Tag Archives: Peter Grainger

Fiction, Reviews

‘Another Girl,’ by Peter Grainger

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I have, as I have frequently expressed, a great fondness for Peter Grainger’s DC Smith novels, police procedurals set in England’s Lake District. Author Grainger has spun off another, not quite separate, series through retiring Detective Inspector Smith and continuing to follow his old squad, now dubbed the Murder Squad, under its new commander, a female inspector named Cara Freeman. I’ve generally ignored this “King’s Lake Mystery” series, but I figured I’d give it a chance with the recently released Another Girl.

Verdict: It’s not bad of its sort, but I just find these books hard to enjoy. On the other hand, they’re in the latest fashion – driven by female characters – so I’m probably in the minority.

One of the star detectives on the King’s Lake squad is Serena Butler, a young policewoman who started her career in a shaky way but has since demonstrated great talent and drive. In Another Girl she’s working undercover. Her assignment is simply to get into a private club where, it’s suspected, drug business is being done. She manages that, but then one of the proprietors offers her a job as a courier. That opportunity to get on the inside is too tempting to resist.

Meanwhile, the body of an Asian man is found smashed up on a highway. Though at first it looks like a hit and run case, the medical examiner finds indications that the man was beaten to death, then dumped. Clues lead to suspicions of human trafficking and drugs… and eventually this case will hook up with Serena’s, which will contribute to her finding herself in mortal danger and out of communication…

My big problem with this whole new fashion of female-driven police novels is that I am not – and I’m pretty sure I’ll never be – comfortable with putting women in harm’s way. Here we have Serena fighting for her life, while her male colleagues sit back at the office, worrying and vowing revenge if anything happens to her. The author even makes so bold, toward the end, as to raise the Awful Question – Is it possible that men and women are different?

Anyway, Another Girl was an okay read, well-written and compelling like all Peter Grainger’s books. But personally I think I’ll wait for another DC Smith book.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Camera Man,’ by Peter Grainger

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‘The shoreline is the perfect metaphor. It shifts moment by moment, wave by wave, grain by grain. People used to ask why I was always photographing the same places but I never was. Living here, I’ve seen more sunrises than most people do in their whole lives but I’ve never seen two the same.’

D. C. Smith, retired detective from the police force in the fictional city of Kings Lake, Norfolk, is enjoying his quiet retirement on the coast, living with his partner Jo, a true crime writer, and their dog. But he’s allowed himself to be recruited by the private investigation firm of Diver and Diver. However, he’s in a position to turn down most of the cases they offer. Now, though, in The Camera Man, they’ve got something that piques his interest.

Gerald Fitch had been the owner of a struggling marine equipment business. One day five years ago he disappeared, leaving an estranged daughter and his second wife, generally believed to be a gold digger. Now the gold digger wants him declared dead so she can liquidate his property. But an insurance company underwrote a large policy on Gerald’s life, and they want Diver and Diver to look for proof of death – or life – before they pay out.

Smith agrees to look into it, and encounters a rather sad story about a man not really cut out for business who tried his best to be responsible but got out of his depth. Did he kill himself? Did he run away to a new life? Or – and this looks increasingly likely when Smith learns who the wife’s family is (they are “well known to the police” as they say over there) – was he murdered?

The D.C. Smith books are low-key, atmospheric and cerebral. Character is always at the heart of the story, and it’s Smith’s broad and humane sympathy that serves him as his best investigative tool. It’s a challenge poking into people’s lives without the authority of the law at his back, but that just makes it more interesting.

I profoundly enjoy all the D. C. Smith mysteries. Author Peter Grainger has branched out with other books about the younger detectives Smith trained as they carry on at Kings Lake, but there’s nobody like Smith for this reader. The Camera Man is a fine, rewarding book and I recommend it highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Missing pieces,’ by Peter Grainger

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The morning was as glorious a one as on Waters’ previous visit, and who would disagree that sunshine in the middle of June shows off the English countryside to its greatest advantage? The dappled light beneath those immemorial elms lit up the mosses and lichens on the gravestones they passed, nature’s own script in memoriam, written by the slow hand of time, and above their heads a party of screaming Swifts circled the church tower in an ecstasy of the old excitement.

The Kings Lake Investigations books by Peter Grainger continue the police procedural series that started with the D. C. Smith mysteries. Missing Pieces is the latest. I still miss Smith, who is reported to be off sailing somewhere now, and makes no appearance in this book. But I have to admit that the new books are still pretty good. And this one impressed me especially.

