Category Archives: Stav Sherez

Review: A DARK REDEMPTION by Stav Sherez

Posted on by
11

As my shelves (and digital devices) are quite literally groaning under the weight of police procedural novels set in England I’m not really in the market for another series to follow. But given I still have strong images in my head from the last book I read by Sherez (set in Greece) I couldn’t resist this first instalment of a promised new series even though it’s in a crowded space. It turns out to have been a good decision..

A DARK REDEMPTION opens with three young men taking a trip to Uganda following their university graduation and before they have to knuckle down to jobs and real life. On their travels they make a seemingly random choice which leads them into the clutches of a rebel army and a grim stretch in custody though at this point we don’t learn a lot of the details of what went on. The main part of the story then starts, taking place a dozen or so years later. Jack Carrigan, one of the three men who had travelled to Africa, is a Detective Inspector in London and he is put in charge of the investigation into the brutal murder of a young African student named Grace Okello. But Jack has made enemies on the force and his boss forces Geneva Miller, a woman who has had her own brushes with bureaucracy, to be the DS on the investigation. She is to assist Jack and report back to his superiors about his behaviour and methods. At the start of the investigation the two are wary of each other and also have different ideas about the motivations for the murder – with Jack thinking her violent boyfriend responsible and Geneva wondering if it is somehow linked to Grace’s research into the armed conflict in her native country. But as the case unfolds the two detectives develop a respect for each other and of course narrow down the focus of their investigation.

I was a little wary of the themes this book looked set to tackle given that I started it as the Kony 2012 social media frenzy was in full swing. Happily my fears were unfounded as Sherez deals with the African elements of the story (including the aforementioned Kony) sensitively and intelligently; managing to portray nuances of the situation in both Uganda and amongst the displaced African community living in England that you won’t find in most mainstream media. Some of the segments of the book are violent but it never feels at all gratuitous and the story would not feel authentic if there were not some level of violence given what we know about the recent real-world history that provides the story’s backdrop. Sherez uses several methods for imparting the relevant information about Ugandan history and politics and in combination these are quite the lesson in how authors of this type of novel can do such things without making the reader feel as if they are in a lecture theatre.

I agree with Sarah at Crimepieces who wrote that Carrigan’s maverick status was depicted in an understated way as that is exactly how I felt. Too many crime books these days appear to be working from a list of quirks and anti-authority behaviours to give their protagonists and there is a tendency to go overboard or have no real reason for the traits displayed. Jack is not at the extreme end of the scale and any foibles he does have make sense within the context that Sherez provides. There are also quite a few hints of secrets still to be explored in both his and Miller’s lives in what I hope will be some future instalments of the series as I enjoyed both characters and would happily read more of their exploits.

On one level I suppose this book is ‘just’ police procedural novel but it is a superior example of the genre. Both thoughtful and thought-provoking A DARK REDEMPTION manages to explore a complex issue without either sensationalising them or treating readers like morons and for that alone I applaud it. The fact that it also provides a suspense-filled mystery and a decent resolution is icing on this excellent cake. To undoubtedly stretch the dessert metaphor a little too far the narration by English actor David Thorpe is the delicious chocolate sprinkles on the icing :)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Sidenote: I know that authors normally have little influence over their book covers so it’s unfair to include this in the review proper (and I have not taken the matter into account) but this cover couldn’t be less relevant to the book if it tried. The near ubiquitous shadowy silhouettes that are much beloved of crime fiction marketing/publishing types these days tell us nothing to make us pick up the book or to mark it out as unique and, now that I’ve read it, don’t even hint at anything going on within the story. If a cover is going to be this irrelevant why bother?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A DARKER REDEMPTION has been reviewed at Crimepieces and It’s A Crime.

