Review:
 Unnatural Acts by Dylan Jones. 
Arrow Pbk £5.99.
A dramatic opening to this thriller - the murder and bloody disfigurement of a woman.  The only witness is a male schizophrenic.
The victim was Dr Catrin Jacob from England, attending a medical convention in Chicago.  The witness, Jacob Beck, christens the killer “The Whistler”.
By coincidence Jacob Beck’s brother is put in charge of the police investigation.  Det. Lewis Beck, aware of his brother’s involvement, is reluctant to take the case, but under pressure relents and is thus dilatory in investigating the murder.
Cut to England where the victim’s brother Dr Rhys Jacob is informed of his sister’s demise and the requirement for him to identify the body and bring the deceased back to England for burial.
Meanwhile in Chicago Det. Susan Mackie is assigned to assist Lewis Beck and the duo now come under pressure to solve the murder quickly because of pending local elections and the possibility of the cancellation of future conventions in the city if the perpetrator is not caught quickly.
Dr Rhys Jacob, having identified the body,  is encouraged to return to England.  But, made aware of the evidence gleaned from his sister’s hotel room and on overhearing Lewis Beck’s opinion of the case, decides otherwise and becomes a torment to the authorities.
Rhys Beck impels the investigation by his belief in his sister’s probity.  By contacting people his sister spent her last days with he dispels police suspicions of a drug related murder.
After an appearance on television in which he appears critical of the authorities Dr Jacobs is contacted by a woman whose daughter, also a doctor, had vanished while attending a medical convention in Chicago.  Dr Jacobs tries to convince the police that his sister’s murder was not an isolated incident, but his suggestion is met with scepticism.
Jacob Beck, the witness, encounters “The Whistler” and follows him but is too frightened to confront him personally.  Jacob contacts his brother Lewis Beck and Dr. Jacobs and attempts to give clues to the murderer’s identity.  But because of his dysfunctional thought and speech patterns the information he gives is garbled.
The investigations of Det Susan Mackie and the disappearance of Dr. Rhys Jacobs convinces her that the original murder may be linked to the previous disappearances.  Mackie eventually convinces Lewis Beck and together the pair then enter into the gruesome finale.
I found the subject matter interesting.  However the mid section seems a little slow at times.  The flashbacks of “The Whistler” could have given more insight into the killer’s state of mind and modus operandi without detracting from the ending.
The problem of living with schizophrenia and the burden of familial responsibility is given a sympathetic hearing and is informative.
Ray Pilkington.

Review: 
Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter. 
Serpent's Tail £11.99 Hbk, £7.99 Pbk
This is a racy, amusing and frantic whirl through Manhattan with Nanette, a black, street saxophonist with a masters degree in French.  Her life is simple enough to start with; a straightforward matter of whether or not her on-off lover Welter is in or out of favour. Then by chance, Nanette meets a fellow musician called Sig who declares his undying love for her and ends up dead in her apartment on the day of their first meeting.
Things then go from bad to worse as we are introduced to Leman Sweet, the toughest cop in town who is relentlessly pursuing the truth regarding the death of his undercover pal.   He and Nanette develop a mutual loathing of each other but her life becomes sweeter as she meets a dashing Greek, Henry. He has an obsession with Charlie Parker and seeks the help of Nanette in furthering his knowledge. They have a whirlwind affair before the action takes on a different flavour and corpses start appearing with great regularity.
Suddenly, Nanette is dealing with all sorts of threats and decides to take matters into her own hands. The fascinating question which isn't answered is who or what is Rhode Island Red? Nanette is an engaging character who combines an earnest concience (whom she names Ernestine) with a pathological ability to lie, particularly to her mother.  The jazz theme runs very deep throughout the pages and at times, there is a quite musical lilt and poetry in the writing. The climax is excellent and quite unexpected. It kept me guessing until very near the end.
I read this in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Lynda Ross
A TW Recommended Title.

Review:
 The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter
Serpent's Tail Pbk £9.99
The most unusual, not to say remarkable, read in crime fiction this year, The Monkey’s Mask is a narrative poem. And it’s in blank verse. But don’t let that put you off. This is not your average flowery words job; this is hard-edged, profane, street-smart, full of indelible images, and above all, overflowing with emotion. And it holds you in its velvet grip from the first verse paragraph to the final haunting pages. 
 ‘I want you, trouble / on the rocks’ demands Jill Fitzpatrick, Porter’s prosaically named lesbian P.I. And trouble is what she gets. In what starts out as a conventional investigation, trouble comes first in the shape of the missing Mickey Norris, a teenage poetess with a crush on two males of the species and a nice line, it transpires, in raunchy ‘victim’ poetry. Trouble also comes in the form of Mickey’s ex-poetry professor, the ‘nail-bitten’ Dr. Diana Maitland and Nick, her ‘leftie lawyer’ spouse.
Jill is impressed with Diana. The affair, for Diana swings both ways, starts in an embarassingly banal fashion. In what are probably (intentionally?) the worst lines in the book, Jill remarks, ‘She’s gritty / she’s bright / oh Christ help me / she’s a bit of alright’. Fortunately the verse soon shifts into new heights of fervour. Which is just as well, for the lusty, perverse relationship of Jill and Diana is central to the development of both theme and plot, taking us into a seething world of erotic obsession.
The main problem for mystery fans is the restricted canvas of the story. Blank verse scattered across even 260 pages leaves little scope for the precise settings or the detailed characterisation of the modern crime novel, or even a varied list of suspects. Nevertheless the pace is swift; clues are appropriately dropped and, from time to time, red herrings cross the trail.  But what leaves this book fermenting in the memory is both the passion and the precision of Porter’s writing. ‘and something else / sweaty, nasty / like a missionary / with a prayer book / in one hand / and a damp erection / in the other’. Finally, like Jill, you’ll  know that poetry can be ‘as sticky as sex’.  
Bob Cornwell

