Slash,
by Gavin Strawhan.
Slash: the waste branches cut away from logged pine
trunks in huge forests, much of it reclaimed from farmland, and now a thriving
industry in New Zealand where Strawhan’s thriller is set. Cyclone Gabrielle has wrought death and
destruction on the North Island’s East coast and no-one knows what their future
will hold – if anything. Everybody is
licking their wounds and hoping that the sun will shine again and that their
missing loved ones will miraculously appear – the alternative doesn’t bear
thinking about.
Into
this vale of tears comes ex-police sergeant Honey Palmer – yes, I did my usual
trick of reading out of sequence;
fortunately, her previous adventures and misfortunes are well-documented
(read ‘The Call’). It’s clear that she
is not doing well since she left the police, and working as a Private
Investigator shadowing an errant hubby is not Honey’s idea of job satisfaction,
in fact she’d rather be drowning her sorrows (and she has many) than watch said
Hubby poke and prod his simpering E. A..
BUT! It pays the bills, so bite
the bullet, Honey.
Until
a young police constable and his father approach her (she has quite a rep!)
with a request that she consider looking into the disappearance of their son
and brother, missing now for several weeks, the problem being that the missing
boy is no saint, has already served time for armed robbery and didn’t seem
chastened by the experience. To make
matters more complex, an elderly retired couple have died a grisly and unexplained
death originally blamed on Cyclone Gabrielle but the police are now treating
the deaths as potential homicides, and the missing son as suspect #1.
Honey
would rather get back to Auckland and spend some wine time with her best friend
Michelle, who has just been dumped by her latest boyfriend, the disadvantage
being that Michelle really liked him, so she needs Honey’s shoulder; the
sticking point being that when Honey reviews all the paperwork father and son
give her she becomes intrigued, firstly by the shoddy initial police work, then
the unfair emphasis on ‘we’ve got our man, no need to investigate
further’. Whatever happened to being
innocent until proven guilty? There are
too many anomalies here for Honey to ignore;
surely a couple of day’s investigation will throw up some answers.
And
that’s true, but the answers reveal so much more than she expected, not to
mention her own foolhardiness and risk-taking persona. Honey is action, not reflection, to her cost.
Gavin Strawhan has given us an endearing, Kiwi-As
protagonist in a meticulously researched thriller about the Pacific drug trade. And you’ll never guess WhoDunnit! Book #3 is on its way – soon, I hope. FIVE
STARS.
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