I reviewed an earlier, unrelated book by Sherez set in Greece called THE BLACK MONASTERY in the early days of this blog.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4/5
Narrator David Thorpe
Publisher Audible Ltd [2012]
ASIN B007D56PK4 (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 11 hours 11 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Carrigan and Miller series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: The Black Monastery by Stav Sherez

Posted on by
1

Title: The Black Monastery

Author: Stav Sherez

Publisher: Faber [2009]

ISBN: 978-0-571-24482-9

Length: 299 pages

After 33 years in Athens Nikos has returned to the fictional Greek island of Palassos to see out his remaining time in the police force as the island’s police chief. But rather than slide slowly into retirement Nikos has to deal with some grizzly murders that hark back to awful events which occurred when he was last on the island. Kitty Carson, a successful crime writer (and the only character to warrant both a first name and a surname if my memory serves me correctly) is holidaying on the island, as is Jason, an aspiring writer who has followed Kitty in a vaguely stalker-ish manner.

For me this was a book about the past and how time doesn’t really pass into nothing-ness but rather builds up in thin layers which, eventually, have to be burrowed through or they’ll bury you. All of the characters, including the island itself, have secrets or events in their histories that have some hold over the way their current lives are playing out and Sherez unravels these threads in a tantalising way. With a Dan Brown style thriller I tend to hastily turn the pages to find out what will happen next, whereas here it was a case of reading on to find out what had happened before. I was no less gripped than I am by more conventional thrillers but because the major events being described have, for the most part, already taken place I found myself more willing to take a little time with my reading and savour the delicious, metaphor-laden language for its own sake. Although Sherez demonstrates he is no slouch in the suspense department either with his genuinely page-turning conclusion.

The book is jam-packed with strong images: some beautiful, others gruesome. I’m consciously less fond of centipedes now than I was two days ago thanks to several descriptions of their particular creepiness. Then there’s the disturbing picture created by these simple lines, which describe the scene facing Nikos as he enters an annexe of the police station (formerly the island’s church) filled with broken statues

He stares at this strange gathering, the saints missing arms or legs like crash victims, their beatific expressions covered by a thick layer of dust. The Marys stare open-eyed into the blackness. Three of them, different sizes, all missing hands or feet.

There are, quite literally, dozens more passages which have created lasting pictures in my head, several of which may, I fear, inhabit my nastier dreams for some time.

I’m not surprised Sherez chose to set his story on a fictional island as I suspect the Greek Tourism Board might have banned him permanently from the country had he assigned all Palassos’ attributes to one of the real islands. Not only is there a mysterious religious cult and a history of gruesome murders but the depiction of the dance-clubbing, drug-popping somewhat desperate young tourists that throng to the island overshadow the glorious Mediterranean sunshine or anything else of a positive nature that might be on offer. At a different level he also shows the worst side of the island’s regular inhabitants, including authorities willing to use people’s prejudices to hide truths and perpetrate lies. It certainly isn’t a place I want to visit any time soon.

For me the characters are less successful than the other elements of the book. They’re not badly crafted or unbelievable, although of all the characters I found writer Kitty the least convincing as she switched a bit too suddenly from indecisive and troubled to investigator-in-control. More than that though I didn’t react very emotionally at all to any of the major characters which meant I missed out on that strong connection that only a much loved or fiercely hated character can bring to a reading experience. Perhaps this stems from the fact the book is a standalone so the author didn’t feel a need to create characters that would engender more of an emotional response from readers. Of course he might have tried very hard to create a sympathetic character or two and I just didn’t respond in that way. I was certainly curious to find out what would happen (or had happened) to all the players but I was never at risk of bursting into tears should one of them fall victim to the murderer.

I had never heard of Stav Sherez before selecting this book from those available for review for the month based solely on the fact it is set in Greece and I don’t recall ever having read any crime fiction set there before. I thoroughly enjoyed starting a book having no idea what to expect and was delighted with what I found. For me the writing itself is the star of the show. On multiple occasions I re-read phrases and sentences, often aloud, purely because I liked the way the words sounded together. Combined with the intriguing plot (including an ending I did not see coming) this made for a very satisfying reading experience.

My rating 4/5

Other Stuff

Reviewed at It’s a Crime (Or a Mystery)

Sherez has written one other standalone crime fiction novel called The Devil’s Playground.

I was provided with a free copy of The Black Monastery for review by the publisher via the Murder and Mayhem bookclub