Rating: 5/5
Review:
Intelligent and gripping
I enjoyed Gallowstree Lane very much. It had it’s little oddities,
but it’s a well written, thoughtful and gripping police procedural.
This is the third in
the series. I haven’t read the preceding two but it works fine as
a stand-alone book. It’s a story of gang activity in London,
including a murder, and of a major police operation to prevent guns
being delivered to a gang leader. The two investigations overlap
with conflicting interests and needs, which presents a genuine and
well-delineated problem for the protagonists.
It’s a cracking
story, told largely from the point of view of two female police
officers, Sarah and Lizzie, one in each investigation, and also of
Ryan, a very young gang member who becomes caught up in events which
are well beyond him. All are well painted, but it is Ryan’s story
and character which really makes this special; I found the picture of
him, his circumstances and his actions completely convincing and in
many ways sympathetic. It’s something we really need to understand
and Kate London really does show insight into this serious current
problem. The police procedure was also excellently done, with a
detailed understanding of the issues and plausible behaviour by the
officers (yes, really!) while still making it a gripping read.
I did have some
niggles. The personal life of Lizzie dominated to an unwelcome
extent, especially in the first part of the story. I know Kate
London needs to flesh out her characters, and the issues she raises
are very important, but it felt like a bolt-on intrusion, it was more
irritating than illuminating and for a while it got in the way of the
story quite badly. A street girl, far gone in crack addiction, takes
inspiration from her memories of Shakespeare plays (seriously?),
there is the odd over-ambitious simile and so on. For a while I
dithered between four and five stars, but there is so much good stuff
here and it became so good in the second half that it’s still a
five star book for me. It’s much more intelligent and well written
than many of the huge slew of crime novels around now, and I can
recommend it very warmly.
(My thanks to Corvus
for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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