Gillian vine reviews the latest
thrillers.
CROSSFIRE
Dick and Felix Francis
Michael Joseph, $55, hbk
FAITHFUL PLACE
Tana French
Hodder & Stoughton, $38.99, pbk
SLAUGHTER FALLS
Alix Bosco
Penguin, $39, pbk
England, Ireland and Australia are the backgrounds for these
three thrillers and the plots are as varied as the settings.
When former English champion jockey Dick Francis died in
February, at the age of 89, he left a legacy of 46 books
written after he retired from racing.
Most were racing thrillers and in the last three, his name
was coupled with that of his son, Felix, and so it is with
Crossfire (not to be confused with James Patterson's
recent novel Cross Fire).
The formula remains the same - the hero, in his early 30s,
gets beaten up while solving a nasty crime in England, where
he, or his family, has some involvement in racing.
In Crossfire, Thomas Forsyth is a career army officer
who returns home to his mother's racing stables after having
his foot blown off in Afghanistan.
Shades of Sid Halley (Odds Against, Whip Hand, Come to Grief,
Under Orders), who had an artificial hand.
He gets on badly with his mother and stepfather, and the
relationship goes downhill when he stumbles on the reason for
their edginess.
A good read, the only question is whether we will see more
Francis thrillers and whether the author will be Felix,
standing alone.
• Tana French's Faithful Place starts promisingly as
Dublin undercover cop Frank Mackey is called home by his
sister, Jackie.
A suitcase of rotting clothes has been found in an abandoned
house a couple of doors down from the Mackey home.
Frank goes back to the house he hasn't been in for more than
20 years and finds that the suitcase belongs to Rosie, the
girl he was going to run away to England with more than two
decades before.
He has always thought she went without him but the suitcase
suggests something more sinister.
The book starts really well but loses its way about halfway
through and never recovers.
A pity.
• The best of the trio is a homegrown product, Slaughter
Falls, by Auckland writer Alix Bosco.
A sequel (of sorts) to Cut & Run, it has the
virtue of standing very firmly on its own feet.
Anna Markunas and her struggling lawyer boyfriend, Rory, go
on a package tour from Auckland to Queensland to watch the
All Blacks beat the Wallabies.
Sounds great but the unexpected deaths of two members of the
group put a damper on things, although Rory connects with a
Brisbane lawyer who offers him a job.
Asked to notify the family of one of the deceased, Anna does
her best and ends up back in Queensland, embroiled in the
state's criminal underbelly.
For those who are interested, Slaughter Falls is a real
place, in Brisbane's Mt Coot-tha Reserve, but is named not
after a massacre, but after one J. G. Slaughter.
Still, it makes a great title.
Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer.
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