Noose

September 30, 2013
Best known for the Harpur and Iles procedural series (Play Dead, etc.), James spins an effective psychological tale of a man whose past shapes his future, despite efforts to carve his own path. In 1956, journalist Ian Charteris covers the possible suicide attempt of a 20-year-old actress, Daphne West, who may be his half-sister. This near-tragedy leads Ian to recall his father’s heroic act, reported in the local newspaper—the rescue in 1934 of 23-year-old Emily Bass, who fell into the Bristol Channel from a Welsh paddle ship. A few years later, Ian made the news himself as a key witness in a murder trial, much to his father’s displeasure. Those two events color Ian’s subsequent career, prompting him to reflect that “I’ve been snared, noosed,” as indeed he has, with the older Emily playing a large and largely offstage role in his life. Covering more than two decades of turbulent British history, James brings his story full circle back to its beginning.

December 1, 2013
The creator of Harpur and Iles (Play Dead, 2013, etc.) uses the attempted 1956 suicide of a British starlet to unleash a flood of baleful memories for the journalist tasked with writing an article about her. The official story is that her teakettle snuffed out the gas flame while Daphne West slept, nearly asphyxiating her accidentally. But no one believes that story or is meant to. Pressed by Mirror editor Percy Lyall to interview the survivor at her hospital bedside, reporter Ian Charteris swiftly makes himself so unpleasant that he's thrown out of her room. Daphne isn't to know that Ian's being even more unpleasant to himself than to her. As if in a dream, he drifts from one traumatic memory to the next. There's the day when Ian, 5, saw his father, an officer on a paddle ship crossing the Bristol Channel, rescue passenger Emily Bass from drowning while the ship's captain lost his life trying to save her--an episode that ruined Laurence Charteris forever. There's the wartime interlude when Ian, 11, saw one man stab another to death in an air-raid shelter, ran for the police and ended up as the star witness in a murder trial that sent the killer to the gallows. There's the suddenly serious rivalry between Ian and another cadet that brings Ian back to the attention of Emily Bass, now married to Ian's group captain and doing some hush-hush government work. Finally, there's the recent rumor of a coup to oust Prime Minister Anthony Eden over the Suez affair. The unusual plot thickens and darkens but never comes to a full head of steam.

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Starred review from November 1, 2013
James, who may be one of Britain's most underrated crime fiction writers, produces a shocker packed with menace and very black humor. In 1956, journalist Ian Charteris is asked by his editor to hotfoot it to the scene of a young actress' suicide. The teaser line from Ian she might be my sister only hints at the disturbing circumstances that have led to the girl's death. In a series of flashbacks, readers see Ian as a young boy, worshipping his father for his heroism in rescuing a young woman from drowning. Then, during a WWII air raid in London, 11-year-old Ian witnesses a murder. His court testimony leads to the execution of the killer, and Ian experiences the same sort of fame as his father. Ten years later, Ian has been drafted into the Royal Air Force, where he finds a discomfiting link to his past and unwittingly betrays a colleague, with terrible consequences. But it's only after Ian has become a successful journalist that his story comes full circle, and the reader learns the truth. Superbly written, with James' unique clipped, darkly funny dialogue and brilliantly provocative prose, this is a story that will haunt and disturb readers long after they've read the final page.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)