Ted Fox reviews the best of the latest bunch of thrillers.
DARK TOWN
Thomas Mullen
Little, Brown/Hachette
This thriller is black and white, there are no shades in between. Atlanta 1948, Darktown, the area which the book cover calls African American - only it wasn't. Not in 1948, then it was called something far different. Because this is a gripping story of institutionalised racism with white cops and black cops.
The Atlanta Police Department hires two WW2 veterans, Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, after being forced by the mayor to engage its first eight black police officers. Boggs and Smith find themselves in a police force where black cops aren't allowed to make arrests without a white police officer present. Where the black policemen are not allowed to drive police cars or enter the white police precinct through the front doors.
The story begins when Boggs and Smith are on patrol in Darktown, when a white man, Underhill, drunk, clips a lamp standard with his car. With him is a young black woman, Lily Ellsworth. The white police who arrive to arrest Underhill, Dunlow and Rakestraw, let him go free.
Lily is found dead the next day. Boggs and Smith suspect Underhill of being involved in the crime, but are up against brutal white cop Dunlow and his partner Rakestraw. Risking their lives and their jobs, Boggs and Smith chart their way through the murky waters of madams, moonshiners, crooked cops and the restrictions of Jim Crow laws, laws in force until 1965.
This is a sometimes uneasy portrayal of racism and an America where billboards proclaim "Keep America Safe from Foreigners''. It represents the pre-civil-rights US and explores the bleak issues of race, law and justice. What makes it such a compelling read, is its parallels with the injustices and politics evident today.
OUT OF BOUNDS
Val McDermid
Little, Brown/Hachette
This is the fourth outing for McDermid's DCI, Karen Pirie. Her ballsy cold-case detective likes gin, is exasperated by her nice but dim young male co-worker "The Mint'', and has a penchant for solitary strolls in the small hours. The latter, principally because of the recent death of her former partner and colleague, is making her sleepless. Pirie is also adept at stepping on toes and, in the process, annoying her boss and fellow officers.
An illegal joyride ending in an accident puts the four teenage occupants of the vehicle, a Land Rover Defender, into hospital. One, Ross Garvie, is in a coma and unlikely to survive. His blood sample test for alcohol triggers an alert on the police DNA database. It's a familial match to the perpetrator of a 20-year-old Glasgow rape and murder.
It looks like a straightforward cold case for Pirie. Trouble is, Garvie is adopted and Scottish law makes it hard to access adoption records. From here on in it gets complicated, as Pirie takes on other challenges including a light plane mysteriously destroyed by a bomb several years prior and Syrian refugees. Justice, closure and conviction become totally out of sync.
It's a story that fully engages the reader with its chills and suspense.
LIE WITH ME
Sabine Durrant
Mulholland Books/Hachette
Former moderately successful author, 40-something Paul Morris, now down on his luck, spins a web of lies and deceit and traps only himself - with more than a little help from his friends it must be said - in this unpleasant, but readable psychological thriller.
Paul's story begins with an embellished lie when he meets an old friend, Andrew, who had poured Paul into a Greek taxi 10 years previously. Forced to remember his past activities, the unlikeable Paul finds himself enveloped by lies, and not all of his own making.
Paul has dined out for years on his early success and now he's essentially a user and a sponger living off other people. The sort of person who disappears as soon as it's their turn to buy a round of drinks or finds they've left their wallet at home when it's time to split for a meal. He's also predatory and preys on young women.
You just know he's going to get the metaphorical pie in the face, but when it comes, the twist at the end is more surprising and unpleasant than any pie. More so because Durrant manages to make us feel sorry for Paul and his selfish way of life.
Ted Fox is an online marketing and social media consultant.
