Book Review: Mary's Prayer

Reviewed By: Jon Jordan - Crime Spree Magazine - RAM

Mary's Prayer     Amazon US PB Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB
Martyn Waites
Class/Genre:   Mystery
1997, Allison and Busby 233 pages/ 6.99 pounds

The opening of this book is a bit like walking into the middle of a movie. But it’s a book that instantly draws you in, and before to long you are so absorbed by it you don’t remember what you were doing before you started reading. The main character, Stephen Larkin is instantly compelling and you can’t help but to follow along and see where he is going.

And in Mary’s Prayer where he is going is back to Newcastle, the town he grew up in. He’s a journalist and has been asked to cover the funeral of a local gangster. His first night back he runs into an old girlfriend named Charlotte and ends up agreeing to look into the suicide of a woman named Mary that she worked with. The whole city has a way of reopening old wounds for Stephen and he finds him self on the wrong side of the wrong people.

Along the way we are given some of Stephen’s back story which gives some insight into why he is who he is today. Waites has sired some powerful characters with this book, and as he navigates through the streets of Newcastle he opens their lives and lays out who they are in such a way that they feel not so much like characters in a book but old friends.

This book has wonderful nuances and a pace that demands you keep up with it, not allowing you to read at your leisure. My strongest thought after reading was “I want more”.

Jon Jordan - Crime Spree Magazine - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Jon Jordan - Crime Spree Magazine - RAM