Easy Meat

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“John Harvey, British poet and novelist, brings depth of character study and beautiful imagery to the police procedural.”—The Washington PostWhy would a fifteen-year-old boy commit suicide? Despite the fact that he’s a no-good kid on trial for bludgeoning an elderly couple to death. But when the senior investigating officer is then found brutally murdered, DI Charlie Resnick is put on the case, which leads to sinister and startling revelations. It also brings Resnick into contact with Hannah Campbell, with whom he finds himself falling unexpectedly and awkwardly in love.Amazon.com ReviewIn a deeply-textured novel reminiscent of Lynda LaPlante's popular Prime Suspect, John Harvey probes the seamy underside of urban England. A Nottinghamshire police force must move quickly to understand the links between seemingly- unrelated deaths; in the background, the life of a working-class family is changed irrevocably. From Publishers WeeklyHarvey (Cold Light; Rough Treatment) is a hard-bitten British poet of urban angst. His latest gritty crime novel, set in a provincial English city that is clearly Nottingham, has a particularly tough theme: gay male rape. Young ne'er-do-well Nicky Snape, 15, arrested after bludgeoning an elderly couple during a robbery, mysteriously hangs himself on his first night in juvenile detention. Then seemingly conventional, soon-to-retire police inspector Bill Aston, conducting an investigation into the lad's suicide, is found brutally beaten to death. The central mystery is whether these events are connected, and Harvey's police squad is set to find out. Led by laconic Charlie Resnick, the squad is a beautifully observed bunch of men and women whose profane relationships with each other and their suspects are rendered with unerring accuracy. What makes Harvey's grim world bearable is his compassion: even Nicky's hapless mother is wretchedly human; Resnick himself is allowed a dour little romance with a young teacher; and the most intolerant and racist member of the police squad ultimately gets help from an unexpected quarter. Harvey's taut, fluent style moves easily between idle banter and electrifying violence, and only a slightly over-the-top windup is a flaw in an otherwise haunting and memorable performance. 50,000 first printing; author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.