FIRST GREAT READS FOR JULY, 2016
The Hanging Club, by Tony Parsons
How satisfying, how enjoyable it is to be hooked by a
story on the very first page – it doesn’t happen very often, especially with
crime writers who follow a by-the-numbers formula, but Tony Parson’s
swashbuckling superhero DC Max Wolfe, despite his superior and unerring powers
of deduction has a human side which makes him much more credible: his personal life in each book so far (this
is the third) is less than ideal, except for his love for his little daughter
Scout, and their dog Stan. Max has been
a solo Dad for several years now, and while he wishes, as everyone does, for
True Love (he has fallen for a different girl in each story – unsuccessfully!)
he still blesses life with his little family.
Not
everyone is so lucky, especially the victims of the latest mindless violence he
has to deal with every day: a decent man
remonstrates with louts who are urinating on his wife’s car parked outside
their home. The louts beat him to death,
film it on their phones, then get the charges reduced to manslaughter in court
– ‘he was freatening us, me Lord! It was self-defence!’ – despite the iphone
evidence, their sentences are a slap on the wrist, leaving yet another family
permanently in ruins. Max feels a
burning hatred for the smirking murderers in the dock, especially when they
laugh at him, the arresting officer, on their way to prison. Sometimes – many times, the Law is an Ass.
And
another group thinks so, too – a masked group who post online their execution
by hanging of taxi driver Mahmud Irani in a place so secret that no police at
West End Central, Max’s base, has any idea where it could be – except that
Mahmud’s body is dumped at the site of the old Tyburn Tree, London’s infamous place
of Execution. The video states that he
was found guilty of grooming, drugging and abusing children, but the sentence
he served (two years) was absurd: death
by hanging was the proper verdict.
This
killing is followed up by another ‘execution’, in the same secret place of a
trust fund manager who drove his Porsche over a child biking across a zebra
crossing, sending the little boy into a coma for six months before he was taken
off life-support, but Money-Man was sent down for two years only – another ‘wet
bus ticket’ slap – and he was even reinstated in his job when he was released!
Once
again, his death is posted online for all to see, and the internet is buzzing
with support for the vigilantes who are doing what should have been done to
those murdering bastards in the first place:
Bring Back Capital Punishment!
And
those weak-kneed coppers who tiptoe around guarding the prisoners’ rights –
they’re worse than the lot of them! As
Max finds to his horror when he puts two and two together and finds himself in
the same secret place, awaiting his execution.
Mr
Parsons keeps the action barrelling along at Porsche speed, at the same time
giving readers a marvellous picture of another country within Britain: London, that great and sprawling city, from
the teeming centres of Smithfield and Soho to the elegant leafy avenues and
squares of those rich enough to live there – and a compelling portrait of
London’s underbelly, a place that no-one wants to explore. FIVE STARS
End
of Watch, by Stephen King.
Retired detective Bill Hodges (first name Kermit, unused
for obvious reasons) runs a successful private investigation agency with Holly
Gibney, a damaged and fragile person who hasn’t had the best of starts in life
but has a gift for detection and computer talents matched only by Jerome (gone
to Harvard), the last of the trio to bring down Brady Hartsfield. Bill occasionally pays visits to the Brain
Injury ward to see Brady, despite Holly and Jerome’s disapproval; he can’t resist taunting and deriding the
drooling wreck propped up in a chair so that he can see the riveting view of
the car park from his window. It feels
good to heap scorn and hatred on a monster that had planned the death of more
than a thousand young kids, thwarted at the last moment by Holly’s near-mortal
blow to his head with a sock full of ball bearings. Yes, Bill savours every moment of every
visit, until Holly and Jerome finally persuade him that his gloating is turning
him into a person they don’t like. He’s
better than that, so leave the monster alone.
