John Harvey

now’s the time

still water

Two books I read “now’s the time” first, I wouldn’t have read it if I noticed it was a collection of short stories. But once I got into it I enjoyed it and most of the stories were connected, more like chapters in a book, I suppose that was because the all revolved round DI Charlie Resnick.

The second book “still water” had many connections to the short stories in the first book so I suggest you should read them both, in order, to get the most from them. They delivered what I suspect we all want from our detectives, a main character that we can emphasise with, or more importantly like, one that has their own idiosyncrasies in Charlie’s case, his love of Jazz. The connection to the Polish community I suppose to some degree plays on our stereotyping but it adds to rather than detracts from the book. There are also collections of villains that give us some to like and some to hate and the “squad” with the usual nowadays, the black gay detective.

In all I will look out for more Resnick novels, I have added John Harvey to my “to read list”.