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JUMPING THE CRACKS
by Victoria Blake
Orion, November 2007
320 pages
18.99 GBP
ISBN: 0752874616


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I really don't know what it is about Victoria Blake's series featuring Oxford PI Sam Falconer. Four books into the series and I'm finding the screwed-up heroine and her dysfunctional family pretty tiresome, but for some reason I keep reading. And JUMPING THE CRACKS turns out to be a page-turner.

My first thought as to why this is the case is that this time out we're spared most of the fairly ghastly Falconer clan. Repressed stiff upper-lip mum is off with an elderly relative. Brother Mark is in France after his ordeal in the previous book. And as usual Sam has no idea where dad is. So that leaves Sam and stepfather Peter. The pair have had a difficult relationship over the years, but they seem to rubbing along pretty amicably here.

The book has a clumsy first scene as the reader is told, by way of some horribly clunky dialogue, why Sam and her now business partner Alan are setting up shop in Oxford as well as their London base. Basically, they need the dosh as the tax man is on Sam's tail after she neglected all her business paperwork while brother Mark was seriously ill.

So Sam takes a job doing night-time security in the Pitt Rivers museum where the head honcho is convinced someone is breaking in. It looks like easy money, apart from having to share the night shift with creepy shrunken heads in the display cabinets. And she also has to contend with a new companion in the form of Chihuahua Pip, left in her not totally loving care by mysterious chap Norman.

JUMPING THE CRACKS is a mix of Sam dealing with her demons from the past (wow, she's even talking to her shrink now!) and her clearing up two plot threads which are just a bit too neat.

The books have always worked better when Sam is in Oxford, and this one is no exception, aided by some neat cameo roles including the little old dears in the judo group and the university college staff (many of whom, I suspect, are based on truth!) Alan, a character who's never fulfilled his potential in the books, has other things on his mind with the release of a psychotic older brother from prison.

If only Blake could spare us some intrusive and highly unconvincing sex scenes and continue to tone down the lead character's foibles, I might find myself warming even further to this bizarre but strangely compelling series!

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, December 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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