Hermit

Written by S R White

Review written by Judith Sullivan

Judith Sullivan is a writer in Leeds, originally from Baltimore. She is working on a crime series set in Paris. Fluent in French, she’s pretty good with English and has conversational Italian and German. She is working to develop her Yorkshire speak.


Hermit
Headline Publishing
RRP: £16.99
Released: September 17 2020
HBK

You get a few chapters into Hermit and even if you didn’t know White had been a former cop – you’d soon realise it from the writing. I’ll wager you’ll be glad he has decided to write novels.

All the scenes featuring police officers (in this Australia-set novel), crackle with wit, credibility and life – the cops all come across as three-dimensional, caring, funny human beings.

As the title suggests, the Hermit story focuses on a man who spent years living off-grid. Nathan Whittler, long-assumed dead or emigrated, is found at the scene of a murder. Shop-owner Lou Cassavette has been found at his place of work, Jensen’s Store, with a foot-long blade in him. CCTV reveals that long-time missing-person Nathan Whittler was at the scene.

Most of the book is devoted to the cat-and-mouse games between Whittler and detective Dana Russo; actually, it is more battle of wits than boisterous cartoon. Russo is a stiletto-sharp cop, who relishes the back and forth between law and outlaw. She also loves being police and has believable relationships with her colleagues and friends on the force. They joke, they share, they learn from each other.

This is Russo’s maiden outing and I certainly hope the first of many. We slowly get to know her as she roots through the troubled psyche of Nathan Whittler. The young man fled a cold and abusive household 15 years prior to the events in the book. He has continued to read and keep informed so he is no Robinson Crusoe. With each page, the back and forth between the young man and Russo grows more personable but also more tense.

Meanwhile, in the 24-hour period Hermit covers, Dana’s fellow officers are investigating the victim and his widow Megan. Lou worked nights and Meg had ways of finding comfort on the long cold nights. Specifically, she goes over briefs with her would-be divorce attorney Spencer Lynch. Lou, it would appear, kept busy with loan-sharks and drug-dealers. Finally, the team investigate Nathan’s older brother and sole surviving relative Jeb - in an effort to piece together Nathan’s childhood and subsequent 15-year fugue.

This story plays out in just one day but is so breathless, pacy, event-filled and human it could have been a month. Dana Russo is intelligent, compassionate and droll, as is her team. The mystery of the connection between Whittler and the unlucky Cassavette unspools and resolves so we get a full-on picture of this Queensland community. Russo and her team feel like work buddies now and I am looking forward to their next outing.

My one quibble. The date of the events of the book coincides with a very bad anniversary for Russo. She rams that point home repeatedly, referring the date as the Day. I found the capital-D and general aura around that mildly tiresome. But it is a minor flaw in a book that is for adults about adults and by a talented adult writer.



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