#Taken

The sixth of Parsons’ London based Max Wolfe police-thrillers is the darkest yet. This former journalist and broadcaster has produced a morally ambiguous novel, one that has pages that stick to the fingers and to the mind, as they disturb the reader.

Still reeling from the scars of last year’s Girl on Fire, Detectives Max Wolfe and Pat Whitestone find themselves involved in a curious case.  Jessica Lyle has been abducted from plain view. The kidnappers have left her infant son strapped to the back of her car, or rather her flatmate Snezia Jones’ car.

The obvious connection is Jones’ boyfriend, the businessman Harry Flowers. The job title is but a euphemism, one frequently used in the gangland that is organised crime. As Wolfe and colleagues investigate the abduction of Jessica Lyle, they uncover normalcy, touching darkness. Jessica Lyle was a dance teacher, still living under the shadow of her fiancés’ random death, and weighted by a blanket of grief. To complicate matters further, Jessica’s father is Frank Lyle a former old-school cop and one that Wolfe rubbed up against in the past.

The investigation begins with the abduction appearing as an obvious case of mistaken identity, in terms of gangland retribution against crime-lord Harry Flowers. Though the possibilities of something darker are hinted at, with misdirection as well as complex motivations, and deeds from the past.

Flowers and his entourage, which includes his mistress Snezia Jones are all too civilised, exuding the machinations of a legitimised business life. Though this is a veneer that needs to be pealed away, and exposed. This police thriller has an empathic dimension that readers of the series will find merit in; the mourning for Wren, a fallen police colleague, as well as turbulence in Wolfe’s personal life. Mention is made of his ex-wife Anne, the woman who walked out of his marriage, and that of his daughter’s life, Scout. This touch adds an interesting dimension to the narrative, making palatable, by contrast - some of the reveals that this tale navigates.

Contained within this novel is dark imagery, scenes that disturb, but those who have followed Parson’s thrillers will be accustomed to the interplay between the normal, and the vile aspects that this novelist uncovers.

Though it can be easily read as a stand-alone, readers who have followed the previous Max Wolfe investigations will gain an extra dimension. There is pleasure in seeing characters, and story-telling develop and build into something more, of the machinations of people that battle to keep the forces of darkness away from the lives of those who prefer the light.

The narrative strands that Parson’s has laid out, he manages to pull together jarringly, to produce a thought-provoking dénouement, one that is as haunting as it is engaging.  #Taken’s climax, makes the reader anticipate the seventh instalment with marked impatience.

Highly recommended for your bookcase.