Book Review: A Child's Game

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

A Child's Game     Amazon UK PB
John Connor
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Thriller   Kidnapping
Orion, $24.95 trade paperback, 309 pages

On the eve of the new millennium, a man is doused with gasoline, set alight, and thrown from the balcony of a luxury penthouse in central Leeds. Detective Sergeant Pete Bains is on night duty with the CID when the call comes in. The victim is soon identified as Nicholas Hanley, a wealthy property developer. Shortly thereafter, a cabdriver is found shot to death near the airport. From the luggage left behind, it appears that the cabbie was driving two passengers: Hanley’s girlfriend Anna Hart and her 11-year-old daughter Rachel.

Soon, it becomes clear that the two incidents are related. More disturbing for Bains, however, are the security service men looking for Detective Constable Karen Sharpe. Sharpe walked out on Bains 21 months ago, and he hasn’t seen or heard from her since. Gradually, though, Bains discovers that Sharpe is in real danger, and so is her daughter Mairead. If he can’t find her, neither of them might live to see the new century.

A Child’s Game gets off to a rather slow and confusing start, but it hits its stride within the first third and builds to a rip-roaring pace by the end. In the main, the book switches between DS Bains’s point of view and that of Anna Hart as the one searches for clues and the other attempts to escape her captors and find out what happened to Nicholas Hanley.

This is a novel of identities and psychology and how the one influences the other. The main question posed by Connor in his novel is, how far undercover can a police officer go without completely losing himself or herself to the new identity?

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM