Jim Lusby Making the Cut
Vista Pbk (0 575 60013 6) £4.99
A new voice in the crime
novel genre, Jim Lusby lifts the police procedural into way above average by the standard
of his writing. Both books are set in Ireland in the author's home territory, bringing a
change of scenery and references to Irish history, folklore and songs to add interest to
tight and convincingly worked out murder mysteries. The sense of atmosphere is created
with skill and Lusby draws convincingly varied characters to people the town of Waterford
and its environs. In Making The Cut the story opens with police car sirens screaming their way to the docks where the dead body of a middle-aged man, whose appearance leads DI Carl McCadden to comment that he probably "laboured for a living and drank Guinness for his entertainment" has been discovered in a cargo container full of peat moss by a wino looking for a bed.
McCadden, once on the trail of the murderer, finds, as many clever and fairly honourable fictional detectives do, his way hampered by a less clever and less than honourable superior officer. Politics and Power and Corruption are the themes in Making The Cut - and the plot is worked out against a background of run-down housing estates, pubs, the dog racing track and a particular factory owned by one of the prominent members of Waterford society.
REVIEW
Jim Lusby Flashback
Gollancz (0 575 06041 7) £15.99
The usual problems for the
dedicated law officer of keeping a wife or girl friend surface in this, Lusby's first
book, but are more prominent in Flashback where the overall theme is
relationship between the sexes and sexual practices involving voyeurism, fantasy and, of
course, murder. Here we are treated to an equally dramatic and atmospheric beginning to
the story in the form of a Prologue. McCadden, in Dunhill, fifteen miles along the coast
to the west of Waterford, is following a lead to unsolved murders of a year ago by someone
with a penchant for killing blondes. It's bitter December, in a graveyard, winds gusting
in from the Celtic Sea and a gravedigger who has information he needs. In the flashback
which follows, the milieu in which the crimes occur is one of theatre, amateur dramatics,
home movies and pub entertainers. There are plenty of red herrings for those who like a
challenge to their capacity for solving puzzles. The aspects of the Jim Lusby's books that
I enjoyed most were more to do with DI McCadden - his character and his tendency to go in
for philosophical asides which often rang bells and made me think "Yes, that's how
it is". Unconventional in appearance, with a cool, laid back charm, he observes
and comments on aspects of human nature with sensitivity. He also gives away plenty of
practical advice on the psychological techniques of successful questioning of suspects and
manages, against all odds, to outmanoeuvre his obnoxious superior officer. At one point he reflects on one of the characters in Flashback, "How well she knew them .... and how deeply she had thought about it all" - words which may well apply to Carl McCadden and, of course, Lusby himself.
(PED)
