Lonely Hearts

This is a deeply satisfying many-layered work, typical of John Harvey's carefully plotted work. His use of descriptive detail creates a world that jumps off the page- Nottingham is a real world peopled with believable charcters. In Resnick, we have a detective with flaws of a human kind who does a real job-long live Charlie and his cats.

This is the first novel in the Charlie Resnick series. I've read one or two in the distant past (not sure if this was one of the ones I've previously read), but I decided to check the series out in order. Based just on reading this one, they seem a bit tame/dated compared to more contemporary crime novels. This was definitely not very "gritty," especially compared to the Inspector Brant series I just finished.

This one involves a serial killer--but a serial killer with only 2 murders. Can you imagine a Jo Nesbo thriller with only 2 deaths? At first the two deaths aren't connected, but then the police learn that both murdered women had been meeting men through a dating service of sorts, this being written before wide spread computer show more use/on-line dating. Back then you wrote a profile, hired an anonymous P.O. box, and printed it in the newspaper. Very quaint.

While the ending seemed a bit rushed (and the perpretator's final actions a bit off), this was still an interesting blast from the past.

3 stars

First line: "She hadn't thought of him in a long time." show less

This is the first volume in an English mystery series whose lead character is a Detective Inspector named Charlie Reznick. He is always a bit disheveled with something from breakfast on his tie and lives alone with four cats. He listens to Billie Holliday and Duke Ellington and likes to cook a little less than he likes to eat. In the book he gets several comments on his need to exercise.
The plot centers around two murders where the victims met their killer through answering lonely hearts ads in the newspaper. The first murder was a simple strangulation but the second was a violent beating. This type of case goes to the front page in England and Charlie got constant calls from his superiors.
Early in the story when Charlie testifies in a show more child molestation case he meets a social worker named Rachel Chaplin. She is attractive and very independent and their relationship grows when she leaves her live-in boyfriend.
I really enjoyed reading English as opposed to American. One character in telling another he would call them said, "I'll give you a bell". At times the language barrier made the story a little hard to follow.
The story moves along well and I grew to like Charlie for his character and decency.
The action picks up quickly in an abrupt ending which is rather obvious. I have another in the series and will read it soon. I enjoyed reading a good story about interesting people. show less

Harvey has a quick-cut style that may take a little to get used to, i.e. scenes are often no slowly introduced or developed, but rather the reader is dumped into the middle of. Once comfortable with this, the reader is in for a grand British police procedural with jazz loving, 4-cat co-habitating Detective-Inspector Charlie Resnick. Charlie often seems to sensitive for his job, but he and his interesting squad make for an interesting quite-human team.

Lonely Hearts is the first (1990) in a highly regarded 10 book series by John Harvey that continues with a new addition expected in 2014. Charlie Resnick is a Detective Inspector investigating the murder of a woman approaching middle age, killed in her flat by strangulation. Interviews with neighbors point the police to an ex-boyfriend who wanted to continue the relationship. Within a few weeks there is a second murder, but the method and circumstances are very different, though once again it is a woman in the same age range and alone in her flat when attacked. Charlie and team begin to broaden their investigation in their search for other suspects.

There are a number of things I liked about the story including most of the characters, show more particularly Charlie, a no-nonsense, hard working guy, with no obvious addictions or other serious flaws save his divorce of five years ago. In the course of the investigation he begins a relationship with Rachel, a social worker coming off an unsatisfactory relationship, and also a divorcee. The story moves along at a good pace, and the plot is above average.

But the book does have its flaws. One of the characters describes a suspect's behaviors and inadvertently answers the motive question far better than any other theory. So the reader knows fairly early on who the killer is but the police can't seem to figure that out until the very end. Secondly, Rachel has moments when she exhibits an unusually sharp tongue (stay away, Charlie). I'm not exactly sure if Charlie's description of the killer's end is accurate, and if so it doesn't seem to fit circumstances. Finally, I got a bit tripped up with some of the prose, particularly a fair amount of the slang which didn't make sense to me even in context.

So, I'm on the fence about reading book #2 in this series. On the other hand, one of my all-time favorite series, Ian Rankin's John Rebus, started with 3 or 4 books that I thought were well below par. Fortunately I started that series at book #7 or I may not have read all 17 or 18 or?? (Rebus has been resurrected)books. show less

Someone was praising this series (Chatterbox, was that you?) so I started with the first. Certainly ok, but I found it a little too much like many other books to really enjoy it. Or maybe it was one police procedural too many for me this year.

Low key, but compelling