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Reading G M Ford's second Leo Waterman book CAST IN STONE on a train journey garnered me some very odd looks. Well, it does boast one of the best and funniest first chapters I've ever read. And the rest is pretty damn good as well. You know you've got a class writer behind you when he can devote the first chapter to something that has nothing to do with the rest of the book but gets away with it in grand style. Actually, that virtuoso first chapter, which sees Seattle PI Leo on an observation job from hell, does introduce us to our main character and also shows that Ford is simply one of the best storytellers in modern genre fiction. Not only can he weave a fluent tale, and balance the wisecracks with straight to the stomach wow, he can also provide Leo with a supporting cast of well-rounded and thoroughly believable people. I have to admit that I was a tad nervous when I read the back of the book and saw reference to Leo's eccentric sidekicks, who turn out to be a pack of sozzled old codgers who were friends of infamous father. In the wrong hands they would have been an unnecessarily quirky comic turn. Ford gives them depth and pathos. CAST IN STONE has at its heart the archetypal 'black widow' story. Leo's old friend Heck Sundstrom is badly injured in a road accident and his wife Marge, who'd neatly excised Leo and Heck's other drinking chums from his life some years ago, reluctantly summons him to Heck's bedside. It's not the road accident she wants him to pry into, though, but the death of their son Nicky in a boating accident. Shortly before his death Nicky had married the gorgeous Allison – but mum is convinced the beautiful new wife wasn't all she seemed. And the badly injured Heck was equally convinced that Allison didn't go down with the boat. This is a tale to keep you up 'til all hours, as Leo and Co criss-cross across the States in search of the truth. I'm still smiling at the thought of the wisecracks that litter the text, and admiring the deft characterisation, and still gawping at a truly creepy scene late on which sends the hero and the plot bouncing (literally and metaphorically) in a whole new direction.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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