Rating: 4/5
Review:
very good
Denise Mina is an excellent writer of crime fiction. This is a move into Real Crime in a
semi-fictionalised form, and she does this very well, too.
The Long Drop is an account of the crimes of Peter Manuel
who, in 1957, was a serial rapist and murderer in Scotland. It is firmly rooted in known fact: the
excellent trial scenes are based on court records, of course, and are intercut
with some of the events, in necessarily fictionalised form, which led to Manuel
being caught and convicted. Mina, as
always, creates vivid, believable characters whose psychologies and thought
processes are credible and often very insightful. She is a little free with speculation in
places – in stating that William Watt paid to have his wife murdered, which was
never established, for example – but it is generally an accurate and very
gripping account.
Mina's prose style is spare and matter-of-fact, which makes
the horror of some of the crimes even more stark and real. There is a slight feel of Truman Capote's In
Cold Blood about some of the book – which is high praise. The atmosphere of 1950s Glasgow
is very well evoked, and I found the whole thing an involving, if rather
repellent, read.
For me, this didn't quite have the gripping brilliance of
some of Mina's previous fiction, but it is still a very good book which I can
recommend.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
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