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Down-on-his-luck PI Joel Sorrell lives in London in a flat containing books and not a lot else. He's haunted by the memories of his murdered girlfriend and thoughts of his missing daughter, prefers the company of his cat to most humans and spends his days sticking cheap business cards in London phone boxes. One night he's approached by a strange young woman calling herself Kara Geenan who is desperate to find her missing brother. That same night someone tries to kill him, and that sets the scene for the next few weeks of Sorrell's life as he is forced to look back at his distant past to find out who is holding such a monumental grudge while at the same time, trying to keep himself and his friends alive. Meanwhile there's a serial killer going around slicing open women and stealing their heads, and the police and Sorrell will keep tripping over each other.... This is a labyrinthine plot with many twists and a cast of what feels like thousands. It's easy to forget who's who, especially as some characters can't be trusted to be who they say they are. The so-called hero is a slightly pathetic character, so that sympathy tends to be elicited from the reader instead of any real concern for his well-being. Half the time he doesn't seem to care about his own life, the other half he's running across the city trying to save it. The killer's motives are somewhat clearer, if incredibly unlikely and slightly insane, but it's frustrating that the author never makes it clear who the mysterious woman behind these crimes actually is or what her reasons for pushing the killer are. She could just as easily be a guardian angel as a figment of the imagination of at least two damaged psyches. Despite these flaws, and despite feeling twice its actual length, the dry, often black humour in the narrative makes this book very readable. The author creates an enticing, if dark, miserable, and at times implausible world into which it's surprisingly easy to be drawn, even if it's somewhere no right-minded person would ever wish to be. § Madeleine Marsh is an aspiring author who lives in the South West. She helps run sci-fi conventions and loves modern cinema.
Reviewed by Madeleine Marsh, April 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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