Gone to Ground

Categories: Mystery & Suspense , Fiction

How did I miss this one?  One of my favorite mystery authors, John Harvey, has a new pair of detectives.  Here’s hoping 2007’s Gone to Ground will be a series debut to sit on the shelf beside his Charlie Resnick and Frank Elder series.

DI Will Grayson and his partner, Helen Walker, of the Cambridge Major Investigation Team, are investigating the brutal beating death of Stephen Bryant, a film studies lecturer and writer. 

The natural first suspect is Mark McKusick, the partner Stephen had recently broken up with.  Mark seems like a mild man, but there’s something so personal about the crime that Will and Helen have to consider the possibility of a jealous ex.  Or had Stephen picked up someone else?  A missing computer that contains Stephen’s research on sultry 1950s film star Stella Leonard could point to robbery.

Harvey stirs the pot expertly, mixing plotlines about multiple suspects, a ring of gay bashing thugs, the mysterious long-ago death of screen siren Stella, and screenplay pages from the lurid thriller she starred in.  Plus he builds the back stories of his two detectives, adding a little marital conflict for his hero, a little unresolved attraction between his detective partners, and a bit of personal peril for one of them. Everything a mystery needs, all delivered with impeccable pacing and writing that seems effortless.