Little Girl Blue by
David Cray
hbk out August 03
Published by Orion
at £17.99
This is the third book I've reviewed within a month that has paedophilia as
its theme – though I should say 'pedophilia', as this is a very American
book, sited in Manhattan. The blurb says that David Cray is the pseudonym
of a well-known mystery writer who lives in New York and I've toyed with
the idea that it might be either Evan Hunter or Laurence Block. It's certainly
very well-written and is a real page-turner.
The title comes from the victim, a small girl found naked and dead in a
wintry Central Park, blue from the exposure that killed her. The central
character, a NYPD lieutenant Julia Brennan, suspects that the girl has
escaped from a juvenile brothel in the posh part of the East Side and the
whole story is about the tracking down of the organisers of this foul trade.
The action is complicated by the progressive murder of some of these
people, the killer seeming to keep a step ahead of the police. An undercover
officer who has been using the Internet to trap some of the culprits, becomes
both Julia's lover and a suspect himself.
The characters are strongly drawn and the details of NY police procedure
and the inner rivalries and back-biting of that Irish-dominated force are well
portrayed, as is the topography and feel of the Big Apple itself.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Little Girl Blue by
David Cray
