THE ABBEY

A young girl is brutally murdered in an exclusive Indianapolis suburb, for Detective Ash Rashid this is no routine investigation. The murdered girl is his niece and the hunt for her killer will put his job, his family and his life on the line.

Chris Culver’s debut novel, which has arrived garlanded with high praise and the sales to match from the US, pulls off the difficult trick of standing out in a crowded field.  This is helped no end by a plot that deftly combines the standard elements of the genre with some inventive nastiness involving chemical weapons and the current vogue for vampires.

The book is also to be enjoyed for its protagonist, on one level Ash Rashid is a standard ‘troubled cop’. He has all the problems and attributes you might expect, a problematic relationship with his superiors and authority in general, unresolved guilt over past mistakes and a taste for the hard stuff. Added to this is the ongoing struggle of a flawed man to be true to the demands of his faith, this last element is treated with refreshing seriousness rather than as just another piece of the ‘hero’ kit to be slotted into place.

This is a book that feeds its readers enough action to satisfy their tastes, but also has a deeper and more profound personal conflict at its centre. There is sufficient material here to make Chris Culver and Ash Rashid into two of the biggest names in the genre.