Tony R Cox is an ex-provincial UK journalist. The Simon Jardine series is based on his memories of the early 70s - the time of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll - when reporters relied on word of mouth and there was no internet, no mobile phones, not even a fax machine.
Lisa Moran, a young, attractive, dedicated, hard-working, much-admired teacher who also tackles disturbing child abuse cases for a phone-in charity, is found dead on a desolate Irish bog. Spread out, star-like, she is serenaded by the sound of the pounding Atlantic Ocean. This scene-setting captures all the right emotions and starts a novel that raises the bar for crime procedurals.
Fiction can get its power from reading like non-fiction: the enthralling sense that what is being related here is not a plot, but a description that could real life. The Night Caller is a measured, well-paced, page turner, with meticulous, almost factual, detail, and without an extraneous word. It may look like two dimensions in print, but that could be four: the reader is drawn in to live the characters’ lives and follow their every step, emotionally and physically, with the addition of the ever present, hanging, mysterious threat of violent death.
Lisa Moran, it transpires, is no saint, but her murder is still a vicious tragedy. When another body is found, are we looking at a serial killer with no apparent motive?
Characterisation is one of this author’s strongest suits. DS Lucy Golden and her partner, Dan Brown, lead us through an enthralling, captivating plot. Both have back-stories that are on the point of exploding dramatically, but that is realistic and enhances the knife-edge stress of the search for the killer.
We eventually ‘meet’ the villain and his musings send shivers down our spine, for this is someone ‘on a mission’. They are planning their every move and staying one step ahead. The police haven’t got a clue, until they get a clue and then they attack in force down cul-de-sacs going nowhere. Every shred of discovered evidence seems designed to lead them astray.
The Night Caller is an artful, measured and gripping story. It is not simply located in a remote island off Ireland but it uses the literary language of that bookish country so the words dance across the pages, tightly choreographed for maximum effect. We are led, guided, cajoled and excited as the plot gathers pace to a powerful, dramatic and satisfying climax.
A great way to start a year.
