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More About the Author
Product Description
GQ
‘John Harvey’s Resnick novels are far and away the finest British police procedurals yet written’
Le Monde
‘One of the leading writers of crime today’
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
66 of 67 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lonely Hearts is a very enjoyable police procedural set in the City of Nottingham. It is the first novel in a series featuring the same likeable detective, Inspector Charlie Resnick who is a lover of women, jazz, cats, and food (the latter of which means he is a bit overweight).
This book is about a serial rapist attacking and later killing a number of women contacted through the lonely hearts pages of the local newspaper. The investigation proceeds without much melodramatic incident - which means that the investigation is portrayed realistically - though it no less suspenseful or exciting for that.
I enjoyed almost everything about this book: the humour (and there is humour even amid horrors on the streets), the slightly down-at-heel grittiness of it, and the characterisation, especially of Resnick and Rachel Chaplin, a young social worker with whom Resnick becomes involved.
Suffice to say that I have already bought other books in the series and am looking forward to reading them too.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I first Stumbled across John Harvey whilst on holiday last year and having run out of books I found ash and bone, one of his Frank Elder Novels. Having enjoyed this tremendously, I decided to buy the first three books of the Resnick series, many reviewers of Harveys books have mentioned that their is no real need to do this and that although the books go in chronological order, they are still 'stand alone' books. This is largely true, but some of the nuances and subtley in Harveys characterisations can be lost when reading these books out of sequence.
Resnick himself on the face of things could appear to be one of the dullest detectives put to paper, he loves jazz, lives alone, eats sandwiches every meal time and has four cats. Not exactly in your Harry Bosch or John Rebus mould, but then if he was it would detract from the whole point of Harveys writing, and this I feel is that he wishes to create realism and to also offer his readers the credit of being able to add there own assumptions to what at times he leaves unsaid. I personally think this is Harvey's gift, he writes in a prose that is often complicated and gritty, but this creates a feeling that you are reading a book about life itself and not something that has been fabricated beyond all sense of reality (i.e James Patterson).
Lonely Hearts is by no means the stand out book in the series and does come some way short of others like off minor, cutting edge and rough treatment. But if you dont treat this book as a 'stand alone' and look at it as the first in a truly remarkable series of crime writing fiction, then it's simply a 'must read'.
Resnick himself on the face of things could appear to be one of the dullest detectives put to paper, he loves jazz, lives alone, eats sandwiches every meal time and has four cats. Not exactly in your Harry Bosch or John Rebus mould, but then if he was it would detract from the whole point of Harveys writing, and this I feel is that he wishes to create realism and to also offer his readers the credit of being able to add there own assumptions to what at times he leaves unsaid. I personally think this is Harvey's gift, he writes in a prose that is often complicated and gritty, but this creates a feeling that you are reading a book about life itself and not something that has been fabricated beyond all sense of reality (i.e James Patterson).
Lonely Hearts is by no means the stand out book in the series and does come some way short of others like off minor, cutting edge and rough treatment. But if you dont treat this book as a 'stand alone' and look at it as the first in a truly remarkable series of crime writing fiction, then it's simply a 'must read'.
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Bought for the book group - not my choice - for 'procedural' read 'formulaic'. Had forgotten (and not best pleased to be reminded) how overt sexism was in the 80's. But if you like that sort of thing, you'll love this.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Dull
I am new to John Harvey. A friend of mine gave me six of his books and so I started with Lonely Hearts. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Custard
Solid, low-key and ungimmicky - but a bit dull
Ok, others have raved about John Harvey but on the basis of this (admittedly the first book of his I've read) I can't see why. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Roman Clodia
Lonely Hearts
The excellent first novel featuring the detective Charlie Resnick. The beginning of an an important series in the modern history of British crime fiction.
Published on 26 April 2010 by Ralph Carter
worth a read
The style of writing took me a while to get into but it was worth it. It starts off reasonably well but then goes a little flat in the middle and kind of drifts and then all of a... Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2008 by Martin
Surprised by Michael Connelly's praise
As an avid Michael Connelly fan I was looking forward to reading Lonely Hearts as he praises John Harvey on the cover. But I'm 200 pages in and I'm waiting for something to happen. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2007 by Geoff Tyrer (ViziGen Ltd)
Enjoyable but ending was rushed
I would have given this 3.5 stars, had that been an option. This was an enjoyable late 1980s police procedural, in the Rebus/Rankin vein. Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2007 by Lovetoread
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