Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
A promising start with a measured introduction: of characters, setting and situation told in the first person by a former cop. A maverick in the Force, Dylan Kasper was traumatized five years ago when his young daughter killed herself without warning or explanation.
As a result, Kasper walked away from the police, from his wife and home, even his lover. Now his life comprises the room he rents from a fierce old psychiatrist, the sleazy pub where he’s employed by its sympathetic owner, the gym where he tries to work out his rage, and Bushmills whisky. Kasper is a haunted man when he receives a desperate call from another damaged soul just before he throws himself in front of a train at the same tube station where Kasper’s daughter took her own life.
This then is a harrowing story of lust and blackmail and dark domestic secrets, and because of the nature of the story teller it’s full of violence and horror, all the nastier, the more immediate by virtue of its style and language. The dialogue is stilted but the narrative is English as spoken right now: in bars and gyms, in cop shops and – presumably - around organised crime. Slippery grammar spiked with slang, modern and ancient, comes over authentic enough that the occasional derivative nod to Chandler (“he had the look of someone who flossed his teeth with a hacksaw”) may be forgiven. This is a debut novel and once the smooth corners of the creative writing course have been roughed off the result should be intriguing. We can look forward to Elliot Sweeney’s second book.
