Rating: 4/5
Review:
A very enjoyable thriller
I enjoyed this book very much. When the sequel to a successful first novel turns out to have over 500 pages I always worry that the author has become self-indulgent and that it will be turgid and over-long, but not in this case. The pace is quite slow for large parts of the book, but I really liked that: Verdon writes very well and drew me into both his developing story and his characters very successfully. He writes with insight and a rather biting wit occasionally and I found the prose elegant and very easy to read. (I don't think you need to have read Think of a Number first, by the way.)
The plot, while having the elements of implausibility one would expect from a book in this genre, hangs together and is believable with a bit of good will. It is extremely well told and, for me, excellently paced. Looked at coldly in retrospect it is loaded with the clichés of the genre: the retired detective with a strained marriage lured into one last case, the chalk-and-cheese partners, the Tense Climax and so on, but they are so well done and intelligently handled that I hardly noticed them as clichés while reading. The only cliché which did irritate me was the old Detective Under Threat thing, which added nothing to the plot, didn't rack up the tension as intended and was a wholly unnecessary distraction. However it was only a minor flaw in an otherwise very enjoyable thriller which is several cuts above the average and, in my view, rather better than its predecessor. Warmly recommended.
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