Dead of Night

DCI Tom Mariner has a complicated private and professional life. He’s caring for his former partner’s severely autistic brother, is trying to make a go of a new relationship with a woman in Cambridge – and investigate the disappearance of a woman on his Birmingham patch.

Grace Clifton goes missing on her way home from work. She’s the daughter of charmless council leader Bob Clifton – and after crossing his path, the team reckon she probably left home of her own accord. But then a parcel of her clothes, all neatly cleaned and pressed, is delivered to the police. And another woman disappears.

I read the early books in this series, but have missed the past few – which turns out to be a slight disadvantage as Chris Collett isn’t over-generous with back story, so various incidents in Mariner’s past continue to be a mystery all of their own.

Despite this, Dead of Night kept me hooked. Collett tells a good story, but her strength is the characters. They all feel entirely realistic, from the members of the police team to little Dominique, whose mother hasn’t come home. Equally moving is the character of Jamie, the young autistic man who has formed a bond with Mariner. It makes a change for a man to be the carer, and Collett, who apparently has worked in the voluntary sector, makes the relationship believable, particularly Mariner’s battle on all levels to get Jamie into residential care.

I tend to be drawn to crime novels that remember that there’s more to the UK than the mean streets of London. There’s a cabal of solid Brummie writers, including Collett and Maureen Carter, whose books deserve to be better known. Dead of Night captures perfectly the city centre around New Street railway station and the Symphony Hall as well as those posher parts of town out in the suburbs.

Dead of Night is a solid and dependable read, and I enjoyed tracing the team’s progress round the bits of the city I know. I’m now going back to fill in the gaps and see what I’ve missed in Mariner’s complicated life.