Staurt Pawson's series of crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Charlie Priest has described a sine-like path, notching up notable highs yet also occasionally plumbing some fairly lamentable depths. 'Over the Edge' is, however, a welcome return to mid-season form, and Pawson seems to be back to his impressive best.

The plot encompasses several well-developed themes which Pawson manages deftly, maintaining the tension without ever compromising the story's plausibility. He manages to cover a lot of ground, too: gang warfare, sex-trafficking, illegal car-racing, mountaineering rivalries and, for the first time in any novel that I have read, shahtoosh smuggling, and all of this takes place in West Yorkshire.

Charlie Priest is a very believable detective, being both empathetic and slightly flawed, and his team at Heckley CID are all equally realistic. They also seem to tell each other even feebler and less tasteful jokes than my colleagues in Finchley Tax Office used to stoop to, which is saying quite something.
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Staurt Pawson's series of crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Charlie Priest has described a sine-like path, notching up notable highs yet also occasionally plumbing some fairly lamentable depths. 'Over the Edge' is, however, a welcome return to mid-season form, and Pawson seems to be back to his impressive best.

The plot encompasses several well-developed themes which Pawson manages deftly, maintaining the tension without ever compromising the story's plausibility. He manages to cover a lot of ground, too: gang warfare, sex-trafficking, illegal car-racing, mountaineering rivalries and, for the first time in any novel that I have read, shahtoosh smuggling, and all of this takes place in West Yorkshire.

Charlie Priest is a very believable detective, being both empathetic and slightly flawed, and his team at Heckley CID are all equally realistic. They also seem to tell each other even feebler and less tasteful jokes than my colleagues in Finchley Tax Office used to stoop to, which is saying quite something. ( )

A welcome return to top form here for Stuart Pawson. After the previous novel in this series I had wondered whether it was about time for his Detective Inpsector Priest to think about retiring. However, here Pawson is back at his impressive best.
The plot has several well-developed themes which Pawson controls deftly, keeping the tension without ever compromising the story's plausibility. And he covers a lot of ground - gang warfare, sex-trafficking, illegal car racing, shahtoosh smuggling and mountaineering rivalries.
It helps that Charlie Priest is an immensely believable detective - empathetic and flawed - and his team at Heckley CID are equally realistic. ( )

Three deaths in rapid succession give this book a busy start. First of all comes the death of Joe Crozier night club owner whose bound and gagged body surfaces when a water wheel is set running for a school visit to a local mill museum; then there is Dale Dobson 26 year old racist thug who crashes a stolen car at high speed, and then finally the murder of a local identity, erstwhile mountaineer and conqueror of Mt. Everest, who turns up on his front lawn with an ice pick in his head. Charlie Priest juggles all these balls, discovers the connections between them and even unearths their connection to a local businessman who has recently bought the local Heckley football team which Charlie once played for. And then there is Charlie's own relationship with school teacher Rose Barraclough, and the discovery of a trade in illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe. This is #10 in the Charlie Priest series. ( )