Customer Reviews

Far Cry

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a harrowing tale of child abduction on England's Cornwall coast that bridges 1995 to 2005, when Ruth Pierce, suffers the loss of her ten-year-old daughter, Heather, and survives the ordeal only to have another daughter, Beatrice, abducted at the same age years later. At the crux of the unfolding horror are an elusive pedophile, Mitchell Roberts, and the investigative team of DI Will Grayson and DS Helen Walker of Cambridge, the supporting characters idiosyncratic, bearing dark secrets of their own. Harvey, who has an impressive string of titles to his credit, is a prolific writer whose novels are defined by solid plots and a deep appreciation for the nuances of human behavior. The depth of characterization in Far Cry lends authenticity to what might have been a simple thriller.

Harvey's story is peopled with a broad range of personalities, from the duplicitous Mitchell Roberts to Ruth Price/Lawson, a distraught mother reliving a nightmare, to the families touched by tragedy, whether random young girls who are the targets of a particularly heinous criminal and the gypsies who never stay in one place long and harbor a deep resentment for authority. Not the least of the beautifully nuanced characters is the relationship between Grayson and Walker, who tease each other mercilessly but are deadly serious when it comes to the welfare of children in danger. Will is a happily married man, Helen less affable of late, caught up in an inappropriate romance and the need to move on, to make a positive career move.

From the traumatic disappearance of Heather and a school friend that leaves one girl alive and the other dead, to the unbelievable recurrence of the happily remarried Ruth's loss of her daughter, Beatrice, Harvey links past with present, exposing the thriving business of child pornography and the opportunism of the internet. Best of all, Far Cry is distinguished by the author's grasp of human behavior and the murky territory of best intentions and outright evil. Ruth's experience is shattering, her husbands, Simon and Andrew, unable to plumb the depths of her despair. These characters are flawed, prone to mistakes and overreaching, the plot taut and riveting from start to finish. From Will's exceptional wife, Lorraine, to his feisty partner, Helen, and his nemesis, Mitchell Roberts, Far Cry is a brilliant mix of human nature at its best and worst, the damaged and the damned. Luan Gaines/2010.

John Harvey writes very, very well. His secondary characters are beautifully drawn and evoke commitment by the reader from beginning to end. That's where his work peaks. His investigators, Grayson & Walker, are shallow, barely credible, and invoke neither interest nor sympathy from the reader. This is a lot closer to chick-lit than a mystery. If you want chick-lit with an undertone of police procedural, it's a 5 star book. But if you want a mystery/procedural with villains and victims who ring terribly true and invoke your emotions, it's barely a 3 star. That's a judgment that reflects just how bad Harvey is with his portrayal of Grayson & Walker, but also testament to how well he can draw the reader into the thoughts and feelings of the other actors in the drama. It's hard to escape the feeling that he has lost faith in the notion that "civilized people" can pay and support decent folk to keep the barbarians in check. Grayson & Walker as agents of justice?

One can only hope that either Harvey moves back to Nottingham, or better still, that Charles Resnick will transfer to Cambridge.

Ruth and Simon Pierce reluctantly allowed their daughter, Heather, to go on a camping trip with her best friend. She soon disappeared, her body later found in a shaft, the girl dead from a fall. The couple was divorced and Ruth remarried, soon giving birth to another daughter, Beatrice. Years later, this girl too disappeared, setting off a manhunt.

DI Will Grayson is obsessed with the case and he suspects a recently released child abuser as having abducted the young girl. He and his partner, DS Helen Walker, conduct deep investigations into all aspects of past and present crimes.

This is a police procedural at its best. John Harvey creates mountains of suspense, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages quickly. His command of language and character is flawless, and the plot impeccably constructed. The novel, 500 pages long, yet written with simplicity and economy, never bogs the reader down, and it is highly recommended.

It is often said there is no greater pain than that stemming from the loss of a child. When such a loss is compounded by the uncertainty of that child's fate, the emotional pain suffered by those left behind is so great that their own survival is threatened. Marriages often fail, emotional breakdowns are common, and some parents, believing there is no longer anything to live for, take their own lives. This is the territory visited in "Far Cry," John Harvey's latest story featuring DI Will Grayson and his sometime partner, DS Helen Walker.

