Cold Light (Dead Letter Mystery) [Paperback]

John Harvey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1995 | Series: Dead Letter Mystery

Struggling through the daily beat during the Christmas season, police inspector Charlie Resnick investigates a woman's disappearance and realizes that it is linked to a sinister chain of events. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harvey's sixth industrial-strength procedural featuring Nottingham copper Charlie Resnick is built of small, delicate images: a young mother warms her hands before touching her sleeping baby in a stone-cold council house; Resnick, foraging in his fridge for the makings of a sandwich, wistfully glances at the face of Billie Holliday on the front of a boxed set of CDs he has just bought himself for Christmas, though he has yet to purchase a CD player. When Nancy Phelan, a social worker, goes missing after a holiday dance, the divorced Resnick meets Dana, her flatmate, and escapes his self-imposed isolation for a brief passionate moment. Nancy's most recent lover is a likely suspect, but the case against him falters and Resnick falls into depression. A number of city cab drivers are robbed and beaten; the cops are looking for someone with a dragon tattoo and very fair hair. The elderly father of a woman cop falls ill; a killer strikes and then takes another victim ; Resnick lets the affair with Dana self-destruct through fear and forgetfulness. Harvey, a poet in thin disguise, constructs his plot masterfully, meting out surprises in subplots that reach their conclusions with sudden, unsynchronous credibility.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The sixth Charlie Resnick police procedural presents Charlie with a frightening challenge: a psychopath has abducted a young woman. Another British winner.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Mass Market Paper (August 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312956037
• ISBN-13: 978-0312956035
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,001,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JOHN HARVEY is the author of eleven Charlie Resnick novels and the Frank Elder series, and is a recipient of the Silver Dagger Award, the Barry Award, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement, among other honors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the series to date, June 1, 2006

By 

Robert Gibson (Takoma Park, MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cold Light (Mass Market Paperback)

I am reading my way through this superior series by John Harvey in chronological order, and this sixth book is my favorite. While the protrayal of life in England's Nottingham and the Midlands in the late 80s and 90s is gritty and grim through-out, and there are characters in every book that are pretty repugnant, the previous book, "Wasted Years" was for me a depressing low point. By contrast, "Cold Light" is a rebound, and the pace and pull of the plot and narrative is far stronger and more satisfying,

It is the veracity of the characters, with all their shortcomings and their small human surprises, that makes Harvey's work so good. Resnick, the nominal main character, is a quite delight, full of his own foibles and flaws, in particular in his relationship issues. But it is his humanity, decency and quiet, sure smarts that makes him the reader's anchor.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Resnick, July 10, 2004

By 

S. Harris (Spotsylvania, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cold Light (Hardcover)

This is my first Charlie Resnick novel, and I must say I'm impressed. Harvey's one of the rare genre writers - in this case, crime fiction - who transcends genre. "Cold Light" in some ways reminds you of Ed McBain's cop novels. The main story, the tragic disappearance of young woman on Christmas Eve, is told from a variety of viewpoints, with numerous side stories that in the end contribute, rather than detract, from the main story. Harvey's eye for detail is impressive. "Cold Light" takes place in the early 90s of Thatcher's England. What a bleak place and time! This is underscored immediately, as a young woman crawls out from underneath her sleeping common law husband. Her life is already sad, even though she's not yet out of her teens. The government housing they live in, with two small children, is freezing and wet. Her husband is abusive, and getting worse, as hope is not even a glimmer in his devastated life. Across town, there is the near death by beating of a taxi driver, and police detective Charlie Resnick mulls over his jazz collection, but is probably dodging the extreme loneliness of his life. Separate threads that eventually intertwine, largely due to the movement of the characters. There is, eventually, a murder. And it involves, that most overused of crime figures, a serial killer. But in Harvey's hands it becomes something new, given his attention to character, dialogue, and setting. Make it real, and readers will come. Well, eventually. Unfortunately, this book is out of print. Which is a shame, since it's better than most crime novels, and better than most (big) "L"iterary efforts. A good comparative novel would be George Higgins' "Outlaws." In fact, the late Higgins and Harvey are very similar. Craftsmen all the way.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another solid one, August 24, 1999

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cold Light (Dead Letter Mystery) (Paperback)

Another solid entry in the Charlie Resnick series, this one mostly about the search for a missing woman after a New Year's party. The mystery is a little less tricky than others in the series, and instead is a little more interesting in the personal realm.