Bantam Press - $39.99
Simon Kernick was meant to have been part of a panel of internationally recognised crime fiction writers at last year’s Christchurch Writers Festival but sadly that event was called off because of the devastating earthquake that hit the city a week before. Others on that panel were to have been Neil Cross, Michael Robotham, and Dunedin’s Vanda Symon.
Kernick is rated by many as one of the UK’s very best writers in the crime thriller genre and that is saying a great deal as there are many successful practicioners over there. One thinks of Ian Rankin, Simon Beckett, Mark Billingham, Stella Rimmington, Colin Dexter and others.
The Payback is his 10th novel, an impressive number because he was first published only 10 years ago, and has thus had a novel published every year since that first one The Business of Dying. That first book was released to great critical acclaim and featured a London detective by the name of Denis Milne who moonlighted as a hitman. Milne also featured in the fourth book, A Good Day to Die. And now he has turned up again in this latest book, along with DI Tina Boyd who appears in Kernick’s earlier titles except the first one although she only appears in one chapter in A Good Day to Die so she and Milne did not know one another personally until this new book.
Milne and Boyd are both rather compelling characters actually and the return of Milne the amoral ex-cop, turned assassin, (even if he did only like killing bad guys), has made this new title a long-awaited one for Kernick fans like me.
Actually I do like the way Kernick has various characters, both good and bad, who appear in his books from time to time.
Most of this story takes place in Manila and involves Milne the ex-cop and Boyd the maverick off-duty cop working together, most reluctantly it needs to be said, as for quite separate reasons they try to hunt down the rich paedophile Paul Wise, the truly ghastly villain who has also appeared in some of Kernick’s earlier titles.
This is a fast moving, action-packed, blood-drenched thriller (it runs to 352 pages) that I found difficult to put down and in the end a most satisfying read. Kernick is known for his research and for his wide range of contacts within the police and security services which gives great authenticity to his writing.
I really rate Simon Kernick and hope that another opportunity might arise for him to get to New Zealand.
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