Customer Reviews

The Crossfire Killings

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The late Bill Knox was best known for his Glasgow set police novels featuring the pairing of Thane and Moss .The series was a long running one ,having seen the light of day in the UK in 1957 and the last book was published posthumously in 1999 .

This is a late entry , the 19th in total ,and dates from 1996 when it was won an award from the police press for being the most realistic British police procedural of the year .Authenticity was a keynote of the series and Knox while not a policeman was a crime reporter and presenter of Scottish TV programmes with a focus on crime and had ready access to the police of his native city .

Events are set in train with the death of Mary Dunbar a Glasgow policewoman ;at first the death is presumed accidental ,the result of a fall down a rockface at the foot of which her body was found .Forensic work by the brilliant but decidedly eccentric pathologist Professor McMaster ( a wonderful creation and a series regular )finds she was thrown from the rockface after death and the case is one of murder .She had hinted at having stumbled across some criminal activity while staying a a new age style camp in the Highlands and it is to there that Thane sets out accompanied by his street wise Segeant Francie Dunbar and a dog handler whose skills and animals prove vital in unravelling the case ,one Joe Dawson .

The case proves linked to the activities of two credit card fraudsters ,nasty pieces of work named Friend and Balfour .Alsdo under suspicion are the owners of the camp ,the unhappily married Thorntons ,and also the camp manager the slightly oleaginous Peter Crossley .

Before the case is wrapped up there are other deaths ,a vicious back street ambush in which Thane and Moss are lucky to escape relatively unscated and a final shoot out in Glasgow's prestigous Art Gallery.'The Burrell Museum .

The book is shot through with Knox' knowledge of and love for his city -there is a sadness about how its urban sprawl is impacting negatively on the surrounding area and insights into its history and culture that bear the stamp of direct experience .Its criminal sub class is sketched vividly and unsentimentally .Knox knows ,understands and likes the police although I objected to the sympathetic portrait of one Sergeant Mckinnon who he depicts as a hardened but rough diamond figure when by any objective criteria he is a crpto- fascist thug with a nasty habit of threatening suspects

This is a minor caveat however and fans of British police procedurals who have not encountered this series should seek it out -its a good series and this a good entry in it althoiugh not perhaps the best starting point