Buckingham Palace Blues (Insp. Carlyle Novel) / James Craig

Oh yes, I love James Craig’s Inspector Carlyle novels. They’re gritty, they ring true, this third one  covers corruption in the police as well as Russian mobsters and child trafficking and yet still never loses that slightly sarcastic, grumpy tone that I came to love in my Inspector Carlyle. It’s a wild ride Craig takes us with this book – a ride that starts with a lost child in the royal gardens. That it also ends there, close to the palace, is a truly poetic twist I loved – full circle even though the child in question had been doomed from the first pages of the book. The beauty is also that we learn more about his daughter, slowly coming to her teenage years, his boss, her husband in jail, and his long suffering partner, all of which get more threedimensional over time. I need more of this – I truly hope there’s a fourth novel sooner rather than later!

Once again I’m pilfering the summary of the book from someone on Amazon – and believe me, unlike them I already am a huge fan 😉

By El Becko    Amazon.com

I’ve been reading each Carlyle novel as it comes out, and I’m in danger of becoming a bit of a fan.Third book in and Craig is hitting his stride, an appropriate metaphor as the London Olympics proper start today. (At the beginning of Aug 2012 – addendum)If you are not familiar with him, then Carlyle is an Inspector from London’s Charing Cross Police Station who makes a speciality of upsetting vested interests whilst solving crime. It takes seconds to irritate him, and once irritated his language is choice. He’s a second generation Scot, so hardworking and dour but funny in the way that Scot’s are – and with plenty of integrity.

Thing is, this time round Carlyle finds a young Ukrainian girl who has been trafficked and prostituted – and whom the system is about to fail miserably. And he takes it personally. His own daughter is of similar age and the thought of this happening to her makes him feel physically sick. So off we go on a very personal journey as Carlyle takes on the East European traffickers, the posh boys and the bent coppers who have united to make this happen.

I think Buckingham Palace Blues is a crap title – but get over it, because it’s horribly plausible fiction in parts which rocks along at a pace. Carlyle actually manages to be flirted with along the way – hilariously he’s too much a Calvinist to flirt back! And women clearly find his love of lost causes endearing. This is a more well-rounded character we meet – and it makes for a very good read.

So to sum up, BPB is funny, pacey and full of grit and splatter. It has a few moments of genuine pathos and lots of rough-house fighting as Carlyle kicks bad guy ass more than is good for someone of his age. In Carlyle’s world the system fails people, Community Cops are ‘Plastic Policemen’,  the Royal Protection Squad are bent and social workers are lazy and useless.

What’s not to love? This is James Craig’s best book so far.

Never Apologise, Never Explain (Inspector Carlyle Novel) / James Craig

And again – it’s a great story; the suspicious death of a librarian – the woman seems to have been killed by her husband of 40 odd years – apparently is solved when the husband dies, too. But once again Carlyle can’t stop the nagging feeling and therefore keeps following leads that bring him to past but not forgotten crimes committed by the Chilean junta. This time though his daughter might be in danager as well. And while Carlyle finally solves the riddles that lead to the librarian’s death, the killer seems out of reach. Out of reach of the law, that is. Not out of reach of justice, though, as it turns out.

It’s a great read, a slow starting wild ride that I enjoyed immensly.

review by Joe McCoubrey  Amazon

This is the second outing for Craig’s London Met detective, John Carlyle, a down-to-earth copper who seems to be constantly juggling more cases than the average plod should be able to deal with.

The central plot involves the death of an elderly woman, apparently at the hands of her husband who insists he’s innocent. Vague references to a Chilean connection with the case fail to dissuade Carlyle of the husband’s guilt. In between he tries to help find a missing child, deal with the stalker of a pretty newswoman, and investigate a nasty drug ring. Not unexpectedly, things take a twist on his main case when he learns the husband is not the killer.

Carlyle is the type of hero to enjoy. He doesn’t jump through burning hoops, abseil tall buildings, or shoot an MP5 out of the window in a high-speed car chase. But he gets the job done in an efficient and believable manner while juggling a domestic life with an understanding wife and a teenage daughter beginning to explore the usual adolescent boundaries.

There’s a lot about this novel to keep you engrossed and interested. The initial, slightly overlong, references to what happened in Chile could have been best dealt with in a prologue, but that’s almost unfair nitpicking in what is a superbly written and cosy yarn. Craig’s style, pace and underlying knowledge is as good as anything you’ll find in the crime genre. Judging by what lies between the covers of Never Apologise, Never Explain, the Inspector Carlyle brand deserves to sit on the shelves with the best of the modern serial detectives.

London Calling – Inspector Carlyle / James Craig

He doesn’t want a career, he isn’t good at office politics, and he doesn’t like to bend. But he is a very good, very determined detective. And when he’s told to stop a murder investigation that reaches into highest political ranks he doesn’t. It’s the gritty realism that grabbed my attention – and the fact that these series of crime stories takes place in London, a town I love. I also like the fact we learn more and more about his family, his little daughter he sends to a public school, and barely knows how to pay for it.

I am currently at the third of the novels which probably shows how much I enjoy them.

review by J. B. Hoyos – Amazon.com

Twenty-five-years ago, the Merrion Club – a fraternity composed of Britain’s future VIPs – went on a drinking binge and committed a heinous crime against a fellow student. Now, someone with a very large knife wants revenge against these eight men. One is Christian Holyrod, Mayor of London, and another is Edgar Carlton, who, according to the polls, will become prime minister in the next election, which is only a few days away. After two men are found butchered, Inspector John Carlyle must find the killer before more VIPs die and the General Election is disrupted.

