Of all the terrific Zoe Boehm thrillers so far, Smoke and Whispers comes in first by a long shot even though centre stage is taken by Sarah Tucker for the most part. Sarah has been a major player from the start, of course, and her life story has developed with each book until now when she has temporarily left Russ behind on the farm with the ostriches to come to Newcastle to find out what has happened to Zoe.
Along the way Sarah meets up again with the billionaire, Gerard Inchon, with whom she has become friends, kind of, and a new acquaintance, Jack Gannon who appears as her not entirely welcome champion. The evil person known as Alan Talmadge is still out there somewhere and Sarah is in for some rather harrowing times as she tries to establish whether Zoe is in fact, dead. Then there is Barrie, the Australian (maybe) bartender, where does he fit in?
I can’t help repeating myself in praise of Mick Herron’s intelligence and wit. His imagination knows no bounds as all kinds of wonderful characters appear. My favourite is, probably, Ivy, an old woman roughly “the shape and approximate colour of a post box”, who is propping up the bar of a pub Sarah ducks into to escape a massive, sudden downpour. A gas fire banged and “The air was so heavy with damp from drying clothes. It was like attending a wet dog conference”. Mick Herron throws in Geordie phrases that make sense to an Aussie reader and the ones that don’t, don’t make sense to Sarah either. It’s all brilliant writing.
I hate getting to the end of a Mick Herron book but then I love getting to the start of a new one. I shall search for more.
A thrilling 5 out of 5.
Published by John Murray
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