After two nigh-on disastrous novels, ‘Tokyo’ and ‘Pig Island’, it appears Mo Hayder has taken the hint, suppressed her interests in the supernatural and freaks, and returned to what she does best: crime, with a big shot of shock thrown in. Further good news for those hooked by Hayder’s early work is that she’s brought back DI Jack Caffery.
Caffery has left London and been seconded to the West Country, where he spends his evenings shagging prostitutes and seeking out The Walking Man – a recently released prisoner who may be able to offer some answers in Caffery’s search for his long-lost brother. Meanwhile, the DI’s day job throws up a couple of severed hands down by the docks. There’s a possibility that the young man they belong to is still alive, but there’s an even stronger chance more victims are on the way.
Hayder’s writing gives the impression that she may have lost some of her confidence. She never locates her twists and turns too far from the main plot, as Caffery teams up with local police diver Flea Marley, a woman with an equally troubled past, and makes connections between African black magic (she couldn’t quite let it go) and local drug rehabs. And strangely, for this author, she leaves behind a couple of ‘what was the…?’ and ‘why did they…?’s at the book’s conclusion.
That said, she still had me jumping a few paragraphs on occasion to find out what was about to happen. She’s definitely back, just not back to
her best.
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