Thursday, February 1, 2024

"Perdition" by Pete Brassett


The big question: is Detective Inspector James Munro really going to retire this time? The superintendent has handed him an official letter and a bottle of champagne, but it’s hard for Charlotte (“Charlie”) West, newly appointed DI, to believe it. 

Don’t believe. It may be the shortest retirement on record.


While the retirement questions are going on, Munro is sent to investigate a dead goat on a local farm. Someone fired a crossbow bolt into the goat and for no apparent reason. The owner is demanding the police do something, even as she seems convinced they won’t. 

 

Meanwhile, a man is found in his car, badly beaten. And a loan shark, one of pair working the local area and taking advantage of all kinds of people, is found dead of an overdose. But the drug is typically used with horses. Then his partner is found dead, with the same durg.

 

Pete Brassett

As West and her team investigate these cases, they find one suspect after another being exonerated. This is West’s first big case as the chief investigating officer, and she’s running against a stone wall everywhere she turns. Until, that is, Jimmy Munro helps her figure it out, just as he’s figure out and prevailed upon the superintendent to let him work as a civilian volunteer.

 

Perdition is the seventh Munro and West crime novel by Scottish author Pete Brassett, and it’s well worth reading for two reasons. First, it’s an interesting story, full of surprises. Second, the jokes between the police officers and even the suspects and witnesses are worth the price of admission. And in this story, nothing will turn out the way you expect it, right up to the end.

 

Brassett, a native Scot, has published 10 novels in the Munro and West series, as well as a number of general fiction and mystery titles. 

 

Related:

 

She by Pete Brassett.

 

Avarice by Pete Brassett.

 

Duplicity by Pete Brassett.

 

Terminus by Pete Brassett.

 

Talion by Peter Brassett.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

John Claridge’s East End Shops – Spitalfields Life.

 

Sounds – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

How will throwing soup at the ‘Mona Lisa’ save the planet? – Tom Slater at The Spectator. 

 

A Pro Who Can Con – poem by Mark Stone at Society of Classical Poets.

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