Sunday, December 18, 2016

WASTED YEARS by John Harvey

A Charlie Resnick Mystery

Finished Sa 12/17/16
This was the day of the worst ice storm to hit Springfield in decades. A quarter inch of ice coated Westview and it was nearly impassable. And, late Saturday night a snowstorm dusted the whole mess with a half inch of powdery snow and the temperatures never rose above single digits all day on Sunday.

This was one of my paperbacks that I bought at the main branch in May of 1995, but never read.

The novel is a police procedural set in Nottingham, England and reminded me a lot of the work of Ian Rankin.

Charlie Resnick is a depressed, functioning alcoholic deputy inspector. He regrets his divorce to Elaine. She cheated on him with a realtor. However, he really stopped communicating with her, and he basically forced her out of the relationship.

The novel concerns two criminal activities. The first is about a pair of inept robbers, Keith and Darren. Darran is the leader and most likely psychotic. Keith is just a weak follower and they met in a youth prison and Darren prevented Keith from hanging himself.

They rob a small branch bank and Darren nearly kills an old man with a hammer who steps up to stop the robbery. One of the tellers, Lorna Solomon, is frustrated with her job, and she is a sub-plot in the book. Darren follows her and she goes to the police about his voyeurism and meets a young detective, Kevin Naylor, and they have a brief sexual encounter. But, Kevin goes back to his wife, Debbie, at the end of the novel.

The other criminal enterprise concerns a group of very experienced and well organized robbers. This gang successfully steals from armored cars and large banking concerns. They wear Disney masks. Prior, Churchill, and Rains are the ringleaders.

Prior has just gotten out of prison after a ten year sentence. His wife Ruth, was an established R&B singer. Resnick is a music lover and saw her perform back in the day. He thinks that Prior blames Ruth for his incarceration, and Charlie tries to prevent Prior from getting back at her.

WASTED YEARS is a song that Ruth sings with her combo.

I thought Charlie and Ruth might get together, but it looks like Resnick will try to hookup with Prior's probation officer, Pam Van Allen.

I loved the book and I'll check the library to see if I can read more of this series.

Author's page at wikipedia-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_(author)

Charlie's page at wikipedia-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Resnick

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