has brought to the book-buying public is its online review system that allows the buyer access to a range of reader opinions on books.

Take the book I am currently reading: The Gods of Gotham by Lindsay Faye. At its Amazon UK page, The Gods of Gotham has 41 reader reviews, and an average rating of 4 stars (about right, judging by the 150 pages I have read so far). There's more than enough there to persuade an uncertain reader to take the plunge.

Access to reviews at the point of purchase is a fantastic resource for readers, who through blogs and online communities and Twitter have never before had such a wealth of information to help them make informed choices.

Now imagine that you discovered the 5 Star Amazon review that persuaded you to buy a particular book was written by the author under a false name? Or a close friend or associate of the author? Or that the author had paid for the review?

You'd be angry, and rightly so - you have essentially become the victim of fraudulent behaviour. Somebody has misrepresented opinions in order to part you with your cash. At best it is highly unethical behaviour, at worst, I'm not sure, Im not a lawyer.

I'm sorry to say that such behaviour, appears to fairly widespread, with authors paying for reviews - as outlined in this Bookseller blog - or indluging in "sock-puppetry", which in this context is the practice of authors using false accounts to acclaim their own books and slam other authors.

As I write this, an absolute storm is raging in the crime fiction community about the alleged activities of one author - RJ Ellory, a favourite of this blog over the years - who was accused last night of having apparently engaged in this appalling behaviour.  

The author Jeremy Duns, who has campaigned relentlessy online recently against such activity, accused Ellory in tweets captured here. Other writers accused of similar include Stephen Leather and Matt Lynn. Following his tweets there was a two-hour long Twitter discussion of the issue that included crime fiction luminaries Ian Rankin, Harlan Coben and Val McDermid. That discussion continued this morning and while I have been sitting here writing this The Crime Writers Association has tweeted that it will be making a statement on the issue and drawing up a code of conduct.

UPDATE: On Sunday evening, Ellory issued a statement, reported by the Telegraph online, blaming a "lapse of judgment" and apologising to his "readers and the writing community".

Even as he did so, yet another writer was accused of the same practice by Stuart Neville.

The CWA, on Saturday, issued a statement condemning a practice it described as, "unfair to authors and also to the readers who are so supportive of the crime genre".

It seems highly unlikely that this whole depressing episode ends here, and I suspect we'll see others brought to book by similarly excellent detective work to that conducted by Duns.

My position on this is simple: authors posting fake reviews of their own work are cheating and betraying their readers and demeaning their profession; authors slamming their peers through the same system, whether for some sort of commercial advantage, petty jealousy or something else, is utterly despicable. I look forward to seeing the CWA's response.

I am both shocked and deeply saddened by these extraordinary activities.  

Regrettably, it seems all but impossible for the practice to be stopped in any way other than the sort of industry-policing that Duns has so admirably led. (For more on this visit his excellent blog, The Debrief and the Left Room, the blog Steve Mosby, who has also written extensively on the subject). The strength of the Amazon reviewing system - the openness that allows all-comers to participate - is also its weakness. It is wide open to abuse and offers a perfect platform of anonymity and reach for those wishing to sock-puppet. It is very very difficult to see that changing.

That brings me to the main purpose of this post - aside from commenting and exposing this activity - how to reassure readers that what they read on Material Witness is genuine.

This blog is in seventh year now and never during that time I have felt the need to publish an editorial policy or review or submission guidelines. When I started, this sort of blog was relatively rare and the status and influence of bloggers in the crime fiction community was all but marginal. I believe Material Witness remains largely marginal - I don't blog as much as I'd like to - but overall the influence and scope of blogging is immeasurably greater than it was in 2006 when I started. The role of bloggers and their relationship with writers and publishers has become the subject of a great deal of debate, most of which, I confess, I have ignored.

But I recognise that my ostrich approach to these issues needs revising in the light of the sock-puppetry scandal and other ongoing debates, and that the integrity of my work likely does not speak for itself. I have therefore decided that I will publish an editorial policy for Material Witness to give its readers confidence in the reviews published here and publishers more information about what I do and why. I need to think it through thoroughly, and that will take some time. 

In the meantime let me says this: I write for my own amusement and to help readers find new authors and vice versa. I am not paid to review the books, and the opinions expressed here are genuine.

I love writing Material Witness. I enjoy playing a small (marginal) role in the crime fiction community, which has enabled me to meet a lot of great people and find a lot of great books. May that long continue.

Penguin, reviving the crime classics beautifully

Penguin has always had a talent for simple, classic design. My coffee mug shelf is testament to that, filled as it is with porcelain decorated with the vintage, striped designs with different colours denoting the various genres - green for crime.

The silver-spined classics also work very well - particularly the Ian Fleming Bond originals with their arresting black-and-white stills from the films. These books in particular have always made me question whether my adherence to alphabetic shelves shouldn't be surrendered to a more stylistic theme. (These are the things I worry about...)

