Reading The Enemy Inside by British author Scott Hunter is like opening a Kachina doll. Just when you think it’s all figured out, the story changes on you. It’s difficult enough to pull off in a novel; this is a novella.
The sixth story in Hunter’s Irish Detective series, it begins with a would-be jumper. A man looks as if he’s going to jump from the top-level of a six-story Oxford car park, just as DCI Brendan Moran of the Thames Valley Police is doing his weekly food shopping at Sainsbury’s. He talks with the man as two policemen come up behind him and keep him from jumping. The would-be jumper is taken into custody but released a few hours later.
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| Scott Hunter |
First Kachina doll is the almost-suicide. The second is that it wasn’t. The third is that Moran knows the man from years before, from his days as a policeman in Ireland. The fourth is that the man is after Moran – for revenge. And then the reader keeps opening Kachina doll after Kachina doll, as the story moves inevitably toward its tense, and even more unexpected, ending.
The “Irish Detective” series includes Black December, Creatures of Dust, Death Walks Behind You, A Crime for All Seasons, Silent as the Dead, Gone Too Soon, The Enemy Inside, When Stars Grow Dark, and The Cold Light of Death. Hunter has also published the novels The Trespass, The Ley Lines of Lushbury, Long Goodbyes, and The Serpent & the Slave, and the memoir Rattle and Drum. In addition to writing fiction, Hunter is an IT consultant and musician. He lives with his family in England.
The Enemy Inside makes you think about who your neighbors, colleagues, and friends really are. DCI Moran is going to experience more than one surprise, and all in the passing of a day.
Related:
My review of Black December by Scott Hunter.
My review of Creatures of Dust by Scott Hunter.
My review of Death Walks Behind You by Scott Hunter.
My review of Silent as the Dead by Scott Hunter.
My review of Gone Too Soon and A Crime for All Seasons by Scott Hunter.
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