Sometimes I take a break from my usual reading interests by relaxing with a crime novel from writers such as Frances Fyfield, PD James, Ruth Rendell or Elizabeth George. Usually, I find Frances Fyfield the most satisfying of these writers, but I have to say that I found her latest novel, Blood From Stone, disappointing. I find this surprising because the last “thriller break” I had was again with Fyfield, when “The Nature of the Beast” entertained me greatly last summer while relaxing on the glorious beaches of The Algarve.
I suspect that its something to do with the lack of “bite” in this novel that lets it down. Frankly, its a little meandering, taking a very long time to build up, and then lacking the thrill that a thriller really depends on. I found myself counting the pages to the end, wondering when something really significant would happen. Somehow the book lacks suspense, and its characters failed to grab my attention, and when a strong character does emerge, there was never quite enough of them for me to be able to relate to them.
The novel concerns the aftermath of an unpleasant court case, during which the prosecution lawyer has been particularly nasty to key female witnesses, causing one of them to take her own life. Later, the lawyer is also seen to commit suicide by a passing photographer, who sells his dramatic pictures to a newspaper. The book then takes the form of a gradual unravelling of the build-up to the case and its aftermath.
The novel is peppered with court transcripts from the trial and personally, I’ve never liked flashbacks, especially in this case where the flow of the book is interrupted by the stilted format of a court record.
The two villains of this piece Rick Boyd and Frank Shearer are a little too alike, and I found it easy to get them mixed up – both nasty pieces of work, but Rick’s domination of Frank seemed a little unrealistic in view of Frank’s innate nastiness which surely would have prevented him being so subordinate in the partnership? The main investigator is a lawyer’s side-kick Peter Freil who is introduced to us a a bit of a loser, but later and rather unconvincingly transforms himself into a knight in shining armour. The reader gains a first impression of a character from the material presented, and it can be difficult when the character seems to transform during a novel without any visible process going on to initiate the change.
Having written this review I’m wondering what went wrong. Fyfield is an excellent writer with many fine novels to her name. I find myself looking for deficiencies in my reading of the novel, but don’t find it easy to discover any. I think on the whole, that this is just not one of her best, but her past form will still make me wait for the next one with some eagerness. In the meantime there’s a new Gerald Seymour novel, Timebomb, to occupy me when I next fancy some pace and excitement in a novel to counter the lethargy that comes from sitting on the beach.
