The Hollow Man

Starred review from July 2, 2012
British author Harris’s searing first novel, a noir police procedural, features the anti-est of antiheroes, Det. Constable Nick Belsey, who wakes up one morning on Hampstead Heath, bruised, bloody, keyless, walletless, watchless, homeless, and bankrupt. From this low point, Belsey undertakes a personal investigation into the apparent suicide of Alexei Devereux, a high-flying international financier, whose ritzy Hampstead house becomes his secret pied-à-terre for his attempt to use Devereux’s resources as startup capital to escape the mess he’s made of his life. Supported by a convincing cast of reporters, policemen bent and otherwise, and villains great and small, Belsey draws on his intimate knowledge of London’s criminal underworld to unravel Project Boudicca, a multimillion-euro scheme to make gambling Britain’s 21st-century version of heroin. At one point, during an extended London pub crawl, Belsey feels “mystery settling in layers, like snow.” Readers should be prepared for a mind-bending resolution that hurtles down as remorselessly as an avalanche. Agent, George Lucas, Inkwell Management.

September 1, 2012

Nick Belsey's life as a police detective in London is out of control, and he is almost out of time before it all falls apart. Bankrupt and homeless, Nick finds himself crashed on Hampstead Heath in a stolen police car. Trying to string along a few more days before the disintegration of his life is revealed, he begins to think he's found a way out of the mess when he investigates a missing persons call in wealthy Bishops Lane and finds a Russian oligarch who appears to have walked away from his life and a great deal of money. Nick steps into the Russian's shoes only to discover that people known to be working with the Russian are ending up dead. VERDICT Debut author Harris maintains the tension and suspense from the first sentence to the last. His antihero is engaging, and readers will be rooting for him all the way to the final plot twist.--Lisa Hanson O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Lib., Winnipeg

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