 |
|
Allen & Unwin, August 2006
Reviewed by Sally Roddom
It is a cold winter’s night, and the snow is falling heavily in Cockpit
Lane. Anxious to get home, a night watchman nearly misses the open door
that leads to the discovery of the bodies of two sixteen year old girls.
Cockpit Lane lies in an area of London where Jamaican immigrants have made
their homes; a place seething with poverty, racism and crime. Detective
Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla from Scotland
Yard's Serious Crimes Branch lead the investigation. While the police are
scouring some waste land near the scene of the crime, a young boy is doing
a search of his own. When he is electrocuted on the nearby railway line, a
human jawbone is discovered in his pocket. This discovery leads to three
skeletons, victims from the time of the Brixton riots in the 1970’s. From
this point on author Barry Maitland cleverly intertwines the dual
investigations into the current victims and the past ones. DI Brock used
to work in the area when he was a sergeant. He immediately thinks of the
Roach family, who once terrorised the area. The leader of the family,
Spider, is now elderly; his sons are assumed to be respectable
businessmen. However Brock believes that once a villain, always a villain,
and starts to widen his line of investigation to include the Roaches.
Thrown into the mixture is the local MP, Michael Grant. He is a Jamaican
immigrant, and like Brock is convinced the Roaches have something to do
with both sets of murders. He constantly hampers the investigation by
dropping in unannounced into the police station to see what lines of
investigation they are following, and making what he believes to be
helpful suggestions. The personal lives of both Brock and Kolla enter the
story, but more to expand our knowledge of the two characters rather than
detract from the story. All Maitland’s characters, both good and bad, are
consistent and real. These are the men and women you would see in the
local pub or street market. None of the characters are out of place in
their setting.
SPIDER TRAP has a complicated plot. There is a lot going on all at once,
but Maitland slowly draws the strings together, letting one drop
occasionally to send the reader off on another tangent only to drag it
back in. It all builds to a climatic and bloody crescendo in north Wales.
SPIDER TRAP is Maitland’s eighth book in the Brock and Kolla series.
April 2007 review originally published on Murder & Mayhem
All cover art used at Reviewer's Choice Reviews is copyrighted by the
respective publisher. All reviews and articles found at Reviewer's Choice
Reviews are the sole property of the contributor and are copyrighted by
the same.
|
