Customer Reviews

Blind Fury

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

 

 

In this sexually charged thriller Detective Inspector Anna Travis, finds herself leading the investigation of the murders of three women whose bruised and raped bodies had been dumped in a field close to the M1, the major thoroughfare between London and Manchester. All the girls had the same MO and no DNA had been left at the scene.
Carefully piecing together the clues, digging up dirt in places the former investigator missed, Travis has to work carefully not to antagonize the crew she was working with as well as keeping her former lover, and now boss, at arm's length. The evidence mounts and they run into increasing dead end after dead end until a letter arrives from Cameron Welsh, a prisoner who Travis previously helped put away for sexual homicide. Welsh is kept under close surveillance in a top security wing at Barfield Prison in Leeds.
Welsh claims to have information to help solve the murders. Is this just a bored prisoner looking for sexual kicks of his own or does he really have knowledge on the subject that will help another young lady from meeting a similar fate?
During her trips to Barfield Prison, Travis is subjected to all manners of disgusting tirades from Welsh, who does however, prove to be useful in some of the scenarios he poses, and at the same time Travis falls hard for the young prison guard Ken Hudson. In the process of falling head-over-heels for the guard, she finds evidence which suggests that perhaps he may be involved in the disappearance of the murdered girls.
This tear-away thriller will keep you awake at night, prying your closing eyes open with toothpicks, to get to the next clue. Definitely a rip-roaring, can't-put-it-down read.
Blind Fury

Detective Anna Travis has a serial killer on her hands. Someone is targeting prostitutes and killing them. The latest victim was found naked and by a truck stop. Anna and the rest of her unit have tried everything to identify the woman but she is a Jane Doe. With the trail growing cold, Anna's boss is feeling the pressure to crack the case and soon. So when opportunity presents itself to Anna in the form of an offer from inmate, Cameron Welsh offering to help Anna track the killer, she can not pass up the invitation.

I had high hopes for this book and it did have glimmer of brilliance but it was far and between for me. I found Anna frustrating. I kept yelling at her to wake up and grow some, you know what. For instance, when she was interviewing a gal that she knew was lying, she just took the woman's word and left. Later when she and another detective were talking, she said that she bet that the gal threw away the suitcase after I left. If Anna believed that the woman had the suitcase, than why did she not sit in her car and wait for the woman to toss it and than go through it? Another instance: Anna went back to the woman later and once again questioned her, the gal shock an article of the victim's clothing in her face and Anna did not ask to look at it. She just apologized and left. In addition, there was a lot of dissecting about why the killer would target prostitutes but not a lot of action going on. Sadly, this book was just middle of the road for me.

Blind Fury
Lynda La Plante

Detective Inspector Anna Travis is brought on to the team investigating the death of a young girl. Soon it becomes apparent in comparing past murders with the same MO that the team is caught up in the pursuit of a serial killer, who has raped and murdered at least 2 young Polish girls and one older woman.

This very well written, multifaceted story, with pages of plot description rather than insipid dialogue is what I liked most about the author's style. The reader follows the team and Anna as they unravel scant clues by hard rigorous police work to find the person responsible for these hideous crimes. Although the plot deals with violent deaths, there is no unnecessary violence for violence sake, just descriptions of past killings.

La Plante has the talent to convey Anna's feeling about all the characters we are introduced to. This creates three-dimensional real life characters that move the story along. The police characters are hard, gritty and determined to find the killer. The serial killers are antagonizing and sinister. The psychological games they play foreshadow catastrophic events. The investigating team using Cameron Welsh instead of an official profiler, causes continual tension. He is a prisoner locked in a top security facility for his past sexual homicides. He also harbors a fixation on DI Travis since meeting her at his arrest.

Anna is at the point in her life that she is living her job 24/7. She has no friends outside work and of course no romance in her life to interfere with this 24/7 routine until midway into the story.

It's a joy to read a book with such exquisite writing and plotting that keeps you turning the pages well past bedtime.

Several of Lynda La Plante's books have been translated to the television and make for absorbing viewing. Judging by this book, the scriptwriters deserve awards. The writing is wooden and the pacing is laborious. An unnecessary and highly contrived subplot is bolted onto the side with a predictable outcome. It feels as though the writing has been churned out according to a formula: mechanical and lacking in humanity, humour and credibility. Not in the same game, let alone the same league, as Peter Robinson, Reginald Hill, Ian Rankin or Colin Dexter.

This is another brilliant mystery from LaPlante (of Prime Suspect fame). Anna Travis makes a wonderful
lead charcter, and as a lover of British police procedurals, I would rate this one right up at the top.
Can't wait to read all her others.

Detective Inspector Anna Travis has a new case. A young woman was raped, strangled, murdered, and then thrown into a field a service station on the M1 outside London. Three more cold cases are linked to the murder, victims of a serial killer, but something is off. DI Travis can feel it and so can her boss Detective Chief Supervisor Langton, her ex-lover.

The man in their sights works for Swell Blinds. John Smiley is all that he seems and more. No one has a bad word to say about him and he is very cooperative in the investigation when brought in for questioning about his work van parked in the lot at the time of the murders and caught on CCTV.

Although, Smiley looks too good to be true, Langton has a feeling they have the right man. The problem is they have nothing to tie Smiley to the women except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Feelings aren't enough to go on. That's why Langton was willing to send Anna to Barfield Prison to interview a serial killer she helped catch.