Inspector Smith’s old investigative team has now been incorporated into a new homicide squad. Kings Lake, however, is not Midsomer; they don’t have murders popping up on a weekly basis. So, with the one-year anniversary of their squad approaching, and desiring to justify their continued existence as a unit, they are ordered to look into some cold cases. They soon settle on a puzzler from the 1980s – a young woman was found strangled in a woodland clearing. She had no identification and lies now in an anonymous grave in a local churchyard.

As we follow the investigation, mostly from the viewpoint of Detective Christopher Waters, we see them drawing a connection between the murder and a Woodstock-like music festival held on the same property the same week. It proves surprisingly difficult to locate the people who owned the property at the time, and when they do, the owner is suspiciously reluctant to cooperate – even after being arrested.

The remainder of the story is a journey of curiosity, not suspense. There are no car chases, no gunfights, no sinister criminal masterminds. Just a journey into the Heart of Darkness, though it happens in a bucolic setting.

This is my favorite kind of mystery, and it was immensely satisfying. What made it even better was the excellent prose (note the excerpt above) and a well-integrated religious sub-theme. I have no idea what author Grainger believes, but he asks the right questions. All the police characters seem fairly clueless on religion but, faced with the possibility of New Age/Pagan human sacrifice as opposed to orthodox Christianity, Christianity comes out looking pretty good (though Pentecostals come in for a bit of a drubbing). I might almost describe Missing Pieces as a Christian novel, with the message very obliquely delivered.

But I don’t insist on that.

I do, however, recommend the book highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Truth,’ by Peter Grainger

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Cover of "The Truth" novel. White man's hand raised to shake hands with someone.

DC Smith is back. This is very good news. The hero of Peter Grainger’s low-key police novels, an inspector in a fictional town in Northumberlandshire, England, Smith was badly wounded a couple books ago. The series focus turned to younger detectives in a reorganized team. The next books were all right, but they weren’t Smith stories. Smith has retired now, but he’s fully recovered and starting to chafe at the inactivity. Even his live-in partner, Jo, thinks he needs to find something to do.

In The Truth, Anthony Hills, real estate broker son of Smith’s old desk sergeant, Charlie Hills, has been arrested. He bought a share in a luxury yacht, which turned out to be used for drug smuggling. Charlie retains a law firm to defend him, and they mention he might want to talk to a local private detective agency. That agency usually does cyber-investigation, but they’ve been thinking of taking on some shoe leather cases. And who better to handle such an investigation – just as a one-time shot – than DC Smith?

Private inquiry is a whole new world for our hero. He misses having police authority backing him up, but on the other hand he’s less tied down by regulations and paperwork. The case will involve a trip to Amsterdam entailing genuine danger of death, but in the end Smith will make the case. With a couple big surprises at the wrap-up.

Smith’s a great character, kind of a less scruffy Columbo. Small in stature and unprepossessing, he is in fact wicked smart and dangerous in a fight. He’s been one of my favorite fictional heroes for some time now, and it was a pure delight to see him back in action.

Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Roxanne,’ by Peter Grainger

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The Kings Lake Investigations books are a quiet pleasure for the mystery reader, consistently excellent and engaging, without sensationalism or hype. Author Peter Grainger produces readable, satisfying books about people you care for.

In Roxanne, the latest installment, the new Kings Lake murder squad investigates the death of a young woman found dead in a brand-new automobile. The car was her own (though there’s no record of her paying for it), and her body shows no signs of violence. It also appears she did not die where she was found.

DCI Cara Freeman, the new chief of the squad, leads her relatively untested team (we spend much of our time with DS Chris Waters, a hold-over from the days of Inspector DC Smith) as they examine the life of Roxanne, a wild child who had (according to her parents) gotten her act together, with a plan (though a problematic one) for making a future for herself. Problems within the team will be almost as much a challenge as identifying the murderer.

“Conspicuous by his absence” would be a good way to describe this series, now that the fascinating DC Smith is retired and has been relegated to the sidelines. Cara Freeman is interesting in her own way, but it’s kind of a negative way – she’s good at her job, but she remains a mystery to her team. They know nothing of her life or motivations – though the reader will get some insight in this book. Chris Waters is also a sympathetic character, and it’s good to watch him work, and to observe his relationship with his blind girlfriend.

