Dead Reckoning by
Patricia Hall
hbk out November 03
Published by Allison Busby
at £17.99
Patricia Hall is the pen name of journalist Maureen O’Connor. Her crime fiction series teams journalist Laura Ackroyd with policeman, and partner, DCI Michael Thackeray to investigate dodgy goings on in the fictional Yorkshire town of Bradfield. In Dead Reckoning the impending closure of Earnshaw’s Mill threatens to result in mass redundancies among the, mainly Muslim, workforce. Industrial action and civil unrest are on the cards. At a time when racial tensions are already high and with the far right British Patriotic Party deliberately aggravating hostilities, there’s a likelihood of fresh riots and racial violence. When son and heir Simon Earnshaw is found murdered Thackeray investigates. Reporter Laura is researching features on the Muslim community for the local paper. In the course of her work she comes across the case of a missing girl: has she run away or been abducted?
Hall takes the traditional mystery novel and peoples it with modern characters facing contemporary challenges. She depicts with a clear eye the problems and conflicts that trouble British towns where communities are isolated from one another and where inequality, ignorance and intolerance fuse to breed hostility. I wasn’t completely convinced by the motivation of the killer but that quibble apart this is a satisfying read.
Manchester Evening News 1.11.03
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
