Customer Reviews

Long Day Monday

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

 

 

The eighth of Turnbull's eleven Glasgow-set "P Division" police procedurals follows the squad over the course of a few days in which a young boy goes missing and a teenage girl's corpse is discovered in the nearby countryside. The prose is clipped and the characterization minimal, as Turnbull lets the story unfurl in a strict chronological progression. Squad members who go off duty generally shuffle off-stage as the action is picked up by the new shift of characters. While occasional diversions are made to the coppers' off-duty lives, this never reaches the psychological complexity or detail of, for example, John Harvey's series. (Of course, as with any series, the characters will be much richer to those who have read the previous seven books.)

Adhering the strict framework of procedurals, the police systematically pursue each case, and further details slowly accrue, including a potential link to a 25-year-old case. Some of the procedures show their age (for example, suspect parameters are given to the unit's "collator", who works some kind of computer magic to yield potential suspects, and skull-based facial reconstruction is a brand new field), but it all holds together quite well. I'm not generally a fan of serial killer plotlines, but Turnbull's light touch and avoidance of spending fifty pages delving into the killer's motivation makes this one palatable. Readers who prefer to focus on procedure over character will find this an excellent read, and I will certainly be going back to start the series from the beginning.