Making Wolf by Tade Thompson

 

Weston Kogi is a supermarket store detective in London. When he returns to the country of his birth (Alcacia, a fictional West African state, inspired by Nigeria) for the funeral of his aunt, the woman who took care of him as a child and put him on a plane to London just as the country exploded into civil war and thus secured him a better life, he runs up against people from his past. The abusive father who always disliked and was ashamed of him, the boy who bullied him at school and made his childhood a torment, the girl he loved. 

It is Churchill “Church” Okita, the boy who bullied him at school, who has the biggest and most immediate impact. For he has heard that Kogi is a detective, mistaken his job title to mean he is a proper police detective and abducts him to press him into service investigating a real-life murder. Church is an enforcer for one of two main rebel groups, the Liberation Front of Alcacia (LFA) and they want to know who assassinated an elder statesman who was refereeing negotiations with the Government. Kogi begins his investigations out of necessity (he doesn’t want to be murdered if Church and the LFA discover the truth) but soon discovers he has an aptitude for the work.

It isn’t long before the other guerrilla group, the People’s Christian Army (PCA) get involved, as indeed does the government’s intelligence services and the plot of Making Wolf becomes a combination of gumshoe PI novel in a unique setting, political thriller, and satire about West African corruption.

Tade Thompson is a gifted writer of Nigerian descent. Making Wolf is his first foray into crime fiction (before this he’s written sci-fi) and the first novel of his that I’ve read. Making Wolf seems like the first on a new series and I really hope it is, as this was a thoroughly enjoyable read. A well-written novel with a cast of interesting characters, this is a great read.

4 out of 5 stars  

The Heights by Parker Bilal

 

When a severed head is found on a busy London Underground carriage, the investigation soon draws in private detective Cal Drake and his partner Dr Rayhana Crane. Drake is a disgraced former Met police undercover detective, while Crane has her own history in intelligence and psychological profiling for the police. It quickly becomes apparent that the head links back to the case that ruined Drake’s reputation and led him to leave the police. A subplot runs along with this main story, as the two PI’s investigate a missing student.

This is the first of Parker Bilal’s books that I’ve read (though I have a few on my ever-growing list of titles on my kindle, which wait for me to get around to reading) and is the second in the author’s Drake & Crane series. It can be read as a standalone and the author gives backstory when needed, but personally, I felt that I would have enjoyed this novel more had I read the first in the series,  The Divinities. That said, I did enjoy this novel and found it compelling.

At heart, The Heights is a gangland/undercover police novel, a sub-genre I tend to enjoy, though I suspect that The Divinities was even more so. Unlike some series, where each novel is a self-contained story, the main story in The Heights is a direct continuation from that of The Divinities. It’s not concluded in The Heights either, so will continue on into a third title. A sense of resolution is given by the subplot, but this series should be seen as akin to a drama such as The Wire or Breaking Bad, where the major story spans a number of titles. Personally, I like this style of storytelling, which makes me even keener to now read The Divinities (I have a copy on my Kindle) so that I can fully appreciate the third title when it comes out.

The Heights is a well-written story with a tight plot and compelling characters. I just have one criticism and it’s a personal bugbear of mine. The author refers not once, but three times, to female uniformed police officers as WPCs. The W for Women Police Constable was dropped a long time ago and female police constables, like their male counterparts, are known just as PC. Unless an author is writing a historical set novel, the use of WPC is just galling. The Heights is a contemporary set novel and so it’s wrong here.

That said, I really enjoyed this book and will make sure to read The Divinities prior to the next instalment so that I can get a fuller appreciation of the complex tale that the author has adeptly weaved.

3 out of 5 stars 

London's Armed Police by Stephen Smith

 

This is really a review of two books because London’s Armed Police follows on from the author’s earlier title (albeit released by a different publisher) Stop! Armed Police!: Inside the Met’s Firearms Unit. 

The earlier title related the history of the Met’s firearms unit, from foundation through an exhaustive recounting of each and every shooting incident and the unit’s repeated reorganisation, up to the date of publication (2013). London’s Armed Police takes up the story, detailing shootings, incidents, and the unit’s reorganisation since. This truncated timeframe (the earlier title covered the period 1966 to 2013, while this book covers 2013 to 2019) allows the author much more space to detail the tactics, training and weapons of the unit (always mindful of course not to divulge confidential details).

The earlier title discussed tactics and weaponry too, but this latter title has much more on this and of course details the contemporary unit’s kit and procedures. Like the previous title, London’s Armed Police is gorgeously illustrated with dramatic colour photographs which bring what might otherwise be a technical manual to life. Similarly, photographs are used to illustrate the accounts of police shootings, though only where appropriate and there are no gratuitous pictures of bodies.

This is a non-fiction history but it is not a dry account and the author knows his subject and brings it to life. Readers will come to this from a variety of perspectives. For some, the appeal will be simple interest in the subject. For others like myself, it will be more reference. As a journalist and a writer of crime fiction, I have an interest in armed police operations. Whatever the readers' motivation, this is a readable and well laid out account of the Met police firearms unit and one that is sure to not disappoint.

5 out of 5 stars  

Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad by Dick Kirby

 

Dick Kirby is a retired Metropolitan police detective who spent a large part of his service with the Serious Crime Squad and the Flying Squad. He joined the police in 1967 and while he writes true crime prolifically, much of his writing focuses on historical crime, the period from the forties to the seventies. There’s nothing wrong with that, but generally, my interests are more contemporary. 

This book traces the history of the flying squad from its formation just after the first world war to the present day. Due to my interests, it was the latter half of the title that I was more interested in, the late 1970s/early 1980’s onwards. 

