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BUCKINGHAM PALACE BLUES
by James Craig
Robinson, August 2012
304 pages
6.99 GBP
ISBN: 1849015856


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

People-trafficking is a recurring theme in crime books at the moment, and Craig follows suit in the third of his series featuring Detective Inspector John Carlyle. Whilst attempting to get some healthy exercise jogging in central London, he finds a child alone in Green Park. A man tries to pretend he's her uncle, but Carlyle isn't convinced, especially when the girl runs off and the man disappears. When he catches up with her, he finds she speaks very little English, and what she does say convinces him that she's been used for sex. Shortly afterwards, she's snatched from the social workers who were meant to be protecting her. Carlyle is determined to find her again, even if the search takes him into some very unlikely places where he's definitely not welcome.

Carlyle's previous dealings with SO14, tasked with the protection and policing of Buckingham Palace, its inhabitants and hangers-on, didn't end on the most cordial note, so when he starts sticking his nose quite firmly into the goings on both within SO14 and the palace itself, he's not exactly welcomed with open arms, and some of those who are seen to be helping him meet casually brutal ends.

Carlyle is no fan of royalty. In fact it's hard to find anything or anyone he has a good word for. Women are consistently belittled. If they're in the police force they're referred to as WPCs, a term that went out of use over twenty years ago, making it difficult to work out whether that is part and parcel of Carlyle's casual sexism or whether it's simply sloppy research on the part of the author. Police Community Support Offices, social workers and even the Armed Response officers are all dismissed in one way or another and Carlyle manages to be offensive about practically everyone he comes across.

After a while, the tone of the book becomes extremely wearing and starts to overshadow the story itself. That, coupled with numerous irritating and confusing point of view shifts, and at least one glaring continuity error, makes the book hard to like. The fact that I enjoyed anything about it at all probably says more about my own prejudices on the subject of royalty than about the quality of the writing.

§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.

Reviewed by Linda Wilson, August 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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