Answers from the Grave by
Mark Timlin
hbk out August 04
Published by Do Not Press
at £16.99
A belated hallelujah for the latest from Mark Timlin, an audaciously plotted story of
South London crime that is epic in scope - and written with both heart and soul.
Timlin's prologue, for what crime novel doesn't come with a prologue these days,
introduces 'ace face' Danny Butler, Jimmy Hunter and three mates as they take down
a Big Five branch in 80s Brixton. But a member of the group has revealed their plan
to the police and the raid dissolves in a hail of bullets. One of the dead is policeman
Billy Farrow, a teenage chum of Danny and Jimmy, in fact shot by Jimmy, the act of a
split second 'that would stretch for more than twenty years before its echoes and
reverberations would end.'
In the present, the Big Five bank now a Brixton Macdonald's, Mark Farrow, Billy's
son has returned to London, after some years in France, with one or two things on his
mind. Gang boss John Jenner, riddled with cancer ('I'll never get my bus pass now'),
is looking for someone to handle the emerging multiracial competition, there is other
unfinished business with an old girlfriend - and Jimmy Hunter is about to emerge
from jail. The stage looks set for several of Timlin's trademark bloodbaths.
Timlin doesn't cheat on the occasional bloodbath, but what we mostly get is
something rather different - and altogether more intriguing. His intentions are
signalled right from the start. By Chapter 2, John Jenner and Mark Farrow are scoping
out the streets of modern-day Brixton, along with those of Balham and Tulse Hill (by
no coincidence the mean streets of Timlin's own youth). But Jenner is also a link to
Farrow's own past, for Billy Farrow also grew up with Jenner, sharing teenage years
before Billy joined the police. Thus the narrative is continually punctuated by the
past, the pages crowded with incidents and people (including a young Nick Sharman
as a bent cop) from forty years of south and central London history, often musical (as
you might expect), emotional and, of course, criminal.
The miracle is that the forward momentum of the story is never lost. Whilst the
occasional transition from present to past is awkwardly handled, the majority work
exceptionally well; adding scenes of lost love, humour and short, sharp action that
lend meaning and depth to the present. Indeed Timlin continually racks up the tension
both through plot development (a drug deal goes wrong) and emotionally (an
investigating police officer is revealed to be Sean Pierce, the son of Jimmy Hunter's
remarried wife). Indeed, it quickly becomes clear as the book races towards its
uncompromising climax, there are no easy answers here, not even from the grave.
Timlin's finest hours (it's a long book). Don't miss.
