Mark Roberts (11)

The first DCI Eve Clay book, Blood Mist, so captured my imagination when I read it in May that, as soon as I finished it, I ordered Dead Silent, the next book in the series.

It was an act of faith in a way. Part of what had made Blood Mist work so well was the skilful disclosure of the unique nature of Eve Clay's birth and childhood. Her history was central to the macabre violence of the plot. I couldn't see how that could be made to work twice and I wondered if the series might fall into a more mundane police procedural mode in the second novel.

Thankfully, I was right to trust that Mark Roberts would continue to deliver a powerful story with a distinctive blend of the macabre, the religious, the evil and the hopeful.

Dead Silent read like a fast-paced thriller rather than a plodding police procedural. The investigation into what turned out to be multiple murders was compressed into two very long days of action.

Eve Clay's background doesn't drive the plot this time but it is still relevant because it grants her the insight and the empathy to see past the gore and the chaos and start to make sense of the motives behind the violence.

This time, Eve Clay and her team are investigating the murder of a retired Professor of Art History whose corpse has been displayed like an art installation in his own home. It quickly becomes clear that the killers have gone to great lengths to reference depictions of Hell in paintings by Bosch and Breugal and that, somehow, the Tower of Babel is relevant.

At a slower pace, some of this might start to seem too bizarre to be real but Mark Roberts never slows down long enough for that to happen. He tells the story on a minute-by-minute basis that creates a sense of urgency by making every minute count. A chapter may cover as little as five minutes or as much as an hour but each chapter changed my view of what was happening and who was responsible and each chapter moved me forward relentlessly as Eve and her team uncover secret after secret and body after body.

I liked that most of the violence took place off-stage. Like Eve and her team, I was presented with the gory results of the killers' work. This didn't lessen the horror of what was being done but it prevented reading about it from feeling voyeuristic or exploitative.

Eve and her team felt quite real to me. None of them, not even Eve, are superheroes or geniuses. They work the problem relentlessly, as a team, and do their best to look after one another in the midst of all the nightmare-inducing bloodshed.

The book uses its Liverpool setting well. I recognised the places where the action unfolded and I liked the way both Cathedrals were pulled into the action.

The plot of Dead Silent is very clever without being tricky. I was constantly surprised or wrong-footed but each revelation made sense, even though I hadn't seen most of them coming. The tension in the book builds and builds. I hadn't intended to finish the book tonight but I stayed up longer just to see how it would all end.

I'm hooked now. I've already bought the third Eve Clay book, Day Of The Dead… (más)

In Liverpool bricht eine alte Frau auf der Straße zusammen und stammelt vor sich hin „Er ist abgeschlachtet worden“. Detective Eve Clay nimmt sich der Sache an und findet im Haus der Frau eine bizarre Inszenierung vor. Der Tote ist der Vater von Louise Lawson. Sein nackter Körperhängt an Ketten und er wurde aufgespießt. Stroboskoplicht illuminiert dieses absonderliche Arrangement. An der Wand fehlt ein Bild.
Diese beklemmende Atmosphäre zieht sich durch das ganze Buch. Es geht spannend und rasant zu, denn die Ermittlungen dauern nicht allzu lange.
Das entwendete Bild zeigt den Turmbau zu Babel, wie sich belad herausstellt, und hat ein ganz besondere Bedeutung für den Toten gehabt. Der Mann war Kunstprofessor, besonders die sakrale Kunst hat es ihm angetan. Aber in seinem Ruhestand lebt er mit der Tochter sehr zurückgezogen, sie haben nie Besuch. Wer könnte etwas gegen ihn haben, dass er einen so alten Mann so grausam tötet und zur Schau stellt? Louise legt auch einen seltsames Verhalten an den Tag. Aber ihr Vater hat sie auch nicht liebevoll behandelt. Mir ist unverständlich, dass sie nie versucht hat, ihr Leben zu ändern. Ich hatte ständig das Gefühl, dass sie etwas weiß, aber irgendetwas sie abhält, ihr Wissen preiszugeben. Die Spuren führen auch zum Refugium, wo Louise ehrenamtlich tätig war. Einer der Bewohner dort scheint ihr besonders an Herz gewachsen zu sein. Der Leiter dieses Heims ist ein unsympathischer Mensch, der wenig Empathie für seine Schützlinge zeigt.
Bei den Ermittlungen wird Eve von einer ganzen Reihe Mitarbeiter unterstützt, aber es fiel mir schwer, sie alle auseinander zu halten. Einzig Riley, die sich intensiv um Louise kümmert, blieb mir im Gedächtnis. Eve ist eine sehr sympathische Ermittlerin, der ein schlechtes Gewissen ihrer Familie gegenüber hat, weil sie beruflich so eingespannt ist. Zum Glück hat sie einen Mann, der das nicht übel nimmt.
Dieses Buch ist der zweite Band eine Reihe um die Ermittlerin Eve Clay, aber ich kenne den Vorgängerband nicht, was aber auch nichts ausmacht.
Wem grausame Details nichts ausmachen, dem wird dieses Buch gefallen. Es gibt einige Psychopathen, deren kranke Gedanken und Taten wir erleben dürfen. Einiges ist vorhersehbar, aber das fulminante Ende hat dann doch noch Überraschungen zu bieten. Ich konnte einiges nachvollziehen, aber nichts ist zu entschuldigen.
Ein spannender, aber auch grausamer Thriller.… (más)

Killing Time by Mark Roberts
DCI Eve Clay #4

Coming into a series on book four left me wondering about a few things BUT the premise for the book sounded intriguing so I went for it. I have read the blurbs for the first three books, signed up for the book release blog tour, have, read promotional material and it all became a bit clearer when I finished researching. That said, my gut feeling is that someone coming into the series on book four might feel a bit lost and out of the loop not knowing Eve or her team all that well. Many names of colleagues and a few snippets about them as well as support characters is shared and half my notebook had names with job descriptions by it. My gut feeling is that the book could have been pared down a bit either by condensing the interviews that are predominately “no comment” or perhaps in some other little ways.

I hate to give away plots or steal the stories secrets and this one is full of twists, turns and surprises. The bad guy might not be who you think it is and the good guys might be a whole lot less good than you think. What is propelling the murders and violence doesn’t come out till the end even though the assumption is that the crimes are hate crimes based on race with some feeling superior to others as they are whiter than those they do away with.

There are some VERY sick and disturbed people in this book and I am not sure how they became that way…even knowing would not make what they did make sense, though.

If you are looking for a well plotted, action-packed, mystery that is solved through police working hard and following procedure then this book might be for you. Sometimes I say I would like to have the characters in the book as friends…can’t say that about this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars… (más)