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Jessie Driver is an inspector in the Metropolitan Police in London. She rides a motorbike, has a tangled private life, and obnoxious colleagues. Sound familiar? And that's a good part of the problem with Gay Longworth's THE UNQUIET DEAD. Virtually everything you'll read there has been done better elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, and it's a mildly engaging tale based around a missing girl and her drama queen mother, plus the yukky discovery of a mummified body in the basement of a disused swimming baths. But what goes on lacks the feeling of reality and the narration at times comes across as almost childish. And oh, yawn, yawn, we have yet another tiresome and hackneyed portrayal of journalists. Sorry, but any national TV reporter asking the stupid questions that one-dimensional Amanda Hornby does would be exiled to collecting flower show results out in the sticks on the Little Scratching Gazette. Jessie must count as one of the most naive senior cops ever portrayed in crime fiction -- you'll be notching her dafter decisions off on the bedpost. There's also very little day-to-day policing nitty-gritty. Instead Jessie seems to swan around London as she pleases with very little acknowledgement of her colleagues. Speaking of which, they're not what you'd call well-rounded. The conflict feels forced between Jessie and new boss DCI Moore and between Jessie and colleague Mark. And I was totally unconvinced by her bizarre relationship with popstar PJ -- although I am willing to accept that reading the previous book in the series might have been an advantage. The woo-woo factor's a bit high for a book which is presumably meant to be a police procedural, and doesn't really sit comfortably with the rest of the story. But it just about gets away with it mainly due to the spooky nature of the deserted swimming baths that form a key venue for the story. In those scenes the book came alive. Otherwise, I really wasn't fussed.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, June 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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