Monday 10 February 2014

Eleven Days by Stav Sherez



Eleven Days is a London-based police procedural featuring the detective duo, DI Carrigan and DS Miller. It's the second in a new series (the first being the excellent A Dark Redemption), and according to the author's note at the end of the book, far from the last.

The continuation of the series is incredibly good news, if you ask me. I loved A Dark Redemption, but Eleven Days offered more in terms of plot, character development and incredible writing. Sherez is an intellectual and he's not ashamed of it. He does not dumb down his writing, as far as I can see, and the effect is all the more pleasing for it. There is plenty of room for intelligence in crime fiction.

Sherez handled the POV throughout the book a little different than most. DI Carrigan enjoys the lion's share, but DS Miller lets the reader in on plenty of what's going on in her head too. There's the occasional head-hop within the same chapter, but Sherez executes this seamlessly. That's not all that easy to do.

The story is a grim one. There is little hope for many of the characters in Eleven Days. Not much smiling either. But then the book starts out with a burning convent, the death of ten nuns and one mystery victim. You wouldn't expect too many chuckles.

Sign me up for the Sherez newsletter. I'm an honest-to-God fan.

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