[.uk] Roses, Roses: A Harpur & Iles Mystery (ISBN 0393319253)

Amazon.com Review:
Bill James's books about British policeman Colin Harpur are as much about the failures of marriage and friendship as they are about crime. His latest--which begins with the murder of Harpur's wife, Megan, on her way home after a session with her lover in London--is one of the strongest and most poignant in this unique series. Pushed to the edge by Harpur's adulteries, his wife had taken up with one of his former colleagues. She was about to leave Colin and their two daughters, 15 and 13, for a new life. After her death, James flashes back to Megan in London with her lover in a luxury flat loaned to him by a friend, then returning home on the train, aware of a man watching or stalking her, then being stabbed next to her car. Alternate chapters show Harpur struggling to help his daughters cope with Megan's death while also doing his best to make sure that his immediate superior, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles, doesn't solve the murder before he does. Iles is a splendidly complex character, called a "feral loony" by one of Harpur's daughters, a man who "lived and lasted by venom, of course, but would show occasional links with humanity." Since Harpur had an affair with Iles's wife several books ago, there are mixed feelings at work on both sides. So Harpur uses--and strains--his friendship with the memorable "grass" Jack Lamb to find out if Megan's death was caused by her new lover's criminal connections. The story's resolution is fine, but what remains in the mind, as always, are the sharp stings of loss and betrayal. Other James titles available: Club, Come Clean, Gospel, Astride a Grave, You'd Better Believe It, Take, Lolita Man, and Protection. --Dick Adler

Dark & gritty British mystery:
This novel is probably not for everyone. James's prose lacks the elegance of P. D. James. You sense the tortured psyches of the characters without the author's guidance through them, as Ian Rankin guides you through the cluttered mind of John Rebus. Some might be put off by the British colloquialisms, unfamilar police terms, British slang ... Don't let any of that stop you from reading "Roses, Roses" anyway. This novel is the first one in Bill James's Harpur & Iles series that I personally have read. Several have gone before, revealing the tangled lives of these people; Harpur, a womanizer of legendary proportions and a good policeman, and Iles, whose wife was at some point in the past one of Harpur's conquests. It's like a huge intermarried family, this series of characters. Everyone's related to someone else and all their lives touch - usually at sensitive and painful points. This novel was recommended to me on Amazon based on my affection for the aforementioned P. D. James and Ian Rankin, and I must say it - and its author - deserve to be included in the ranks of such premier English mystery writers. The plot you can get a summary of here at Amazon.com. My impressions, however, you get here. Nobody's sugared up or perfected in this book. Everyone's got dirty hands - and not just the detectives, but their spouses and their grasses and everyone else, except possibly Harpur's two daughters, who are well on their way to jaded viewpoints produced courtesy of seeing what their father does for a living. What the reader gets is a stimulating collection of street-wise characters who are way too human - perhaps even repellant at times - but who never leave a false note hanging in the air. The author has a clean, stripped-down narrative style that eschews unnecessary detail and keeps the pace tight in the right places at all times. I disagree with the prior reviewer that the flashbacks to Harpur's wife, Megan, during her last hours and before that, as she makes her illicit trips to London to meet with her lover and Harpur's ex-partner, don't work. They do. You get present and past seamlessly woven together; one fleshes out the other, each makes the other more understandable. When you're with Megan in that dark car park at 2 AM, just moments before her grisly death, voyeuristically watching her mental acrobatics as she attempts to figure out how to deal with the shadowy figure lurking close by while examining the past with her lover and slowly puting together the realization that something might be dreadfully wrong, the suspense morphs into a genuine sympathy for a character who might all too easily be dismissed by the phrase "she got what was coming to her". I'm going to go back & read James' entire Harpur & Iles series, form beginning to end. If "Roses, Roses" is any example of what I'll find when I do, I'll be a highly delighted and satisfied reader well into the year 2002. If you're looking for a mystery series - and a set of characters - whose uniqueness, blend and taste are not only enjoyable but DIFFERENT, I suggest you run, don't walk, to Bill James's Harpur & Iles series.

Interesting structure, but a disappointment.:
First of all, you certainly can't say that James is unoriginal in how he structures this novel. The idea of alternate flashbacks between Harpur dealing with Megan's death and Megan's POV - as she is about to meet her lover and later, upon returning home, about to meet her killer - is quite engrossing at first. The problem is that this device quickly wears out its welcome. There is simply too much of Harpur squabbling with everyone and various internal debates going on. Just Megan's deliberations standing by her car over what she should do if a stranger is stalking her is overwrought and unbelievable. I suspect that normal people in the same situation would spend less time deliberating and more time taking action! Unfortunately, the characters themselves, although well-realized, are completely unsympathetic, which made it very difficult to feel for any of them. Even the stiff way Harpur's daughters speak seem entirely unconvincing, although maybe this is because I'm unfamiliar with certain British idioms. But if this is British wit then I think I'll stick with the American brand! Finally, the plot itself still has me a bit confused as to motive. The really big question here is why so many gifted British mystery writers have such a cynical, cold view of the world these days. Perhaps it relates to what British columnist Jeremy Paxman has to say in his book, "The English" - The English feel they are doomed. "Roses, roses" provides a splendid example of this.

The Harpur Family:
This one gets close to home; in the first line of the book, Colin Harpur?s wife is being murdered. The book continues by dealing with this death. Part is the interaction of Harpur with his two teenage daughters. The other part brings us the actions and thoughts his wife had on her last day. Only in the second part does the story start to take off, ending strongly with improbable happenings to bring the perpetrators to justice. Compared to previous books in this series, it all feels like something the cat dragged in.