Customer Reviews

The Judas Sheep

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

 

 

This is another entry in the series about Yorkshire policeman Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Priest and a good one it is too ,although I would urge newcomers to start with the earlier series novels which fill in the back story.
Events are triggered when the wife of an American tobacco tycoon is snatched outside a London department store and her chauffeur murdered .The object of the kidnapping is for the gang to raise a ransom but they are foiled when the husband not only refuses to pay but is able to rescue a tape showing the identity of the kidnappers.He then recruits the gang to further the interests of the tobacco lobby by killing the leader of the Opposition party in the country ,a man likeky to br Prime Minister shortly and set on a nationwide ban on tobacco.
The gang is ruthless and includes at least one seriously deranged soul ,the disfigured psychopath Shawn Parrott who is able to achieve sexual gratification only in the act of killing and he does a lot of that in the book-the chauffeur ,a truck driver and a teenage whore .
Priest while still officially on stress related sick leave gets involved with the case and operates undercover on the trail of drug runners in the course of which he encounters the gang and becomes involved in the plan to thwart the assassination attempt

A few too many subplots hold things up -namely the fashionable theme of child abuse which is introduced late in the book ,and the fact of Priest's girl friend being a propagandist for the anti-smoking lobby and its "exploitation "of Africa which allows Pawson to ride his tirsome hobby horse into the setting sun.While the gang is a chilling creation the cabal of U S tobacco tycoons underwriting the assassination bid fails to convince --the section where they appear is like a weak episode of Dallas in which everybody is JR
Good things outweigh the bad and Charlie is a likeable hero.
One for lovers of the British police novel

If you like British copper novels & British humor you'll like these novels by Mr. Pawson.
While out on a temporary disability, DI Priest can't stay away from the murder, mayhem & the chase. A very likable character, with the dry Brit humor he sets about trying to solve a number of murders which are all connected. The villains are ruthless; the chief bad guy being over the edge in the sanity department. The villains are all Brits hired by an extremely wealthy American tobacco magnate who splits his time between the U.S. & United Kingdom.
The book has a number of sub-plots. Some are crucial to the main story. Others are much weaker &, I felt, detracted from the book.
It's a very enjoyable & solid British crime novel with very good characters
The book hits the ground running. It's action starts from the onset

Stuart Pawson had a career as a mining engineer He followed this with a spell working for the probation service, before he became a full-time writer. He lives in the pleasant waterside village of Fairburn in Yorkshire. The author's writing is gritty and to the point added to which he has a likeable sense of humour that he usually incorporates into his books, all of which I have found enjoyable.

DI Charlie Priest is mulling over the fact that as the saying goes a copper is never off duty. Although supposedly on sick leave he has been asked to keep an eye on a well known drugs courier, who uses the Hull-Rotterdam route on a regular basis. He is also concerned for the safety of his girlfriend as she spies on a tobacco company and their sales operation in Africa.

Stuart Pawson's books are to me at least, a cut above the average crime novel. As I said earlier, he has a dry wit that transmits itself to the reader and makes the reading of his books that much more enjoyable an experience.

The book starts off with a bang--wealthy socialite is kidnapped outside of a department store and Charlie Priest, the British detective, is sent in to investigate the kidnapping and several related murders. This is the second Charlie Priest mystery I've read and the writing gets even better. In author Stuart Pawson's first book starring Charlie, THE PICASSO SCAM, some said the subplots meandered, although I didn't mind as Charlie's personality and humor unites it all for me. And some of the detours include great scenery to imagine. As long as Charlie is on the scene chasing the bad guys and cracking jokes, I'm happy.

In this book, the subplots are more interwoven and connected to the main mystery which creates plot unity. And Charlie is even funnier. I laughed aloud a few times reading this book. The concept of the Judas sheep is ingenious as well. Charlie Priest has become one of my favorite detectives after reading two books in the series. I'm addicted and ordering all of the Charlie Priest mysteries. If you're looking for a British mystery that includes serious villains, eccentric characters, diverse scenery for your mindscape, and a smart, warm and witty detective, you should enjoy this series. I'm surprised Charlie's not better known in the U.S., but that will change I predict. I'm recommending this series to our library mystery book club as a monthly selection. Let's hope that all of the Charlie Priest books become available via kindle, to make Charlie even more accessible, although I'm happy to read him in paperback, too.

This is the first book in the DI Charlie Priest series. It's an English Police Procedural, but quite a bit different than most of the books that I read in this genre. For one thing it is wickedly funny. I love the humour in the book, and I really like Charlie. I cannot wait to read more about him. In this book he is off on temporary disability, but he can't stay away from police work, so agrees to a surveillance job that turns out to be anything but simple. It appears on the surface to be a simple drugs running operation that takes Charlie over to Rotterdam on the ferry, but the group he's observing has its fingers in a lot more pies than that, and they are extremely dangerous. This book has a reality feel to it. Pawson gets British police work just right!!