PAYBACK

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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WHAT'S PAYBACK ABOUT?

Newly minted DI, Charley Mann, returns to her hometown in Yorkshire. She grew up here, fell in (and out of) love here, and started her career in the police here. She clashed a bit with a superior, got promoted, and was sent to London for a few years to get some more experience.

Now she’s back and ready to get to work with the people and area she loves. As is the rule for newly transferred DIs/DSs in British procedurals, before she can even meet with her team or superior, she catches a murder case. I’d pay good money to read a book where someone transfers into a new assignment, settles into their office, gets to know people, and starts to wonder if anything ever happens in these parts before being hit with a major case (if only to see how an author could give us a couple of interesting chapters along those lines).

Back to Payback—this is a gruesome and odd murder. It’s not an easy crime scene to understand—there are too many things that are incongruous. Charley begins to suspect that’s intentional—a suspicion that grows after another body is discovered just as the investigation starts to stall. Things get really interesting from there.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT PAYBACK?

I don’t have a lot to say about Payback, and that bothers me. Hopefully, Condemned sparks more thought.

I’m conflicted here, I’ll admit. Let me start by saying that I enjoyed this book, I’m looking forward to picking up the second one, and I think that I can recommend it (with some provisos) to you.

At the same time, there are some big problems with the book. The dialogue is typically wanting—frequently, it feels like they use 33% more words than they need to. Quippy bits, snappish retorts, etc. would land a lot better if they’d chop off a third of the lines. Trust your audience to get what you’re going for without the explanation. The narrative portions—especially those explaining Charley’s backstory or emotions—are less than good*. It’s the telling vs. showing thing, it’s a lot of being too wordy (see above), there’s some unexplained motivations—it’s hard to explain without spending more time than it’s worth. Lastly, the characters—with the exception of the killer—all need a little more sketching out. It’s the first in a series, so you can assume that’ll happen and I’m not going to complain about that (too much).

* That said, there were a couple of moments that shone—I just wish they weren’t buried amongst the “meh.”

That’s a lot to complain about there, so why did I say I enjoy it? The police procedural part of the book—thankfully, the bulk—saves this. The murders, the motive, the way that Charley leads the investigation, all the ups, downs, and curveballs—that was exactly what I came looking for in this book. Even some of the “Charley over-explains things” work because she’s trying to help a detective and a uniformed officer understand some things about the job. The moment when Charley starts putting everything together, connecting all the dots, and so on at the end? That was great. I can shrug off a lot of problems when the central plot is executed as well as this.

I realize a lot of people are going to disagree with me about some of my problems, and that’s okay, we’re all wrong sometimes. I do recommend this, I just think you need to go into it with the right expectations. I am looking forward to the next two books—I want to see if Bridgestock can build from this, how a story arc or two are developed, and if the one impending personnel change brings a better character than the one being replaced.