The Judgement Book [Kindle Edition]

.....this is a cracking good story.

I had read Simon Hall's previous two novels, The Death Pictures and Evil Valley, both of which I enjoyed very much and which feature Chief Inspector Adam Breen and his crime fighting TV reporter friend Dan Groves, and this third title is, in my opinion, his best yet.

All of Simon Hall's books are tightly plotted, intricate, keep you guessing and all of them so far have contained the solving of a code or puzzle in order to track down the guilty protagonist. I would hazard a guess that Simon likes doing crosswords and cryptic puzzles and this particular aspect of his work reminds me very much of Reginald Hill's Daziel and Pascoe title, Death Jest Book, in which there are clues and word puzzles to solve and which I found equally intriguing.

The Judgement Book is full of guilty secrets of the great and the good and the anonymous owner of this record of human frailties is determined that hypocrites and liars should be shown up for what they are. So, first victim is an MP, a family man very strong on the sanctity of home life, who has spent time with a school girl-uniformed prostitute wielding a whip, and when threatened with exposure he kills himself. Soon others are drawn into the net, two members of the police force, both high ranking, are then threatened with exposure and one commits suicide by throwing themself off a cliff and it all begins to get rather fraught.

Throughout all this Dan and Adam are helping each other out with the investigation with Dan trying to solve the puzzle and at the same time appease his publicity hungry boss at the TV station with his inside knowledge of the case, and also trying to deal with the fact that his police detective girl friend Claire, who he met on an earlier case, is pregnant and neither of them knowing how to cope with this commitment.

The tension builds nicely and the denouement took me totally by surprise as they found out the guilty person and try to track down the hiding place of the Judgement Book. Both Adam and Dan have bent the rules in tracking down criminals in the past and while they both believe what they did was for the greater good, neither of them would emerge with their jobs and careers intact if this came out, so it is with horror that they learn that their names are also in The Judgement Book and, therefore, they have a vested interest in tracking it down....

I will say no more as I do not wish to give anything away which might spoil the story, but I thought this was a brilliant crime/detection novel. The characters are now more rounded out, we are getting to know the background to their private lives and are privy to their feelings, the relationship between Adan and Dan is spot on and the whole thing crackles with tension and pace and I thought this was simply great stuff and the ending is left open and ambiguous so that we know there is more to come.

I look forward to it......

Being a Plymouthian although now living in West Cornwall I always look forward to reading Simon's books as I can relate to the places he visits in and around Plymouth when undertaking his investigations.
This book his is best yet and once you pick it up and start reading you will not be able to put it down - as the plot is so cleverly written as to have another unexpected twist at every stage. I am so looking forward to the next one so get writing Simon!!!
The Judgement Book (TV Detective)

I see this writer most nights on my TV and didn't realise he was an author on the side until I picked up this book. I found it very curate's eggy. The plot was very unbelievable but acceptable and it hung together okay and some of the writing was fine. However, in places the ineptitude of the writing made me wonder how the author ever got published, also if he was the sole author, so jarring were these passages compard with the rest of the book. One chapter in particular where the main character was being particularly boneheaded over his girlfriend's physical condition was so toecurlingly awful, I felt embarrassed for the author having to put his name to it - a cheesy, old fashioned sitcom scene minus the canned laughter. So, not exactly literature. If you are stuck for something to read, it will fill a few hours and keep you entertained but make sure your critical faculty is kept turned down very low.