Killing for England by
Iain McDowall
hbk out August 05
Published by Piatkus
at £18.99
A police procedural set in the Midlands town of Crowby, featuring DCI
Jacobson as the lead character. In the Prologue, the body of Darren
McGee, a young black man, was recovered from the river some time
before the main story begins. He was a schizophrenic, working in the
kitchens of a local hotel and nothing gave rise to any conclusion other
than suicide. However, his cousin arrives in Crowby from London, and
turns out to be a high-flying free-lance journalist, intent on proving that
Darren's death was due to a race-hate assault. He takes his conviction to
Jacobson, who has no reason to believe that it has any foundation, unless
some corroboration is produced. This arrives rapidly in the form of the
cousin also being found dead in the river.
Crowby has an active cell of the New Nationalists, a far-right
organisation, and apart from other less serious incidents of racism, they
become suspect in relation to the two deaths, though there is still no hard
proof that they are murders. The story is a complex one, intertwining the
personal problems of police officers, the relationships between the neo-
fascists and the added complication of Vicky, Darren's former girl-friend.
This is no 'who-dunit', being a hard-nosed story of a difficult
investigation and is tightly-written in great detail, the smoking of every
cigarette described. One also gets the impression that the author is
writing out his own antipathy to right-wing racial intolerance.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Killing for England by
Iain McDowall
