From Publishers Weekly
This second entry in a promising English procedural series weaves a beguiling tapestry of evil but less clearly portrays its pair of heroes, London coppers Leo Silver and George Macrae. A nasty self-made shipping tycoon dies after a thin, high-heeled blonde, soon revealed as a high-priced hooker, is seen fleeing his flat. On the lower end of the skin trade, a man with a Veronica Lake hairdo calls a phone-sex line and brags about a double murder he seems to be planning. His hair hides the scars from a confrontation with Silver that had nearly taken the life of the young, educated policeman's girlfriend. The widow of the dead tycoon is discovered to have a penchant for working-class men, while his daughter has withdrawn to the woods outside London, where she lives in world of psychotic fantasy. While Scholefield ( Dirty Weekend ) cleverly gathers in his subplots, he never quite gets the measure of his two coppers--suave, young, educated Silver and tough, stressed, oft-married Macrae, who with tending could become as indelible a series figure as Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse or Ruth Rendell's Wexford.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
London coppers Macrae (twice-divorced, self-educated, anti- authoritarian) and Silver (yuppified, living with but not quite ready to marry Zoe) are called in when wealthy tycoon Robson Healey is murdered at home. His estranged wife seems relieved, while his plain-Jane daughter, living in a gypsy caravan in the country where she paints ominous pictures of giant red bunnies, seems more distraught that her boyfriend Christopher is gone. Meanwhile, a new supervisor is hassling Macrae about his drinking, and a furloughed con, Ronnie Purvis, is stalking Zoe and Silver, who were responsible for sending him away for attempted rape. Everyone's sex life comes into question, including the victim's, his widow's, his daughter's, the rapist's, and even Silver's and Macrae's, before another murder is revealed, an old family secret is bared, and Zoe and Silver, face-to-face with Healey's slayer, are suddenly confronted with their former nemesis--with bloody results. As in Dirty Weekend (1991), the irascible Macrae and upwardly mobile Silver are more interesting than the somewhat contrived plot. But readers looking for a British procedural with some psychological bite might give this a try. --
Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
