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Set in North London, LAST BOAT TO CAMDEN TOWN is the second book in the series featuring Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy. As the book opens, a canalboat is leaving the moorings in Camden Town when one of the workers hears a loud splash. When he returns to the scene later, he discovers the body of a young doctor named Eddie Berry. Eddie is devoted to his family and has done a superb job at the hospital where he works, with the exception of one incident involving a misdiagnosis which led to death. Did that death prey on his mind so much that it would lead him to commit suicide? The investigation leads Kennedy and his team into the lives of Berry's young family. Kennedy is convinced that Berry would never have left his wife, Sheila, and their son willingly, as they had a strong, loving relationship. He also ventures into the background of the wrongly-diagnosed patient, Susanne Collins, and finds enough anger about what happened to Susanne to begin to wonder if a family member may have taken vengeance on Dr Berry. Then again, he's not exactly getting straight answers from the hospital staff about what happened to Collins either. Kennedy is presented as a mild-mannered, gentle man who works with the men reporting to him as a corroborative team. He is painted as being different from the typical detective inspector, without the aggression typical of that position and rather oversensitive in his reactions to the after-effects of a crime. In my view, this severely diminished the character. He came across as having no backbone and did not show the kind of leadership skills necessary to inspire action. The same was true in his personal life. He meets a spirited journalist by the name of ann rea and finds himself falling in love with her. She attempts to maintain the facade that they are 'just friends'. Kennedy never takes any initiative in the relationship and waits for ann rea to make all the moves. At the same time, he confides all the details of the investigation to her. The whole thing drove me to distraction, starting with the artifice of the lack of punctuation for her name. Generally speaking, police procedurals have a bit of an edge. LAST BOAT TO CAMDEN TOWN was almost a cozy, with no true grit to speak of. Between the blandness of the lead character and the predictable plot, I found that the book was just not my cup of tea.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, October 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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