Good Bait - Softcover

John Harvey has been writing crime fiction for more than forty years. The first novel of his twelve-part Charlie Resnick series, Lonely Hearts, was selected by The Times of London as one of the “100 Best Crime Novels of the Century.” His novels featuring Frank Elder include Flesh & Blood, which won the Silver Dagger Award and a Barry Award, and Ash & Bone, which was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Award. He was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in the crime genre in 2007. He lives in England.

Since wrapping up his acclaimed Charlie Resnick series, Harvey has introduced several new coppers—some patrolling Resnick’s Nottingham turf; others in London and Cornwall—and the newbies have all displayed the complexity, vulnerability, and multifaceted appeal that fans have come to expect from a Harvey creation. That is especially true here, in a two-pronged crime tale featuring DCI Karen Shields (a bit player in earlier Harvey novels), of the London Homicide & Serious Crimes Unit, and soon-to-retire DI Trevor Cordon, from Cornwall. Shields is investigating the apparently drug-connected murder of a Moldovan teen, while Cordon is tracking a disappeared young woman with whom he has a past. Naturally, the two cases are related, and while Harvey expertly constructs the connective tissue, we find ourselves much more involved in Shields’ story; both plots are fully fleshed and engaging, but Shields steals the show, emerging as a starworthy creation. Harvey has always done very well with supporting female characters (Lynn Kellogg in the Resnick novels), but now he has a series lead on his hands crying out for more screen time. --Bill Ott