"Hunter Hunted" by Jack Gatland

Detective Inspector Declan Walsh must think his world has turned upside down. That's because it has.

His boss in the cold case unit, DCI Alexander Monroe, has been brutally attacked and left for dead in the office, by someone who’s disguised to look like Walsh and even drive a similar car. And then Kendis Taylor, who was Walsh’s girlfriend when they were teenagers and now a reporter, is murdered while investigating a big story. She was killed right after she’d seen Walsh to tell him about the bigger-than-big story she was working on. 

 

A supposed file is leaked, saying Taylor was a terrorist, and Walsh is suddenly in the crosshairs for being one himself. And now he’s on the run and trying to solve the case at the same time. And time is running out.

 

Jack Gatland

Hunter Hunted is the third DI Declan Walsh novel by British author Jack Gatland. I have to admit I almost stopped reading what it appeared that it was going to be just another political thriller. Fortunately, I read one more chapter, and I was hooked. Seriously hooked. Can’t-put-it-down hooked.

 

Gatland is the pen name for bestselling writer Tony Lee, who’s written comics, graphic novels, audio drama, TV and film series, the BBC and ITV, and a host of publishers. In addition to the Declan Walsh series, he’s also published four novels in the Ellie Reckless series, six in the Tom Marlowe series, and several others.

 

Hunter Hunter is an edge-of-your-seat roller coaster ride and a terrific read. I had to remind myself several times that there are several other books in the series, so I knew DI Walsh was going to survive. Somehow. 

 

Related:

 

Letter from the Dead by Jack Gatland.

 

Murder of Angels by Jack Gatland.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Photos from the Last Paris Olympics – 100 Years Ago – Olivia Waxman at Time Magazine.

 

Hollywood vs. the Historians: Can we Know the Past? – Jordan Poss at Miller’s Book Review.

 

The Department of Everything: Dispatches from the telephone reference desk – Stephen Akey at The Hedgehog Review. 

 

The Secrets of the Heath – Helen Macdonald at The New Statesman.

 

Gerald of Wales, Chronicler of the Celtic World – Katherine Harvey at Engelberg Ideas.

"Murder of Angels" by Jack Gatland

A police detective dying from cancer walks into his local police station and confesses to a murder of a teenaged girl. He will bring the police to where the body is buried, but only if it’s with his onetime subordinate DI Declan Walsh.  

Walsh is found and accompanies his long-ago mentor to the scene. Sure enough, a body is buried. The self-confessed murdered tells Walsh that he didn’t really do it; he’s simply taking the fall from the real murderer who’s connected to one of England’s crime families. If he does, he says, a big payment goes to his ex-wife and their college-aged daughter. And he’s hoping Walsh will be able to solve the case and find the real murderer.

 

It appears that the burial happened about a year before. The case begins to turn into something else when a second body is found, buried about the same time in Birmingham. Both are of teenaged girls about the same age. The case becomes even more interesting, and confounding, when it appears the two girls are the same person, down to the rose tattoo on a shoulder. 

 

Two identical murder victims can’t happen. Both were killed in the same way – strangled with some like a metal rosary. And he knows the policeman didn’t do it. As Walsh and his team dig deeper, they find themselves in the crossfire of what looks like a budding criminal gang war. And it’s a gang war than even most of the gangs involved even know is getting ready to happen.

 

Jack Gatland

The only thing Walsh can be sure of is that just about everyone involved is lying, including people on his own team.

 

Murder of Angels is the second of 19 DI Declan Walsh mysteries by British writer Jack Gatland. It’s almost a dark, noirish version of a Shakespearean comedy about twins and mixed-up identities. Throw in misdeeds by policemen themselves. Add ambitious young criminals and their elders prepared to do anything to keep control. The result is an explosive mix or murder and mayhem.

 

Gatland is the pen name for bestselling writer Tony Lee, who’s written comics, graphic novels, audio drama, TV and film series, the BBC and ITV, and a host of publishers. In addition to the Declan Walsh series, he’s also published four novels in the Ellie Reckless series, six in the Tom Marlowe series, and several others.

 

Related:

 

Letter from the Dead by Jack Gatland.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

DOJ Indicts Doctor Who Exposed Barbarism of “Gender-Affirming Care” – Christopher Rufo at City Journal.

 

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe – Sharon Lerner at ProPublica. 

 

Give Me a Place: An East Tennessee farmer praises a simple piece of technology – Brian Miller at Plough Quarterly.

 

Baillie Gifford cancels all remaining sponsorships of literary festivals and Book festival activists are making absurd demands over Baillie Gifford – The Guardian. 

 

Preventing the Naomi Wolf Problem – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

"Letter from the Dead" by Jack Gatland

It starts at a funeral. Detective Inspector Declan Walsh watches as the coffin of his father, retired Chief Superintendent Patrick Walsh, is lowered into the ground. The man died in what was determined to be a roadway accident; Declan suspects it was murder.  

Declan’s own police career is problematic at best. He’s been suspended, ostensibly for punching a priest involved in a dognapping scheme. He knows, as does everyone on the force, that it was Declan’s uncovering a number of corrupt police officers. His choices look limited indeed, until his father’s former DCI, Alexander Monroe, offers an opportunity – joining what is a cold case squad based in the Temple area of central London. It’s a squad of police misfits, including Monroe himself, people chucked away from the primary police force for reasons of embarrassment, politics, or career missteps. They call themselves the “Last Chance Saloon.”

 

The first case Declan works on is a murder from 20 years previously. A wealthy woman was pushed to her death from the roof of the family estate. Her husband was convicted and sent to prison. The death happened during a fundraiser for the Labour Party, and three then-rising political stars were possibly involved as well. One is now homeless and living on the streets of London. One became a YouTube religious personality. And the third may become Britain’s next prime minister.

 

Jack Gatland

What reopens the case is a letter – a letter from the dead woman written shortly before her murder. The letter was found in old police files. And no one can explain why it was never investigated. It suggests that the killer may be someone other than her convicted husband, who died in prison from cancer. And the letter will take Declan and his team on a whirlwind of a case, with implications for the police, the people originally involved, and the British government.

 

Letter from the Dead is the first of the currently 18 DI Declan Walsh mysteries by British writer Jack Gatland. Gatland is the pen name for bestselling writer Tony Lee, who’s written comics, graphic novels, audio drama, TV and film series, the BBC and ITV, and a host of publishers. In addition to the Declan Walsh series, he’s also published four novels in the Ellie Reckless series, six in the Tom Marlowe series, and several others. The 19^th Declan Walsh novel is to be published in June 2024.

 

I’m always looking for a new mystery series, and Letter from the Dead suggests I’ve found a real gem. 

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

A Bloody-Minded Business: Julian Symons Evolution as a Crime Fiction Critic – Curtis Evans at CrimeReads.

 

The Microcosm of London – Spitalfields Life.