Cutting Edge - John Harvey
Book 3 in the set of ten Charlie Resnick detective novels.
Action takes place in Nottingham, England - as do all the Resnick books, as far as I know. He is a Detective Inspector in the local CID, with an ex-wife who possibly wants him back. Of Polish stock, he lives with four cats named after jazz greats - of whom he is very fond (both the jazz and the cats), and makes a mean sandwich. Usually the sandwich is described in minute detail and is made from whatever ingredients he has left in the fridge, normally on dark rye bread. Got me making snacks at midnight, which I wouldn’t normally do.
The detective action has him and his team trying to figure out the reasons, and find the perpetrators of, a series of attacks with sharp implements on apparently unrelated members of the local hospital. This is NHS cuts taken to the extreme! Clues seem to lead nowhere, and at least one of his crew thinks that one man they have interviewed ia a prime suspect, but can’t prove it. Along the way, Resnick takes in a temporary lodger - an old friend who used to play the alto sax and is somewhat down on his luck; other members of his team have their own crises, none of which are fully resolved. Well, there’s another seven books yet….
Harvey’s writing maintains the tension - except for the odd breaks for a little humour or relaxation in the detective’s life - and shows why he deserved all the accolades he has received from a variety of crime fiction circles. The plot is very well constructed, the language is relevant to place and time, the characters are all very human.
Published 1991, Mandarin paperbacks. Available from Alibris.co.uk and Abebooks.