Good Bait [Paperback]

Once again, John Harvey has created a set of compelling characters and set them in a plot that is complex, but not too complex to follow. You've read books where you have to keep going back to refresh your memory of what was happening in that other plot line. Not with a Harvey novel and not here. He has a great sense of timing, and each part of this book moves seamlessly in parallel with the other. I still miss the Charlie Resnick books; haven't cottoned to his later characters as much. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these two and their friends.

There are a thousand crime writers who can spin a good yarn and create an engaging character. Then there is a smaller band of skillful and gifted writers whose genre is crime - prominent amongst them John Harvey. His character portraits are finely drawn and bitingly real and his plots are fast spinning vortexes that suck you in and shake you down. Police Inspectors Karen Shields and Trevor Cordon are in London and Cornwall, young and old, black and white - as different as chalk and cheese - but in Good Bait they run on parallel tracks towards a collision point you always know is coming in a rotten world of gang violence, petty revenge and organized crime. Sublime.

John Harvey is an accomplished novelist with several fine pieces to his credit. Good Bait: A Novel is Harvey's latest offering and despite rave reviews and a good opening I found it ultimately disappointing.

Having read several of Harvey's previous efforts I found Good Bait had the strengths I have come to expect. Characters are finely drawn, interesting, with both flaws and admirable qualities. These are people I wanted to get to know, admire or despise and ultimately care about. The plot is robust, convoluted and complex. Dialogue is artfully used to move the story along. Two story lines, two smart cops, bring the reader glimpses of relationships hidden to the main characters but ultimately critical to the story's final resolution.

The first case involves the murder of a 17-year-old Moldovan boy found in a frozen pond, assigned to DCI Karen Shields and her team. But more bodies pile up and there is every appearance that all the mess is related. Separately, Cornwall DI Trevor Cordon is troubled by the death of a woman he's known, is her death in the London Tube suicide, accident or murder? Well outside his realm of responsibility he takes time off and calls in favors to poke around until he become embroiled in a plot bigger than he could have expected.

This is a police procedural. It gives a solid view of methods, problems and even technologies used by the UK police. It does this quite well. It is accurate, authentic and believable. But like many crime stories it is ultimately a character study and here it falls short. While there is a stark contrast between the thirty-ish Jamaican Shields and the fifty-ish Cordon these differences are never fully developed. There is only a hint of the racism and sexism Shields must have experienced. She is efficient, a sound investigator and manager but she is sterile and left this reader wanting to know more. Condon is aptly described as a lonely, divorced old cop waiting for his retirement but his emotions and motivations are at times vague. There are glimpses of the workings of his mind but they are all too brief.

I found the vast cast of characters, good guys and bad, a challenge to keep straight. The multitude of UK place and roads names, to this reader who is not familiar with the county, also became a distraction.

I read the Kindle version of Good Bait. I found spelling and formatting errors throughout. This novel came from a major publishing house. Don't they have editors or readers anymore? These errors, in addition to the British spelling, Harvey is after all a British author, were a distraction but unfortunately, I have come to expect these kinds of errors from Kindle books.

Good Bait, while a good read, was ultimately a disappointment. It needs more characterization and a conclusion that ties the initial murder back into the plot. I give it a lukewarm one thumb up.