Rating: 4/5
Review:
A good crime novel
I thought this was a good police thriller. It is well written and its setting in Kyrgyzstan is very well done.
It is the setting which sets this book apart from the ordinary. Tom Callaghan creates an excellent sense of place in the bleak winter in Central Asia, and his depiction of the corrupt, almost lawless society which his central character is trying to police is excellent. He also gives a very good view of the politics of the region but does it without lecturing, weaving it into the plot so you hardly notice you're being informed about relations between neighbouring countries and ethnic groups.
Callaghan's prose is very good. He creates a very good atmosphere and believable characters, and he drives the plot along very well. The plot itself has plenty of very familiar features: hideously butchered women, a decent cop (with, naturally, a Personal Tragedy in his past) trying to conduct a truthful investigation in the face of official corruption and obstruction, drug gangs, political involvement... You get the idea. It is saved by the quality of the writing and the setting, although I hope that Tom Callaghan will ease up a little on the graphic violence against women in future novels; I thought it bordered on the gratuitously sensational at times.
Small reservations notwithstanding, this is a good, well written police thriller which kept my attention throughout and left me with a very haunting sense of the setting. I will certainly read the next in the series, and I can recommend this.
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