The Man with No Face [Hardcover]

Peter Turnbull (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

When a man is found with his face blown off, the Glasgow P Division detectives quickly establish his identity. But the mystery surrounding his death only deepens.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The police procedural, when at its best, is the most satisfying and reassuring subgenre in the mystery field: the painstaking process of clues and questioning stills our primal fears about crime. But making the police as interesting as the procedure is difficult, and most books in this field fail at the human level: the coppers are either too dull to spend any time with or so flashy that they steal away our attention from the details.

That's why Scotland's Peter Turnbull has quietly become the best in the business. His detectives at P Division in Glasgow are a credible mixture of wisdom and humanity, doing the dog work and coming up with the occasional flashes of insight that open new doors. To slow down identification of the body, Turnbull's 11th book opens with the discovery of a man with his face blown off. But Sergeant Ray Sussock, bone weary and ready for retirement, recognizes the clothes as those given released prisoners after lengthy sentences. This narrows the search to men just let out, because nobody would keep that outfit any longer than necessary. A short scene, as Sussock retrieves some winter clothes of his own from the home of his ex-wife and openly gay son, fills out our understanding of the man. We then watch his pain deepen when a well-meaning senior officer sends the exhausted Sussock out on one mission too many.

Similar moments move the case along and give the detectives subtly distinct personalities. By pushing just the right ego buttons on an antiques dealer, one officer links the murdered man to a suspicious fire and insurance fraud. Another policeman, disturbed by his wife's odd behavior when he stays home later than usual one morning, gets a clue to her actions while meeting with his superior on another matter. Two detectives with adjacent desks profit from an overheard telephone request. Turnbull conducts his police officers like a good orchestra, and the result is a richly tuneful story. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

While maintaining his usual intricate procedural plotting in this ninth in his choice series (after The Killing Floor, 1995), Turnbull intensifies the dark presence of its setting: Glasgow, Scotland's largest and most maligned city. Ronald Grenn served four years for the robbery and arson of a fancy antiques store, a job far beyond his small-time skills but for which he did the time and kept his mouth shut. Hours after his release, he's found with his face blown off in a fancy part of the city. Under the bed in his mother's council flat are newspaper clippings concerning the abduction, eight years earlier, of Ann Oakley, an Edinburgh woman. Although the #1,000,000 ransom was paid, Ann was never found and the case was never solved. The investigation into Grenn's murder links him to the owner of the antiques store, whose stock, paid for by insurance as destroyed, is now appearing in a steady trickle in other dealers' showrooms. As the men of Glasgow's P-division find themselves pursuing a present-day murder and its connections to two older crimes, officer Ray Sussock finds previous failures coming home to roost just as he's about to retire. Turnbull celebrates Glasgow every chance he gets and carefully integrates the city's past industrial strength, hidden architectural beauty and recent cultural rebirth into his no-nonsense narrative. His coppers might provide the legwork, but his beloved Glasgow gives this tale its spark.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 Us ed edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312192983
• ISBN-13: 978-0312192983
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,946,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glasgow Police Procedural, May 12, 2000

By 

John Whelan (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man with No Face (Hardcover)

For me Peter Turnbull mixes interesting characters in his policemen with very detailed descriptions of exactly how P division works. There are many subtle details about his policemen that add colour to the tale. I find some of the postmortem details a little gruesome, but enjoyed the mortuary attendant's outlook on life. The interrelated crimes in this book gradually come into the open. The interrelationships of the crimes are complex.

If you should wish to kidnap someone, in Scotland, and be reasonably certain of getting the ransom money without police interference there is a quite detailed description of how to do it. Also a very safe way to launder money. I was interested to read about the role of the collator, I had known about them before but this story showed how important the meta-data really is as the pieces fit slowly together.

A satisfying book to read.

From the dust cover of the Ulverscroft edition...

When a man is found in Glasgow's prosperous West End district, his face blown off by a point-blank-range shooting, the P Division detectives quickly establish the identity of the Man with No Face. Establishing an identity, though, is easier than penetrating the mystery surrounding this killing - a mystery that deepens at every turn. Amid all the murkiness, the only thing that seems clear is that P Division has become involved in one of the most complex cases it has ever come up against - and the most dangerous.

MYSTERY

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put it down!, November 25, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man with No Face (Hardcover)

This is the first time I have read anything from Peter Turnbull. Not only does he give a beautiful and detailed description of the area around the mystery, he keeps you in suspense all they way through. I'm off to pull another one of his mysteries off the shelf!!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fans should turn to Turnbull for their police procedurals, October 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Man with No Face (Hardcover)

Four years ago in Glasgow, petty thief Ronald Grenn is convicted of robbery and arson of Cernach Antiques in a crime that seems way beyond the ability of the criminal. Within a few hours of being released from prison, Ronald is found dead in the opulent West End district of the city. His face was blown off by the point blank range of the shot.

Questions soon abound. How could a no-talented bum like Ronald commit the crime? What was a lowlife like him doing in the wrong side of town? Why did the owner of the antique store visit him while he served time? Even worse, why is the supposedly destroyed inventory of Cernach appearing in other antique stores? The Glasgow police begin their inquiries into these questions, hoping to learn who killed Ronald.

THE MAN WITH NO FACE is a fantastic Scottish police procedural that will imbue fans of the sub-genre with an intense need to find the series' previous eight novels. The police investigation into the murder mystery with its link to two other crimes is cleverly developed by Peter Turnbull. The characters provide much depth to the profound plot. However, what makes this book so good is Mr. Turnbull's homage to Glasgow, which, in turn, provides the impetus to a terrific tale that adds luster to an already stupendous series.

Harriet Klausner