Gerald Cartwright disappeared six years ago but his body isn’t found until his son starts renovation work on the family home. Gerald was still alive when he was bricked up behind a new wall…
Firewatching is the first book in the DS Adam Tyler series of police procedurals.
Adam Tyler struggles to fit in at work. He leads on cold cases so is separate from his colleagues who run active investigations. He is gay and his police officer father killed himself, both of which also put him at odds with his colleagues. On this case though, Adam needs the team to put personal differences aside and focus on working together to catch a killer. He works alongside an ambitious young constable who wants to get into CID but the pair have a bumpy working relationship.
Added to Adam’s troubles is the fact that Gerald Cartwright’s son Oscar is a suspect. Adam and Oscar had a one night stand the night before the discovery of the body and now Adam needs to put his conflicted emotions to one side to find the truth. The murder of Gerald is linked with a series of arson attacks and readers are also aware that two old ladies are being blackmailed. There are multiple layers for Adam to consider and I was kept guessing until the end.
There are no chapters as such, instead the book is divided into days. This means that the chronology of the plot is meticulous and detailed, and the pace is rather slow at first. There are breaks as the narrative moves between the experience of various characters, showing the investigation as well potential suspects. Each day starts with an anonymous ‘post’ by someone obsessed with fire and the connection to the main plot is not revealed until later.
I really liked Adam’s character. He has a lot of depth and emotional baggage but his career means a lot to him so he wants to succeed and prove himself. He struggles socially and emotionally which demonstrates a vulnerable side. I enjoyed his friend’s attempts to bring him out of his shell and accept and celebrate his homosexuality as a key component of his persona. I thought that the homophobic jibes experienced by Adam were unpleasant but sadly they felt authentic.
Firewatching is an enjoyable start to a new series with a strong lead character.
Book blurb:
A police procedural introducing Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, a cold case reviewer who lands a high-profile murder investigation, only to find the main suspect is his recent one-night stand . . .
When financier Gerald Cartwright disappeared from his home six years ago, it was assumed he’d gone on the run from his creditors. But then a skeleton is found bricked up in the cellar of Cartwright’s burned-out mansion, and it becomes clear Gerald never left alive.
As the sole representative of South Yorkshire’s Cold Case Review Unit, Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is not expected to get results, but he knows this is the case that might finally kick start his floundering career. Luckily, he already has a suspect. Unluckily, that suspect is Cartwright’s son, the man Tyler slept with the night before.
Keeping his possible conflict-of-interest under wraps, Tyler digs into the case alongside Amina Rabbani, an ambitious young Muslim constable and a fellow outsider seeking to prove herself on the force. Soon their investigation will come up against close-lipped townsfolk, an elderly woman with dementia who’s receiving mysterious threats referencing a past she can’t remember, and an escalating series of conflagrations set by a troubled soul intent on watching the world burn . . .
