Customer Reviews

The Playroom (SIGNED)

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After his outstanding debut with Phoenix in which DC Karen Sharpe exploded onto the scene, John Connor has followed up with The Playroom, another frantic thriller. This time around the West Yorkshire Police Force is faced with the gut-wrenching case of child abduction with the added possibility of a widely organised pedophile ring operating in the area.

The missing girl is 13 year old Sophie Kenyon the daughter of a prominent judge. Heading up the investigation is SIO John Munro who has just managed to get his career back on track after the devastation that followed the events that were chronicled in Phoenix. This operation is dubbed Operation Shade and will prove to be a particularly harrowing one for Munro and his officers.

While Operation Shade swings into action, Karen Sharpe has her own case to pursue. She meets with a woman who claims to have been abducted and raped 10 years ago as a 13 year old. She says that she has only just remembered the incident, her memory of it being prompted by seeing the man who assaulted her on television. Recovered memory cases are particularly difficult to prove at the best of times but this one will be even tougher for Sharpe because the man the woman is fingering is none other than local MP Geoffrey Reed.

A seemingly standard police operation takes on a new life when the deaths of witnesses and suspects send it and the investigating officers for a loop. When the Assistant Chief Constable insists that Karen Sharpe be included in Operation Shade she finds a kindred spirit in DC Pete Bains. Bains and Sharpe form a formidable partnership with both of them shying away from the usual teamwork style advocated by the force, preferring to pursue their own leads. Both seem to have a pathological aversion to answering their phone or beeper, and have a similar penchant operating outside the usual rules. A very refreshing pair when everyone else is restricted to the rules of a police procedural.

John Connor has continued from where he left off with Phoenix in this emotionally charged thriller. He has combined an emotion charged case that is pursued by the majority of the West Yorkshire Police Force with Karen Sharpe's own desperate fight against her demons.

Karen's personal life has become even more complicated after being reunited with her daughter Mairead after Mairead's father was gaoled for life. It is the first contact that Karen has had with Mairead since she was born and Mairead is under the impression Karen is her aunt, an impression that Karen has not found a way to correct. A further problem is that Karen never finds time for her daughter, creating a guilt that continually gnaws at her.

This is a story that tears along at breakneck speed due to the desperate frenzy the investigating officers are whipped into as they race against time to find the missing girl. As the investigation proceeds and Karen Sharpe is eventually drawn into it, a larger, more intriguing and sinister web is revealed to take us to a heart-stopping conclusion.

Once again I think Connor has written a cleverly interwoven story featuring a protagonist who is one of the most pig-headedly determined cops I have come across. Although this proves to be to the detriment of the criminals she is chasing, it also proves to be to the detriment of her own personal life. As we go along, though, she is proving to be an increasingly fascinating character with more layers of her past being revealed to us.

This is the third in the series. I liked them all, equally, but I am getting a bit tired of some of the repetitive behavior of the main character, much like her daughter is, in this third book. I absolutely would buy the next book, or any book, by this author, and look forward to doing so. The plots are interesting, not predictable, I worry about the characters. I want to know what is going to happen to them. I like the psychological aspects, and I also enjoy the level of detail in thought process of the characters.

I think it was Mark Twain who suggested that a writer should make sure readers can tell which characters are living and which aren't, I wonder why John Connor hasn't taken that advice? It's hard to read books this formulaic, it's frustrating and kind of insulting.