Un (ex) policier qui nous offre une (nouvelle) série. Prometteur mais imparfait. ( )

At thirty years old Darian Richards became Officer in Charge of Victoria Police's Homicide Squad, having earned the reputation of Australia's top homicide investigator. But failure doesn't sit well with him and sixteen years later, when he fails to find a serial killer taking girls riding trains, he resigns and heads north to Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

It seems there are serial killers everywhere, many murders going undetected. A year after Darian has fled from the south, a serial killer taking young girls in Queensland strikes on the Sunshine Coast. Darian Richards can't stand by and do nothing. He becomes a free lance investigator.

He draws into his net Marie, the wife of a local friend. She is a constable in the Queensland Police and through her he learns what the police know. They form a maverick team, together with Isosceles, an international investigator who provides online services.

By this time we have also learnt that if the courts don't convict and dispense justice then Darian will dispense his own. Over the years he has done this several times, removing perps who have beaten the courts. Darian Richards is a dangerous man, and a rather unlikeable character. You find yourself asking how different he is to the people he pursues.

What didn't work all that well for me in this novel were chapters written from the point of view of the killer whose public count is eight abductions. The author tries to get into his sick mind and the result is horrifying, making for a very noir novel. ( )

Darian Richards was once in charge of Victoria’s Homicide Squad. But after promising a mother her kidnapped daughter would return home only to have that prove untrue he resigns. Throws his gun in the sea and moves to Queensland. A year later someone starts killing young girls in the place Darian now calls home. After half a dozen have been taken, tortured and killed Darian decides he’s going to find said killer and stop him.

This is not my kind of crime fiction. It’s a very popular form of the genre. Indeed it’s what I think a lot of people think all crime fiction to be, but it’s not my personal cup of tea. That doesn’t make it bad or mean you shouldn’t read it (unless we happen to share a particular set of dislikes).

The first thing that makes this not my kind of crime fiction is that I found its protagonist an arrogant, insufferable bore. He’s a genius, the smartest male cop to have ever lived (in Dairan’s world all other male cops are dumb) (though all female cops are smart so he gets a point for not mixing misogyny in with his silly generalisations). He is the one who understands victims. He is so committed to them that never took a day off when he worked Homicide. He knows how to deal out justice better than any pesky old justice system. He is, naturally, a martial arts expert. His ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound is implied.

I know these kinds of super-hero characters (he reminded me of Jack Reacher) are supposed to be a bit of fun but I find them boring. And in some ways not unrealistic enough. I know people who think they’re gods and everyone around them is a loser and I think they’re boring too.

Next up is the subject matter. I have had enough of serial killer novels, especially ones jammed full of the notion there is such a killer lurking in every neighbourhood. As if the relative few that really have existed are not frightening enough. Throw in chapters depicting endless and gruesome sadism and violence from the killer’s point of view, make the killer someone who also thinks he’s a genius then pit the two egos against each other and you’ve just about marked off the entire checklist of things I don’t like in my crime fiction.

That said the book is well-written and, unlike so many books published these days, not at all bloated. Cavanaugh can capture a scene’s essence with just a few words. Like when Darian lies to a group of victims’ family members and realises “They believed me – except for Juanita whose stare told me she knew bullshit a year away…” I love that line. In fact when it focuses on something other than the duelling egos of the killer and his hunter, the novel can be insightful.

It also has a really solid sense of place. There’s an unsettlingly credible picture of the Sunshine Coast as a serial killer’s wet dream (surely no parent who reads this will ever let their teenager daughter go to schoolies) (or…you know…out the front door) and more broadly the setting is Australian to its core, though it might not bring in the tourists. There’s even some dry humour and some potentially interesting minor characters.

I was looking for the kind of escapism offered by PROMISE on a particularly lazy summer day but I still wanted to be engaged by some aspect of the book. If not the story then the characters. Darian bloody Richards and his over-inflated ego matching wits with a barking mad serial killer didn’t do it for me but I’m fairly sure I’ll be in the minority of readers who react this way. PROMISE has the feel of a Lee Child or early James Patterson book and I know those are hugely popular. Most readers will undoubtedly not see Darian as a giant, boring ego and most readers probably haven’t read enough crime fiction to be well and truly fed up with seeing the world from the point of view of a madman. To all of you: enjoy.

I think it would be fair to say that PROMISE by Tony Cavanaugh has been talked up in these parts. Having read the book now, you can see many of the reasons for the general feeling of enthusiasm, although to be fair, the central storyline of this book is going to be problematic for some readers.

In Darian Richards, Cavanaugh has created a very interesting central character. Retired head of Victoria's Homicide Squad, shooting victim, not everything is immediately as it seems with Richards. A hard working cop with the victims and their families at the forefront of his mind always, his focus means that some of the case resolutions aren't exactly straightforward pieces of justice. Haunted by his failure to keep his promises to victim's families, Richards is, not to put too fine a point on it, morally ambiguous. Richards is, however, one of the aspects of the book that works incredibly well. He's not your normal cop, he's working outside the police system, his special skill - an ability to get inside the head of a killer, to think and act and find them based on instinct and intuition.

Richards is ably supported in this book by Maria, Senior-Constable with Noosa Police, outsider because of her relationship with ex-strip joint manager Casey Lack. Mate of Richards since their time in Melbourne, Casey revels in an ongoing supply of vintage slogan t-shirts, and some very dodgy equipment. Maria and Casey form the local branch of Richard's support team. Back in Melbourne they are supported by Isosceles. Geek, technical genius, edge dweller, surveillance, hacking, computer expert, apartment bound, acerbic, pointed, invaluable backup. The author has done a particularly good job of building a small but well-fleshed out team (saving Richards from lurching into the cliché of the lone wolf into the bargain), albeit this team has a hefty dose of eccentrics.

The storytelling style is the other element that is good. Sparse, dark, tight, acerbic and dryly funny in places, this aspect was especially pleasing. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the author's background as a script writer wasn't a little voice in the back of my mind as I read. Whilst you can see this book on the screen without too much of a stretch of the imagination, it avoided that dreaded "script" as a book feeling. Best of all there was a profoundly Australian feel to the book, the dialogue was taut and pointed, dry and extremely authentic.

The aspect of the book that was less pleasing was not just that here is yet another mad, bad and nasty serial killer targeting young woman, but the use of chapters inside the killer's mind, revealing, what is happening to the victims as they take a long time to die, although it does veer away from too much graphic detail. Given that other aspects of the plot - the chase for the killer, the steps taken by Richards, and his sidekicks in tracking down this madman were very well done, the inside the head aspect was disappointing. That idea that you have to be in the lunatic's head for a great portion of a book, privy to the details of his twisted torture methods, and to the feelings of his victims to ramp up the tension or make the reader increasingly uncomfortable is, these days, somewhat overdone. To the point where it's teetering dangerously close to boring. A pity, as the rest of the plot is clever, and the ultimate outcome shocking enough without having to spend too much up close and personal time with yet another barking madman.

Having said that, I'm perfectly prepared to admit that I read way too much crime fiction, and that I've developed a rather virulent allergy to mad hatter serial killer plot-lines unless there is something that makes that aspect of a plot different or particularly compelling. For me the serial killer voice might not have worked in PROMISE, but there was more than enough difference in creating a great new character, written well, with an interesting chase and just enough moral ambiguity and questionable behaviour to make me get as close as I can to forgetting the downside. Certainly I'd be right up front in the queue for a second book featuring Darian Richards or any of his team. ( )