Product Description

Freshly promoted to the elite Major Crimes Team, DI Joe Faraday is thrown into the deep end with the investigation into the murder of prison officer Paul Coughlin. Was the violent Coughlin killed by a recently released con he brutalised in prison? Or is his death a legacy of a wider, more savage violence from twenty years before? Coughlin was an ex-petty officer in the Royal Navy. Not much liked, he served on HMS Accolade, a Type 21 frigate sunk during the Falklands war with the loss of 19 men. If Faraday is to solve the murder, he must first penetrate the wall of silence thrown up by the Navy. But as he digs deeper, he uncovers a disturbing connection to a crime that has waited twenty years to be avenged . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28088 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Graham Hurley's Deadlightstretches the stock assumptions of the police procedural--he is good on the ways in which the preconceptions of the investigating officers can hopelessly contaminate their judgement and the way crucial pieces of evidence can entirely turn a case on its head.

Someone kicked and battered ex-navy prison officer Coughlin until he choked to death on his own vomit--he was not a likable man and part of the trouble for the investigative team is that there are almost too many leads. As prison officer, Coughlin made it his business to mock and humiliate anyone who claimed to be innocent, for example, several of the investigators believe they need look no further than his principal victim. Coughlin adopted a brutally aggressive persona in Internet chat rooms and was hated by his shipmates for being a bully and a rapist--yet there were people who loved him in spite of his awfulness.

This is an intelligent thriller because it remembers that no-one is all of a simple piece--most of the police in Hurley's cast, even his viewpoint figure Faraday, are only marginally less flawed than the villains. --Roz Kaveney

About the Author
Graham Hurley is an award-winning TV documentary maker who now writes full time. He lived in Portsmouth for 20 years. He is married and has grown up children. He now lives in Exmouth, Devon.

Customer Reviews

Portsmouth noir
A taut, gritty and superbly told contemporary British police procedural.

A prison officer with a unsavoury past is brutally murdered in Portsmouth. Of course this crime generates massive police efforts to solve it and the investigation takes the dogged but flawed Inspector Joe Faraday from London to Devon via Gibraltar looking for the killer. Set against the backdrop of a frentically busy police department and a chillingly realistic depiction of modern Portsmouth, Faraday must look back 20 years to the Falklands War and the deceased's naval service for the answers to the murder. Brilliantly juxtaposing the background Falklands conflict with the contemporary 2002 World Cup England v Argentina match, Graham Hurley catches the mood of a country, a city, a police investigation, an individual superbly. The twists and turns of the investigation, the blind alleys, the false leads, the personality clashes, the distractions are all really well evoked. This accomplished novel was the first Graham Hurley I've read - I'm looking forward to tackling the rest now. If you enjoy British crime fiction (or even if you don't) and haven't already made the acquanitance of Mr Hurley and Inspector Faraday already, do so - otherwise you're really missing something.

And isn't it good to see a quality modern crime novel, indeed any British novel, not set in London...

Another Graham Hurley masterpiece
Graham Hurley may not have the following of some detective novelists, but surely this must change now! Deadlight is another in the series of Joe Faraday novels. Faraday is a totally believable character, he has faults, he has failed relationships and he has an over-bearing boss. But one thing he also has is a tenacity to work beyond himself and solve crimes with the resources at his disposal, and within the budget. These novels keep getting better, you just cannot put them down. Roll on number five in the series!

A consistently high quality...
This is the fourth in the Joe Faraday series, and shares the same expert eye, and keen sense of place, of the others in this series. Hurley's Portsmouth is rough, uncompromising, with a brittle shell of aggression. Faraday is a credible character, failing to balance his private life as well as he manages the egos and politics of his colleagues.

Other police procedurals are more popular. Usually they have been brought to the TV screen, or they're bought by people who simply want Miss Marple updated. They don't want to deal with messy situations, compromises, stories that don't end neatly; or they want a book that somehow turns out well for no apparent reason. One of the beauties of Hurley's books is his refusal to provide pat endings, trite "lessons in life" or focus-grouped finishes. His characters have more grit and resonance than the likes of Ian Rankin can ever muster.

You don't need to read these novels in order, but it helps a little if you do. Whichever order you choose, you'll get the best police procedural in Britain.