A DARK PLACE TO DIE

Even by the standards of Liverpool’s drug gangs the murder of a young man found in a container on the shore at Crosby is brutal, showing evidence of a killer with an artistic taste in torture.
 

This is just the start of DI Frank Keane’s problems; the victim is the long lost son of his former boss, an old school copper with the enemies to match. He is about to become a player in a vicious game of murder, betrayal and revenge nobody can be trusted.

This is Ed Chatterton’s first crime novel, he has previously published several books for children, and it marks the debut of a major new talent in British crime writing. He writes with assurance about the shifting loyalties within the police and the criminal fraternity and the character of a city caught between its grimy past and a, possibly, brighter future.

His prose style is brisk and the subject matter sometimes unflinchingly bleak; the narrative moves at a commendably brisk pace and his characters are fully rounded. Perhaps that should be well balanced, they all seem to have a chip on both shoulders and are either on the take, or the make or out to settle old scores.

Ed Chatterton is reportedly at work on a second Frank Keane book, on the strength of this sparkling debut it will be well worth waiting for.