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Unfazable York-based PI Cameron McGill has had it with matrimonial cases: married women digging for dirt on cheating husbands so that they can make their divorces more profitable. In the third instalment of the series, Cam swears she won't take on any more of these: then, a persistent, rich young woman makes her an offer she can't refuse. When the errant husband turns out to be transvestite 'Penny' Wilson, and his trail leads Cameron to a gruesome murder at the heart of Manchester's famous Gay Village, she finds herself investigating a new and far more dangerous case. It is made especially dangerous by Cameron's entanglement with the sylphlike Singaporean barmaid Lin Lee. Lin isn't at all impressed by Cam's tough exterior and unreconstructed views, and has a few secrets of her own. Entranced by Lin and entangled in the murder investigation, Cam must discover that not only Penny Wilson, but also everyone she meets has a second self and a hidden life. Whilst faithfully reconstructing the geography of the Gay Village, Roberts takes readers on an action-driven journey into Manchester's less familiar social spaces: the worlds of corrupt police forces and global organised crime. The characterisation of Cam and Lin seems to border on butch-femme, Sam Spade-Bridget Shaughnessy cliché, but in the book's denouément these are insightfully and humorously broadened. At the same time, knowing references to some of the more improbable and rigid tropes of the detective noir and James Bond genres show that Cam is well aware of the role she's playing. She shows that a Y chromosome doesn't invariably complement a hardboiled exterior, attraction to 'dangerous' glammed-up women, fear of commitment, and constant preference for a signature cocktail. "How come fictional heroes never have body functions?" Cam asks, "Or one of Charlie's Angels nipping behind a bush on some exotic island to change her tampon?" Maybe because idealised selves don't always match the real bodies we're given. Most writers' and readers' desires to transcend anatomy by escaping into books might not be very far away from Charles Wilson's escapes into the persona of his alter ego 'Penny.' Occasionally, Roberts plunges into polemic. As DEAD RECKONING is likely to reach only an already sane and enlightened audience, as far as the politics of gender and sexuality are concerned, this is preaching to the choir. Don't let it put you off, however. DEAD RECKONING is an exciting read, that happens to pack a lot of philosophical punch in between the action and amour.
Reviewed by Rebecca Nesvet, June 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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