NOTHING LIKE THE NIGHT

David Lawrence

Michael Joseph TPB, £9.99

Reviewed by Russell James

Second in the Stella Mooney series, memorably begun last year with The Dead Sit Round In A Ring. In this, as with the last book, Lawrence takes the well-worn police procedural format and kicks it into life. Lawrence has already created a flesh and blood, all too human police heroine, but any thought that he might let her slip into a comfortable series lifestyle is soon blown away. She ended the last book clinging to the one security in her life - the man she lives with: older, undemanding, supportive. A wonderful person, except that he's older, undemanding, supportive…

Their bittersweet relationship is increasingly threatened by her love for another man - but enough: shake yourself, Stella. All this is a mere backdrop to the challenge in your professional life, in which you and your colleagues must struggle wearily to find and stop a pair of particularly vicious serial killers. Shots readers may think this a familiar plot idea - they'd be right - but here it is excellently done. Lawrence's taut poetic prose propels a strong story and takes the author to the top of the crime writing league.