Customer Reviews

One Last Breath

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

 

 

This is certainly an improvement on Stephen Booth's last effort, which was terribly disorganised and contained lots of extraneous material. This story follows a more direct path and unnecessary material is much reduced, although I felt I learnt rather more about the Castleton caves than I needed. The book is certainly very readable, but a major problem for me is that the motives for the two murders that are central to the story are given little explanation and, as a consequence, appear rather flimsy.
The book has been poorly proof-read and, in addition, has a glaring error concerning the time of occurrence of an incident early in the story.

A newspaper and magazine journalist for over 25 years, Stephen Booth was born in the English Pennine town of Burnley. He was brought up on the coast at Blackpool, where he began his career in journalism by editing his school magazine and wrote his first 'novel' at the age of 13.

Stephen gave up journalism in 2001 to write crime novels full time. He and his wife Lesley live in a former Georgian dower house near Retford, Nottinghamshire, in Robin Hood country.

The Peak District has always been a major attraction for tourists, but this particular summer a convicted killer with one thing on his mind, revenge. Fourteen long years ago Mansell Quinn was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his lover.

Now he is out of prison, under licence. The problem is nobody knows where he is and his ex-wife has been murdered. As they try to get a picture of where Quinn might be and what his next move will be detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry become increasingly frustrated and puzzled by the case. There are too many anomalies to the case, not least the fact that two of his friends refused to back up his alibi and for the last ten years of his sentence, not a soul visited him in jail There is a lot more to this case than meets the eye, but at the moment the pair are getting nowhere.

Mansell Quinn is released is released from prison fourteen years after having been convicted of killing his lover. His lover was killed in his house while his wife was at work. His memory is foggy; vague images of blood and his lover's last breath crowd his mind. He felt his must have done it, but while in the middle of his sentence he started to proclaim his innocence. The fact that all of a sudden he was denying his crime made the parole board decide to have him serve his full sentence. Now that he is out, his wife is found dead. Detective Sergent Diane Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper investigate a case that is deeply entangled in the past.

My favorite Brit Crime Fic author is Peter Robinson. Stephen Booth has a bit of a way to go before I would consider him the same caliber, but he's got the elements to be a very fine storyteller: atmospheric setting, multidimensional characters and an well-developed, suspenseful plot. Where he falters a bit is when plot points don't get resolved or they are resolved, but don't make much sense. I still don't understand why Rebecca was killed, and more importantly, I am unclear on who killed her. Maybe I missed it, but a reader should really be able to miss the resolution of a major story line. The plot should be more concise and not meander loosing part of the audience. I did like the story, and I was engaged during reading it. I don't think my mind wandered once, so I was a little perturbed when I still had questions at the end.

I did really love how the Peak District was brought to life in the novel. An ancient underground cave became almost another character in the book. I did get a good sense of Derbyshire as a setting. It was not just a matter of saying a story is set in a location, and that is that.

While I did have a few issues with the story, I did enjoy it and do recommend reading it.

3 1/2 Stars

If you like mysteries with an exotic setting, interestingly complicated characters, a great plot, and a clear unencumbered writing style, then please don't pass by "One Last Breath." It's an entry in Stephen Booth's series set in England's touristy Peak District, an area notable for its cavern system. The featured detectives are Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry. They're looking for a convicted murderer, Mansell Quinn. He's been released from prison after 13 years for having killed his lover, and he's immediately violated his parole.

Another murder connected to him has been committed, and Quinn is, of course, the prime suspect. DC Cooper, whose father was the first officer on the scene of the original murder, begins to have his doubts, and eventually DS Fry does, too. The current case and the original murder swirl together, as Cooper and Fry interview various friends and family members of the suspect. We view the events from multiple POV's--Fry's, Cooper's, family and friends, and even Quinn himself.

The theme of "breath" is a constant here--a murder victim breathes her last, DS Fry suffers from hay fever, and one of the suspects suffers from an incurable lung disorder. The caverns themselves are said to breathe. It's delightful in a creepy sort of way (scenes set in the caves certainly shivered my timbers), and Mr. Booth's intricate plot is filled surprises and misdirections, certain to please fans of Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance.

And then there are Cooper and Fry. He's stubborn, idealistic, obsessive. She's short-tempered, cynical, and moody. He lives alone. At Cooper's urging, she's just taken in her older sister (who Cooper's apparently seen with her knickers down). She's a recovering addict. They make a delightfully neurotic pair. Quinn's character is well-drawn, too. You may even feel sorry for him.

Each of the Ben Cooper series is better than the last--and that is saying something. Evoking the alien landscape of the Peak District and Speedwell Caves, Booth manages to make Cooper, and his relationship with his conflcted colleage, Diane Fry, as interesting as the slowly unraveling mystery.

In 1990 Castleton, Derbyshire, a drunken Mansell Quinn comes home from the pub only to hear the woman's last breath as she dies. He confesses and is arrested him for the brutal murder of his lover. However, he recants his declaration of guilt, but is still convicted and goes to prison.

Now over thirteen years later, Quinn is released from prison. Already known as a violent man before the homicide, he is a raging violent man with a grudge against those who sent him away. He almost immediately violates the conditions of his release, but the Peak District police cannot find him to pick him up. Instead the first person connected to Quinn, Rebecca Lowe, is murdered. While the police assume Quinn has begun avenging his "affront", Detective Constable Ben Cooper wonders if someone framed Quinn. Ben begins to look back at the case that his father solved thirteen years ago when he arrested Quinn and wonders if perhaps the culprit could be someone else then and now. As he obstinately digs for clues and tries to persuade Detective Sergeant Diane Fry that he is right and their superior DI Paul Hitchens is wrong, Ben comes to the attention of someone who wants him out of the way while Quinn hides in the caves near the tourist attractions.

The latest Peak District police procedural (see BLIND TO THE BONES) is a solid tale that starts off with a deep look at the potential antagonist and establishes who the key police participants are. The story line slows down a bit in the middle even though more die and the delightful English Peak District is vividly described, but then takes off again for an exhilarating climax. Throughout readers will wonder if Ben is right as the evidence points heavily towards Quinn in Stephen Booth's fine whodunit.

Harriet Klausner