Good People

February 18, 2013
Fans of gritty British crime fiction will welcome Hutton’s twisty first novel, set in Wales. One night, Det. Sgt. Glyn Capaldi, whose career is on the rebound, responds to a hijacking call. According to the stranded driver of a minibus, his six drunken male passengers tricked him into getting out of the vehicle, then drove off without him. Shortly beforehand, the men picked up a female hitchhiker. The morning after the crime, the minibus is found abandoned. Capaldi’s colleagues are initially unconcerned, but when the police learn that none of the men turned up at their homes, they start to show some interest. Things become more complicated after five of the men surface, leaving one of their comrades and the unidentified woman unaccounted for and Capaldi suspicious. Hutton throws in a number of curves along the way to a satisfying explanation of the mystery.

February 15, 2013
Everyone who thinks Ian Rankin doesn't write fast enough should give newcomer Hutton a try. Relegated to the Welsh boondocks after his misstep causes a death in Cardiff, DS Glyn Capaldi, never one to follow orders anyway, persists in asking where Boon, a young black man, and a female hitchhiker have gone after five local lads say they left following a night of high-spirited debauchery. According to them, Boon planned to take the girl to the ferry to Dublin to meet up with her boyfriend and then return to his military posting. But their story is a little too pat, and when it crumbles, their revision sounds rehearsed and preplanned. Glyn, whose interrogation technique is part punch-up, part blackmail and total intimidation, singles out Trevor as the group's weakest link. After two prostitutes alibi the lads and Glyn gets treated to a tormented sexual confession, Trevor's dead body is found hanging from a barn rafter. No longer welcomed in the pub by xenophobic countrymen, and told by his superiors to leave off harassing the boys, Glyn can find solace only in his encounter with Sally, Boon's adopted mother, whose travails include an ex who absconded with a student and subtle bits of racism aimed at her son. But shortly after Sally and Glyn tentatively reach out for one another, the current husband of Glyn's ex-wife descends asking for a bit of advice, and investigation shows that more girls than the misplaced hitchhiker have vanished from the village in the past. Convinced that Boon and probably several of the females are dead and possibly buried in the countryside, Glyn makes several incorrect assumptions that lead to a final revenge scenario upending his notions of what good people can be driven to while their friends turn a blind eye. The sexual peccadilloes are not for the squeamish, but the plot twists are cunning, and Glyn Capaldi is the most appealing antihero this side of John Rebus.

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April 1, 2013

DS Glyn Capaldi (the Welshman is part Italian) has been banished to the hinterlands of Wales for his past indiscretions. Now he's stumbled upon a case that the locals want to sweep under the rug, and something sounds off to him. Six local guys had rented a van for their rugby outing, and one woman (possibly a prostitute) joined them later. The next morning, only five men are left. They provide a reasonable explanation for the missing man and woman, but Capaldi doesn't believe the story. Tired of being stonewalled, Capaldi investigates until he unearths tawdry, long-kept secrets so sinister that no one wants to believe they are true. When one of the five men is found hanged, the pent-up tension escalates into violence. It won't be easy, but bet on Capaldi to see it through. VERDICT Shortlisted for the 2012 Crime Writers' Association New Blood Dagger for best first novel, this is a stunningly dark debut. The first-person narrative keeps it personal, making the detective's vulnerabilities that much more intense. [See Prepub Alert, 11/4/12.]

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
The first novel by an award-winning author of radio plays for the BBC has the kind of fast pace and immediacy we associate with radio. Hutton's hero, half-Welsh, half-Italian Detective Sergeant Glyn Capaldi, has been exiled from Cardiff for getting a man killed and sent to what the city cops call the Wild and Wooly West of Wales, where he is supposed to stay out of the way of his superiors. When a minibus full of young men back from a rugby game disappears into the forest, and only five later emerge, Capaldi is told to ignore the incident. What Capaldi can't ignore is that a prostitute, perhaps one caught in human trafficking, is one of the people who doesn't return. The local constabulary wants to pretend the incident didn't happen, as do the local people. Capaldi's investigation in the teeth of opposition is a joy to follow. And the wit of the first-person narration is priceless. Definitely a series to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)