Death in Dark Waters by
Patricia Hall
pbk out August 03
(Allison Busby)
at £6.99
Another Ackroyd and Thackeray mystery, though there is little of a mystery
about it in the sense of a 'whodunnit' - nor was there intended to be, I
suspect.
It is another in the series based in Bradfield, a Yorkshire town with problems
between the Asian, black and native populations. Detective Chief Inspector
Michael Thackeray lives with Laura Ackroyd, a fiesty reporter on the local
paper - though why she puts up with such a miserable guy is in itself a
mystery. This episode centres on a high-rise estate where drug-taking is rife
and the residents live in fear of the yobs and dealers. Laura's grandmother, a
former Old Labour leader, attempts to help run a training centre for the kids
in an attempt to combat unemployment and addiction, but gets short-shrift
from the New Labour yuppies now running the Town Hall, who want to
demolish the estate to make way for luctrative public-private development.
The whole situation goes pear-shaped when one boy is killed on the estate
and another is run over outside an ill-favoured night club, which the Asian
community want to close down.
Patrica Hall writes admirably and the book is certainly a page-turner, but
like the previous one, I find them rather depressing. There is not a word of
humour anywhere, it's raining like hell all the time, most people are in a
hopeless situation and usually bitching at each other. Maybe life is like that
in Bradfield, but if you want escapism in your leisure reading, this ain't the
place to find it - though one can certainly admire the professionalism of the
writing.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Death in Dark Waters by
Patricia Hall
