Customer Reviews

Angels Passing (Di Joe Faraday)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First Line: For months afterwards, awake and asleep, Faraday dwelt on that final second and a half.

D.I. Joe Faraday is investigating the death of Helen Bassam, a fourteen-year-old girl who fell to her death from a Portsmouth tower block. When the body of a drug dealer is found hanging from a tree, the head of the Major Crimes Squad pulls in all the manpower he can get his hands on, and Faraday is scrambling to hang onto what little he's got.

The case sends Faraday directly into Portsmouth's bleak underworld of wrecked families and children cast adrift. On the trail of a ten-year-old boy who may hold the key piece of evidence in Helen's death, Faraday finds himself in the middle of a crisis much closer to home.

Graham Hurley is one of the best writers of police procedurals in the world today. He brings "Pompey" (Portsmouth, England) to life from the industrial sector to the enclaves of the rich, from the slums to a wide variety of non-human wildlife.

Joe Faraday is a single father whose deaf son has been a challenge to raise. To de-stress from fatherhood and crime, he goes for long walks to watch birds. (Every good copper has to have at least one thing to help him cope, eh?) But Faraday and the reader is never far away from the crime, and in this case-- which deals so closely with broken homes and children living on the streets-- the crime is often heartbreaking.

Hurley's series is one of my favorites, not just for the strong plots, but for the strong sense of place and a cast of multi-faceted, evolving characters. More interesting if read as a series, it's not necessary. Each book stands strongly on its own. One of these days I'm going to get my ex-Royal Navy husband (who was stationed in Portsmouth) to read one of these Joe Faraday novels. Something tells me he's going to enjoy them as much as I do.

Graham Hurley is a new find. His series (6 books to date) features DI Joe Farraday. The stories are complex, the characters are well-drawn, and the location, Portsmouth, is a bit different than the bucholic Yorkshire or gritty London, the scenes of many procedurals. Hurley's books can be favorably compared with those of Stuart Pawson, John Harvey, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Mark Billingham, and Peter Robinson. I read the series in order of publication, but I believe that they each stand well on their own.

I am slowly and with great pleasure going through this marvelous series. Graham Hurley is one of the best practitioners of the police procedurals today. This gritty, fabulous series is perfect, so far. The city of Portsmouth, is as troubled as most of the British cities are these days. Broken families, drug use, overworked and dispirited police force. It all seems almost hopeless, but people still live, love and hate, kiss and kill,or all of the above. Such an amazing pleasure. Hard, but ultimately immensely rewarding read.

Yet another I am torn between a 2 or 3 star rating! A 14 year old is found dead from either jumping or being pushed from a tower block. A drug dealer is found dead hanging from a tree and so the investigations begin. The story started off fine however I found it had loads of characters in it and two of the officers had similar names (both begining with W) so that was both confusing and off putting. I found it really hard to connect with the characters and kept mixing up who was who.

There is a lot I felt in the story that wasn't required and was more padding than offered any substance to the story. Had it been half as thick it might have been much easier to read and more enjoyable. You are also left with some unanswered questions and one in particular to the 14 year old girl which really urked me. The last few chapters really picked up and most of the story came together but by that point I was almost at giving up so a 2/5 for me.

This was my first time reading this author and it wouldn't put me off trying another as I have read some really positive reviews for this story, I think it must just be another marmite book.

This book is a very detailed description of the huge resources expended by the police to catch the killer of a small-time thug that no one will miss. There are absolutely no characters in this book (other than the series regulars) for whom the reader can feel sympathy or admiration. The victim is universally scorned and despised, even by other hoodlums. The young girl who is killed falling from a roof is also very hard to care about. I found myself wondering why the police would bother launching such a huge investigation when basically it's thugs killing thugs. The story provides an excruciating level of detail about every aspect of the investigation. But since the reader has no emotional investment in the characters, it's hard to care about the outcome.