Mediocre police procedural debut set in the Highlands - unoriginal with a poor man’s Vera investigating.
From The Shadows is a solid police procedural debut set in the scenic surroundings of the Scottish Highlands and introduces forty-four-year-old single mother, DI Monica Kennedy, as the series lead. Recently returned to her birthplace of Inverness with her four-year-old daughter, Lucy, in order to be closer to her ever reliable mother, Angela, Monica has eighteen-years experience of investigating serious crimes.
When the body of a sixteen-year-old boy is discovered posed, mutilated and with no obvious cause of death amidst the coastal wilderness of the Highlands, DI Monica Kennedy is tasked with investigating and feels the prickle of unease that there is a deeper significance to the killers actions. As Monica attempts to identify the corpse she meets dedicated Inverness based social worker, Michael Bach, as he endeavours to track down his seventeen-year-old client Nichol Morgan after failing to make contact for seven days. Wracked with guilt that he has let Nichol down after missing a meeting and with the disappearance of someone who is technically classed as an adult a low priority, Bach soon endeavours to do his own digging.
When the victims body is identified as that of sixteen-year-old local boy, Robert Wright, and his father tells the police raises the suggestion that his boy made it home the precious night it begins to raise suspicions that I could have been abducted from his own house. After the autopsy reveals the presence of a mysterious black rock lodged in the victim’s throat it echoes with Michael Bach’s reports of his client, Nichol Morgan, also clutching a black rock the last few times they met and gut instinct tells Monica that there could be more deaths to come and she takes the maverick decision to hand Nichol’s laptop over to Bach and try to head off any potential risk to his client.
Within days however. a second boy is reported missing from his home and his body is discovered shortly after having been murdered in the exact same circumstances as Robert and with the black rock again present. As both strands of the investigation lead Monica and Bach into darker territory Monica finds herself reunited with an old adversary and Bach stumbles across the disappearances of other teenage boys with possibly undiscovered links to the recently discovered corpses. In truth, Bach does the bulk of the investigative work and his discoveries overwhelmingly assist Monica. Despite the plot feeling fairly far-fetched there are the requisite number of twists and surprises to hold the reader’s attention and also inject tension.
The narrative is predominantly made up of Monica and Michael Bach’s points of view with both of their efforts adding to the impetus of the story. Occasional excerpts entitled ‘The Watcher’ convey the point of view of the arrogant predator behind the murders and do little to expand on his motivation. As a series lead I was pretty disappointed by DI Monica Kennedy who I felt little connection with, and aside from her height and tight boots, I felt her character was abysmally underdeveloped. In all honesty she seemed a pale imitation of DI Vera Stanhope with the familiar hang-up of every fictional female detective who is also a mother of being overly committed to her job. Monica takes her police priorities very seriously and poor Lucy barely gets a look in but I was unconvinced of her powers of deduction as she moved through a number of prime suspects before eventually arriving at the guilty party. Aside from her appearance I didn’t really get any sense of the women behind the detective persona and although there are hints to her childhood familiarity with a crew of wrong ‘uns after her upbringing on a rough estate, it is never fleshed out.
Although the team of detectives are headed up by Monica there is minimal development of her team, including new partner, DC Connor Crawford, DC Ben Fisher, Detective Superintendent Fred Hately and criminal psychologist, Dr Hamish Lees. Aside from the slimy Lees, her fellow officers are eminently forgettable and pretty bland and only a menacing sex offender and a loner gamekeeper as suspects add interest. As a reader who enjoys police procedural I have to say that much of From The Shadows felt somewhat derivative, from the lumbering detective plagued with guilt about putting her job ahead of her daughter, to the supercilious criminal psychologist designed to undermine her and her unsurprising decision to go rogue and team up with social worker, Michael Bach. Urged on by the memory of his younger brother, Joseph, disappearing in childhood that plagues his life, Bach is well-intentioned and darkly mysterious with potential for exploration.
