Hard-Hearted by David Barrie

Hard-Hearted by David Barrie
Buy Hard-Hearted by David Barrie at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: The fourth in the Captain Franck Guerin police procedurals is a very satisfying and enjoyable read.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 352	Date: June 2012
Publisher: John Law Media
ISBN: 978-0956251862
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It was difficult to think that anything was other than odd. A beautiful woman was savagely attacked in one of Paris' most elegant neighbourhoods, but all she took with her as she ran from the house was an old book - and a shawl. Even stranger was that she was a Sorbonne professor and she was dating a hedge fund manager. Then there was the influential Bank which did its best to persuade Captain Franck Guerin to carry out a couple of arrests - not necessarily because it would aid the case he was working on, but because it would help them. Throw in a billionaire who sleeps in the poorest hotels rather than at the beautiful home which he half owns and a serial seductress with an unusual line in honesty and you can see why Guerin is finding life a little confusing.

As a reviewer I read a lot of books, many of which I appreciate - I recognise the skill which has gone into writing them and I know that a lot of readers will enjoy them. They don't always touch me personally: books which I genuinely look forward to reading because I expect to enjoy them are much rarer birds. David Barrie's Captain Franck Guerin books come into that category. I was hooked when I read the first and since then they been consistently good or improving. We're on number four now.

The books all work reasonably well as stand alones but there is a back story which runs through the books and develops so there is some benefit to starting with Wasp-Waisted (that's a reference to luxury underwear, by the way) and working through the series. It's not a trial, I can assure you! In each book there's a detailed look at a particular trade, business or profession - and you really do feel that you know enough to go in there and get your hands dirty. In Night-Scented it was the world of luxury brands and Loose-Limbed looked at ballet. This time we're deep in the murky world of finance and academia.

The test of a good police procedural is that you're left dangling until the author decides to let you know who did the dirty deed - but when you get to the end and look back you realise that it should have been completely obvious all along. That's what happened with Hard-Hearted. Throw in some characters you really begin to care about and Paris as the natives know it and you can see why I thought it was a treat.

I'd like to thank the publishers or sending a copy to the Bookbag.

It's in a different country but I recently much enjoyed [Funeral Note: A Bob Skinner Mystery by Quintin Jardine]].

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