Mike Crowl reviews Hangman by Jack Heath. Published by Allen & Unwin
The framework of this thriller-cum-police procedural is the kidnapping of a teenage boy and the need to find him before it's too late.
Timothy Blake, a civilian consultant to the FBI, is called in because of his ability to read situations more skilfully than the FBI themselves.
It could be a ho-hum story, but the author double-crosses his readers time and again, and keeps his characters on their toes. That's not all this book has.
To tell you what is unusual about Blake would be to drop a spoiler of considerable proportions into this review, so I won't do it.
We find out the consultant's dark side soon enough, and there are hints from page one - if we notice them.
I should perhaps have described this book as a thriller-cum-police-procedural-cum-horror story.
You need to have a strong stomach to cope with some of the scenes - and if I'd known what I was in for, I might not have read the book.
However, Heath's dark humour and solid pacing holds his readers and I finished it in two or three large gulps.
Blake, amongst other things, works as a puzzle-solver to keep the wolf from the door, so it's appropriate that each chapter is headed by a riddle. Some are old familiar ones.
The book zips along at such a pace, however, that you barely have time to read the riddles let alone solve them!
Mike Crowl is a Dunedin author, musician and composer.
