Hawthorn and Child

Hawthorn and Child are policemen, detectives, operating in London, on the case of a big shot criminal called Mishazzo. But that is where any similarity with a genre crime novel ends. What the author presents us with instead, is a series of snapshots of lives that touch these three characters, however tangentially.

The young man in Mishazzo's employ who gets in too deep; the editor who receives a mysterious manuscript; a young girl and her first boyfriend; Hawthorn himself and his struggles with his sexuality. Sometimes Hawthorn and Child make only brief appearances, at others they are the focus. Nothing is resolved. We are left to make our own conclusions, to wonder what happened next.

Ridgway's writing is at times hallucinatory and show more dreamlike, at others economical and incisive. He makes each character speak with their own voice, always the sign of a good writer.

Some of these stories stand alone, in others there is a link to other stories. A death impacts on several characters; Mishazzo himself appears a couple of times, in other places he is a looming shadow, an unreleased potential of violence and death.

So, this is very far from a conventional crime novel and some may be frustrated by its unwillingness to tie up loose ends, to provide a pat ending. But I liked it very much and it will, I'm sure, bear repeated readings.

Recommended. show less

I loved this book. Once I finished it I wanted to just start from the beginning and read it all over again.

This is not a standard cop whodunit book though. If you are looking for a mystery where at the end of the day everything is all tied up and solved, this is not the book for you. This is more like tiny little capsules of peoples lives and actions strung together, sometimes with the barest of threads. When I finished the last page I had more questions than when I started the book, but in this case, that was okay.

The writing is just gorgeous, expressive, and amazingly descriptive. Even when describing something you would rather *not* have down to the last detail, it is still so clear and well written that it blunts the horror.

Books show more like this make me so happy I'm a reader. show less

At times confusing but always compelling, don't expect a normal detective story and do not expect any answers. Do expect to close the book and scratch your head for a long time after you finish. Totally brilliant writing.

I'm beginning to become quite fond of this form -- a novel of inter-related stories with characters in common, chapters narrated by different characters in different voices, never quite sure about beginnings & endings, but the middle hangs together & fills in the blanks. The writing is uniformly excellent throughout the serious, humorous, feeling, sometimes quite gross police scenes. Many lines of dialogue are unidentified, but Ridgway usually leaves sufficient clues to figure them out. A second reading may prove beneficial, but I finished Hawthorn & Child (the cops' surnames) in two enjoyable sittings. {Pre-publication copy via Nook download}

An experimental patchwork that is both compelling and irritating, self-conscious and sublime. A book to admire for its technique, rather than one that invites the reader to enter and suspend disbelief. Some of the language is stunning ('The boys...pushed laughter between themselves like a pool game - angles, rocochets, trick shots.'), some is stripped back to the point of laziness. The spread of ratings so far is a fair reflection of the quality throughout. Hard to recommend, but harder to dismiss.

Hawthorn & Child follows two London police detectives as they investigate a bunch of cases. They are sitting on a guy who is involved with organized crime. They investigate a drive-by shooting. There is a guy who is receiving threatening emails. There is a nutter who breaks into a house. They talk to witnesses, visit crime scenes, discuss business with their boss. Throughout the novel we see a lot of Hawthorn's life, probably because he has the more interesting one, as he is gay and single. Sometimes, it takes a while to figure out just who is telling what for what reason. Eventually the who and what becomes clearer, not too soon, and not too clear, but the reason is not always revealed. In this regard, the book is certainly brilliant; show more the reader feels as lost as anyone would walking on to a crime scene and being thrown bits and pieces of random information about what might have happened and who might have been involved. It is also refreshing that the formula does not work here; this is not Law and Order, where the crime is solved within the allocated 45 minutes of airtime. In fact, hardly anything is solved.

Ridgway spends more time in Hawthorn's mind, and so Hawthorn appears to be the main character of the book. He is troubled, maybe depressed, but not complicated, in that complicated way. He dates, he fucks, and he goes around London with Child. Child, here, is the more experienced, and perhaps better detective. There is a lot that is not described precisely, and a lot of ambiguity. In the end, Hawthorn is a bit of a blur, and Child seems crystal clear despite the fact that the author did not sit the reader down and describe Child's life and personality while leaving Hawthorn in the shadows. Ridgway achieves this effect, partly, in the way he narrates each character, and the little things he chooses to show or leave out about them. Overall, it is very effective, and in a way, the reader sees Hawthorn the way he sees himself, unsure of his future, unsure of what to do, other than this one thing he is doing, policing, and the other, guys.

Recommended for those who need a refreshing, unconventional crime novel. show less

crime scene profile/fiction. I guess I was expecting more of a narrative, more Irish flavor? This is a bunch of different narratives surrounding a truly odd crime scene, and most of the narrators are unreliable, and either insane or not lucid. So if you are interested in how an author might create different voices, bingo! but if you are interested in plot and traditional fiction-writing devices, you will be thoroughly challenged.