Tangled Web UK Review July 2008
Pitch Black by
Alex Gray
pbk out April 08
(Sphere)
at £11.99
A book about Glasgow and about football - the fact that Alex Gray is a woman raises no eyebrows these days, when BBC have such highly competent lady commentators.
This is a ‘Tartan Noir’, as Val McDermid puts it and there are murmurs about Alex’s Inspector Lorimer being Glasgow’s answer to Rankin’s Edinburgh Rebus.
The plot concerns the fatal stabbing of Kelvin FC’s new and expensive mid-fielder, Nicko Faulkner, closely followed by the homicidal shooting of a referee, Norman Cartwright, who had made an unpopular and controversial decision in a major match involving Kelvin.
The book starts with Janis Faulkner on the run, in a blind panic driving to the Highlands after finding her husband’s dead body. He had been abusing her and she was the obvious suspect.
DCI Lorimer, on holiday in the Isles, actually sees Janis being picked up by the local constabulary at a ferry, then later is assigned to the case in Glasgow. The ramifications, involving the Board members of Kelvin FC become more complex and dangerous, leading to a story that, even to a total sports-allergist like the reviewer, is tense and gripping.
Alex Gray has written four previous crime novels and has been awarded well-deserved prizes for them.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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