Central to this powerful novel is one of the great social scourges of modern Britain – the County Lines illegal drug distribution structure. It is horribly simple. The big drug barons, most probably masquerading as genuine businessmen, use a complex hierarchy to deliver the product – weed, crack, whatever is in vogue – to their customers. The criminal equivalent of the cheerful Eastern European Amazon man who delivers your parcel on time is, typically, a teenage boy, perhaps still of school age (but he rarely attends) possessed of nothing more sinister than a bicycle, a hooded sweat shirt and a bandana to cover his lower face. The youngsters have a huge advantage over the police, glued as they are these days to the seats of their patrol cars. These lads can pedal down one-way streets, navigate the narrowest town alleys and passageways, be here one moment and gone the next. Their immediate bosses provide them with cheap burner ‘phones, which are as expendable as the people carrying them.
On this depressing armature Kate London sculpts her story. Ryan Kennedy is a teenager hooked into one of these criminal gangs, and one of his handlers has given him a handgun. When he is cornered in a Metropolitan Police operation, he shoots dead Detective Inspector Kieron Shaw, who was trying to persuade him to throw away the weapon. When Ryan is tried for murder, clever lawyers manage to hoodwink the jury, and he is given a relatively lenient jail sentence. Once inside, of course, he is lauded by fellow inmates as someone who “killed a Fed”, and the big wheels in his organisation make sure his prison term is comfortable.
Kate London then introduces the other people whose lives are radically changed by Shaw’s murder. There is DC Lizzie Griffiths who has had an affair with Shaw and now looks after Connor, the result of that liason. DC Steve Bradshaw was the undercover cop who became close to Ryan Kennedy and, in one way, created the fatal showdown. Detective Sarah Collins was deeply involved in the case, but has now been transferred to another force in the north.
Ryan Kennedy may be many things, but he is not stupid, and he pulls the wool over the eyes of his probation officer and is relocated to the country town of Middleton and given a job in a bike shop. He wastes no time in resurrecting his criminal career and is soon known as NK (apparently a Game of Thrones character) and continues to exert his malign influence.
The “misper” of the title is a fifteen year-old called Lief, who has fallen into the clutches of one of the gangs. He goes missing, and his mother – Asha – eventually alerts the police. The police tie in Lief’s disappearance with the re-emergence of Ryan Kennedy as local boss of drugs distribution in Middleton. No spoilers from me, but what happens next is a tense and vivid narrative that is crying out for a screenplay.
On one level, Kate London has written an an intense and gripping police procedural thriller, but she also poses many questions. Perhaps it is unfair to expect that novelists should provide us with answers to real-life social problems, but the questions still need to be asked. Readers of this novel can infer what they like but, for what it’s worth, my conclusions are: (1) One of the greatest calamities to befall British society is the absence of traditional fathers in the bringing up of male children in certain communities. Ryan Kennedy has no father. Lief has no father. A cynic might say that Connor has no father, because he was shot dead by a criminal drug runner. (2) The British police are being overwhelmed by a tide of budget cuts, aggressive criminal defence lawyers, strident social justice warriors and a cataclysm of civil liberties activists.
Kate London is a former police officer and has written a grimly convincing story of a part of British society that is broken, and a criminal justice system barely fit for purpose. The Misper is published by Corvus and is available now.
The title is, of course, police-speak for missing person, and this gritty novel shines an unforgiving light on the scourge of the County LInes drug trade in Britain. Put simply, the couriers are teenagers of school age up and down the land who deliver baggies of drugs to their customers. They are controlled by big city criminals who use the youngsters and their bikes, who know every little lane and ginnel of their home area to stay one step ahead of the police. Central to the story is the death of a policeman – shot by one of these youngsters – and the efforts of some of his colleagues to avenge his death. Watch my main page for a full review soon.
This a very advanced look at a novel which will be available nearer Christmas time, although given the miserable summer we have been having, it might be more topical now. It’s December 1952, and a dead stranger has been found lodged up the chimney of Holly House in the remote town of Elderby. Is he a simple thief, or a would-be killer? Either way, he wasn’t on anyone’s Christmas wish list. Inspector Frank Grasby is ordered to investigate. The victim of some unfortunate misunderstandings, he hopes this case will help clear his name. But as is often the way for Grasby, things most certainly don’t go according to plan. Soon blizzards hit the North York Moors, cutting off the village from help, and the local doctor’s husband is found murdered. Grasby begins to realise that everyone in Elderby is hiding something – and if he can’t uncover the truth soon, the whole country will pay a dreadful price.
This is the start of a new series from the Scottish author. In the small Highland village of Cronchie, a wealthy family are found brutally murdered in a satanic ritual and their heirloom, ‘the devil stone’, is the only thing stolen. The key suspects are known satanists – case closed? But when the investigating officer disappears after leaving the crime scene, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to investigate from Glasgow in a case that could restore her reputation. Caplan knows she is being punished for a minor misdemeanour when she is seconded to the Highlands, but ever the professional, she’s confident she can quickly solve the murders, and return home to her fractious family. But experience soon tells her that this is no open and shut case. She suspects the murder scene was staged, and with the heir to the family estate missing, there is something more at play than a mythical devil stone. As she closes in on the truth, it is suddenly her life, not her reputation that is danger! Will Caplan’s first Highland murder case be her last?
This is the latest in the long-running Tempe Brennan series, and the redoubtable expert in human anthropology is playing away from her Montreal home turf – in the Caribbean paradise of the Turks and Caicos Islands – although there is a Canadian connection, in the shape of a badly chopped up body pulled out of the St Lawrence River. On the island holiday resort, Tempe has been induced to investigate the deaths of a number of young tourists, each of whom is missing a hand. Check my main page for the 
A 15 year-old girl, Tania Mills, walks out of her front door and out of the lives of her parents, her family and her friends. She becomes just another statistic. Just another missing person for the police to make a dutiful attempt to appear involved. Just another file, first of all gathering dust on a shelf, and then occupying a tiny space on someone’s hard drive.
fullybooked2017 