The Dead Sit Round in a Ring

This first crime-suspense novel by an established poet and scriptwriter from Britain, David Lawrence, is remorseless and completely plausible, depicting gangland London with unflinching brutality. The protagonist DS Stella Mooney is a tireless pursuer of justice haunted by nightmares about a lost child and a woman who takes to the trenches of police work with startling stamina. Mooney, who relies upon psychiatric counseling, is a careworn child of poverty-ridden slums who knows intimately that world of utter drudgery and constant sordidness. She relives it in her mind non-stop.Her specialized knowledge of the dregs of society brings her up against the Tanners, sadistic purveyors of flesh who enslave women from Eastern Europe as hookers, show more and who are menaced by no less vicious crooks from the former Bosnia-Serbia, a crucible and cauldron for stone-cold killers and hard-core assassins of the worst kind.
This appalling clash of cultures, with rape-victim refugees as the center-piece of the well-paced drama, is captured by writer Lawrence with consistent sensitivity and an affectionate ear for the everyday living that helps comfort the law enforcement personnel during their daily grind. Mooney is both helped and hindered in her quest to bring down the Tanners by investigative journalist and busybody John Delaney, who tempts her to abandon her one solid relationship with her lover George. There are matters she cannot bring herself to discuss with George and John helps her vent her demons, though she distrusts his profession deeply.
Stella’s inbred assertiveness and blind ,dogged belief in herself, time and again causes her grief, attacked by a pet ape, abducted by a mad-dog killer, she seems invincible: either the victim of a death-wish or a woman determined that no man can best her at her job. Yet she is entirely believable as characterized by author Lawrence - as are her kindly cohorts and her ferocious foes. All too believable much of the time since THE DEAD SIT ROUND IN A RING has that echoing ring of authenticity and benefits from the soul of a somber, serious writer who really does care, and who very closely observes the teeming tumultuous lives around him, particularly the low-lives caught in their cruel acts red-handed and incorrigibly so. show less

The first novel to feature DI Stella Mooney. A bit of a slow starter (I almost wanted to give up on it), but it did pick up pace towards the end. However, it never grabbed me in the way that say Mark Billingham or Peter Robinson's books do.

Aside from the crime which DI Mooney is trying to solve (a minor underworld character is murdered), she is also having trouble with her personal life. She drinks too much and finds herself torn between two men. All in all, although she was a fairly realistically drawn character, I found her hard to sympathise with, or even care much about.

Good suspense/crime novel. The first of the Stella Mooney series, 4 people are found dead in an apartment siting in a circle. At first look it seems to be some kind of ritual suicide, upon closer look it is 3 suicides and 1 murder. The book continues with Stella trying to solve the murder. The murder leads her into a gang/mafia ring of prostitution, guns, drugs, and more murder. All the while Stella is trying to deal with her own issues and stay alive...and sane. I will continue with the series.

Read in Dutch:

I stopped reading after 70 pages. The story could not pull me in and the main character did not interest me. It could be the fault of the translator, but the writing was messy and all over the place.

Jimmy Stone died of a broken heart. Literally.

"A really interesting set of main characters, taut plotting, fine writing, and some engrossing subplots make this a highly satisfying read and a series to keep an eye on."
--Morning Star (U.K.)

"Four people sitting in a ring. Two men and two women. All of them dead." Thus begins a case that will take detective Stella Mooney from the fabulous flats of Notting Hill to the decidedly tougher side of town. It's no wonder Stella feels like she's going round in circles.
Her personal life is also going awry. Her live-in-lover has yet to be told her has serious competition in the form of sexy newsman John Delaney, nightmares are an ongoing problem, and Stella's vodka habit is not improving. She's show more trying to keep everything together long enough to catch the killer. The problem is, the nearer she gets to solving the case, the closer the rest of her life comes to falling apart . . . . show less

Rechercheur Stella Mooney wordt naar een appartement in het Londense Notting Hill geroepen waar vier doden zijn aangetroffen. De doden zitten in stoelen in een kring. Van geweld van buitenaf is geen spoor. Vermoedelijk is er sprake van een collectieve zelfmoord. Bij nader inzien blijkt echter een van de doden wel degelijk vermoord te zijn. Op een subtiele en dus professionele manier. Een executie.

Maar wat doet deze verdwaalde vermoorde man te midden van de drie door zelfmoord om het leven gekomen andere personen? Stella Mooney moet veel wegen door de Londense onderwereld bewandelen voor ze een concreet spoor vindt. Ze wordt daarbij geholpen door de journalist John Delaney en de Bosnische prostituee Zuhra, een slachtoffer van show more internationale vrouwenhandel show less