 Review:
 Hung Jury by Rankin Davis
Hodder £16.99
When the Prime Minister's brother is kidnapped during the closing stages of a high profile trial, you can bet the best brains, the beefiest men, and the most macho technology will be brought in to find him. The trouble is, that the eco-terrorists who are holding the Attorney General hostage have the same technology to hand, and are less scrupulous about its use than the more squeamish special services of HMG.
The story switches in short, snappy scenes, from the jurors, trying to decide the guilt or innocence of Dr Jenny Fox, accused of the brutal murder of Dr Charles Eastman, and the security services charged with finding the Attorney General.
 Dr Fox has been investigating the 'Circle of Poison' - the devastating effects of chemical pesticides to ordinary people who are unwittingly and callously exposed to them by cynical multinationals interested only in making a fast buck. Dr Eastman was her fiercest critic; now he is dead, and the prosecution has video evidence which implicates Dr Fox.
The courtroom action, and the development of affiliations and enmity among the jurors is stronger than the interaction between the security personnel and the terrorists. The shorthand tagging of the twelve with 'monikers' as an aide-memoir helped: we have Denzel, as in Washington, Pitbull, whose character is about as charm less as the canine of the same name, and so on. Their characters do develop along less caricatured lines (perhaps a little late in the story), and we gain some insight into their individual psychology.
I felt that the special services scenes got rather bogged down with technical detail earlier on, but, as the Prime Minister becomes involved on a personal level, the action gains pace and interest. On a point of technical detail however, the administration of insulin to a hypoglycaemic patient is likely to kill him, not effect a cure...
The climax is a parallel cliff-hanger involving, separately, the jurors and the Attorney General' s kidnappers. The jury, unaware of the growing concern for the Prime Minister's brother and that their decision will dictate whether he lives or dies, must weigh the evidence presented to them. Will they be swayed by the arguments of the one man who has the courage to stand against the rest?
Margaret Murphy

Review: 
Top Banana by Bill James
Pan Pbk £5.99
I don't know whether it's the craggy face on the dust jacket or the title which I find least inspiring about this book, but despite the reputation of the writer and a good narrative idea, this novel doesn't quite work for me. It is well-written and controlled, the dialogue is effective and hard-hitting but it fails to hold my attention partly because of the fragmented nature of the plot development and partly because none of the characters engage my interest, respect or sympathy long enough for me to care about what happens to them. They are all distasteful and unlikeable whether they be 'good guys' or 'bad guys' and so I don't care much whether they succeed or fail in their attempts to find the killer of thirteen year old Mandy Walsh.
She was gunned down in the street, caught in the crossfire between rival drug gangs. For Chief Constable Lane there is only one option - infiltrate the drug syndicates and rid his patch of this menace. His deputy, ACC Desmond Iles has a better idea: let the gangland police itself in return for a few 'favours'.
As his superiors battle out their animosity and petty internal politics, DCS Colin Harpur looks more closely into Mandy's death and begins to find that close examination of the evidence tells a different story. Mandy was not killed accidentally by warring gangs but was deliberately taken out by an unknown and unseen third gunman. The question is for whom was he working and who stands to benefit most by the death of a young drug courier?
These overtones of the Kennedy assassination with the search for the third killer in the almost hidden alleyway could make for a complex and intriguing story on its own, but Bill James chooses to complicate matters by concentrating much more on the internal battles between the law officers and their differing ideas of how to proceed. The search for the gunmen involved in the battle of Sphere Street, known here as 'Kalashnikov Man' and 'Sailor Billy' just fades into the background and is quietly allowed to disappear, unresolved and unsatisfactorily.
He also introduces us to the drug barons, one of whom is Mansel Shale, the "Top Banana" of the title. He is so unbelievable as the most important gang leader as to be almost risible. Vain, affected, neurotic, he regards his life's ambition as reaching a position of equality with the Chief Constable and negotiating with him the terms for policing 'the manor' while maintaining all outward appearance of a completely normal, legal lifestyle.
Add to this the involvement of an undercover copper supplying Shale with inside police information and you have an over-complicated book which misses its mark by trying to do too much. The "Top Banana" has a skin which proves to be its own slippery undoing.
Frank Brown