Kicking the Air - Graham Ison

==Background:==

I had never heard of this author until a few weeks ago, when I noticed and read ‘Working Girl’. This I really enjoyed and as result I was keen to read another by this crime thrillers as soon as possible. Luckily for me I told a friend about this author and as if by magic they leant me this one to read, which was very kind of them.

==About the author:==

Graham Ison is an Englishman who spent ...
...spent the next 30 years at the Metropolitan Police. Including four years as a Protection Officer at 10 Downing Street. Since then he has become a full time author and so far he has written 27 successful crime based novels.

==Synopsis of the book:==

A young naked female’s body is fished out of the Thames near the Houses of Parliament. Detective Inspector Brock and his partner Dave Poole are called from the Serious Crime ... more

Background:

I had never heard of this author until a few weeks ago, when I noticed and read ‘Working Girl’. This I really enjoyed and as result I was keen to read another by this crime thrillers as soon as possible. Luckily for me I told a friend about this author and as if by magic they leant me this one to read, which was very kind of them.

About the author:

Graham Ison is an Englishman who spent his early working career as a soldier. Following this he spent the next 30 years at the Metropolitan Police. Including four years as a Protection Officer at 10 Downing Street. Since then he has become a full time author and so far he has written 27 successful crime based novels.

Synopsis of the book:

A young naked female’s body is fished out of the Thames near the Houses of Parliament. Detective Inspector Brock and his partner Dave Poole are called from the Serious Crime Group to investigate this suspicious death. As the woman is found with no identification (not surprisingly being naked!!) the first thing they must find out who this mysterious woman is.

Following the Post mortem, where it is confirmed she was strangled, her identity is discovered at last. When a friend reports her missing, as she has not turned up for the chorus line in the musical ‘Scatterbrain’. The Police need to try and piece together how this attractive lady, Patricia Hunter ended up murdered in the Thames.

Further investigation into her life reveals she was also working part-time as a Prostitute in a high-class ring. The Police must use her diary and address book and find her movements prior to her murder. This will entail interviewing, family; friends, clients and her ‘pimp’ if they can discover who he is. In an attempt to understand why she has murdered and by whom.

My thoughts on the book:

Overall this Police Investigation book gets the thumbs up from me. It was a good well-written story that was always leading in an interesting if not always correct direction. The balance was just right between the investigation and learning more about Brock’s in paricular private life. I always think this balance is important as you learn more about the person and their character this helps usually understand them better, plus it breaks up the story a little giving very often some light relief.

I enjoyed reading this book as I could see the investigation from the very start when the body was pulled out of the Thames till its conclusion. This included many twists and turns of the investigation with lots of dead ends to be travelled down in order to find the correct road.

What I particularly like about Graham Ison’s style of writing, which I also noticed in his previous work, too is he demonstrates how hard, slow and painstaking Police work can be, admittedly this does slow the pace of the story down though.

Unlike many crime author’s who seem to let their Detective’s either get most if not everything correct or they stumble upon a lucky break that helps them quickly solve the case. DI Brock never seems to have this luxury and from my perspective although slower and more methodical is also more realistic than most others.

As soon as I picked up the book and read the short summary on the inside cover, I thought I would enjoy this novel. I do like classic investigations, where the Police have little to go on initially and need to discover the truth via lots of painstaking groundwork on the victim, their life and their friends. To me it makes it such a challenge and really tests the investigating officer and his team to the limits.

I found the book very easy to get into because of the author’s relaxed but fascinating writing style. And although it did not seem that fast paced, the Police where in hindsight still rushing around trying to discover the truth. They did have to re-visit several witnesses to get the information correct. Maybe this was again realistic but it did make it drag a little, as I would have expected a good Policeman to ask all the right questions the first time round.

The story for me was the best bit about the novel, which I think it should always be. It was a case where it was not what it first appeared and only through deep and prolonged investigation would the truth be discovered. This again was not easy investigation and took time to resolve which again seemed to make it more realistic and honest.

For me the only real criticism I had with the book was it was similar in content to ‘Working Girl’, by this I mean again dealt with Prostitution. I do not have a problem with this it just would have been good if they could have been investigating a different type of theme.

The story I did find intriguing, as so much was needed to be discovered about Patricia Hunter’s life it was like the Police where working from scratch. And her life was shrouded in mystery. Unlike other Detective novels this for me did not have an exciting or even dramatic conclusion, it was more logical and even paced throughout.

Although this is my second Ison novel featuring DI Brock as the lead character I still haven’t decided if I like him as a character. He is a good Police Officer but for me he lacks the spark and that would help him solve the cases quickly, he is a plodder who seems to struggle with modern technology.

I do enjoy the interplay with his partner DS Poole, I like their cynicism and sarcasm both about their work and people they come into contact with. I just found their outlook to be refreshingly honest and I’m sure the author was drawing upon his experiences and knowledge of Police work.

The author is very good at making these two likeable Police officers appear human. Not only in the way they carry out their work but the honesty they display. They make bad and wrong decisions but they are honest enough to admit to themselves the mistakes they have made.

It was nice for a change to have a Police Officer whose love life was improving. In so many Detective novels they are usually have unhappy or non-existent home lives but it made a refreshing change to have one actually enjoying his relationship.

In this novel I enjoyed the mystery surrounding the character Bruce Phillips, he seemed to be involved in all parts of the story but very illusive. This made it quite exciting as you came to the conclusion he was indeed one of the characters already interviewed. But you wondered until the very end which one.

The length of the book was on the short side, but in that time the author had successfully written an interesting and well thought out story, without ever being gripping or earth shattering in it’s content. It even was long enough to tie up a few of the lose ends at the end, dealing with what happened at the conclusion to the trial which is always a nice bonus.

Conclusion:

This for me was an enjoyable, well-written crime novel. The story was always fascinating if a little slow in action and pace but the subject matter was always good. As such I recommend this book to all those readers who like an organised and thought provoking crime novel, if you want excitement this is probably not the one for you though.

Other information:

Pages: 218
Publisher: Severn House
Price: £12.53 (Hardback from Amazon new)
ISBN: 0-7278-6217-0
Year: 2005
About the author: www.grahamison.co.uk

Thank you for reading my review.

This review is published under my user name on both Ciao and Dooyoo.

@CPTDANIELS May 2009.
 

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