Customer Reviews

Phoenix: A Detective Karen Sharpe Mystery

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If this were just a simple murder investigation, solved through the police procedural method of grinding out the facts until the killer was unearthed, then I would have listed it among the countless books of the genre where it would be lost and forgotten by next week. What makes PHOENIX stand out from the crowd as a memorable thriller is the introduction of Detective Constable Karen Sharpe. In his debut novel, Jon Connor has produced a strong mystery with an even stronger protagonist.

Karen Sharpe is a tough talking, hard-drinking woman. She breaks the mold as far as most of the female protagonists that I've come across go. She strikes me as a cross between Ian Rankin's Detective Inspector John Rebus and Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch. The similarity comes from her total disregard for the wishes of her superior officers which is matched by her near pathological desire to work alone.

Our introduction to Karen comes as she is suffering from a hangover after drinking herself into oblivion the night before in an effort to cope with an unspecified anniversary. From early on we understand that there is a lot more to Karen Sharpe than first meets the eye.

Detective Sergeant Phil Leech of the West Yorkshire Police Department's drug squad is found shot in the head in his car in a remote field on a South Pennine moor. Leech is Karen Sharpe's superior officer and was working as her partner at the time. She can vaguely remember a late night phone call urging her to an important meeting that had to do with a case they were working on, but she was too drunk to leave her house. Leech went in her stead. Consequently, she is beset by guilt with the thought that the person with the bullet holes in their head could very well have been her.

A major taskforce is set up, code named Phoenix, and is headed by Detective Chief Inspector John Munroe. He appears to be a very compassionate man who takes it upon himself to help Karen through the shock of having to identify her partner at the murder scene, not that she appears to need to be mollycoddled. He then decides to include Karen on the taskforce due to her knowledge of the case that she and Leech were working on before he was killed.

The investigation conducted by the West Yorkshire Police is probably the most procedural police procedural I have ever read. What I mean by this is that the actual breakdown of tasks are described in great detail at the start of the operation, more so than in most other police procedural mysteries that I have read. Plenty of detail is given in the areas of gathering evidence at the crime scene, viewing CCTV footage, following terrorist connections to eliminate the possibility that it was a Provisional IRA hit. We really knew that every avenue was being explored by the police.

Karen Sharpe breaks away to conduct her own investigation, blithely ignoring the tasks given to her by her Sergeant. There is a constant aura of mystery about Karen's past, glimpsed occasionally through the strange direction that she takes the case. She seems to know about suspects and facts that help her move her investigation forward, yet she doesn't really know how she knows about them. There is a definite sense that something big is going to be revealed about her before this case is solved, effectively luring me to the ending with the promise of a surprise.

The interaction between DCI John Munroe and Karen Sharpe is particularly interesting as their relationship develops beyond the professional. Although he holds a position of power over her due to his rank, it is Karen who rules their relationship, not only mentally but physically too (which comes as a major shock to Munroe, let me tell you).

The only problem I had with the book was the size of the team used to investigate the murder. The team of over 50 officers seemed unfeasibly large to me, compared to the size of the small town in which the murder was committed. It was difficult to believe that there were so few other crimes being committed that this kind of manpower could be committed to a single investigation. Admittedly, it was a fellow police officer who was murdered, but still it seemed a little unrealistic.

Jon Connor weaves an intriguing mystery that branches out into a much more complex plot than I first expected. Giving the story a solid edge, he has created a strong protagonist and has revealed enough about her past to make her a fascinating character, but I get the impression that he has held back more about her that will be revealed in future books.

John Connor's remarkable debut novel leaves a lasting impression with its courageous look at the world we live in. The protagonists of this story are deeply flawed, but nevertheless real characters. They barely manage to stay afloat in their day to day life, even if to others they convey self-assurance and strenght.
Mr. Connor's writing is incredibly strong and precise for a debut novelist. His portrayal of the world and the police work is raw and unflinching, stripped of glamour and simplicity of most of the crime novels. I eagerly await his next book.

Tantalizingly, this novel opens with a brief scene which takes place in Shepherd's Bush, London, in March of 1988, to which no further reference is made until much later in the book, after the reader has been left to ruminate and try to place it in the context of the balance of the book, which takes place in West Yorkshire, eight years later. DC Karen Sharpe is called to the scene of a murder, where she is asked to identify the victim: Her partner, Phil Leech, 37 years old, who has been shot to death, the same man who she was to accompany the previous night but was too drunk to do it. Now it would appear that the person they were to meet, a long-time informant, or someone connected to or following that person, had murdered him, and would have perhaps murdered her as well.

The Senior Investigating Officer on the case, DCS John Munro, is sympathetic to Karen's understandable feelings of guilt, which are only magnified when the 22-year-old informant is also found murdered, a short distance from the spot where Leech was killed. But Karen appears unemotional, and insists she needs no time off and is ready and able to assist in the investigation [dubbed "Operation Phoenix"]. Munro tells the officers: "There has never been an undetected murder of a serving officer in the entire history of the West Yorkshire Police Force. This one will be no different. You will see to it."

