When Kiss Of Death was published in 2018, I doubt Paul Finch expected his readers to have to wait six years to see how he resolved the astounding cliff-hanger DS Heckenburg faced at the conclusion of that novel. But it seems not even best-selling authors are immune to the vagaries of the publishing industry. Still, better late than never, Rogue has arrived and once more chaos reigns as the one man wrecking ball known as Heck is let loose on the unsuspecting criminal community.
DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg works for the Serial Crimes Unit, a specialist department of the National Crime Agency whose remit is to investigate cases of serial murder and Rogue is the eighth in the series. Heck has had a complicated relationship with the head of the unit, DSU Gemma Piper. The two were in love but chose the job over their relationship and so he has been reconsidering his position in the SCU.
Their last case was an investigation into a multinational crime syndicate led by the Armenian oligarch Milena Misanyan. While celebrating after closing the case, 36 officers were gunned down in the Ace of Diamonds pub in Barnet, London. Two masked men decimated the unit.
Because he was picking up his colleague DC Gail Honeyford on the way, Heck arrived late and gave chase as the killers left the scene. Heck was able to injure one of the men in a fight before they escaped. Shot in the initial gunfight, Gemma Piper was left fighting for her life. Was the slaughter a revenge attack for the death of Misanyan during the operation?
Nearly two months later the investigation into the Ace of Diamonds massacre is going nowhere. No stone can be left unturned, and no matter how unlikely it may be, Heck has to be considered a suspect. DI Jude Penhaligan of Internal Investigations has been given the job of deciding whether or not Heck was involved. Although much reduced by grief and survivor’s guilt, Heck himself has no intention of being a bystander following the murder of his colleagues.
His only lead is a bangle snatched from the wrist of one of the killers. It suggests a link to the satanic Black Chapel murder case that was solved in Kiss Of Death as a place to start. The Black Chapel killers were inspired by a black metal band, now retired to the Scottish countryside. Heck’s heading north! Once Penhaligan realises he has flown the coop, the chase is on. By dodging Internal Investigations, Heck has gone from a colleague who justs needs to be ruled out to prime suspect.
From this point on, Rogue is all action. Heck reminds me of Parker in Richard Stark’s Point Blank, working his way up the criminal chain in ruthless, inexorable fashion; always beating the odds with a combination of street smarts, animal cunning and sheer bloody mindedness. Heck is a more human protagonist and than Stark’s famously never-evolving antihero. Finch has given his character a traumatic back history and consequently a vulnerability which probably accounts for his popularity as much as his hard man persona. In particular, Heck’s relationships with women – his sister, Piper and Honeyford, for example – are nuanced, and allow him to stand out from the hard man copper crowd.
There is relatively little investigative work in Rogue. To a large extent, the novel succeeds or fails on its action sequences. Thankfully, Finch has included a number of them but two in particular stand out. The first is a shoot out on the motorway heading north, and the second is an especially extended sequence in the Scottish countryside. Both are excellent, dramatic, full of momentum and with a genuine sense of peril. Finch is also a successful horror writer, and he uses those skills to keep the tension ratcheted up.
Readers expecting a police procedural story might be slightly disappointed in this regard, but for my money Rogue more than delivers on its promise of Heck being let off his leash. After such a long delay, Finch must have felt some pressure when writing about Heck’s return. He needn’t have worried.
Also see the iconic novel Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household.
Brentwood Press
Kindle
£4.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
