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Bantam/Random House Australia, March 2007
Reviewed by Kerrie Smith
Crime/Mystery/Thriller
Reuben Maitland is a respected British forensic pathologist with an
invention that, in the right hands, should revolutionise crime detection
and crime prevention. He believes he has found a way to use DNA to predict
the physical appearance of perpetrators. But Reuben goes too far when, in
an unauthorised trial, he links computer generated images built from DNA
profiles with images captured by CCTV surveillance cameras on the streets
of London.
His subsequent dismissal from his position as the head of the prestigious
GeneCrime lab means that Reuben has to find other sources, sometimes
criminal, to fund his research. Just after he is dismissed members of his
former GeneCrime team begin to die, apparently murdered after extensive
torture. The DNA evidence seems to point to Reuben, an unlovely character
whose marriage has collapsed. He has doubts about the paternity of his own
son, rubs amphetamine into his gums, and demonstrates a very blurred set
of ethics.
DIRTY LITTLE LIES would have benefited from much stronger editing. It is a
many-layered, multi-stranded story, but the interweaving is not tight
enough. There is a considerable amount of gruesome description of what has
been done to the murder victims that does little but nauseate. Laboratory
procedures are described in detail but I found it difficult to visualise
what was actually being done. I became confused by the vast array of
characters, their relationships with each other, and by the multiplicity
of cases that the GeneCrime lab is investigating.
First time author John Macken attempts to heighten tension and momentum by
finishing most chapters with "suspenseful" sentences, e.g. "Someone was
killing his friends. It was time to find out who." But many of these
hanging chapter endings ring hollow. They don't seem to be warranted by
what has happened so far, nor do they connect well with the following
pages.
Nevertheless the story had potential and John Macken has obviously been
able draw authentically from his own background as a research scientist.
There will be many who enjoy this debut novel. Reuben Maitland's
invention, Predictive Phenotyping, certainly has interesting implications.
May 2007 review originally published on Murder & Mayhem
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