Book Review: Naked at the Window

Reviewed By: Ruth Jordan - RAM

Naked at the Window     Amazon US HC Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Bill James
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural   Hard Boiled
Series: Colin Harpur & Desmond Iles
2002, Constable, 236 pages

Can it be? I sat down for my annual fix of Harpur and Iles full of anticipation. I love this series of cops and robbers Brit style. I believe Bill James to be the true master of the amoral protagonist. As always the book was good. Long time Underboss Paniking Ralph goes for a weekend meeting with his drug suppliers and finds them all dead. At the same time Ralph’s long suffering wife is telling police Colin Harpur that she’s finally given up on Ralph going legit and is leaving him. The death of another long time character follows shortly. And we’re off....

Or are we? What has always made this a special series for me is the eraser James uses with his pen to blur the lines of good and evil, his use of plot to further intrigue the reader. Unlike many of his American counterparts James writes the drug trade as a reality. The best police can do is try to keep users and innocents safe. Therefore a necessary detante. Power struggles will occur but in Harpur and Iles world the need for intervention is determined by fallout to the community.

NAKED AT THE WINDOW fails to capture the nuances that make this series spectacular. It is instead merely a good story with the possibility of a new plot line arriving from events that occur within the tale. Good reading? For longtime readers it is. Remarkable? No and that’s hard for me to say. I can only hope that this is a temporary kink and not a sign that one of our best writers has begun to lower his bar in an attempt to meet deadline.

Ruth Jordan - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ruth Jordan - RAM