First
Sentence: Slider’s wheels were in dock.
Although D.I. Bill Slider isn’t particularly looking
forward to a week off from work, he hadn’t planned on
a murder saving him from time in shopping malls. A well-known
local philanthropist is dead. The evidence indicates he knew
his killer. Coming up with suspects isn’t a problem.
Discovering a motive and evidence proves to be much harder.
From the very beginning, you are pulled in by the author’s
voice and delightful, very dry, humor…”but Kate
[Slider’s daughter] merely rolled her eyes. It was her
response to everything. She must have eye-muscles like a boxer’s
biceps, Slider thought.”
It’s refreshing to have a DI who is not an angst-ridden.
He’s divorced with two older kids, but remarried with
a wife, baby, another on the way and a live-in dad. This provides
us just enough exposure to, and the normal problems of, his
home life. We see Slider’s kinship to Atherton, his
second, and to his team.
It is through Porson, Slider’s boss and something of
a figure of fun that we see the author’s true mastery
of language. One has to be truly dexterous to create the amazing
malapropos she does and her incredible imagery.
Hard Going, at the heart of it all, is a true police
procedural. Slider and his team follow the clues and shift
through the evidence proving you don’t need a lot of
violence or profanity to still have a mystery with an edge
and an excellent plot twist.
Reviews of other titles in this series
Blood
Sinster #8
Headlong
#11
Body
Lines #13
Kill
My Darling #14
Hard
Going #16
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