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Amongst the many things I dislike, two things that rank very highly are prologues and cover blurbs that give away major plot point, and unfortunately, TRUST NO ONE has both, but in spite of that, the book managed to both claim and keep my attention, mainly due to a reasonably well-drawn and likeable main character.
Marie Donovan is a police officer specialising in deep cover operations where she has to live and work among the criminals she is attempting to get close to. But on this occasion she takes getting close to extremes, and ends up in an affair with Jake Morton, an informer due to give evidence against Jeff Kerridge, a major criminal operating in and around Manchester. The book starts with Donovan having to make a hasty exit from Morton's flat, leaving him in the hands of three people who obviously haven't just called around for a nice cup of tea. No surprises there, however, as the back cover clearly states that Morton gets murdered.
Alex Walters builds a nice picture of Donovan's undercover work in a print business, with the hapless Darren who can't seem to perform even the simplest task without supervision and the more competent Joe Maybury, another man who Donovan starts to get close to, even though she is already struggling to maintain a relationship, hampered by the constraints of her job, with Liam, an artist suffering the onset of multiple sclerosis. Donovan has an equally difficult time with Hugh Salter, her supervisor for undercover operations, but not someone with whom she feels particularly comfortable.
There are times when TRUST NO ONE veers dangerously close to defining its main character almost wholly by her relationships with a procession of different men and the total lack of other female characters is noticeable. The narrative often jumps back in time to establish the circumstances leading up to Donovan's affair with Jake Morton and in many ways I think the book would have done better to have told the story in a more linear fashion, without telegraphing major plot points from the outset, as there was always an element of being wise after the event that detracted from any tension that might otherwise have been built up.
Whilst some of the developments in the story were not wholly surprising, the closing stages of the book were a good mix of tension and action, and in TRUST NO ONE Walters has produced a competent start to what is clearly intended to be a series.
§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, September 2011
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Contact: Linda Wilson (ljw@reviewingtheevidence.com), Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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