Thursday, November 09, 2006

One Last Breath by Stephen Booth

Mansell Quinn is released is released from prison fourteen years after having been convicted of killing his lover. His lover was killed in his house while his wife was at work. His memory is foggy; vague images of blood and his lover's last breath crowd his mind. He felt his must have done it, but while in the middle of his sentence he started to proclaim his innocence. The fact that all of a sudden he was denying his crime made the parole board decide to have him serve his full sentence. Now that he is out, his wife is found dead. Detective Sergent Diane Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper investigate a case that is deeply entangled in the past.

My favorite Brit Crime Fic author is Peter Robinson. Stephen Booth has a bit of a way to go before I would consider him the same caliber, but he's got the elements to be a very fine storyteller: atmospheric setting, multidimensional characters and an well-developed, suspenseful plot. Where he falters a bit is when plot points don't get resolved or they are resolved, but don't make much sense. I still don't understand why Rebecca was killed, and more importantly, I am unclear on who killed her. Maybe I missed it, but a reader should really be able to miss the resolution of a major story line. The plot should be more concise and not meander loosing part of the audience. I did like the story, and I was engaged during reading it. I don't think my mind wandered once, so I was a little perturbed when I still had questions at the end.

I did really love how the Peak District was brought to life in the novel. An ancient underground cave became almost another character in the book. I did get a good sense of Derbyshire as a setting. It was not just a matter of saying a story is set in a location, and that is that.

While I did have a few issues with the story, I did enjoy it and do recommend reading it.

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