Bonfire

A blazing barrel careers down a crowded street to burst and reveal a charred body that is still just alive.

We’re in Sussex: Lewes on November 5th when boisterous celebrations are held in memory not only of Guy Fawkes but of seventeen Protestant martyrs burned at the stake. Huge crosses flame on lawns. Diversity rules. On this night Health and Safety is a joke in Lewes and, surrounded by fireworks and flammable liquids, in charge of policing this toxic bacchanalia is a new DCI from Brighton, Holly Hennessey. And she’s about to have her first Bonfire Night go widdershins.

She hears the barrel coming and pushes another woman, a TV reporter, out of its path, mutual recognition dawning on both as they recover from the shock. We must diverge here - the barrel was a great introduction and the casualty is about to die but these two witnesses are the main characters in this debut novel, their history and reunion not only affecting subsequent events but forming a parallel and anguished love story in present time.

Fifteen years ago they were at school together and Holly was passionately in love with Kyra but the affair imploded in betrayal and ridicule and the years have only intensified emotions of resentment and guilt. However, Holly has become a high ranking police officer and the lovely Kyra is making films, and both are destined to become protagonists, then allies and finally targets of the men who put the girl in the barrel.

Holly and Kyra tell the story in alternate chapters with no one - characters or author – interceding, which means that all police and media operations are hopelessly entangled with private and domestic issues. There is no compartmentalizing. To make situations even more complicated Kyra is romantically involved with the son of a man whom Holly suspects of being a godfather and whose aunt she knows to be a witch.

By the halfway mark Bonfire is less a mystery and more of a thriller. The criminals are obvious, small crimes building to expose a major enterprise. The commanders are smooth, their subordinates thugs but often with beautiful bodies. They are balanced by the staunch support of Holly’s sergeant and Kyra’s cameraman; both resembling large dogs: faithful guardians, loyal to the last breath, and asexual. For the rest the women take lovers irrespective of gender or indeed of love. This is a thriller fuelled by lust. Only the criminals have wised up and use that to their advantage: not a new concept, but the embellishments are intriguing.

They are particularly intriguing to one of the Brighton diaspora, reared and formed by Rudyard Kipling and the white cliffs and the dim blue distance of the Weald. In Bonfire there is a university outside Brighton and paddle boarders below the white cliffs but there are witches still who use magic potions and there are land deals and hosts of gullible people and scams and always money, and yet more money.

Hepburn has married the old with the new and come up trumps.