Crime book reviews

Published on Wednesday 24 June 2009 14:53

AMONG THE MAD by JACQUELINE WINSPEAR (John Murray, 288pp, £16.99)

JACQUELINE Winspear carries on her champion work on behalf of war veterans in the sixth novel in her outstanding Maisie Dobbs series. Dobbs is a nurse in the First World War who has gone to be an investigative psychologist. By 1931, Britain is emptying its mental homes of the 80,000 men who ended up there during the war, and when one of these walking wounded detonates a grenade on Christmas Eve, Maisie joins a hunt for terrorist groups that recruit unstable veterans. Like Maisie, the novel's style is efficient and humourless, but deeply empathetic.

MIDNIGHT FUGUE

by REGINALD HILL

(HarperCollins, 17.99)

SEVEN years after her policeman husband vanishes – and just before she marries another copper – glamorous Gina Wolfe receives a cutting showing what appears to be her missing spouse in Yorkshire. Her new partner contacts Andy Dalziel to see if he can solve the mystery.

It's a masterly tale. It exploits both meanings of "fugue" – a piece of music and a form of amnesia – and all the action takes place between 8am and midnight. The plot has at least three twists but the greatest pleasure is in the humorous exchanges between machosexual Dalziel and his more enlightened colleagues.

THE LONG FALL

by WALTER MOSLEY

(Weidenfeld, 18.99)

LEONARD McGill, an old, chubby boxer turned PI, is hired to find four men who then start dying – and finds himself the target of a giant psychopath called Sanderson, "the Frankenstein's monster of the 21st century". McGill's stepson, we discover, also seems to be planning a murder. Meanwhile, the title refers to McGill's recurrent dream, a legacy of 9/11, in which he is trapped in a tall burning building. Mosley's New York is realistic, and his laconic style brings out the action. Once again, he re-invigorates the PI yarn with erudition and wit.