Two murders, apparently unconnected: one victim shot dead in his office, the other brutally stabbed in what appears to be a road rage incident. Neither case solved. Six months later, DCI Henry Christie is asked to carry out an urgent review of the two killings. His investigations will plunge him into a terrifying world of murder and corruption.
Bad Cops
By nickoldham
A British Police Procedural With A Few Issues
The novel starts with the arrival of a murder and part of the last hours of the victim’s life. The storyline then jumps ahead six months. Henry Christie, a detective superintendent, is recovering from being shot. He is visited by his longtime friend and Chief Constable Fanshaw-Bayley, known as FB. FB asked Christie if he would like to return to duty early. He was less than happy with the prospect. FB introduces John Burnham, another Chief Constable who has two lingering murder investigations that he is asking for an outside review to try to achieve some traction. Christie is giving copies of the murder books.
The title of this novel strongly suggests that it is not a mystery but a thriller. The action of the novel switches to the “bad cops” and a death at their hands of a person in their custody. They are working on how to cover up this death. The novel proceeds with two views of the action. First is Christie’s and a little later from DC Daniels, assigned to assist Christie, and second from the various “bad cops.” This back and forth cat and mouse approach gives the reader an interesting view into the actions each side takes or reacts to each other. This kept my interest and kept me reading.
This is the 25th novel in the Henry Christie series, but I did not feel any that anything was unclear or missing because I had not read the previous novels. Christie’s character was developed in his interactions with his fiancé, DC Daniels, other police officers and witnesses. I didn’t see that with many of the other characters. There is appropriate development of DC Daniels’ character for her role in the novel. It is the other side, the “bad cops,” that character development was lacking or inconsistent with their characters. This is particularly true for the two police officers that provided the muscle for the operation. Their actions most of the time were childish.
Vulgar terms occur on average two times every three pages. Mostly, the language is used by the bad cops. All of such usage appeared to be consistent with the character and situation. There are a few implied sex scenes and scenes involving nudity. In my opinion, these were not excessive to affect my opinion of this novel. Lastly, this is a British police procedural so there were terms, British words and police terms, which may not be familiar to American readers. Reading on a Kindle with a dictionary that has a good selection of British terms and access to the Internet was helpful.
Overall, the novel did keep my interest but did not captivate me. I never wanted to stop reading the novel though. I rate this novel with three stars, may be three and a half. I have not read any other novels in this series, so I cannot compare it to previous works. I just cannot give it a strong recommendation. This may not be the book to start this series.
I have received a free kindle version of this novel through NetGalley from Severn House Publishers with a request for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank Severn House Publishers for the opportunity to read this novel.