Overall, a middling debut that is unlikely to linger in the mind with a protagonist whom is less than fascinating. Despite being a mildly entertaining read I was also unconvinced by the convoluted rationale behind the killers motive and bizarre MO and found the denouement anti-climatic and somewhat confusing. I would read more in the series but on the strength of this debut I am unlikely to actively seek the books out. Although the brooding backdrop of the landscape undoubtedly added a ominous feel to the whole story the plot really did become increasingly far-fetched and I felt From The Shadows was short on thrills with an unsatisfactory resolution.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
When the body of a sixteen-year-old boy is discovered posed, mutilated and with no obvious cause of death amidst the coastal wilderness of the Highlands, DI Monica Kennedy is tasked with investigating and feels the prickle of unease that there is a deeper significance to the killers actions. As Monica attempts to identify the corpse she meets dedicated Inverness based social worker, Michael Bach, as he endeavours to track down his seventeen-year-old client Nichol Morgan after failing to make contact for seven days. Wracked with guilt that he has let Nichol down after missing a meeting and with the disappearance of someone who is technically classed as an adult a low priority, Bach soon endeavours to do his own digging.
When the victims body is identified as that of sixteen-year-old local boy, Robert Wright, and his father tells the police raises the suggestion that his boy made it home the precious night it begins to raise suspicions that I could have been abducted from his own house. After the autopsy reveals the presence of a mysterious black rock lodged in the victim’s throat it echoes with Michael Bach’s reports of his client, Nichol Morgan, also clutching a black rock the last few times they met and gut instinct tells Monica that there could be more deaths to come and she takes the maverick decision to hand Nichol’s laptop over to Bach and try to head off any potential risk to his client.
Within days however. a second boy is reported missing from his home and his body is discovered shortly after having been murdered in the exact same circumstances as Robert and with the black rock again present. As both strands of the investigation lead Monica and Bach into darker territory Monica finds herself reunited with an old adversary and Bach stumbles across the disappearances of other teenage boys with possibly undiscovered links to the recently discovered corpses. In truth, Bach does the bulk of the investigative work and his discoveries overwhelmingly assist Monica. Despite the plot feeling fairly far-fetched there are the requisite number of twists and surprises to hold the reader’s attention and also inject tension.
The narrative is predominantly made up of Monica and Michael Bach’s points of view with both of their efforts adding to the impetus of the story. Occasional excerpts entitled ‘The Watcher’ convey the point of view of the arrogant predator behind the murders and do little to expand on his motivation. As a series lead I was pretty disappointed by DI Monica Kennedy who I felt little connection with, and aside from her height and tight boots, I felt her character was abysmally underdeveloped. In all honesty she seemed a pale imitation of DI Vera Stanhope with the familiar hang-up of every fictional female detective who is also a mother of being overly committed to her job. Monica takes her police priorities very seriously and poor Lucy barely gets a look in but I was unconvinced of her powers of deduction as she moved through a number of prime suspects before eventually arriving at the guilty party. Aside from her appearance I didn’t really get any sense of the women behind the detective persona and although there are hints to her childhood familiarity with a crew of wrong ‘uns after her upbringing on a rough estate, it is never fleshed out.
Although the team of detectives are headed up by Monica there is minimal development of her team, including new partner, DC Connor Crawford, DC Ben Fisher, Detective Superintendent Fred Hately and criminal psychologist, Dr Hamish Lees. Aside from the slimy Lees, her fellow officers are eminently forgettable and pretty bland and only a menacing sex offender and a loner gamekeeper as suspects add interest. As a reader who enjoys police procedural I have to say that much of From The Shadows felt somewhat derivative, from the lumbering detective plagued with guilt about putting her job ahead of her daughter, to the supercilious criminal psychologist designed to undermine her and her unsurprising decision to go rogue and team up with social worker, Michael Bach. Urged on by the memory of his younger brother, Joseph, disappearing in childhood that plagues his life, Bach is well-intentioned and darkly mysterious with potential for exploration.
Overall, a middling debut that is unlikely to linger in the mind with a protagonist whom is less than fascinating. Despite being a mildly entertaining read I was also unconvinced by the convoluted rationale behind the killers motive and bizarre MO and found the denouement anti-climatic and somewhat confusing. I would read more in the series but on the strength of this debut I am unlikely to actively seek the books out. Although the brooding backdrop of the landscape undoubtedly added a ominous feel to the whole story the plot really did become increasingly far-fetched and I felt From The Shadows was short on thrills with an unsatisfactory resolution.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.