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A pedophile kidnaps and rapes a 10 year old girl. His lawyer gets him off but when the girl's father tries to burn the offender out of his home, he is arrested and jailed. He hangs himself in his cell. DS Dennis Milne has become disgusted with the way the criminal justice system works. He sees himself as an avenger and kills criminals to order. The second time he hires himself out to get rid of some drug dealers, he finds he has been set up and the drug dealers are really two customs officials and an accountant. He's been paid £40,000 by Raymond Keen to do the job. Keen insists that the men were criminals. There was an eyewitness to the crime, but when she doesn't come forward immediately, Dennis worries a tiny bit less. When he gets home, his DI, Karl Welland, calls him out to the scene of a homicide. The body of an 18 year old prostitute has been found at the end of All Saint's Street near the Regent's Canal. Miriam Fox's pimp is arrested for the crime but Milne is not sure that he is responsible, so he keeps digging for the truth. Milne is a strange creature. He'll kill to prevent a criminal from going free but he will work this homicide to make sure the right man is punished. Apparently, other young prostitutes, some as young as 13, have disappeared. He feels he must avenge the children, but he also feels that Keen will soon come after him, because, it turns out, the witness at the scene of the shooting had recognized him and he has become a liability. This is a very gritty, realistic first novel. If the denouement was foreshadowed and the perpetrator easy to figure out, that might be because it IS a first novel. Kernick is worth a second chance.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, June 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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