Cameron Welsh is obsessed with Anna and she doesn't believe Welsh has anything to add to their case. Anna follows orders and interviews Welsh several times. Beneath the arrogance, Welsh knows more than he says and he continues to dangle the bait to draw Anna closer, and she comes closer than she cares to come to trap Smiley.

Cameron Welsh tells Anna Travis that no matter how careful a murderer is, there's always a witness, which provides one of the main themes in Lynda La Plante's latest thriller, Blind Fury. Witnesses pop up all through the novel and La Plante uses them to good effect.

At first glance, it seems as though Welsh is Hannibal Lecter to Anna's Clarisse Starling, but the comparison doesn't hold. Welsh doesn't have Lecter's calm and pointed clarity nor is Anna the willing student anxious to climb the ladder of success. Anna also lacks Clarisse's intuitive read on Welsh's character. Where Lecter is helpful and shares information that is helpful, Welsh is frustrated and frustrating, using the interviews as mental masturbation. La Plante is unable to continue the polished characterization used to such telling effect by Thomas Harris in Silence of the Lambs and loses her grip, much as Welsh loses his grip when he discovers Anna is interested in another man. Welsh witnesses Anna with one of his guards, Ken Hudson, a buff blond guard studying to be a child psychologist.

Where La Plante fails to hit the mark is in the sudden intense relationship between Anna and Ken, moving from tentative first date to sex to marriage in less than three dates. Anna, who has always been obsessed with her work and is an orphan, is too anxious to move forward after her failed relationship with Langton, and jumps into sex and marriage with determined effort. The minor hitches along the way where Anna suspects Ken might be involved in the murder fail to ring true and look like attempts to throw a few roadblocks that never actually work. They are as quickly disposed of as is Anna's single-minded career track, coming off as desperation rather than head over heels love at first glance. It simply does not work.

Where La Plante excels is in detailing the minutiae of a murder investigation, going over and over the same ground mining for bits of information. Blind Fury is a template for how murder investigation are run and the time consuming work done by the officers--and the reader at times. The attention to detail does pay off as Anna gets the killer and finds out how all the murders are committed since the murderer is only too happy to lay out the details.

Blind Fury is less a thriller and more a police procedural, with the emphasis on the procedure. The relationships between co-workers and the main characters is less detailed and there is no ticking clock, although budgetary cuts are mentioned a couple of times. La Plante knows the turf and describes it well, providing an excellent manual on how to proceed in a cold case investigation. The human element is less important than the facts and there Blind Fury succeeds beyond all expectations.

I impatiently wait for each new Anna Travis mystery. This one had it's good and it's bad. I couldn't understand a secure prison set up that let the prisoners do the ruling.

I knew what was going to happen in the end was going to happen way before it finally got to that part. I guess our heroines are just not to find happiness.

For years I have enjoyed Ms. LaPlante's books, but I found this book disappointing. Her constant use of the word "as" was irritating. Normally her work is crisp and enjoyable, this book was not up to her usual standards.

An unknown female corpse is found at a gas station off the M1. The victim was raped before being murdered. Detective Inspector Anna Travis and her unit lead the investigation that appears to have been committed by the same predator that raped and murdered another unidentified woman and prostitute Margaret Potts.

Vile killer Cameron Welsh, who Anna put away years ago, sends her a note insisting he can help her solve the apparent serial killer case. She doubts he has anything useful to offer and prefers not to visit this odious beast; but Anna decides to see what the imprisoned predator has to offer as the investigation is going nowhere including the inability to identify the dead. Meanwhile her former lover Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton takes charge of the complex inquiry.

The latest Anna Travis British police procedural (see Silent Scream and Deadly Intent) is an excellent investigative tale, but not for readers who prefer story lines faster than the speed of light. Instead Blind Fury provides an incredibly detailed and profound methodical whodunit. Travis holds the investigation together as the prime focus of the plot; fans will recognize she has matured professionally to the point where she leads, but her personal life remains shaky at best as she makes poor choices.

Harriet Klausner

I have enjoyed a number of Lynda La Plante books, but this is the first Anna Travis tale I have read. I am not sure how she came across in the preceding books but in the first half of this volume, Anna certainly does not seem to be very likeable! She is the archetypal angry young woman who seems to be irritated, furious or annoyed at regular intervals. It did occur to me that perhaps the book is named for Anna's disposition! I was more than grateful when she seemed to cheer up a bit as her irritation was beginning to irritate me.

A third of the way through I was thinking that this was a pretty run of the mill whodunit. Let's face it, the police on the trail of a serial killer is almost an established genre in its own right these days and has become something of a cliché. There must be a new offering published each week, mostly complete with the tenacious but damaged cop hot on the trail - I guess Anna would qualify as the latter. However, the plot is generally well thought out, and despite a few obvious plot holes, the whole story does become quite gripping as the story proceeds and Anna thinks she has her man, but has trouble pinning it on him.

The climax was not without its surprises, but I did feel the casework became rather plodding towards the end with everyone going through the motions and it all seemed to lack any sparkle. Overall I found this a reasonably good read, if not really a page turner. However, I think stretching it out to 500 pages spread the material a bit thin and it would have been better condensed somewhat.