The Telephone Call

Written by Michael Pakenham

Review written by Adam Colclough

Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.


The Telephone Call
Book Guild Publishing Ltd
RRP: £9.95
Released: December 4 2019
PBK

Rosemary Sherwood overheads a phone conversation between her husband Harry and an associate that contains a dark secret. One that will end her marriage, split up her family and send her into hiding.

Years later with Harry dead, Rosemary returns to England to attempt a reconciliation with her estranged son. Old sins may still cast long shadows, and some will go to any lengths to ensure their crimes stay concealed.

Michael Pakenham takes a story of sexual exploitation and the networks that support [and grow it like diseased vines], locating it within a historical and cosy-crime backdrop. In the process, the author plays a neat riff on the old Sherlock Holmes line about ‘the countryside hiding more dark deeds than the meanest London alley’.

He combines a plot that races along at a breakneck pace with a real awareness of how getting away with a crime isn’t the same thing as dodging guilt. The latter has a habit of following his characters tracks, however well they think they’ve covered them over.

In Daniel Appleman he has created that rarest of things an ex-cop turned private detective with a happy family life. An upstanding hero who does the right thing, even when it is also the most difficult one; placing into the context and tradition of the British golden age mystery.

This is the second outing for Appleman, hopefully it will not be the last.

 

 


 




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