Angels Passing is the third novel in the Joe Faraday series, but, as is often the case when I grab a few random crime-fiction titles from the 3-for-£5 section at The Works, this is the first of them that I have discovered. There are twelve titles available in this series, the last of which was published in 2012, so it's presumably the last. It looks to be an interesting storyline and I'd be intrigued in starting at the beginning, to learn more about the background stories that flesh out the characters.
DI Faraday is an interesting and multi-layered character, central to the police investigations going on in this book. He has a deaf son, J.J., who turns up halfway through the book, having split up from his partner in France, and the memory of his own wife, who died of cancer, still lingers. He now has a relationship with a married woman called Martha, which is going on in the background in this book - I would presume she played a larger role in the previous tomes. He is an experienced cop who seems to be weary of the bureaucracy and restraints put on him by his superiors, who seem to have their own ulterior motives in their relationships with the press and their future career moves.
The story takes place in Portsmouth, or Pompey as the locals call it, and it seems to be an incredibly bleak place to grow up. The book begins with a 14-year-old girl toppling to her death from a tower block. Her divorced parents add to the tragic story of their unhappy teen, revealing tales of drink, drugs and sleeping around. The mysterious ten-year-old who was present at the time of her death, according to the CCTV cameras, seems to have an equally uninspiring life - his single mother has hit the drink and has no idea where her son is. The bleak setting of the closed-down cinema where he, and several other local kids, play and often sleep, really shows the lack of prospects that the younger generation have before them.
The older generations don't seem to be doing much better though, and the body count continues to rise. A small-time drug dealer is found dead, hanging from a local tree, but given his injuries, it doesn't look as if he took his own life. As Faraday and his fellow police officers round up the usual suspects, we are shown the hopeless tit-for-tat lifestyle (and ultimately death style) that causes more than a few headaches for the police.
It's an interesting portrayal of the police service, with DI Faraday trudging through life, dealing with whatever fate throws his way on a daily basis, both in the professional and private sphere. He doesn't come across as particularly heroic - there are no high-octane scenes of him dodging bullets or climbing out of crashed cars as you would see in the Hollywood movies - but I think this gives his character greater depth as he seems truly believable.
It's not a particularly optimistic novel, even if Faraday and his team do manage to clear up all of the crimes that he was dealing with. The story ends with him taking a birdwatching trip with his son, ignoring the phone call from his girlfriend and putting the recent crime spree to the back of his mind. That's about as heroic as his life can get for Faraday !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £9.99
- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Orion (16 Sept. 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1409120074
- ISBN-13: 978-1409120070
Hmm, it does sound very bleak, I'll probably give it a miss. I haven't heard of this series, though the cover looks familiar. I've probably seen in the Works as well.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a bad book - but not something to read if you need cheering up :)
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