Karen Sharpe, thirty-five years old, six feet tall, is an intriguing protagonist, wonderfully drawn. One has heard of the detective who is "flawed" [not to be too cliché about it], filled with guilt, complex, and with little respect for authority - Karen is all of the above. The author says: "There would be something hard at the center of Karen Sharpe, something she kept only for herself . . . Most of the time she felt like an iceberg. Not just frozen. But moving around in the midst of more trivial objects." And she is indeed something of an enigma, thought of by her co-workers as a maverick. The story is compellingly written, the characters three-dimensional. The novel is one of the latest from this publisher, whose mission is to bring to the US the works of authors well-known in the UK, and for good reason. The book is highly recommended.

The term "police procedural" is so common and generic that it often fails at adequately categorizing the sub-genre of crime fiction. Many writers use this framework upon which to hang a thriller and so often it does just that - hang there. The framework has to be correctly and authentically assembled or the whole thing is doomed. John Connor's framework is solid and more than adequately provides the sturdy foundation that helps lift "Phoenix" above the fray.

On the same day every year DC Karen Sharpe wakes to a serious hang-over. However, this year it is accompanied by an urgent message to come to a crime scene where she is to identify the body of her partner, DS Phil Leech. The night before she and Leech had met with an informant who later contacted Karen to meet her a second time that same evening. She declines, due to her state of extreme intoxication and Leech goes in her place. Now Leech is dead and Karen knows that she was the intended victim. Later that day the body of the informant is also found, a victim of equally violent gunshot wounds. As the investigation takes off, Senior Investigator Munro begins to amass clues and forensic evidence that clearly points in one direction. Yet Sharpe knows more and sets off on her own trail, all the while struggling with her own secret past that she is certain is connected to the murders.

The character of Karen Sharpe is very compelling and serves to lift this "police procedural" out of the ordinary. She is at once both psychologically and physically tough and yet constantly fearful as her buried past life forces its way back to dealt with again. The reader is slowly given more information so that the dawning revelation of who she was is only a few steps behind Sharpe. Sharpe's supervisors are constantly irritated with her maverick style and the fact that she simply refuses to work the assignment given her. But she is the only one that is actually producing results largely because only she is privy to the big picture.

The plotting is well done and the pacing is terrific, pulling the reader along as the tension builds. The end doesn't twist so hard that it defies logic or reality but it does creep up for a nice "ah-ha" moment. While some readers may get there before the author, it is only moments before and a nice balance is achieved - both startling and satisfying. As Sharpe's past and present come crashing togehter the reader is both repelled and attracted, not sure which Sharpe to root for.

My only complaint is that the one sex scene is needlessly graphic. There is a great deal of subtlty and nuance that goes into Sharpe's character but there was nothing subtle about this. I mention it because as a reader I like to know a few basics about what I am getting into and for me the gratuitous sex is disappointing.

Nevertheless, I rate Connor's book high in terms of crime writing and but for the above mentioned caveat I recommend it highly (just not to my wife or kids).

DC Sharpe expects to be drunk on at least one particular night of the year and to wake up rotten with the aftertaste of memories meshing into her nightmares. When one of the victims of a double murder turns out to be her chief officer, Karen is called in to view the crime scene and assist with the investigation. Detective Sergeant Leech has been executed, and not in a tidy fashion so the investigating officers accept that his former partner would look more than a little upset and queasy after viewing his body. But it's not a squeamish stomach or a grieving heart that is worrying Karen Sharpe.

Karen was meant to be at that midnight rendezvous, meeting with a young female informant who was the other victim of that night. DS Leech had gone instead, due to Karen's drunken state and was killed. Was he murdered in place of her, and for what reason? Detective Chief Superintendent John Munro places Karen on the investigative team, hoping that she can help provide evidence to bring about a conviction on a local drug dealer that they have in their sights. Karen knows this is not a dealer or an ex boyfriend of the deceased informant out for revenge. It has to do with her own past, people she still fears, and how far she has come to re-invent herself.

Interesting that this is the first novel in an expected series for two reasons. One; the ending is quite ambiguous and two; the lead character in DC Sharpe is not what you would expect in a recurring lead. Sharpe is a strong, driven woman with a past that was essential in providing the needed twist in "Phoenix". It's difficult to see, from the shrapnel lying about at the end of this novel where the character will go and on which side of the law she will be walking. With baggage, or without?

"Phoenix" starts off brilliantly as a detailed police procedural then wings off to the left with as the possibility of terrorism is introduced into what would seem a drugs related murder investigation. The two sides of the story never quite seem to meld successfully, and the secondary plot seems an afterthought in addition to the first to add some snap. Lots of supposedly smart police doing very dumb things don't help to wind up the tension which comes too late into play to be effective.

Promise here for some good reading in future works with this writer but sadly "Phoenix" falls just shy of being what you'd describe as a gripping read.