Disappointly flat follow up - too linear in structure dragged this down.
After being knocked sideways by the hugely impressive debut thriller (Little Bones) which propelled the bloody-minded and feisty kick-boxing Garda detective Cat Connolly onto the crime fiction landscape, I had high expectations for her follow-up appearance, In Deep Water. After the explosive fallout from her last investigation almost a year ago it has been a long and very arduous road back to both her job and somewhere bordering on match fitness for Cat, but the scars are clearly evident to those who know her well. Underneath the gutsy exterior, Cat is more susceptible to her fluctuating emotions than ever before after the explosion that ended her unborn babies life. The two men that know her best are her boss and detective partner, DI Dawson O’Rourke and the Belfast ex-para who has turned her into a prizefighter, Niall “The Boss” McIntyre and coached her from a shy teenager through to adulthood.
At twenty-five-years-old, having joined the Garda Síochána straight out of school as the youngest female detective in the ranks, Cat has already seen a lifetime of action, taking a bullet for O’Rourke and putting her body on the line. Driven and fiercely determined, the road back has seen her set herself a wealth of new goals and even loftier ambitions; specifically to reclaim her national kickboxing title, secure a first in the Masters course in Forensic Psychology that she is studying part-time at Dublin City University (DCU) and become the first female Garda profiler! In Deep Water opens with Cat awaiting her training partner, best friend and fellow student at DCU, Sarah Jane Hansen. The ever reliable Sarah Jane effortlessly combines studying journalism and training with a part-time job as a waitress at one of the city’s swankiest restaurants, The Rookery, so when she fails to show for training, Cat worries. A fraught call from Sarah’s mother, Oonagh Hansen, an artist based in rural Kerry informs Cat that she has not had contact with her daughter for several days and that Sarah Jane’s father, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for CNN, had warned her off investigating a story which had the potential to endanger her safety and caused an argument. With experience in Syria and knowledge of terrorism, Ted Hansen, knows better than anyone the dangers of intrepid journalism but Sarah Jane is made of similar headstrong stuff to Cat, who is well aware that like her, a warning to steer clear will be wilfully ignored!
This second case is a very different novel to the first, and the linear plot which focuses on a single and relatively straightforward missing persons case felt a little underwhelming after the plotting mastery and skill of managing the multiple threads of the first. Attention to detail was faultless in Little Bones and indeed, the research in this follow-up is exceptional, but simply by the very nature that this is a more routine police procedural with the next steps unravelling in a self-explanatory manner, the early part of this novel felt lacklustre and somewhat plodding in comparison. The sparks of genius that characterised the first and saw Cat charge off in headlong pursuit and paid unexpected dividends were absent as the first half largely concentrated on Cat batting around her internal ideas and brooding about Sarah Jane’s situation, establishing that her room has been broken into and ransacked and the routine chasing up on CCTV and establishing her last known movements. Despite Sarah Jane’s investigation beginning as an unofficial matter, Cat’s support network rally round and make initial enquiries. I had some quibbles with the credibility of the plot at this point and there were a couple of situations where things felt far-fetched, specifically the briefing around Cat’s kitchen table with her parents, sister-in-law Assistant Commissioner, Niamh and O’Rourke felt a little contrived. I missed the dynamism and passion that marked Little Bones out as refreshingly innovative, as chasing CCTV and evasive avoidance of questioning will not set anybody’s world alight. I felt that Cat had been corralled into a more restrained character and some of the fire in her belly had been quenched.
Sarah Jane Hansen has quite a back story and the early part of this novel sees that relayed to readers and necessitates perseverance, particularly when she wasn’t even a name checked character in the first novel and seems plucked out of thin air only to then assume such importance. The second half of the novel does pick up the pace and progresses past the CCTV, when another young female with links to Sarah Jane is reported missing, a dismembered body is discovered and Cat and O’Rourke are drawn closer to the sinister world of human trafficking. This issue was treated sensitively, but at times it did feel like box-checking to display empathy and the word perfect English of a frightened young girl from Belarus all reduced credibility. Cat’s hotheaded temperament also sees her compromise the investigation in several ways, and there is only so much of the eye rolling and acceptance from O’Rourke before it feels cliched, likewise with the spectacular final heroics from Cat which see her rely on both O’Rourke and McIntyre to act as a safety net.
Whereas I found the investigative aspects and developments of Little Bones consumed me, I certainly cared less about the disappearance of Sarah Jane, perhaps because readers only got to see her through Cat’s eyes, and she never felt very ‘real’. I suspect that if she had been introduced prior to her disappearance I might have felt more invested in achieving a successful outcome. Ultimately, In Deep Water didn’t feed my imagination and it felt like I met a less well defined version of Garda Cat Connolly that lacked the spark and the witty rapport that previously characterised her interactions with her boss, colleagues and three brothers. Certainly I felt Blake’s characterisation of DI Dawson O’Rourke and several of those closely involved in the drama was more finely honed in Little Bones and hence I was interested in their fate too. In Deep Water rather glossed over the whole aspect of the importance of well defined secondary characters and I readily admit that this case lacked the drive, energy and vibrancy of the first and did disappoint me. For me it was only the rather marginal scenes featuring Rebecca Ryan and her eight-year-old Asperger’s suffering son, Jacob, that showed the skill of the first novel and drew the reader closer to their own predicament. However, I found myself largely indifferent and unmoved by the glamorous, privileged Sarah Jane Hansen and given her father's own scrapes as a war reporter, I felt she should have had more foresight.
