The Cabinetmaker, a debut novel by Alan Jones, is essentially an exploration of group sanctioned violence. It follows the life of John McDaid from his first day as a detective with a corrupt and abusive police unit in Glasgow until his retirement decades later when the cabinet work he began learning as a hobby became a fulltime occupation for him.

The setting of the Cabinetmaker is Glasgow from 1978 to 2008. Like many urban areas, it is a city of tribes (if you will), with a surface peace maintained by an unofficial segregation based on socio-economic class, religion and ethnicity, and culture. The story begins with the brutal death of perhaps the most intriguing character of the book, though we never have a chance to actually meet Patrick before he dies. Like those investigating his murder, we must make do with descriptions of his friends, girlfriend, parents, and eventually, his attackers. But from them, we learn that he was a sympathetic person, a good friend, and someone who was curious about life and people beyond the narrow bounds of his place in the social order. And apparently as a result, he’s beaten to death, with the swiftness of unyielding judgment and merciless repercussions that traditional horror movies mete out to those who leave the safety of a group.

Even so, no one seems particularly happy that Patrick is dead. The substance-altered group of young men from the mean streets who wanted him to stop slumming in their neighborhoods had started out just wanting to intimidate him. They weren’t welcome in his neighborhood perhaps, so he wasn’t welcome in theirs. They had warned him before, we learn later, and yet he still came back. The roughing up got out of hand and in the particular way that group mentality can fuel the momentum of action, it quickly became vicious and gruesome. Anything Patrick did or said made it worse for him, and even the one or two people among his attackers who tried to intervene could do nothing to stop it.

The local CID detectives assigned to investigate are in essence a rival gang with an office building, official sanction, and very little oversight. They likely saw Patrick as a privileged idiot whose actions resulted in a problem that had to be solved as quickly as possible. While John and a few other sympathetic detectives attempt to do a bit of investigating, the head of the team and his cronies are busy rounding up the usual suspects. Despite having the testimony of witnesses and ample opportunity to collect forensic evidence from a messy unplanned crime of passion in a public place, they choose their usual route of beating the suspects into confessing. When one of them has life-threatening breathing problems, his inhaler is taken from him, and no medical support is offered until he agrees that he took part in the assault.>Not surprisingly, when the justice system wakes up briefly from its nap, it decides that maybe investigations should be handled differently. But being fair about not holding anyone accountable for their violence, no one serves any time for their roles in causing harm to anyone else, whether on the streets or in a CID office. Protests from Patrick’s family results in an investigation where there is reassignment of roles and a shuffling of duties and then life goes on for everyone. Except for Patrick.

John gets an assignment outside the city where he is happier and becomes close friends with Francis, Patrick’s father. There are benefits for both. Unlike Patrick, John shares a love of football and furniture craftsmanship with the older man, and is as emotionally limited about human relationships as he is. There is no symptom of love outside a chosen few relationships, no need to explore perspectives outside one’s own, and no pressure to evaluate one’s actions or to discuss the evolution of one’s thoughts or feelings, or the results of self-reflection. There is a wonderful sharing of an appreciation for perfection of form and function, a sense of duty to what one feels is right, and a single-minded purpose to fulfill that duty. They are people of action, but of few words, and they seem happy.

Over the years, John notices a few deaths here and there involving those who were affiliated with either the police gang or the street gang. Some are acts of senseless violence on the street or in clubs or prison and some seem to be related to natural causes (if vectors from unsafe conditions for work or residence can be considered natural). But the coincidence of the relationships of those dying leads our John to be curious and he begins a quiet investigation on his own. As the reader and John figure out, these are not random deaths, but yet another round of group-sanctioned violence. Unlike the street guys group, and the police toughs, this last group moves slowly, deliberately, and beyond much notice. I suspected at first a single serial killer, who like most serial killers I’ve read about (admittedly, very few), has chosen victims considered to be dregs of society or otherwise worthy of death. But unlike the average serial killer in crime stories, this is a group effort. And though the descriptions of beatings by the other groups were gruesome, I found this serial killer group far more sinister. In all but one case, they set up murders where they didn’t have to be present to see them. They infected victims with horrifying diseases, plied those trying to overcome addictions with heroin, and callously photoshopped pictures of children being sexually abused to set up someone already serving time in prison to be murdered by fellow inmates. We never see into the minds and hearts of those committing the murders, nor the discussions among them about the possible uneasiness about ethics. The deaths are very elaborately planned over time so there would have been plenty of opportunity for second thoughts and doubts.

