{"id":12265,"date":"2019-03-27T15:54:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12265"},"modified":"2019-03-27T15:54:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:54:56","slug":"the-last-straw-by-paul-gitsham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12265","title":{"rendered":"‘The Last Straw,’ by Paul Gitsham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I was in a mood<\/strong> for a change of pace from intense crime thrillers, and thought I\u2019d look for a good, old-fashioned police procedural. I found it in The Last Straw<\/a><\/em>, Paul Gitsham\u2019s first in a series starring Detective Chief Inspector Warren Jones of the (fictional) Middlesbury police force, in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Alan Tunbridge of the (also fictional) University of Middle England\u2019s biology department was a genius and, by all accounts, a pretty vile man. He abused his colleagues, exploited and sabotaged his student assistants, and pursued any pretty young woman who came his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, he didn\u2019t deserve to have this throat cut.\nWhich is what happened, in his office, on a day when the laboratory building\nwas nearly empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A suspect is quickly identified. A figure on the building\u2019s closed circuit TV is readily identifiable as a former student of Tunbridge\u2019s, an Italian man with good reason to hate him. When bloodstained clothing is found on the man\u2019s property, it follows naturally he must be arrested and charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But DCI Warren Jones, newly promoted and transferred in to\nMiddlesbury, is a stickler for \u201cdotting the Is and crossing the Ts,\u201d as he\nrepeatedly says. And he and his subordinates begin to have doubts about the evidence.\nLooking more closely, they begin to uncover a ruthless conspiracy, one which\nwill not stint at committing further murders to keep its secrets —  and even cops are not safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, I found The Last Straw<\/em> a little dull at first. I\u2019ve grown accustomed to angst-ridden detectives, bedeviled by alcoholism, PTSD, bad marriages and ingrown guilt. DCI Jones is another kind of policeman altogether. He\u2019s healthy, well organized, and generally cheerful. And when personal conflicts appear on his team, he handles them in a manner that\u2019s an example to us all. I do worry about his marriage though \u2013 his wife is remarkably patient, but the pressure is heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book grew on me. It didn\u2019t hurt that a couple of the characters identified as Christians and church-goers. I recommend The Last Straw<\/em> for a more leisurely read than common in the genre, with only a mild caution for language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in a mood for a change of pace from intense crime thrillers, and thought I\u2019d look for a good, old-fashioned police procedural. I found it in The Last Straw, Paul Gitsham\u2019s first in a series starring Detective Chief Inspector Warren Jones of the (fictional) Middlesbury police force, in England. Professor Alan Tunbridge of … Continue reading ‘The Last Straw,’ by Paul Gitsham<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[692,2154,2934],"class_list":["post-12265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-dci-warren-jones","tag-paul-gitsham","tag-the-last-straw"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}