Detective Grayson is not happy to hear that Mitchell Roberts, a creepy pedophile he helped bring to justice, is being given an early release from prison. Grayson becomes so obsessive about his determination to protect his community from Roberts that he is willing to place his own future in jeopardy in order to keep Roberts from offending again. Despite his borderline tactics, including public humiliation, harassment, and physical contact, Grayson soon learns, however, that Mitchell Roberts will not be intimidated so easily. But when a young girl goes missing, and Grayson is put in charge of the investigation, he knows exactly where he wants to start.

It is 1995. Simon and Ruth Pierce, off on a mini-vacation to France after having reluctantly agreed to let their daughter accompany another family on holiday to Cornwall, receive a phone call telling them that she has gone missing there on a freakishly foggy evening. The Pierces will never see their daughter alive again.

Flash forward to the present. The Pierce marriage has not survived the tragedy of Heather's death but Ruth is remarried and she and her second husband are raising their own young daughter, Beatrice. Simon, as far as Ruth knows, lives alone and has managed to piece together a new life for himself, however lonely that life might be. Astonishingly, Beatrice has now gone missing and Detective Grayson wonders what the odds against one woman losing both of her daughters to human predators, more than a decade apart, must be.

"Far Cry" is a nicely crafted police procedural but its real strength springs from the characters with which John Harvey has peopled his story. Harvey's two investigators are not typical of popular detective fiction and, in fact, seem to share roles exactly opposite what most readers by now will have come to expect from the genre. Will Grayson has a good marriage and he looks forward to returning to his two children and their mother at the end of the workday. Helen Walker, on the other hand, plays the role of the loner prone to too much drinking and shaky decisions regarding her choice of sexual partners. Helen's willingness to get involved with married men and to enjoy the occasional one - night stand leaves Will cold and he worries about her.

Ruth Pierce is a well developed character whose struggle to maintain her sanity can be disturbing to watch. She is a woman with secrets, particularly the fact that she often sees and speaks with the spirit of her oldest daughter. Ruth believes that neither of her husbands can possibly feel the loss of her children as deeply as she does and she keeps her emotional life largely hidden from them. Already struggling to maintain the semblance of a normal life, the loss of her second daughter moves her dangerously close to a mental state from which she might never recover.

"Far Cry" will naturally appeal to fans of John Harvey's Charlie Resnick series but, because of the sensitive way it explores the nature of loss, it will work equally well for readers with little previous exposure to detective fiction.

This is the first book I have read of John Harvey's. I will certainly read more. He has a wonderful style and keeps you guessing about who the culprit{s] is. I liked his style very much and I confess that I read it in 4 days; I found it difficult to put down.

Another well written tale from the extraordinarily talented John Harvey.

This one is gritty and atmospheric on every level. If you didn't know it was fiction, you would read it convinced you were reading of real individuals. Pacing ratchets up later in the book, making me miss a fair amount of sleep, being unable to put it down.

The British working class characters and setting put you in place so realistically, you'll feel as though you've been there.

Although this is not the Resnick series - PBS describes John Harvey's mysteries: "Imagine a nightmare of crime in inner-city northern England. Queue up a soundtrack not of the Sex Pistols and the Clash but Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Add in a hard-boiled American aesthetic and you've got John Harvey's Charles Resnick Mysteries--widely viewed as the best police procedurals ever written in England."

Perfect mystery read and escape.

I have now discovered John Harvey!

This is a marvellous read - characters I would like to return to, a most credible plot, and excellent writing. Harvey's pace and structure is terrific. I highly recommend this book.

Firstly, I thought that the author used too many long sentences, broken up by em dashes and semi colons. If he'd used shorter, sharper sentences, it would have made the pace quicker. As it was, it distracted me, and I found it annoying.

The story was slow. A romantic subplot doesn't go anywhere. A crime subplot doesn't go anywhere and was just padding. Nothing really happens until the last 3rd of the book. On the whole, I found it slow moving with a lot that didn't need to be included.