Last year’s Rogue was an outrageous man on a mission thriller. After six years away, British author Paul Finch seemed to come out of nowhere to send DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenberg up into the Scottish hinterland to wreak havoc on those responsible for the Ace of Diamonds massacre. Highlights included a gun fight on a motorway lorry, and a brutal battle climbing a waterfall. It was peddle to the metal all the way, but I did wonder where Finch could go next. I needn’t have worried, it turns out the author has plenty left in his tank.
After his unsanctioned adventure in Scotland, Heck’s job prospects look bleak. He might have solved the mystery of the deaths of 36 of his colleagues in the Ace of Diamonds pub that happened at the end of Kiss of Death, but the manner in which he did so – giving internal affairs the slip and trampling over every police rule or procedure – has made his dismissal a near certainty. But needs must when the devil drives, so when Heck is offered a dangerous undercover job on the understanding that if he pulls it off all will be forgiven, he has no choice but to accept.
But there’s a twist, even before you get to the twist. Or twists. In No Quarter, Heck will work alongside Manchester copper Lucy Clayburn, a character from another series by Paul Finch. Clayburn, now Detective Constable but unlikely to rise any higher in the ranks, has heard about Heck’s antics and thinks a rogue copper is just the man to help her break apart her father’s criminal empire.
Frank McCracken heads the Crew, one of the two most-feared organised crime syndicates in the country, and he knows better than most the criminal mindset. Clayburn has heard that her father wants his own investigator, someone experienced who can tell him which of his gang are on the level and who might be secretly working for themselves or the competition. What better candidate, Clayburn figures, than a publicly-disgraced ex-copper with a grudge against the force and a hard-man reputation? The SCU will fake Heck’s sacking, then Clayburn will use her connections to bring him to her father’s notice. The rest will be up to Heck, undercover.
Meanwhile, in nearby Blackpool, a group of young men go missing during a stag weekend. They wake up to find themselves in a house of horrors that wouldn’t be out of place in a Saw movie. Confused and angry, they try to leave but find themselves facing a series of increasingly gruesome traps. At least in the movies there’s a chance of escape. And in Manchester, a drug deal gets hijacked with £300,000 pounds worth of drugs and cash taken. The Crew doesn’t necessarily have a problem with this kind of activity, but they expect their cut from the deal.
Heck gets the Crew’s attention by breaking up a fight in a pub under the protection of the Crew, but his hopes of winning the trust of the organisation take a blow when he discovers McCracken already has one ex-copper on his payroll. Former DI Ray Marciano and Heck have history, and what with the Manchester police leaking like a sieve, and Marciano’s justified suspicions, Heck is going to have a devil of a job just staying alive.
No Quarter is a terrific success. It has all the action of Rogue, but builds in welcome procedural elements that were necessarily absent from that book. In that sense it feels more like a conventional crime novel and perhaps fits better into the series than its predecessor. There remains a gritty element, thankfully, which is a hallmark of the series. The book has scenes with a level of gruesomeness that drift in to horror territory. That’s not something I mind at all but might put others off. I can’t wait to see what Finch has in store for Heck next.
Also see MW Craven’s Washington Poe novels.
Brentwood Press
Print/Kindle
£4.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