So I was not surprised recently - but thrilled nonetheless - to receive repubished classics: The Underground Man by Ross MacDonald and Miami Blues by Charles Willeford. First off, these are both brilliant five-star novels, truly deserving of the "Modern Classics" tag (small reviews below) and it is great news for crime devotees that series of these novels have been

Just as arresting, however, are their glorious covers, each cleverly capturing some of the essence of the novel. I'll let the designs speak for themselves in the images below, except to give the attribution to Edward Bettison Design & Art Direction in Brighton, who did a masterful job on these covers and explain something of the attribution for each series: Willeford, MacDonald.  

Miami Blues by Charles Willeford

If your view of Florida's flagship glamour city remains shaped by Don Johnson's extravagant collection of speedboats and sportscars, Willeford will debunk it quickly enough. Away from the pastel t-shirts is a dark and dirty world of drugs, gangsters, prostitution and an avaricious attitude to life. Into this unwholesome environment steps Freddy Frenger, straight out of a California jail and keen to earn someone else's living in a new City. His first act in Miami - before even leaving baggage collection - is to break the finger of a Hare Krishna, who then dies of shock.

As Miami detective Hoke Moseley settles into a lengthy and difficult investigation, Frenger sets about a vicious and cruel yet shockingly casual crime spree throughout a City with a truly dark underside - perhaps all the seedier because of the contrast with the Sunshine State image.

Miami Blues is a truly outstanding crime novel: understated and spare in its writing, unhurried and yet powerful in the narrative, splendid, rounded characters and with a blunt approach that is often disarming. It's also very funny in parts. Totally compelling I'd never heard of Willeford until this novel arrived in the post, but I'll be seeking out the rest of the series and filling this gap in my education.

The Underground Man by Ross MacDonald

I periodically worry that I haven't read enough Ross MacDonald, that nobody has read enough Ross MacDonald and that one of the greatest crime writers of all time is overlooked in the modern era.

Given I hadn't read The Underground Man, my personal worry is well-founded. And, unlike Willeford, I had heard of Ross MacDonald. Indeed, I'd even had a recommendation to read it from Michael Connelly when I interviewed him for the FT Magazine in 2004, and he named The Underground Man as one of five novels "On The Shelf", as that part of the feature was called. (I've read all the others: The Choir Boys by Joseph Wambaugh; A Morning for Flamingoes by James Lee Burke; Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler).

Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series of novels set in LA, where The Underground Man is also set, said this about MacDonald in the FT: "His running theme is about how the past informs the present, reaches out of the ground and grabs and trips you. That's a theme in several of my books."

In The Underground Man, MacDonald's PI Lew Archer finds himself dragged through several families dangerous and destructive past when he accepts the task of finding an abducted child following a chance encounter with the boy on his lawn.

This is a flawless novel of human greed and weakness with a plot that unfolds with the same air of menace and danger as the forest fire that rages in the background as the desperate search for the boy unfolds. Archer is one of the best drawn characters in crime fiction, brought alive by MacDonald's gift for incisive and often witty dialogue. Brilliant.

REVIEW: The Fall by Claire McGowan

If your 2012 Summer getaway coincides with the holiday weekend and you're looking for a sharp and gripping thriller, then pick up a copy of Claire McGowan's debut novel The Fall, which is published in paperback this week.

McGowan has clearly learned much from her role as Director of the Crime Writers Association, as The Fall is an immaculately engineered thriller that initially threatens to head into genre cliche territory but avoids all the traps and emerges as a fresh, challenging and enjoyable novel. It is also stylishly written, with a light and often witty touch.   

The Fall tells the story of two women from opposite ends of the social spectrum whose lives crash into one another after a murder in a night club. Charlotte, a PR professional, is there with her banker fiancee Dan a few days before their perfect, extravagant wedding and fabulously expensive honeymoon. Keisha is there with her feckless, abusive boyfriend Chris.

Until Dan is arrested for the murder of the nighclub's owner, Charlotte's prime concern in life was her table plan and ensuring that the flowers don't clash with the linen at the reception of the Mandarin Oriental. Within days of his arrest she discovers that her middle class life was more fragile than she could have imagined. Her friends desert her with indecent haste, her career is in crisis and her banged-up boyfriend was up to his ears in debt.

Keisha, who already knew she was penniless, is pre-occupied by regaining access to her daughter Ruby who is in care and her sick mother.

Although neither realises it, the two women have more in common than their link to the murder, and this is what I liked best about The Fall: its subtle and clever analysis of the lines of class and colour that criss-cross London and their deconstruction as Keisha and Charlotte form an unlikely alliance. The passages that track their developing relationship are the most compelling in the book. While the men in the story are mostly hopeless - even likable investigating copper Matthew Hegarty demonstrates less than ideal judgment - the women are strong and resourceful, particularly Keisha.

The crime often feels subsidiary to this character-driven plot - even though it is the hinge that joins the two women - but that narrative is kept up as Hegarty, Charlotte and Keisha all negotiate their way through the web that has entangled them.

This is a strong, confident debut that deserves the praise that has been heaped on it, and I daresay that most who read it will be waiting expectantly for McGowan's next star turn The Lost, when it is published next year.