I’m delighted to share my review of ‘Blunt Force’, the sixth book in the excellent series featuring Jane Tennison in her early career – way before her ‘Prime Suspect’ days.
I’m reading this series as part of #TeamTennison – thanks to Compulsive Readers and Zaffre Books for inviting me on to the tour and for my copies of the books for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.
In this book, Jane Tennison has left Flying Squad and is now stationed in Knightsbridge – not exactly a hub of violent crime in comparison to some of her previous postings! Just as she’s beginning to worry that her career is going nowhere, a brutal murder is committed and Jane joins the investigative team. However, the case is far from straightforward – the victim, Charles Foxley, was a theatrical agent who was well-known, not always above board and had some powerful enemies…
I really like that this series is so varied – we’ve had IRA bombings, seedy crimes in shady parts of London, serial killers, high-value robberies…you name it, Tennison has investigated it as part of her life in the Metropolitan Police in the 1970s. ‘Blunt Force’ is again something a bit different – a high-profile and gruesome murder with lots of possible suspects and a web of intrigue to untangle. What makes this so readable is that there are moments in the book where the police are really floundering – so many clues seem to lead to dead ends or open new cans of worms!
Again in this book, Tennison develops as a character. Here, she’s facing her fears of guns by getting herself some firearms training and starting to build relationships with her police team. She’s still a maverick, but she is also learning to play the game a bit better. She’s still brilliant at finding and following new leads – her instinct is good.
I liked the range of characters in this book – there’s lots of interesting people at the theatrical agency, the mysterious firearms teacher Elliott, a host of wannabees attending film premieres for Foxley, a brothel madam, a slick lawyer, and Foxley’s ex-wife. And that’s before we even get on to the police team who seem marginally less sexist and unpleasant than the last lot – Jane Tennison’s partner, DS Spencer Gibbs even started to grow on me!
Everything else is just as expected from Lynda La Plante – clever plotting, plenty of twists, a bit of police corruption and a lot of intrigue! I keep saying that each book I read in the series is my new favourite – but this one just might be!
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