David Lawrence’s Cold Kill
If you’re wondering what’s become of fine writing and a strong story David Lawrenece’s Cold KIll will help ease your mind. Set in London’s Notting Hill Gate and Holland Park the novel follows Detective Sheila Mooney and her squad as they pursue a serial killer. When a man walks into the station and confesses to the latest killing he presents the cops with the question, is he the killer or someone equally dangerous, if innocent?
Christmas is approaching, the temperature’s falling, and darkness comes early as the story moves from various points of view to pull the reader into the swift moving current of this detailed procedural. The set up is familiar to fans of British cop sagas and Lawrence leaves the formula intact, preferring to add depth of description and characterization rather than twist the established order into some new shape and form. There were starlings roosting in the Holland Park woodland, their feathers fluffed because of the frost on the wind. In among the trees the scene of the crime team had pitched a four sided blue PVC screen…a crowd of hard edged shadows moved on the blue backdrop.
Lawrence brings those hard edged shadows to life with skill and a poet’s eye. Non UK readers will stumble here and there on some of the slang, and punctuation fans will receive a tutorial of the use of the much maligned colon. Why have US and UK rules of usage diverged over the years? I don’t know: if I knew, I’d tell you. After reading Cold Kill you won’t care.