Since he arrived on the crime fiction scene last year with his debut Black Water Rising, Sean Watkin has swiftly cemented a place in the Liverpool canon as a writer of books that don’t pull their punches. As a Scouser myself, I also appreciate that fact that he portrays my birthplace, warts and all.
But it’s the nearby seaside town of Southport that provides the location for a dramatic opening in No Place Left. The body of a new-born baby is found on the dilapidated pier, spotted by a man flying his drone over the snow-covered landscape. Meanwhile, the child’s mother is nowhere to be found.
Soon DCI Win de Silva and DS Ben Barclay are at the scene, and come to the conclusion that the mother left by jumping off the pier. The news that a young teenager has escaped from a secure mental facility brings focus to the investigation, and when 13-year-old Beatrice Tredwell is found unconscious and badly injured in the nearby dunes, the discovery sets in train an investigation destined to lead the officers into the darkest of dark places.
Let’s be clear here, No Place Left is not a book for the faint-hearted and cosy crime fans would do well to beat a hasty retreat. This is an unsettling and disturbing read and definitely the most thought-provoking in the series so far. Watkin had previously intimated that the de Silva books were to be a trilogy but he’s changed his mind; what happens here will have you counting down the days until book four arrives.
Readers who have been with de Silva and Barclay from the start will be delighted to see some loose ends tied off this time, but in their place the author has unravelled a whole new ball of tangled drama – and there is still plenty left up in the air for next time.
What makes this series different from so many other police procedurals is that although the investigation takes centre stage, the author does not shy away from the tribulations of police work in the modern age. The dark web, child trafficking and historic abuse all play a big part here, and take their toll on the officers involved in bringing the perpetrators to justice. It’s clear that both de Silva and Barclay are suffering mentally from what has come before, and they and their team will be taken to the brink of exhaustion and breakdown as, fragment by tiny fragment, the horrifying big picture comes into focus.
No Place Left is a book that suffers from uneven pacing, with the early chapters feeling a bit laboured and unfocused. But get past that hurdle and you’re thrown into a maelstrom of activity, drama and shocking surprises that will result in a flurry of page turning (and in the case of this reviewer, reading until 2am). Although a lot of the action takes place in Southport and even, gasp, Manchester, thankfully Liverpool still runs through the narrative like the lettering in a stick of seaside rock.
After the huge success of his debut, no one would have blamed Sean Watkin for taking his foot off the gas in the ensuing stories. Instead, he’s kept up the momentum and dragged a lot of readers along for the ride. Although No Place Left is not the strongest of the series so far, he has still managed to surprise, entertain – and on more than one occasion, shock so badly that you may have to put the book down and regroup before moving on, cautiously. And with an ending like this, book four can’t come fast enough.
Also see Kevin Sampson’s The Killing Pool, reviewed here on Crime Fiction Lover
Canelo
Print/Kindle/iBook
£4.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