I can’t deny I’d prefer to see DC Smith going through his paces indefinitely, but Roxanne was a good, low-key, sympathetic mystery which I enjoyed from beginning to end. I don’t recall any objectionable content, except for a lamentable misuse of the phrase, “begs the question.” Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘On Eden Street,’ by Peter Grainger

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I pulled out all the stops and actually paid full price for the latest Peter Grainger mystery novel, On Eden Street. The DC Smith books hold a special place in my regard. Alas, this novel marks the point in the saga where Smith himself – now retired and recovering from injuries – has only a small part to play, though he does show up.

It takes a pair of new officers, DCI Kara Freeman and an organizational genius named DI Greene, to replace Smith at the head of a new team, the Kings Lake Central Murder Squad. Most of Smith’s own team are still on hand, along with some new officers. DCI Freeman is planning to spend their first day as an operational unit doing team-building exercises and reviewing cold cases. But then a body is discovered. One of the local homeless has been found dead in the doorway of a Chinese restaurant. On examination, the man proves to have been stabbed to death.

Although the narrative point of view shifts between various characters, the main protagonist in this one is DS Christopher Waters. Waters’s investigation brings him into contact with a blind woman who runs a florist shop, and romance… blossoms. Meanwhile, the dead man, who claimed to have been a war veteran, turns out to have been an impostor. So was he the murderer’s actual target, or was it a case of mistaken identity? If so, where is the real veteran, who seems to have fallen off the grid?

Peter Grainger is a solid and rewarding writer, and I enjoyed reading On Eden Street. My only complaint is that Smith is mostly out of the picture. Nobody can replace Smith.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Songbird,’ by Peter Grainger

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As he sat down again, Smith said, ‘I can’t remember the exact occasion when I first said this to you, but I know I’ll have said it before. The time will come when you’ll have to choose between being a high-ranking, well-paid and officially respected police detective, and being a good one. This shouldn’t ever happen, but in my experience it always does….’

Peter Grainger’s series of police procedurals starring Detective Sergeant D.C. Smith has been one of my reading pleasures for some time. They’re rather quiet books, short on action scenes and long on character and atmosphere. It’s been a delight to watch Smith carry on his eccentric career, defying his superiors when necessary, nurturing his investigative team.

Smith was badly wounded at the end of the last book, so when Songbird opens he’s out of the picture. He will show up, but he’ll be peripheral to this story. Now is the time to watch the young detectives he’s trained operating without training wheels.

The main character in Songbird is Detective Sergeant Chris Waters, who now occupies the exact position in the hierarchy where Smith used to be. Since he took the job on, things have been quiet in the fictional East Anglian town of Kings Lake. But now a body has been found.

It’s the body of an attractive woman, found strangled near a caravan (mobile home) park. The investigative machinery starts moving, and before long a suspect has been identified. DNA evidence seems incontrovertible. The big brass are ready to lock the suspect up and celebrate their win.

But Chris is pretty certain they’re wrong. He can’t explain away the evidence (yet), but this particular suspect seems to him incapable of such a crime – for several reasons.

In the tradition of D.C. Smith before him, Chris Waters will, very carefully, defy his superiors’ wishes and look for alternatives. Fortunately for him, he has allies he never expected.

I missed D.C. Smith himself in his usual role – though Smith does have a part to play in the story – but Songbird had all the usual pleasures of a Grainger novel. I fear (and this is a criticism I’ve made of a lot of police series) that the story is overpopulated with woman detectives. I think Phil once looked up the statistics, and women in the British police are not nearly as ubiquitous as they are in the fiction. Also, I figured out the big red herring right away. But all in all, I liked Songbird a lot. And there are hints that Smith himself may find a new role in the future.

No particular cautions are necessary, for adult readers. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Private Investigation,’ by Peter Grainger

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A Private Investigation

Bittersweet. The last of a good thing is always bittersweet, and Peter Grainger’s DC Smith books have become one of the small pleasures in my life. This one may be the last in the series (though the ending is ambiguous).

As A Private Investigation begins, Detective Sergeant D.C. Smith is rapidly approaching mandatory retirement, two weeks away (it was a little weird for me to start this book just as I was two weeks away from the end of my own job). Smith is keeping a low profile, tidying up the records on his last case. No one expects him to do any serious investigation; he’s just filling time. His old team has been broken up. His new superiors, one a former subordinate, the other a long-time rival, are keeping their distances.

