8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One Tough London Copper, October 23, 2008
Lynda La Plante is well known to mystery/suspense readers. Her BBC television series, PRIME SUSPECT, ran for seven seasons and starred award-winning actress Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. In addition to being an actress herself and writing movie and television scripts, La Plante has written several stand-alone and series novels.
The author's latest book, CLEAN CUT, is the third in her Anna Travis series. RED DAHLIA and ABOVE SUSPICION. I hadn't read either of the previous books, but I had no problem diving into this one regarding backstory. La Plante delivers well-developed characters with a tremendous amount of internal conflict. What I needed to know about the two primary characters, Anna and her lover Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Langdon, was quickly supplied, and I was immersed into the new problems that faced them as a couple and as police officers.
After a rather slow-paced launch at the start of the book, though deep in character complications, Anna starts questioning her relationship with Langdon. She's gotten irritated at the way she seems to have turned from lover to caretaker for him, all without appreciation. Then she gets the phone call that turns her life inside out: Langdon was attacked at his latest crime scene. She's told that even if he lives, Langdon will probably never walk again.
The book centers at the outset on the test of the two wills of Anna and Langdon. She wants to help, but he's so cynical and bitter that she can barely stand to be around him. Not only that, but she finds out that Langdon is going behind her back to get information about the man that attacked him. Anna fears that Langdon is engaging in a vendetta that will land him in trouble with the law. If the wheelchair doesn't get Jimmy Langdon, it looks like prison will.
I liked the characters a lot because they have obvious history and "feel" real. I hated the way Langdon treats Anna, but I totally understood where Langdon's mind is while in the hospital. People in situations like Langdon's strike out at those that love them because those people are the only ones willing to put up with them. This bitterness spreads throughout the novel as Anna's own murder case suddenly intersects with the investigation Langdon was pursuing when he was nearly killed.
La Plante uses the novel to point out how vulnerable countries are these days. Transient populations drift through major cities, like London in this novel, and bring a lot of danger and crime because that's a big part of what those people have to rely on for employment. The presentation of La Plante's views may be unsettling for some, but there's now denying the existence of the problem.
The book remains steady throughout, and its solid police work that breaks the cases wide open and connects them. There are no car chases, martial arts battles, or shootouts. The action La Plante relays in her pages is propelled by emotion and the reader's driving curiosity to find out what's going to happen next. The author has a great ear for dialogue, and her police characters talk the way those people do, in rough vernacular tinged with black humor.
CLEAN CUT is a good book, but it's made even better by the stress on Anna and Langdon's relationships. The final few pages will come as a shock to some. And it will leave readers wondering what's going to happen for Anna in the next book.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
superb English police procedural, September 30, 2008
This review is from: Clean Cut: An Anna Travis Mystery (Anna Travis Mysteries) (Paperback)
In London Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Langton interrogates prime murder suspect Somali expatriate Idris Krasiniqe. The illegal immigrant claims two gang members were involved in the killing of teenaged prostitute Carly Ann North. Jimmy questions the two when one of them stabs him with a machete. The cop is lucky to be alive.
Jimmy's lover and subordinate Detective Inspector Anna Travis helps him physically recover, but mentally he wants revenge by bringing his attacker, alleged to be drug dealer Clinton Camorra, to jail. Meanwhile Anna investigates the slashing murder of librarian Irene Phelps; sex offender Arthur George Murphy confesses. When his sister Gail Sickert and his infant niece are murdered and two other relatives vanish, Anna thinks voodoo practitioner Camorra is the culprit in all the crimes.
With Jane Tennison taking a needed breather, Lynda La Plante turns to her other tough yet vulnerable heroine (see THE RED DAHLIA and ABOVE SUSPICION). Anna Travis is a terrific lead character who holds the extremely complex police procedural story line together. She accomplishes this remarkable feat in spite of several major fascinating subplots and the strong stance on illegal immigration that runs throughout. Fans will appreciate Ms. La Plante's superb English police procedural.
Harriet Klausner
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