THE SECRETS MAN

When DCI John Blizzard visits a friend in hospital, he is intrigued by the elderly villain in the next bed, who babbles on about the things he knows about the local criminal gangs. Although most of Blizzard’s colleagues dismiss the ravings of a senile old man, his ramblings attract a number of sinister characters to the ward. Not long after that the old villain is dead, and Blizzard starts to wonder if there was truth to his words after all. Has he been silenced for giving away old gang land secrets?

Meanwhile, Blizzard is occupied with the case of local teenagers who are turning up dead, apparently victims of drugs contaminated with a lethal poison. Is there a connection between these victims, and the killing of a gang land member 40 years ago? Can Blizzard find the dealer selling the lethal gear before any more young people die?

It took me a while to like John Blizzard, who comes across as being yet another cynical and hard-bitten old copper. But he did grow on me after a while.  For all his flaws, he is a character trying to do the right thing, for the sake of the young girl on life support who was the first victim of the drug dealer, and for his police woman partner, whom he thinks deserves a man she can be proud of. And in spite of the apparently disparate storylines, the two plot threads tie up neatly at the end, and make for an engrossing read.