reasonable procedural, based in a southern city that rarely gets used as a fictional backfrop, and where (in this story at least), there is a wide gap between the haves and have nots.[return][return]I'm assuming from the story that that this is not the first in this line, and Hurley makes a reasonable stab between the "I'm going to assume you've read everything and therefore tell you nothing", and "I'll tell you everything on the assumption you've read nothing".[return][return]There are some threads that didn't get tied up at the end to complete satisfaction - the journalist with something to prove against the police, Winter's bully-boy attempt to pull in the snitch with disastrous consequences, the son's defection to France was neatly pulled together in less than a paragraph in the epilogue.....I dont know if this was to leave things open for another book or what........

It was nicely written but not terribly gripping. Just what I needed for an easy read but won't make me look for other books he has written unless they involve the deaf community - I thought the deaf connection was most interesting. I think anyone who knows Portsmouth and the environs (I don't) would enjoy it more. There's obviously a real affection and understanding of the place it is set in. Oddly enough - made me want to visit Portsmouth. ( )

The only way for me to describe this book is that it has too much clutter. I didn't connect with the characters and it was too many, too soon. ( )

This is the first book of the thrilling DI Joe Faraday series in Portsmouth. DI Faraday is a bird lover and in every free minute he devotes himself to bird watching, which also distracts him from his cases. He does not always have it easy with his investigative tactics, on the one hand he listens strongly to his gut feeling on the other hand he also has colleagues who conspire partly with the bad guys and thereby earn a separate salary. In this book, you get to know many protagonists, who appear in the other books over and over again. This time he wants to clarify the disappearance of a man and comes here not only the drug bosses in the way but also the rich, who have many relationships up to the top. His superiors try to believe him, but also tie him back in his investigations again and again. In addition, he has problems with his deaf son, which also need to be clarified.
It was an exciting amusing reading and I highly recommend this series. ( )

(Fiction, Police Procedural, Series)

This turned up in my library queue because it fulfilled a reading challenge that unfortunately, ran out the previous month. Still, it looked interesting enough to try.

“Turnstone is the 1st of Graham Hurley’s Portsmouth based Faraday and Winter novels. Portsmouth is a city on the ropes, a poor, dirty but spirited city, with a soaring crime rate. And it is home for DI Joe Faraday.” (Amazon)

Faraday is a crusty old coot but when eight-year-old Emma Maloney gathers the coins out of her bank, gets on a bus by herself, and walks into the Kingston Crescent Police Station hoping just maybe the police could find her dad, just like they’d found her bike that time, he sees a case worth taking.

Despite the ever-growing caseload of a city torn by violence, poverty, drug-dealing and petty crime, Faraday spares time and resources for an investigation unsupported by hard evidence and works loosely with Paul Winter, another member of the CID force, whose ambition and methods Faraday dislikes and distrusts, but who gets results.

The characters are well-drawn and not at all one-dimensional, and the plot stands up.

4 stars ( )