This section of the book is well told and in particular, I liked the detail on some lesser told tales, such as the armed operation to bring down the Arif brothers. At one time the Arifs were seen as contenders to the crown vacated by the Kray and Richardson gangs, and it was feared they would dominate London. They had a taste for armed robbery however and while other leading gangsters were moving into drugs importation, they continued robbing security vans. It was thanks to this that the Flying Squad was able to bring them to book.

While the Arif operation only occupies a few pages, better-known stories such as the Brinks Mat investigation, the Millennium Dome diamond heist and Hatton garden, as well as other lesser-known stories, proliferate. The more famous operations are discussed in greater detail in books dedicated to those events, but Kirby’s title doesn’t aim to do this and instead offers a brief account of how the flying squad contributed to the investigation.

I did read the earlier chapters, but as mentioned it was the latter half of the book which really held my interest and the author does a good job of collating and summarising the events detailed. All in all, this was an informative read.

3 out of 5 stars  

Vintage Crime edited by Martin Edwards

 

This is an anthology of short stories by authors who are members of the Crime Writers’ Association and published by Flame Tree Press. Unusually for anthologies, this is a celebration of crime writing down the ages and so the stories are taken from across a span of time, from classic to more contemporary.

 

The stories vary in length too and cover the full gamut of genre – spy thriller, through noir, to locked door mystery – and place, from London to Egypt. There are some distinctly weirder stories too. All in all, there’s a good range here, and this is a great read that you can dip into and out of.

 

This is a great selection of stories, well selected and put together. They’re included in date order (earliest to latest) but the reader has to refer to the notes at the back to know this. I quite liked that because it meant you came to the stories without any preconceptions (unless you flicked to the back to check first, of course).

 

A great read and highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars

 

 

The Hunted by Gabriel Bergmoser

Simon is a middle-class young man who dreams of adventure and discovering the real, authentic Australia. He’s lived his life in comfortable suburbia and he wants to see the world as it is, outside of his privileged bubble. So he’s taken himself on a road trip, just him, driving across the outback. In a bar one night he meets Maggie, a young woman with secrets and a backpack full of cash. What she’s running from, or where she’s running to, is a mystery. Simon’s brain knows he should just walk away, but she’s attractive and his heart (or perhaps another part of his anatomy) stops him from doing so and he invites her along. 

They end up in a remote township (was it an accident? did Maggie lure Simon there?) and it is here that the novel takes a dark turn. I won’t give too much away, but this book has been compared to the horror films Wolf Creek and The Hills Have Eyes, so you kinda see where it’s going.

This is a novel told on two timelines which cross over somewhat. There’s before things go bad (the build-up), and then the after. In the latter, the survivors end up at a gas station run by Frank, a man with a past that might just rival Maggie’s. This is also a novel that’s demarcated almost straight down the fifty per cent mark. The first fifty-per cent of the novel is a slow, inexorable build-up of tension. This is achieved in both timelines, the before being the build-up, the after being the survivors at the gas station preparing for the final onslaught. Then at the fifty per cent mark, the author takes his foot off the brake in both timelines and utter mayhem ensues.

This is a brilliant, brilliant novel. It’s expertly plotted and crafted, while the characters have a real heft. In particular, Maggie, who’s akin to a female Rambo. Again, I’m wary of giving away spoilers, but this is one woman the bad guys will wish they had never crossed. 

I’m going to end this review before I give too much away, but I can’t recommend this book enough. If you like horror or thrillers, if you like a heroine who could give  Mad Max a run for his money, then this books is for you. 

5 out of 5 stars

 

To The Lions by Holly Watt

 

Casey Benedict is an investigative journalist at the Post, a broadsheet to rival the Times or Telegraph (the author is a former journalist who worked for The Telegraph). One night she overhears a conversation in a club which appears to indicate that rich and powerful men are travelling to somewhere in the third world to shoot refugees for sport. So begins her investigations. With her colleagues, Miranda and Ed, she finally firms up the story and locates it as occurring in Libya. They then have to try and get inside the network to expose it.

This is a novel that has been compared to Le Carré or Gerald Seymour, and I can see that comparison. It’s a story plucked from the headlines, at least as far as the refugee crisis is concerned (and the international corruption that goes with it) and could just as easily work with the protagonists being employed by the intelligence services. 

As it is, the author is a former foreign correspondent for the Telegraph and she clearly knows her stuff. I must declare an interest here, in that I too was a journalist for a good twenty years, albeit in current affairs television. While our paths never crossed (the author was a print journalist, while I was television production) I feel that we’re similar in having a love/hate relationship with our jobs. 

The author clearly believes in journalism at its best, and hence her heroes who save the day and expose dark deeds to sunlight are reporters. There’s perhaps a bit of wish fulfilment here as the Post has admirable funds, while the reality is that budgets aren’t what they once were. Finally, there’s a sense of disdain. Her hero Casey is willing to do whatever it takes to get the story, and while she's on the side of the angels (she’s no tabloid hack just after the latest celebrity tittle-tattle) she does grapple with the ethics of it and doesn’t always act admirably. I have a lot of sympathy with this, for I myself had similar conflicts of faith when working in television. Of course, this is all similar again to Le Carre and Seymore whose characters are often disgusted with the world of espionage and it’s grubby compromises.

To The Lions is a well-plotted novel and well worth a read. The author’s written a sequel and while the story in this novel is sown up for the most part, there are some satisfyingly unfinished threads. For example, not all the villains get their comeuppance. Personally, I don’t like a plot which ties up too neatly, so this is fine by me and I wonder if some of these will tick over into book number two?

4 out of 5 stars