In Deep Water is a novel that can be read as a standalone, but as ever in a continuing series will benefit from having read the first and gaining a ‘feel’ for the characters and their back story. This case had a more personal angle that the first and a brought to light a more emotional side of Cat and I readily admit that in all this fretting acted as a detraction from the action. I saw enough of Cat Connolly and what she can do when firing on all cylinders in book one to ensure I read the third book in the series, but all in all I was a little disappointed by this follow-up.
At twenty-five-years-old, having joined the Garda Síochána straight out of school as the youngest female detective in the ranks, Cat has already seen a lifetime of action, taking a bullet for O’Rourke and putting her body on the line. Driven and fiercely determined, the road back has seen her set herself a wealth of new goals and even loftier ambitions; specifically to reclaim her national kickboxing title, secure a first in the Masters course in Forensic Psychology that she is studying part-time at Dublin City University (DCU) and become the first female Garda profiler! In Deep Water opens with Cat awaiting her training partner, best friend and fellow student at DCU, Sarah Jane Hansen. The ever reliable Sarah Jane effortlessly combines studying journalism and training with a part-time job as a waitress at one of the city’s swankiest restaurants, The Rookery, so when she fails to show for training, Cat worries. A fraught call from Sarah’s mother, Oonagh Hansen, an artist based in rural Kerry informs Cat that she has not had contact with her daughter for several days and that Sarah Jane’s father, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for CNN, had warned her off investigating a story which had the potential to endanger her safety and caused an argument. With experience in Syria and knowledge of terrorism, Ted Hansen, knows better than anyone the dangers of intrepid journalism but Sarah Jane is made of similar headstrong stuff to Cat, who is well aware that like her, a warning to steer clear will be wilfully ignored!
This second case is a very different novel to the first, and the linear plot which focuses on a single and relatively straightforward missing persons case felt a little underwhelming after the plotting mastery and skill of managing the multiple threads of the first. Attention to detail was faultless in Little Bones and indeed, the research in this follow-up is exceptional, but simply by the very nature that this is a more routine police procedural with the next steps unravelling in a self-explanatory manner, the early part of this novel felt lacklustre and somewhat plodding in comparison. The sparks of genius that characterised the first and saw Cat charge off in headlong pursuit and paid unexpected dividends were absent as the first half largely concentrated on Cat batting around her internal ideas and brooding about Sarah Jane’s situation, establishing that her room has been broken into and ransacked and the routine chasing up on CCTV and establishing her last known movements. Despite Sarah Jane’s investigation beginning as an unofficial matter, Cat’s support network rally round and make initial enquiries. I had some quibbles with the credibility of the plot at this point and there were a couple of situations where things felt far-fetched, specifically the briefing around Cat’s kitchen table with her parents, sister-in-law Assistant Commissioner, Niamh and O’Rourke felt a little contrived. I missed the dynamism and passion that marked Little Bones out as refreshingly innovative, as chasing CCTV and evasive avoidance of questioning will not set anybody’s world alight. I felt that Cat had been corralled into a more restrained character and some of the fire in her belly had been quenched.
Sarah Jane Hansen has quite a back story and the early part of this novel sees that relayed to readers and necessitates perseverance, particularly when she wasn’t even a name checked character in the first novel and seems plucked out of thin air only to then assume such importance. The second half of the novel does pick up the pace and progresses past the CCTV, when another young female with links to Sarah Jane is reported missing, a dismembered body is discovered and Cat and O’Rourke are drawn closer to the sinister world of human trafficking. This issue was treated sensitively, but at times it did feel like box-checking to display empathy and the word perfect English of a frightened young girl from Belarus all reduced credibility. Cat’s hotheaded temperament also sees her compromise the investigation in several ways, and there is only so much of the eye rolling and acceptance from O’Rourke before it feels cliched, likewise with the spectacular final heroics from Cat which see her rely on both O’Rourke and McIntyre to act as a safety net.
Whereas I found the investigative aspects and developments of Little Bones consumed me, I certainly cared less about the disappearance of Sarah Jane, perhaps because readers only got to see her through Cat’s eyes, and she never felt very ‘real’. I suspect that if she had been introduced prior to her disappearance I might have felt more invested in achieving a successful outcome. Ultimately, In Deep Water didn’t feed my imagination and it felt like I met a less well defined version of Garda Cat Connolly that lacked the spark and the witty rapport that previously characterised her interactions with her boss, colleagues and three brothers. Certainly I felt Blake’s characterisation of DI Dawson O’Rourke and several of those closely involved in the drama was more finely honed in Little Bones and hence I was interested in their fate too. In Deep Water rather glossed over the whole aspect of the importance of well defined secondary characters and I readily admit that this case lacked the drive, energy and vibrancy of the first and did disappoint me. For me it was only the rather marginal scenes featuring Rebecca Ryan and her eight-year-old Asperger’s suffering son, Jacob, that showed the skill of the first novel and drew the reader closer to their own predicament. However, I found myself largely indifferent and unmoved by the glamorous, privileged Sarah Jane Hansen and given her father's own scrapes as a war reporter, I felt she should have had more foresight.
In Deep Water is a novel that can be read as a standalone, but as ever in a continuing series will benefit from having read the first and gaining a ‘feel’ for the characters and their back story. This case had a more personal angle that the first and a brought to light a more emotional side of Cat and I readily admit that in all this fretting acted as a detraction from the action. I saw enough of Cat Connolly and what she can do when firing on all cylinders in book one to ensure I read the third book in the series, but all in all I was a little disappointed by this follow-up.