A DCI Daley Thriller
Gerry Dowie is living under the witness protection system tucked away in Australia when he is brazenly murdered, in broad daylight in front of CCTV and so is his wife. The images show clearly that his murderer is James Machie, JayMac, a man who was murdered in an ambulance 5 years earlier while in police custody. Clearly he's back from the grave and out for vengeance against all who betrayed him or who were involved in his capture.
DCI James Daly and DS Brian Scott in Kinloch, Scotland, were instrumental in his downfall as were others in the witness protection programme. When the Macdougall family start dying one by one and a bomb destroys Daley's car then things start to get worrying.
Fast paced, bloody and violent this book moves fast and the reader is always one step ahead - but I found myself one step ahead on the wrong path! There is no massive plot twist, more lots of little ones that send you back thinking and rethinking before moving forward again. These twistlets continue right to the end and the reader knows that there is a much bigger case to be solved - if that's possible - and it's not going to be in this book!
I am not a fan of every fictional detective going but have a small list of favourites and Daley certainly deserves a place on my list. What's not to like about him? His sidekick is not some lackey who does exactly what he's told and Daley doesn't know if he can trust him or not, although he a close friend. His boss is someone they don't get on with - but read on, say no more. Of course though, like so many modern fictional detectives, his private life doesn't run smoothly.
I found that every character in the book came alive and I had an opinion on them even if I didn't understand their relationship to the others until the end - if this is the end.
Every cliché of rivetting, unputdownable etc. is well deserved in this excellent thriller and I will certainly be watching out for more Daley.
Publisher - Polygon
Genre - Crime thriller
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