Review: The Business of Dying

When this book arrived at my doorstep some weeks ago I received it with considerable excitement and keen anticipation. For some months I’d heard nothing but good buzz and read nothing but stellar reviews from the likes of Maxim Jakubowski, Mark Timlin, George Easter of Deadly Pleasures, to name a few. Never mind that the publisher, Bantam, gave the book a spiffy cover and the tag “a killer crime debut.” Buzz, no question. Would it live up? Happily, the answer is a resounding yes.

DS Dennis Milne is not an ordinary copper. For one, his disillusionment with the job has made him even more bitter and cynical than is usually expected. For another, he’s sidelining as a killer-for-hire for Raymond Keen, a gangster-of-sorts who has his fingers in all sorts of illegal pies. But Milne won’t just kill anyone; he has a code, and will only be paid to off those folk who are truly scum and are better off dead. When Milne gets his latest assignmentto kill three men in broad daylighthe does so without a hitch. The problem is, as he finds out later, is that the men he killed aren’t as guilty as was presumed. They are, respectively, two customs agents and an accountant. Naturally, things only get worse from then on.

At the same time, Milne is called to investigate the brutal killing of a teenage prostitute; her throat has been viciously cut and there are signs of sexual mutilation. His superiors quickly focus on the girl’s pimp, but Milne thinks otherwise. His investigation leads him to Coleman House, a safe haven for troubled teens, and evidence of other girls disappearing. Even as internal politics and suspicion of his outside activities threaten to thwart him, Milne tries, amazingly, to find a sense of justice amongst all the muck. Can solve brutal murders while trying to evade his own crimes?

THE BUSINESS OF DYING may have the most amoral hero I’ve come across in crime fiction, and yet Milne is engaging and utterly compelling. It’s not only that he has a moral code, however skewed and horribly off-course; he’s also got a wry sense of humor, mentors a fast-track DC who is distrusted for his ethnic origins and better education, and is above all, a bloke. His thoughts about a woman he finds attractive are succinct (“I had to force myself to imagine her naked”) and oddly enough, refreshing. And he admits to something that I have never come across in any novel, let alone in crime fictionthat in his last encounter, he’d had to fake an orgasm. It’s nice to learn something new....!

Little bits like that are what made the book such a great experience for me. The plot moves along at a crackling pace, and Kernick’s prose is straightforward, mincing no words and never embellishing. He describes a London that is about as seedy and murky as I’ve ever had it described. And above all, his narrative voice has a tremendous drive.

As crime novels go, this one’s a real corker. As debuts go, this is one of the best ones to cross my path in a hell of a long time. And I know my level of anticipation will be even higher for Kernick’s next offering.

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

Book Review: The Business of Dying