Last Rites Book

I have never watched Game of Thrones, but I can relate a bit to the obsession with how the series is ending as I get ready to read the last book in the Charlie Resnick series that is still not checked off my list.

Besides his brilliant writing skills, Harvey is also a master at continuing characters from one police procedural to another, especially among the working class criminals of Nottingham, as well as the police officers themselves.

This 10th entry in the series is set in the late 90s, and in keeping with that time, it is more violent than many of the predecessors, because it corresponds with the rise of drug gangs in the city and an increasing prevalence of weapons, which was a much bigger deal in the UK than America. Intermixed with one of these feuds (and some dirty cops to boot) is a more personal story. Michael Preston, who had been serving life for the killing of his father many years before, is let out of jail to attend his mother's funeral. On the way back from the ceremony, he manages to escape, and this sets in motion a whole set of crimes that will intersect with the drug wars and will dredge up the painful history Preston shares with his sister Lorraine.

But for fans of this series, the big news isn't the whodunits of the plot. It's the fact that finally, finally, as we've waited for all this time, Resnick starts the relationship he was always meant to have with former detective Lynn Kellogg (and even that takes until near the end of the book).

This novel also introduces one other major change in the cast of police officers, but you'll have to read it to find that one out.

Another fine entry. Now on to no. 11, and since I actually started with Resnick by reading the final book in the series, this next one will "do me," as Charlie might say.