Stuart Neville - Those We Left Behind

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good book, somewhat marred by cliché

Stuart Neville is a very good writer and this is a good crime novel, but I do have reservations about it.

We are introduced here to DCI Serena Flanagan, a police detective in Belfast.  This is billed as the first in a series featuring Flanagan and there is a lot of potential here, I think.  Flanagan has just returned to duty following treatment for breast cancer and finds herself embroiled in an old case following the release of two brothers who, as juveniles, killed their foster father.  The first two thirds of the book are generally very good, I thought.  Neville creates good characters and generates a fine atmosphere of menace and uncertainty.  There is also a good sense of place and a well-paced plot which kept me reading.

I struggled with the last section of the book, though, as it became more and more implausible.  Flanagan has a personal interest in the boys' case, as she does in the suspicious death of a friend who also has breast cancer.   To call this a Police Procedural would be stretching the description rather because Flanagan seems to have no concept of procedure whatever.  She constantly breaks rules, acts inappropriately toward suspects and colleagues, has gut feelings and insights which no-one else believes and (groan!) is eventually taken off the case by her imperceptive and defensive boss and forbidden to go near either case.  Have a guess whether she obeys.  Needless to say, Flanagan ends up Alone With The Killer In A Deserted Location And Only Narrowly Escapes (twice), after failing to follow any sort of procedure and certainly not calling for proper backup…and so on.  (I hope the fact that this is the start of a series featuring Flanagan means that her survival isn't too much of a spoiler.)

I'm afraid I ended up muttering "Oh, for heavens' sake" (at least, that was the gist of what I muttered) as the silliness and clichés mounted.  It's a shame, because Stuart Neville doesn't need to go over the top like this – he's easily good enough to write a very fine crime novel without overdoing things like this.  I have given the book four stars (3.5 rounded up, really) because there is a lot I did enjoy about it, but I hope Neville will calm down a bit in subsequent books and concentrate on the stuff he does really well without (for me) spoiling the stories with ridiculous cliché.  There is potential for a fine series here and I hope it develops as befits a fine writer like Stuart Neville.

(I received a free copy via Netgalley.)