This group’s body count was far more than the other groups' in the book and the cascading pain that the victims’ family members would have felt go much wider than those of Patrick’s or those that the brutal detectives inflicted (though I’m not downplaying any of them). I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if someone among these murderers - who were fortunate enough to have jobs, money, and positions in society - said, “I think we’re going too far; I don’t want to do this anymore.” Would that person become a necessary victim too? I’m inclined to think so. After all, the first rule of group mentality is loyalty to the group.

I have to confess that I’m not generally a fan of hard detective novels, police procedurals, and any book with stereotypical or flat characters. But I chose to read The Cabinetmaker because I was trying to push myself out of my comfort zone a little, and I realize that not all books about murder and violence have to have the inner dialogue and soul searching of a Dostoevsky novel or the authenticity and even-handedness of Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking. And since I’ve never committed murder, investigated a murder, or know anyone who’s done either (to my knowledge anyway), I have to put a certain amount of faith in a writer’s ability to portray what might be in the human heart and soul that make killing someone a compelling option. I’ve tried to do it myself in my own writing, and it’s not as easy as one might think. And I say this as someone who has had a loaded gun pointed at me three times in my life and had to negotiate myself out of the situation by finding something in the words and eyes of the strangers holding the weapon to convince them to consider other options. Humans are hard to figure out sometimes.

But Alan Jones is a very good writer and I liked the book more and more as I went on. It’s made me do a lot of thinking and remembering and weighing ideas even while I wasn’t actively reading it. I did have some trouble getting into it in the beginning. There are a slew of formatting and punctuation curiosities (at least in the version I read) that other reviewers have mentioned. They did seem to disappear as I got further along in the book, but that might have been because I was absorbed enough in the story that I didn’t notice.

I grew to like John, though they were some aspects about him that kept me at arm’s length. He has a sense of fair play and a modicum of respect for those outside his worldview, but limitations of perspective and empathy. When he interviews Patrick’s girlfriend, she is pretty and sufficiently girl-like and tragic enough that he is sympathetic to her. Her protective roommate, on the other hand, is thin and not attractive to him. She is immediately and soundly resented. He refers to her alternately as a “stick”, “an insect”, and a “dyke”. He discounts anything positive about her and assumes her concern for her friend is based on an unfounded hope for sex sometime in the future, which he rather ironically has himself for the same target.

I loved the descriptions of furniture making itself, and didn’t mind the football sequences. I’m not much familiar with either, so it was an opportunity to explore something new, and was a welcome break from fussing at the characters and cringing from the sad violence. I liked the unfolding of clues that gave glimpses of how the more subtle murders were committed over time, and the clever sequencing of the three different types of group violence that leads one to see that they were all essentially guilty of the same thing, despite each likely feeling that their crimes were surely justified and not nearly as bad as the others. If I were teaching a course on ethics, I’d probably include this book alongside of "Dead Man Walking", and Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment", and the "The Brothers Karamazov". But since I’m not a teacher, I’ll just post these thoughts, thank Mr. Jones for giving them life, and move on. ( )

This unusual crime story is based in Partick (an area of Glasgow in Scotland) and is told from the point of view of John McDaid, who at the beginning of the story in 2008, is a retired police detective, and is burning the papers of Francis Hare.

The story then takes us back to 1978 to explain how McDaid got to know Francis, and what led to the events in the Prologue.

John was just starting out as a detective not long after Francis’s only son Patrick had been beaten to death by a gang of thugs. The Detective Inspector at the Partick Police Station had his own gang of thugs handling the investigation, and the eight boys involved in the crime got off because of police misconduct.

In the meantime, John struck up a friendship with Francis. They both played Scottish football and eventually got on the same team. But more importantly, Francis was a cabinetmaker, and from the moment John saw what beautiful pieces Francis made, he fell in love with furniture making. He became something of an apprentice to Francis, and maybe even a second son.