And then a teenage girl disappears. It strikes Smith as odd that his career should end with the abduction of a young girl; that’s what his first major case was.

But then there’s a shock – a connection is discovered between that old first case and this present one. Which does not impel Smith into action – that would be against regulations. But he pays attention, and gives his friends on the case some useful pointers.

But that won’t be enough. Someone is preparing a final showdown. D.C. Smith’s career will not end quietly.

I very much enjoy this whole series of books. D.C. Smith is a fascinating, engaging character – reserved, ironic, quirky, but beneath it all a man who truly cares about victims and the justice due to them. Also, here and there, author Grainger throws in hints of a conservative world-view.

There may have been some bad language, but I don’t recall any. I really have no cautions for you. I enjoyed A Private Investigation, and recommend you read the whole series.

Who knows? There may even be another book.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Time and Tide,’ by Peter Grainger

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Time and Tide

As you’ve probably noticed, I have a fondness for British police procedural mysteries. Of all the series I’ve sampled, I think I like Peter Grainger’s DC Smith mysteries best.

It’s probably mainly the central character I enjoy. Detective Sergeant D.C. Smith is a curmudgeon, an older cop who conceals an essentially kindly nature behind a crusty exterior. He uses his dry sense of humor as a tool to keep his opponents – both professional and criminal – off balance. He’s nearing retirement as Time and Tide begins. Police work is changing. He’s never warmed to the use of the computer (though he’s happy to have his underlings take advantage of them), and recent force reorganizations have played hob with his carefully trained and organized team. Although he’s only a sergeant (he rejected promotion; it would confine him behind a desk), he’s effectively the leader of that team.

In Time and Tide, a body is discovered floating in the sea off the Norfolk coast by a party of seal-watching tourists. The deceased was a large, tough-looking specimen dressed in an expensive suit, without any form of ID. In time he’s identified as a London businessman, once a gangster but now “legitimate.”

DC Smith is (or feels himself to be) as much hampered by the police bureaucracy as by the villains. He has a new detective inspector over his head, and he happens to be a man who once questioned Smith in connection with a murder. On the civilian side, he faces the challenge of a small community looking after its own – confident it can take care of its own problems, and resentful of official interference. And in the background, there’s a mysterious elderly woman of great natural beauty, a one-time pop star who has been living in obscurity on the coast for decades.

There’s a valedictory quality to Time and Tide. Smith has given his resignation and named the date of his retirement, and everything happens in the shade of that deadline. But there’s a couple months left, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if author Grainger doesn’t find a way to squeeze one or two more mysteries into that window of time.

Some people may find this book slow, because it’s pretty realistic about the amount of time and effort paperwork and legwork take up in any investigation. But I enjoyed it immensely. Only mild cautions for language and mature themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Afon,’ by Robert Partridge

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Afon

He had forgotten, too, the pain of this [writing] – the pain of dragging this thing out of oneself, the birth of a reluctant child that would much rather go on growing inside than be forced out screaming into the light of day and the fear of examination. He had forgotten the monstrous ego that was needed to push the creation out into the world, with all its mess and suffering. He had forgotten.

I’ve been praising Peter Grainger’s DC Smith novels in this space. On noodling around for further information about the author (who seems to wish to be a man of mystery), I discovered that “Peter Grainger” is a pen name. More than that, the author had earlier written (under the name Robert Partridge) some literary novels, one of which – Afon – starred a character named Peter Grainger, who was a novelist.

Messing with our heads, in other words.

So I bought Afon. It’s pretty good. Not my cuppa tea, but a well-written novel.

Peter Grainger is in his 40s. Long ago he wrote a first novel that got a lot of recognition, and then he lost his nerve and wrote no more. Now he’s quit a teaching job, which he hated. He has some money left from a divorce settlement, so he decides to take a lease on a cottage on an estate called Afon, in a remote valley in Wales. He will try and write another novel. If he fails, at least he’ll know he made the attempt.

He meets the elderly landowner and his much younger wife. He learns to fly fish. He makes an enemy of the estate’s brutal gamekeeper, agonizes over his feelings for two different women (both married), and after a struggle produces a new book.

Afon abounds in lovely descriptions of the natural beauty of Wales, and in perceptive dramatizations of the writing process. The ending is kind of ambiguous, the sort of thing you expect in a literary novel – which is one of the reasons I generally avoid literary novels.

But it’s pretty good. Not much obscenity here, though the bonds of marriage take a beating. Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.