Endgame by Daniel Cole

The third Ragdoll book, Endgame, by Daniel Cole is published on Thursday 5th September

William 'Wolf' Fawkes returns following a brief absence from the majority of Hangman; to be the main driving force of the narrative.  Fawkes returns following the suicide of former colleague, Finlay Shaw; something does not add up though for Wolf who believes there is more than meets the eye in regards to the suspected suicide.

With his former partner, Emily Baxter and private detective Edmunds; Wolf attempts to solve the case in a race against time as he puts his career on the line while not everyone in the Met wants him back to begin with.

Cole does a clever narrative trick of showing the investigation into the suicide along with a flashback narrative of Finlay along with his then partner Christian in the late 1970s, when they made a name for themselves in drug busts and yet became the target of gangs who seeked retribution.

Once the narrative gets going in the 70s narrative in terms of Finlay and Christian dicing with death and establishing the relationships Finlay's suicide leaves in limbo, then the present day narrative takes off especially when Wolf and Baxter must address his leaving the end of Book 1, Ragdoll.

Daniel Cole, author of Endgame.

Cole has created in Baxter a unique female protagonist - fierce yet vulnerable, stubborn but knee-jerk - and the chemistry with Wolf who is a cantankerous soul brings the emotions to the fore for all.  In this novel, Wolf is merely a tool for psychological insight into the waste he left behind, his reappearance granting people a chance to vent and rage against his cynicism and selfishness.

What sets this book apart from the other novels of the trilogy - whereas the opener was a true original concept and plot; the sequel was an action packed female fronted thriller; Endgame is a book less about the end result but how you get there, a tale about camaraderie and fraternity within the police force - the bond forged between the boys (and girls) in blue and the ties that bind them to each other.

While the title may have a sense of finality to it all, hopefully that is not the case and the characters such as Wolf and Baxter can continue to work together and we be able to join them on the ride.

Endgame is out from Orion Books on 5th September.
I am appearing on the Compulsive Readers Blog Tour on 6th September

My thanks to Tracy Fenton for the opportunity to review.

Hangman

The highly anticipated sequel to Ragdoll by Daniel Cole, has a lot to live up to.  When we finished Ragdoll, the hero Wolf had fled the scene following his colleague Baxter's decision to let him leave the crime scene.  Wolf has gone underground and no-one has seen him, we find Baxter now two years after the end of the Ragdoll murders and the numerous copy cats.  Now there is a new mass murderer who is taking bodies and having them hang from great heights with the word 'BAIT' scored into the torso of the mainly male bodies.

Baxter and her team, including the returning Edmunds have to work with new friends including the ex-pat Rouche, a man born in England but working for the CIA in America who is as disruptive as Wolf was but just as conflicted.

The book has the feel of the writer spreading his wings, but whereas the first book had the social context of fear and panic of unknown attackers on the streets of London, with the media spinning people into a frenzy for their health and safety; this novel though has the feel of being a lost love child of Dan Brown.  Extensive plotting with twists aplenty, by the book characters with little in the way of emotional connection and elaborate set-pieces of action and gore being given precedence over telegraphed dialogue.

This reader feels that following the high-octane, gasping intensity of Ragdoll this is a step backwards although the (very) late introduction of someone means that another book is in the offing and this return to the mean may hopefully incite a return to form.

Cole is a writer who clearly likes to take risks with his writing, compounded intentions and expectations of his readership but for this reader it seems to have come up short to the level of what Ragdoll was, my hope is that the expected third book is a return to that thrilling form.

Hangman is released by Trapeze Books on 22nd March

Ragdoll

With thanks to Orion Books for the review copy of this book before the February 2017 release date.

Written by debut novelist Daniel Cole, Ragdoll started life as a unproduced television pilot before Cole put it in a drawer somewhere and after many rejections decided to in his own words, 'do the selfish thing and write a book that I would love myself'.

Ragdoll tells the tale of the Ragdoll killer a serial killer who having already stitched together six victims to make a ragdoll of a corpse - separate head, torso, arms, legs. The head belongs to the infamous Cremation killer, a serial peadophile who would abuse young girls before disposing of their bodies in the aforementioned manner.

One detective William Fawkes stood up to his belief that one man Naquib Khalid was the killer, and this belief led to him attacking Khalid in the dock at the Old Bailey.  Now the case is brought back from the past, Khalid's own head is that of the Ragdoll, and Wolf is being used as bait by the Ragdoll Killer.

A man who is gripping the nation as he has provocatively claimed he will kill seven people on a specific date, with Wolf the last on the list. This showmanship of stating when and where he will complete his next murder is fitting for the current world fixated with multi-media platforms, the ultimate embodiment of 15 minutes of fame even for the victims. 

So begins a huge game of cat and mouse between the Metropolitan Police and the Ragdoll killer who is seemingly one step ahead of them, as the police try to put every next victim in witness protection, the killer beats them to the punch.

Daniel P Cole - the author

For a debut novel, Cole takes telling risks in his narrative by flirting with the possibility of following a tried and tested pattern yet then doing an about face which is as ingenious as his master villain. The risks are not restricted the narrative development, our allegiances to Wolf who is part Maverick, part wind-up merchant, part charmer is a risk taker himself, and our empathy for him is tested throughout culminating in the test of plausibility by the book's third act.

Yet Cole writes with such confidence and panache transferring from set piece to set piece whilst sustaining a romantic sub-plot and the growth of periphery characters coming front and centre by the conclusion.

The ending is both resolutory and yet ambiguous to the degree that there promises more to come from Wolf in whatever guise it may be. Whatever Cole chooses to do next, whether it is with or without Wolf, this debut novelist is certainly one to watch.

Ragdoll could possibly be the literary event of 2017.

It will be released by Trapeze Press on 23rd February on e-book edition and Hardback.