The Devil’s Redhead

David Corbett

Orion £7.99

Rel Jan 2004

Reviewed by Ayo Onatade

Love, loyalty, and betrayal are three words that in someway sum up this excellent debut novel. The Devil’s Redhead is on the one hand an enthralling and gritty crime novel and on the other a moving tale of lasting love.

This is one of those novels that stick in your mind for a number of reasons long after you have finished reading it. Violent and harsh this is also a brilliantly and beautifully written first novel. It manages to combine violence, action, suspense and much more together which escalates without going overboard and putting the reader off. It is a complex layered story which is actually in two parts.

Dan Abatangelo is a freelance photographer and smuggler who finds himself ensnared and attracted to vibrant redhead Shel Beaudry. The two of them are soon living together. However, the drug trade is shifting and Abatangelo decides on one last deal before he gets out of the business. Unluckily for him he is betrayed and caught. To spare the others he takes the rap and is sentenced to ten years. On his release, even though his probation forbids him from coming into contact with her, he has only one thing on his mind to find the love of his life Shel Beaudry. Everyone says that it will come to no good but he is determined to become reunited with her and sets out to find her. The last letter he received from her had no return address but the tone of the letter appears to indicate that she is in serious trouble and needs help.

While Abatangelo is still serving time, Shel is released and soon finds herself involved and becoming “Florence Nightingale” to Frank Mass a messed up, drug-addicted lowlife with ties to the mob. This relationship is doomed from the start and Shel soon finds that her life depends solely on Frank not screwing up. Which, (putting it mildly) is not a position that any sane person would want to find themselves in. It would be simple to think that this will not happen, but alas this is not the case. Even though Dan manages to rescue Shel they soon find themselves pitched in the middle of a violent battle between white-trash drug lords and the Mexican Mafia.

There is no mistaking the fact that The Devil’s Redhead is a disturbingly brutal book. It is not a book for the fainthearted, but for those who like their crime to be shocking and realistic. There are quite a number of deaths that take place, but the people that die are not just figures, despite their appalling behaviour they are characters. Some of the deaths are not only unavoidable but they are also stupid and meaningless; some of the deaths are dignified. But it is much more than that; Corbett’s writing has intensity, sensitivity and is extremely engrossing. The plot is not only well tuned but also well-delivered. It has a cast of characters whom are vividly depicted and whose pain and suffering go hand in hand with the story. There is no orderly and tidy ending to this novel and from the beginning the reader should not expect this to be the case. There have not been that many crime novels that have left me with such a deep sense of pain or knots in my stomach, but The Devil’s Redhead has managed to do both! This is a noir novel and an emotional rollercoaster of a love story with a massive amount of energy to satisfy all. A brilliant crime novel well worth the praise that it has already received. I look forward to reading his second novel Done for a Dime.