As the years went by, John kept Francis abreast of what happened to the members of the gang who walked free after the murder, as well as the fates of the corrupt detectives who messed up the case. There never seemed to be any closure; the murder continued to define their lives, and affected all of those involved in ways none of them could have anticipated, least of all John.

Discussion: There are many details that seem extraneous, such as blow-by-blow descriptions of some of the football games, and intricacies of woodworking, but they do figure into the plot. I think, however, those portions could have been shaved down a bit, so to speak, to improve the pacing.

The author seems to have a pretty good ear for the speech of bad people, but that means the dialogue is gritty, to say the least.

Evaluation: This is a dark and absorbing detective procedural, and raises some intriguing questions about the nature of justice and even the nature of love. While I can’t say all the twists were entirely surprising, the story is interesting nevertheless. It’s not the usual fare you read. ( )

“The Cabinetmaker” on the surface is a solid police procedural. We get the good, bad and very ugly face of a 1970’s Scottish police precinct. At its heart it’s the story of a bond built between a victim and a man who desperately wants to help him but isn’t sure the police are in the business of the public best interest. Jones does a stunning job of portraying a gritty Glaswegian force. Jones gives readers the feel of a real and unfiltered look into the inner workings of a murder case that seems to have little hope of being solved. People are unwilling to talk and respect for the law is low.

In the passing of decades there are inevitably points where a story might start to drag. Jones maintains a logical pace. Francis is hesitant at first, as any victim might be, but recognizes the innocence in McDaid and the value of making him think about what he’s seen.

On the negative side for US readers, a certain word considered too foul on this side of the pond for many Americans to even contemplate using appears again and again in regular speech. After several paragraphs, this reader became somewhat inured to the word. While terrible to read it is essential to add a certain element to the story.

The cumulative effect of “The Cabinetmaker” is masterful. Alan Jones gives readers an imperfect story but a solid and entertaining read that will appeal to fans of police procedurals. ( )

THE CABINETMAKER was offered to me as a review book, no conditions, although it did come with a warning about the inclusion of some strong language. Even allowing for a tendency to think that the pile up of bodies in crime fiction is more discomforting than the occasional burst of swearing, there's not a lot that's particularly noticeable, especially compared to the levels that you find elsewhere.

This is an unusually styled novel, focusing on the 30 year friendship between cop John McDaid and Francis, cabinetmaker, footballer and father of Patrick who was bashed to death one night. Despite a number of suspects being identified, and the case being bought to trial, somehow the likely perpetrators walked away. In an interesting twist in the Scottish legal system most of them let off with a verdict of "not proven" as opposed to "not guilty".

McDaid and Francis are drawn together from the very moment they both meet as a result of the case. That friendship expands into their shared football life, and into the workshop where McDaid steps into the role of apprentice cabinetmaker, learning the skills that Francis has honed over a lifetime. Building a touching friendship along the way, through the failure of marriages, relationships and into older age. McDaid and his colleague climb the policing ladder, and Francis quietly continues his art form of furniture making, while they both regret the lack of justice for the death of Patrick.

Whilst there is a sense of drift and lack of purpose at points in the story, there's also positives in both their lives. Francis may end up separating from his wife, but they stay friends, and his work and his love of football seems to be sustaining him. McDaid eventually seems to have found a good, albeit slightly odd, relationship with an unlikely woman. He has mates, he has his job, and he has his increasing love of furniture making and wood work.

Obviously, there is the question of where all this is heading, and despite any doubts early on, it's not long before the friendship becomes engrossing and the story of McDaid and Francis involving despite that seeming lack of an obvious direction. Of course, it's crime fiction, so you know / hope / think that perhaps eventually Patrick's death with be solved and justice served. Once the story starts to twist and turn, how that is going to be resolved becomes even more intriguing.

THE CABINETMAKER is a slow burner. There are points where some judicious editing might up the pace a little and hold the reader's attention more firmly in its grasp. But it is intricate and in the main engaging. In looking past the murder, into the lives of those left behind, the fallout from the death of a young man on his family, and on a policeman who feels some responsibility for the failure of a court case, THE CABINETMAKER was a welcome change from standard crime fiction fare.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-cabinetmaker-alan-jones ( )