Book Review: Alarm Call

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Alarm Call     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Quintin Jardine
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Oz Blackstone # 8
Headline; $24.95 trade paperback; 276 pages

Oz Blackstone, charmer, accidental actor, thinks life is pretty good. He’s married to gorgeous, tough-as-nails businesswoman Susie Gantry, and they’ve got 2 wee children. He’s made up with his father since the destructive events of Unnatural Justice. He’s also about to hit the Serious Big Time, now that his role in a movie about cricket has made him something of a star.

Then his ex-wife walks back into his life.

Primavera Phillips comes to Oz with huge troubles. She’s been robbed of both her fortune and her baby boy by the boy’s father, a con artist of a former actor called Paul Wallinger. Even Susie, possibly Prim’s worst enemy, agrees that Oz has to help her. So Oz flies to the United States with Prim, in pursuit of Wallinger. What he discovers, though, will turn his world upside-down twice over.

I make no secret of my admiration for Quintin Jardine, and I eagerly await each Oz Blackstone or Bob Skinner novel. Alarm Call is no exception. Oz’s narrative voice is both witty and dry; “pawky” is the way the Scots would describe it, I believe. His observations of life are double-take funny. For all that, there’s a deep thread of menace that runs through the book, as Oz and Prim follow the trail left them by Wallinger.

Jardine seems to get better and better with each book, rather like “that other Scottish writer” he references. (For those of you not in the know, that’s Ian Rankin.) I say run, don’t walk, to your local bookstore and grab up every book you can find.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

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