David Bavington

The story premise is passable, but the book is 50% bloatware. I found myself speed reading pages to skip irrelevant rubbish. For instance there's a section on ladies perfumes that goes on for ever. Strike needs to get over his dad issues. It needs a dam good edit down to around 300 pages. I don't mind a long read if it contributes to plot development, but this book is a real chore. I expect the TV version will be a lot tighter, although I usually prefer a book I'm not sure in this case.