Perdition's Child - Anne Coates

Fourth book in Hannah Weybridge series by Anne Coates from Urbane Publications

Since I started writing book review blogs a few years ago, I happened upon a writer called David Barker who wrote a sterling action thriller Blue Gold about the threat of water having wars fought over it.

Barker has since written three books featuring his protagonist, Sim Atkins, but the book read with such a zip full of vigour, great set pieces, easy to follow narratives and page turning pleasure.

Published by Urbane Publications, a small independent publisher that brings diverse voices to an eager audience. That word eager is key to their Twitter bio, a word that breeds enthusiasm and joy in writing and that is systemic in the work of Barker.

This reviewer is pleased to report that the book reviewing today, Perdition's Child by Anne Coates, repeats much of the same Urbane DNA - a different sort of book, a pacy thriller that was gorged in one day of reading over a long Bank Holiday weekend.

Anne Coates - Author of Hannah Weybridge series

Hannah Weybridge, is a freelance journalist, who seeks for the truth. This is the fourth book in the series, previously Hannah has combated crime against sex workers while trying to raise a young child without a father figure.

We find her on holiday with a new beau, the abrupt parting at the airport leads to her returning to work and walking into a string of strange murders connected by the link that they are all Australian citizens, back in the UK looking for the truth of their heritage and lineage.

Weybridge finds herself embroiled in the mystery of odd deaths, a bag lady taking over her deceased brother's residence thanks to the help of a lofty QC acquaintance, a gentleman who appears at inopportune times and the relationship between orphanages and religious bodies.

Coates writes with a whip-crack narrative, dialogue flies off the page providing characterisation, exposition and structure in multitude that is both pleasing and effective.  This effortless style of plotting and character helped this reader entering a four-book strong universe which is always the key to a good writer of crime fiction - being able to create a universe where someone can enter without feeling like a stranger.

The placing of the narrative in 1994 before the advent of global media taking ahold of all people helps - a world where people would be somewhere when they said, papers were trusted before becoming gossip-mongers - giving an unlikely nostalgic spin on matters.

If you like this work, go seek out the David Barker books and also Simon Michael's Charles Holborn series about a barrister in the 1960s in the shadow of the Kray twins hold over London.

Perdition's Child is out now from Urbane Publications.
My thanks to them for the review opportunity