Category: Paul Johnston

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Mark Bailey Paul Johnston

Review: Impolitic Corpses by Paul Johnston (2019)

Impolitic Corpses by Paul Johnston (2019)

 

Hardback: 256 pages (August 2019, UK)
Kindle: 1128 Kb (October 2019, UK)
Publisher: Severn House
ISBN: 978-0727889089 (hardback)

This is the eighth novel in the series of novels featuring Quint Dalrymple.

It is November 2038 and Scotland has been reunified – Edinburgh’s thirty-year experiment with supposedly benevolent totalitarianism is over. Despite now being a novelist and retired from the Police, Quint Dalrymple still gets called upon for the investigation of strange cases. An attempted strangling of a young man in Leith by an assailant wearing a bizarre tree-fish costume definitely falls into that category.

Before he can make headway on that case, he is asked by to look into the strange disappearance of the Lord of the Isles – Angus Macdonald (Leader of the opposition in Parliament). He vanished from inside his locked bedroom while his valet was sitting outside with a severed finger hidden in the room.
The discovery of a body arranged in a disturbingly macabre pose links the two cases together and starts to provide worrying links back into some of the darker parts of his past.

As stated in reviews of earlier books in the series, this is a mix of science fiction and crime fiction in that it is set in the future but there is very limited technology which is entirely lower-level than what most people have access to today with the computers, in particular, seeming quaintly archaic.
Once again you can start the series here as there is enough backstory sprinkled throughout the first few chapters to give you both an overview of the milieu and a view into the mind-set and motivation of Quint without it dominating the plot.

The plot, as usual, is engaging and goes at a rate of knots with you understanding the motivation of the characters whilst not agreeing with them. The camaraderie between Davie (his sidekick in effect) and Quint is still there despite their separation on a day-to-day basis before the action starts.

Once again, the denouement does make sense given what has gone before and sets up the scene for future books.

Overall, this is a good addition to the series and I still definitely like to see where Quint Dalrymple goes from here.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley.

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Crime Fiction Mark Bailey Paul Johnston Reviews

Paul Johnston – Skeleton Blues (2016)

Paul Johnston – Skeleton Blues

Hardback: 244 pages (January 2016)

Publisher: Severn House

ISBN: 978-0-7278-8578-4 (hardback)

Cover of "Skeleton Blues" by Paul Johnston
Cover of “Skeleton Blues” by Paul Johnston

This is the seventh novel in the series of novels featuring Quint Dalrymple.

It is Spring 2034. The United Kingdom, along most of the world, was torn apart by civil wars and criminal gangs in the early years of the twenty-first century. Edinburgh in the last free election in 2003 voted in the Enlightenment Party (a small grouping of university Professors) who with a mind set influenced by Plato guaranteed basic human rights such as work, food and housing but removed most elements of choice from peoples lives. Crime has been pushed underground where it is fed in part by the envy of the tourists who come for the year-round festival with legalised gambling, prostitution and drugs for the tourists.

The weather is balmy and most un-Scottish. A referendum is imminent on whether or not to join a reconstituted Scotland. A tourist is found strangled in the apartment of a citizen and, as usual, maverick detective Quint Dalrymple is called in to do the dirty work of the Council of City Guardians. Quint is stumped by the complexity of the case when an explosion at the City Zoo is followed by the discovery of another body with the prime suspect nowhere to be found. Can Quint and Davie put a stop to the killings before the city erupts into open violence – are the leaders of the other Scottish states planning to take over Edinburgh or is the source of unrest much closer to home?

Again, you have an engaging plot that goes along at a rate of knots and you can understand the motivation of the characters whilst not agreeing with them – the key driving force is the camaraderie between Davie (his sidekick in effect) and Quint which has been built on throughout the series.

This is a good addition to the series and once again I would definitely like to see where Quint Dalrymple goes from here.