John Harvey pensioned off Charlie Resnick
in Darkness, Darkness, enabling him to spend a happy retirement listening to Thelonious
Monk painting pictures on a piano. For Body and Soul he dusts down Frank
Elder and gives him an outing for what is prescribed his last case.
The case is an intensely personal one
for Frank, starting with a phone call from his daughter Katherine who asks if
she can spend some time with him in Cornwall.
Frank constantly worries about his daughter and feels guilty for her abduction, rape and torture
some years earlier by a nasty piece of work called Adam Keach. Currently, she
lives in London making do with a stream of temporary jobs, including recent
stints as a life model for art classes
and latterly some modelling for Anthony Winter, an artist on the verge
of public recognition but with a reputation which gains him few friends.
The visit is negotiated with
Katherine’s insistence that Frank asks her nothing about her life in London and
especially nothing about the bandages on her wrists. Frank fails to keep his
promise and the next day Katherine catches the train back to London. Perplexed
by her behaviour Frank looks into the background of the artist and finds much
to justify his concern. He also finds that Winter is launching a new exhibition
of his work and, travelling to London, blags his way into the gallery. He loses
and rag and busts Winter’s nose when he sees a couple of canvases depicting
Katherine bound in chains and legs open leaking menstrual blood. A little after
Frank’s return to Cornwall, Winter is found bludgeoned to death in his studio.
The police consider Katherine as a principal suspect.
Back in London Frank tries to assist
his daughter through police interrogations, while at the same assisting the
police investigation and pursuing his own inquiries. The situation is further
complicated when Keach, Katherine’s original abuser, escapes when the prison
van transferring him from one prison to another is in a collision.
Frank is called back to Nottingham to assist his former colleagues in
their efforts to recapture Keach.
The story builds brilliantly as one
would expect from John Harvey, but concludes in a way which is totally
unexpected. It will be interesting to see if John will now generate a new
vehicle for any further ventures in crime fiction. Some possibilities surface
among the new characters introduced in Body
and Soul. I very much hope so. While I am prepared to let John Harvey
dispense with his main characters I am not prepared to see him disappear from
crime fiction bookshelves. With that in mind I wish John a very speedy return
to health and to the crime fiction bestseller lists.
What a wonderful title for a book. It follows a reference in the text to Billy
Holliday’s vocal version of that song. But throughout the book I found myself
humming the Coleman Hawkins saxophone recording which has always been one of my
favourite jazz numbers. Of course none of this is at all surprising coming from
an author who has lovingly fused jazz and crime fiction over recent decades.