So Bill’s hospital visits cease. He still pays certain nurses to inform him of
any changes or improvements in Brady’s behaviour – until he finds himself
caught up in the medical system again, this time with results of hospital tests
revealing the awful diagnosis of Pancreatic cancer. As if that weren’t bad enough, disturbing
things are occurring in the Brain Injury ward:
there have been several staff suicides, and an elderly hospital
volunteer and the very specialist monitoring Brady are exhibiting worrying,
out-of-character behaviour. Bill’s
subsequent digging reveals that everyone who died has been given a little
computer game as a gift to while away free time, but his suspicions about the
hypnotic effects of the little device are not confirmed until Jerome’s sister
is given one in the Mall – and is rescued from throwing herself under a truck.
All roads point once again to the wreck in the
wheelchair: how could someone so
grievously, permanently injured mastermind (for he has!) a plan to hypnotise hundreds
of kids, recipients of the little devices, into removing themselves from the
planet? The Suicide Killer is back with
a vengeance, and Bill, Holly and Jerome once again are in a race against time
to prevent more deaths. And Bill is
racing against the terrible symptoms of his last illness, hoping to defeat for good
the true monster that Brady Hartfield has become.
I could warble on (and often do!) of Mr King’s prowess at
sweeping us all along with him on his heart-stopping, page-turning journey through
each story, but in this trilogy his doughty band of heroes will stay in my mind
far longer than old Monsta Brady: it is
the End of Watch for K. William Hodges (Det.Ret.) but his decency, kindness and
honour illuminate every page. Holly,
that damaged girl who can’t be touched and can’t meet a person’s gaze stands up
to be counted time and again; and
Jerome, who ultimately saves the day is a true babe! Great characters, great story – FIVE STARS
Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King
Former Detective K.
William Hodges is nearing the end of his tether. Since he retired from the city Police Force,
life has lost its edge; there is nothing
meaningful to relieve the boredom of his days, most of which are spent watching
inane TV shows, eating junk food and drinking too much.
Some days are worse than
others: on those days he contemplates
suicide and sits in front of his TV with his father’s gun by his side – until
the day he gets a letter, purportedly from a man who mowed down a line of jobseekers
in a stolen Mercedes, a case that was still unsolved when he retired.
The letter writer seems to
know a lot about Bill Hodges, including details of his first name (Kermit);
information about his farewell bash (it was a drunken riot of fun!); and even
more chilling: insider knowledge of
Bill’s suicidal thoughts. Is this monster
a mind-reader? How does he know so
much?
The general tenor of the
letter is designed to increase Bill’s feelings of worthlessness, to push him
into that last act with his father’s gun:
‘it would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been
a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People
‘slipped through your fingers’.
But you are thinking of
it, aren’t you? I would like to close
with one final thought from ‘the one that got away’. That thought is:
F--- YOU, LOSER.
Just kidding!
Very truly yours,
THE MERCEDES KILLER.’
Once again, Mr King takes
the reader into the dark places of minds and hearts with his usual effortless
skill. In this latest opus there is nary
a hint of the supernatural for which he is so famous; not a spectre in
sight: instead he writes of the monsters
that contemporary society creates who walk among their unsuspecting victims
disguised by spurious normality - as
here, where the Mercedes killer is revealed early in the plot as Brady Hartfield,
dutiful son of an alcoholic mother and hard worker at two jobs, one as a
computer technician, the other driving an ice cream van. What could be more normal; (even a little sad
– the sacrifices that boy makes for his mother!) he works super hard at blending
in with everything and everyone – why, he’s practically invisible!
But not infallible. Contrary to his expectations, his letter has
given K. William Hodges (Det.Ret.) a huge boost; the depressive clouds have parted – his mind,
always keen, has something to grapple with again: start playing the game, Mr Mercedes. Let’s see who wins!
As always, Mr King
provides his main protagonists with great supporting characters, in this case
Jerome, Bill’s 17 year old lawn and odd job boy – who just happens to be black,
highly intelligent and a computer whizz – but not half as whizzy as Holly, a
true PC Maestro who unfortunately is plagued with ‘issues’. They are Bill’s doughty assistants. Their dialogue is perfect, crackling and
comic (how I wish I could remember some of those one liners!) but it never
distracts us from the horror and creeping suspense of a great story. Mr Mercedes is going to strike again. But where?
When? And can they stop him?
Stephen King has once
again held a mirror up to contemporary society, and it shows a chilling image,
one that is very hard to look at. FIVE STARS
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