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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Introducing Karen Sharpe,
By Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Phoenix (New Blood) (Hardcover)
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
raw and unflinching,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Phoenix (New Blood) (Hardcover)
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Phoenix,
By
This review is from: Phoenix: A Detective Karen Sharpe Mystery (Paperback)
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.
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