CRADLE SONG

Robert Edric

Doubleday hb, £12.99

Reviewed by Russell James

What happens when a 'proper' novelist attempts a crime novel? Robert Edric is a previous James Tait winner and runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize and the WH Smith Literary Award. He was even long-listed for the Booker. In this, the first of a Hull-based trilogy, he presents us with an untypically dry and restrained detective working alongside the police. Leo Rivers is asked by the father of a missing and almost certainly murdered girl to re-examine the case. Her presumed murderer is serving life for another killing and has conveniently confessed to the killing of several other girls. Now he is about to lodge an appeal, as it seems likely that the police bulked up his original offence with other killings which they could then clear away. The thought of the killer walking prompts the girl's father to engage a detective to ensure he doesn't.

We are in the hands of an elegant writer here, but although the refined and moderate narrative style appeals initially, the plot drags through elaborate but unnecessary complications, and finally leads to no particular place at all. Severe editing in the second half would have improved this greatly.