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BLACK RIVER is the second in the Frank Corso series, which began with the excellent FURY. Frank Corso is a reclusive writer and sometime journalist who lives on a boat in Seattle. In BLACK RIVER we find him appointed as the only authorised observer at the high security re-trial of a notorious businessman and thug, Nicholas Balagula. Balagula stands accused of a building scam which resulted in the deaths of 63 people, 41 of them infants, when a hospital he built collapsed during a very minor earthquake. The first trial failed when two key witnesses were found floating face-down in the sea and the jury could not deliver a result. Corso has established how the jury might have been tampered with, and now he's planning a book on the case. Amid the media hubbub on the first day of the trial Corso bumps into his former partner Meg Dougherty, and they arrange to meet for dinner. Unfortunately it's a date they are fated not to keep when a story Meg is investigating ends with her involved in a near-fatal car crash. Corso senses that there is a link between Balagula and Meg's accident, and between court sessions tries to figure out what she has been working on. Throw a couple of vicious hit-men and their victims into the mix, and stir well. BLACK RIVER is a highly enjoyable, intelligent and engrossing mystery thriller, crammed with interesting characters. I must admit I was sorry that, being incarcerated in hospital for most of the novel, Meg didn't play as large a part as she had in FURY, but Corso's scenes with one of the prosecution team whom he befriends, Renee Rogers, largely make up for it. Although this is essentially quite a dark book, there were some lovely moments of humour too. The writing seems effortless, and it's a pleasure to read this author at the top of his game. BLACK RIVER confirms GM Ford as one of my favourite writers and whilst I wait impatiently for the third and fourth in the series, A BLIND EYE and RED TIDE, to be published in the UK, I'm going to work my way through his earlier, and lighter, Leo Waterman series. If you haven't read him before, don't hesitate to give GM Ford a try -- he comes highly recommended.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, July 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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