K is for Jim Kelly

I am featuring the author Jim Kelly for the Crime Fiction Alphabet meme this week. Kelly is the author of two mystery series. One is set in the Cambridgeshire Fens and features a journalist, Philip Dryden. The second series is a police procedural series. In both series, the landscape and its effect on people is very evident. Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise to check out other entries for the letter K.

The book I am featuring is Death Wore White. This is a police procedural set on the north Norfolk coast. Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine are investigators for the West Norfolk Constabulary.

George Valentine formerly was a DI who was booted down a grade for mishandling a case. The partners resent and distrust each other, not an original storyline. This time, the reason for the strain in their relationship is that Valentine was Shaw's father's partner, and they were working on a case that went wrong when Shaw's father was forced to retire and Valentine was demoted and sent out to postings in undesirable areas.

Some joker in admin, thought Shaw, some old lag who knew the past and didn’t care about the future. They needed a new partner for Shaw, who at thirty‐three years of age was the force’s youngest DI, the whiz‐kid with the fancy degree and a father once tipped to be the next chief constable. And they’d come up with George Valentine – a living relic of a different world, where cynical coppers waged a losing war against low life on the street. A man who’d been the best detective of his generation until one mistake had put him on a blacklist from which he was struggling to escape. A man whose career trajectory looked like a brick falling to earth.

It was their first week as partners; already – for both of them – it seemed like a lifetime.

There are three murders that take place in a small area. The detectives make an assumption that the cases are related. As they discover relationships between persons involved in each crime, the more they feel that they are following the right track. One of the murders takes place on coastal road, in a car, trapped by a fallen tree, with a line of cars behind it. This could be described as an "impossible crime", with a body surrounded by snow, and the only set of footprints accounted for. There was a witness who saw a person walk up to the car and leave when the victim was still alive.

This story includes all the typical elements in a true modern police procedural. The detectives make good and frequent use of forensics, and they follow up leads and interview many suspects. The younger detective has education but less experience, and is more interested in forensics. The veteran detective is more of a maverick, more willing to bend the rules.

In the background are the questions surrounding the last case that Valentine worked on with Shaw's father. Peter Shaw's boss is very sensitive at any mention of the case because he feels like it reflected on the whole department and left them with a bad reputation.

I enjoyed reading this novel, although I enjoyed the last half more than the first half. I guess it is better to end well, than to start with a bang and then fizzle. I have seen that happen in many novels.

At 390 pages, I think the novel could have been shorter. The first half sets up the crimes and gives us all the witnesses, bystanders (so to speak), interested parties. With a crime scene that involves a line of vehicles isolated on a rarely used road, we have a relatively large set of people involved, and theoretically any could have committed the crime. And then there are the two other crimes, one at a nearby beach. This first half is somewhat dry and I did not get involved much with any of the characters.

At the midpoint of the book, we start getting some information from the point of view of the various persons who have been touched by these events, and at that point I began to get more invested in the outcome. The resolution was complex and satisfying.

Jim Kelly won the CWA Dagger in the Library 2006, awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association in the UK. It "is awarded to 'the author of crime fiction whose work is currently giving the greatest enjoyment to readers'; authors are nominated by UK libraries and Readers' Groups and judged by a panel of librarians." Other authors who have gotten this award are: Robert Barnard, Stephen Booth, Colin Cotterill, Ariana Franklin, and Mo Hayder. At the time of winning this award, Kelly had only published three books in the Philip Dryden series and the fourth was coming out soon.

Kelly now has written seven novels in the Philip Dryden series and four in the Shaw / Valentine series. Kelly is a journalist and his father was a police detective, so his main characters feel very authentic in their jobs. I have read the first book in the Philip Dryden series, a few years ago. I will read more books in both series when I have the chance.