Saturday 17 July 2010

A POLICEMAN'S LOT - NEW REVIEW


I wanted to share this review from a Mr Ronald Scheer which has been posted over on the Amazon page for my novel, A Policeman's Lot

This tightly plotted and cleverly conceived crime fiction novel is set in the Welsh town of Pontypridd in 1904. Our central character is police inspector Frank Parade, who on a normal day has his hands more than full. Parade's job gets even more complicated when Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show comes to town. There is Bill Cody, larger than life, and not all that cooperative, especially as one of his employees turns up with his throat slit. And thus begins a murder investigation that generates a slag heap of difficulties for Inspector Parade and produces a string of corpses.

Dobbs has done his research and packs a lot into his novel. We become immersed in a time and place on the cusp of the twentieth century. Old methods of law enforcement are yielding with the introduction of new technologies. Economic changes create new problems and social pressures.

And there's the entertaining collision of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show with turn of the last century, coal-mining Wales. Cowboys and Indians wander through some of the scenes, and Bill Cody himself figures into the plot at key points. Well drawn, he is a self-important presence used to being regarded as a living legend. Meanwhile, Inspector Parade is a thoroughly enjoyable creation. Happy he is when he's on duty, which is nearly all the time. Such is a policeman's lot.


And speaking of reviews:
There's a fresh review of my debut novel, The Tarnished Star over on the always wonderful Pulp Serenade

" What if Gary Cooper in High Noon stepped down and gave up? What would make a strong-willed sheriff give in to the bad guys? How would the town react? And how would the sheriff deal with the shame and humiliation of letting himself, and his people, down?

Those are some of the thought-provoking questions that drive The Tarnished Star."

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