Tangled Web UK Review June 2009
The Black Monastery by
Stav Sherez
hbk out April 09
Published by Faber
at £12.99
A dark murder story, set mostly in the Greek Islands - or rather, Palassos, a fictional one, the like of which tourists would do well to avoid after this book.
Jason, an aspiring crime writer in London, is desperate to get his manuscript
seen by Kitty Carson, a successful author and he follows her to Palassos where
she is having a break from both pressure of work and her husband. By a lucky break
(for him) Jason manages to interrupt a couple of muggers assaulting her and so
strikes up a liaison.
The island police-chief, Nikos, also has problems, in that two mutilated corpses of young people have been found in a ruined monastery in the hills above the town, repeating a scenario that happened over thirty years before, when he was a rookie policeman. He has spent most of the intervening time working in Athens, but recently came back to clean up a drugs problem amongst the rowdy, drunken tourists. Then, a hippie commune was blamed, but were all found shot to death and the assumption made that a whole cult had committed suicide. Now the similar crimes raise the fears that the cult has reappeared.
Two former monks from the monastery are still on the island, but vanish and the two Brits get deeply involved with Nikos and his wife, between whom there is some deep secret.
The story is intriguing and well written, though I dislike the modern pretentious fad for writing some chapters in the first person.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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