James Craig’s gutsy, envelope-pushing debut, “London Calling,” dares to distinguish itself from the rest of the crime drama genre. It is a carefully crafted blend of horror and police procedure that is quite macabre and spellbinding. “London Calling” is a fast-paced mystery that kept me in suspense until the killer’s carefully guarded identity was eventually revealed at the shocking conclusion. In the meantime, the death scenes are graphic, bloody and disturbing; likewise the sex scenes are as equally perverse and stomach churning. I was reminded of my beloved Italian gialli of the late sixties and seventies. These gialli are films where a black-gloved killer often stalked and butchered those who are involved with a past crime; usually the victims consisted of gorgeous women.

What was envelope-pushing about “London Calling”? I’ve never read sex scenes as graphic as the ones depicted in this crime novel. The raunchy sex scenes, I assume, are intended to depict the depravity of the men belonging to the Merrion Club. Because of their decadent, selfish, lifestyles, I lost all sympathy for the victims. In fact, I was hoping the killer would survive long enough to slay everyone in the Merrion Club. Other readers may also feel the same as I. Carlyle sympathized with the killer.

Inspector John Carlyle of London’s Metropolitan Police is a flawed but very likeable character. He never carries a gun and seldom remembers to bring his handcuffs; he relies heavily on his partner, Sergeant Joe Szyszkowski, to manhandle and subdue the villains. Carlyle is a loving family man with a huge sweet tooth; he is also good life-long friends with a professional, highly successful drug dealer, Dominic Silver, who supplies him with information needed to solve his cases. Furthermore, his boss is an the overbearing, image-conscious Superintendent Carole Simpson who behaves more like a ladder-climbing politician than a police officer. I believe that the author is boldly stating that there are many unqualified employees, like Carole Simpson and Edgar Carlton, in positions of power because of their gender or race. The author also speaks openly and passionately about the economic downturn that has despairingly plagued London as well as the rest of the world.

The novel’s chapters alternate between Carlyle’s present and his past – a past pertaining to his career as a police officer since joining the Met Police in the mid-eighties. He’s had a turbulent career involved IRA terrorist bombings and coal mining strikes that were all very warlike in their depictions. Details are provided on how Carlyle became good friends with Dominic Silver and how he became enemies with a vicious bully, fellow police officer Trevor Miller, who later becomes head of security for the black Carlton twins, Edgar and Xavier. The transitioning between past and present is expertly executed without any confusion. Furthermore, I am partial to this novel because I am the same age as the major characters; I was studying hard at the University of Tennessee at the same time that the wealthy, spoiled Carltons were partying at the University of Cambridge.

After reading James Craig’s provocative thriller, “London Calling,” whenever I look at a politician I ask myself, What dark, horrible secrets are you hiding? How many lives have you destroyed to get to the top rung of the ladder? The novel also has an element of dark, political-related humor. For example, one of the politicians is behaving badly like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in that he gets his nanny pregnant. I can’t help but laugh when I think about that one. Overall, if you can stomach the strong sexual content, I highly recommend reading “London Calling” with its creative, bloody death scenes, high body count, exotic locales and intriguing mystery. I can’t wait for the sequel; I can already hear it calling my name.

Caught in the Light / Robert Goddard

This book was recommended to me by a friend – partly because of the Viennese setting in the beginning, partly because I love a good mystery.

I was definitely not disappointed: The build up of the love story between photographer Ian and mysterious Marian Esguard is fast, passionate and leads to him destroying his married life and – in the final moments – everything that matters to him. And all of that out of an exaggerated, somewhat archaic sense of revenge and pay back, until he finally faces up to what he had tried to keep out of his mind out of self preservation: a car accident that had been his fault and cost an innocent woman her life.

I liked the flashbacks to the 1830ies, where a woman named Esguard apparently discovers photography a good 30 years before photography was actually perfected by a male scientist. This background-story which ensnares Ian and doesn’t let him go until he is destroyed is also the books only weakness. I’d have loved to find an explanation – a way of showing that either he was going slightly mad during his quest to find Marian again or he was being led on (but then what about the schoolgirl in an old school’s uniform he saw?) by his nemesis.  – It seems as if my only complaint would be the book ended to soon!

review by amazon.com

If you’ve read any of Robert Goddard’s topnotch psychological thrillers (including Beyond Recall, Out of the Sun, and Hand in Glove), you know that he specializes in setting up an impossible situation and then showing how it is in fact diabolically possible. Caught in the Lightis no exception.

When photographer Ian Jarrett, on assignment in snowy Vienna, meets and falls in love with a mysterious woman named Marian Esguard, the sex is terrific and their future back in England looks happy. Jarrett walks out on his wife and 15-year-old daughter and goes off to await his new lover. But she doesn’t show up, and Jarrett decides to track her down. In the process he unearths an out-of-this-world mystery: Marian may well be a ghost from the past (and a ghost with a grudge). That would certainly explain why none of the pictures of Marian come out. During the 19th century, a woman of the same name claimed to have discovered the techniques of modern photography, but she never received the credit for it.

Quickly–perhaps a little too quickly–other people appear on the scene to explain the unexplainable. There’s the London psychotherapist who has been treating Eris Moberly (the woman who calls herself Marian Esguard); there’s a slick financier with a shadowy background and unknown motives. But despite these secondary characters popping out of the woodwork, Goddard is a master craftsman: he lures us into his fun house expertly, then guides us through the dark tunnels, cackling madly. An added bonus is a reverence for the history of photography, which lights up the story.