Waterloo Sunset
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and is also Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels.
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Reviews for Waterloo Sunset
14 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crusoe and Devlin, Liverpool solicitors, have only just moved into their new premises in John Newton House, when the note arrives announcing Harry's sudden death in five days' time, on Midsummer's Eve.In Harry's fertile imagination there is no lack of suspects, but then again, perhaps it is a joke. Harry's partner Jim Crusoe is inclined to think it is. A throatily whispered message on the answering machine at home is enough to convince Harry that someone really has it in for him.Harry's past seems to be cluttered with people less than satisfied with his services. First of all there is Tom Gunter who has anger management issues, and Aled Borth who is convinced his mother was murdered for her money by the doctor in charge of the nursing home in which she died, and then Juliet May, once a lover, but now the ex-wife of Casper May, the owner of John Newton House.On the second day of Harry's wait for his impending death, Liverpool is gripped by the horror of a possible serial killer. For the second time, the remains of a young woman has been found on a beach near Liverpool. Rumours are suggesting there may be connections.Well, that's all I'm going to reveal of the story of this cleverly constructed mystery. Although this is the 8th of Martin's Edwards Harry Devlin series, it is nine years since Harry had an outing, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since his last. I've never come across Harry before although I have read a couple of titles in the Lake District Mysteries. I think the earlier novels in the series will be worth looking for.I did like the way WATERLOO SUNSET was constructed. There was good tension between the serial killer strand, which rather inevitably Harry Devlin becomes involved in, and Harry's own quest to find out who is threatening him. I liked also the characters who populate this story, particularly Harry himself, Gina Paget, and Amazing Grace.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Harry Devlin is a good character but the plot wasn't the strongest, partivulrly at the end.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5“In Memory. Harry Devlin. Died Suddenly, Liverpool. Midsummer’s Eve”
Six days before Midsummer’s Eve an announcement containing these words is hand delivered to the office of very much alive lawyer Harry Devlin. Harry’s partner in the legal practice thinks it’s a bit of a joke but Harry is not so sure and tries to work out who might have sent the announcement and what their intent might be. As Harry deals with a series of subsequent unsettling reminders of his possible upcoming death, he also becomes perturbed by a case in which first one body of a young woman then another is found mutilated. Don’t let that put you off though because this is not a book about graphic mutilations and psychopathic serial killers. It’s about ordinary, everyday people and their reactions to the sometimes extraordinary things that happen around them.
Among the many fine qualities displayed in Waterloo Sunset my favourite is the underlying sense of humour. Harry is a witty, satirical character whose reaction to such things as the pronouncements by management consultants about how he should maximise his business potential and the efforts by authorities to turn Liverpool into the City of Culture are priceless. But Harry’s partner describes him as “setting a gold standard in attracting trouble” so the humour is matched by action in the novel as Harry’s personal and professional lives become increasingly complicated. For openers an old lover (who is the ex-wife of one of the city’s most prominent gangsters) resurfaces while he attempts to connect with a new love interest, a client accuses him of conspiring to cover up the killing of his mother and at one point he is suspected of involvement in a murder.
Another thing that struck me about this book was the authentic feel of the character’s behaviour throughout the novel. Whether it was the man flinging accusations about the cover up of his mother’s murder at a nursing home, Harry’s partner’s response to Harry receiving the death notice or their building security man’s reaction to Harry discovering him in a compromising position they were all very believable characters behaving in ways that suited the picture Edwards had drawn of them. You generally expect the main characters to be handled properly in a novel like this but it’s pleasing to see the minor ones being deftly drawn too.
This book has a complicated plot which in a lesser writer’s hands might have devolved into chaos but Edwards keeps track of all the threads, red herrings and side-tracks with aplomb. Towards the end as one of the main threads is resolved I had all but forgotten about the Midsummer’s Eve announcement but fortunately Edwards had not and treated us to a humdinger of a climax. I had not read any of the previous seven novels in this series but did not feel at any disadvantage in terms of understanding the story and was easily drawn into Harry’s world and the city of Liverpool.
There’s no doubt that part of the attraction for me of Martin Edwards’ books in audio format (I have another one lined up already on my iPod) is that they’re narrated by Gordon Griffin who is an outstanding actor and storyteller (he has also narrated the two Ann Cleeves novels I’ve listened to).
My Rating 3.5/5