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Stuart Pawson has built himself a loyal and cult following who were seen doing happy dances round their living rooms when Allison and Busby reissued his long out of print back catalogue. DI Charlie Priest is one of modern crime fiction's most endearing heroes. He covers the fictional Yorkshire small town of Heckley, and has created one of the most enjoyable working environments. This is a man who loves his job and who is good at it. Pawson's strength has always been his relaxed storytelling and snappy dialogue. But SHOOTING ELVIS feels darker all down the line. Charlie spends periods musing about the decline of society -- at times he's in full-blown old codger 'youth of today' mode. And his tangled love life looks like it's in good form, thanks to his relationship with La Gazelle, a former star athlete (and thank heavens the snooty bishop's widow has gone -- she wasn't good enough for our Charlie!) But he's more than conscious of the 20-year age gap between him and Sonia. And even his usually comfortable circle of colleagues is disrupted by the arrival of DS Eddie Carmichael, a former Met copper with the subtly of a flying sledgehammer, and the smarmy Supt Mark Stanwick. Meanwhile, a serial killer appears to be cleaning up the gene pool, so to speak. And then it all gets too close to Charlie for comfort. SHOOTING ELVIS is a welcome addition to the canon of one of the genre's under-rated writers. It isn't Pawson's best -- some decisions by the leading characters near the end are slightly puzzling, marred as they are by a slightly unbelievable lack of communication. And even I guessed who'd done it and what was going to happen in the end. I wasn't quite sure I bought the breakthrough that put the police on the killer's track, though. But Pawson is always worth reading if you want good storytelling, sharp as nails dialogue and a band of characters who warm the cockles of your heart!
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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