A Song From Dead Lips
"The thrill-a-minute climax is satisfying in every way, making this book not just a police procedural, but a high-powered thriller."
Synopsis:
It is 1968, and a young woman is found strangled and dumped in St John's Wood, a well-off district of London. A black doctor lives close by, so, because of his colour, he is the prime suspect. Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen and Detective Constable Helen Tozer investigate. Unpopular in the station because he had recently ran off and left a colleague to face a knife-wielding thief alone, Breen initially finds it hard going. But the young woman is identified and gradually a picture emerges. A picture that takes in the Biafran war, corruption, racism, homophobia, sexism and even Beatlemania.
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Review:
We're in 'Life on Mars' territory here, though we are in 1968, not 1973. The police are, in many ways, morally corrupt. Helen Tozer, being a woman, is not welcome in the CID, especially when investigating a murder. To lend authenticity, derogatory words of those times are used to express the colour of people's skin. It's powerful stuff, and though the words may offend nowadays, they were indeed casually bandied about in the late 1960s, so they do have their place in this narrative. Breen is a complicated character, and this novel is the first in a proposed trilogy. In swinging London, he feels like an outsider, as he is Irish. He is also bewildered by the changes to society that are going on around him, but he is also determined, clever and resourceful. The big difference between this book and 'Live on Mars' is that Sam Tyler took with him all the correctness of the twenty first century. Breen and Tozer, however, are of their time, and they too have their prejudices. Even Tozer, who resents the sexism of some of her colleagues, indulges in casual racism. The action shifts between London, Devon, and Suffolk. The identity of the murderer – and the motive – is totally unexpected, though inevitable. The thrill-a-minute climax is satisfying in every way, making this book not just a police procedural, but a high-powered thriller.