My Night Read

Neil Lancaster as an ex-policeman is the perfect writer to read for my book on police procedurals. Before his 4th book in his 2nd series comes out next month I just finished his 3rd one The Night Watch before I prepare for the festival season.



The Max Craigie series is based around police corruption which is now probably established as it’s own sub-genre within crime fiction, with all the corruption that is shown in the news you can see why this has become popular. Lancaster’s years of experience in investigation are shown with the action and detail he goes into, which does not detract from the novel itself.



Max and his PTSD is a great back story to show throughout the series and the supporting cast all add their own little quirks too.



This book is written slightly differently though as it is less about the mystery of who killed who, but more about proving who the bad apple is. This is an interesting approach as you get to know more about how these cases are investigated. With many twists and turns in there too and with the use of a novel weapon, that of a taser which I have only read about in one Peter Robinson book before, although tasers are widely used in the police service, it has not been a popular plot line within crime fiction yet.



So, whilst learning about new things you also get the build up of characterisation within his team, and with a series of deaths, when will they catch up with the perpetrators?



This book is as action packed as all the others with very little meaningless passages, and with the voice of the perpetrator there too this is a very intriguing novel as part of a great series, I must say it is one of my favourites within the police procedural genre.



Looking forward to reading the new one next month and doing a further interview about the book later on in the year.