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    Good Bait: A Novel
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    Good Bait: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Good Bait: A Novel
    Ebook380 pages4 hours

    Good Bait: A Novel

    By John Harvey

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A stunning new crime novel from the Cartier Diamond Dagger winner and London Times bestselling author

    When a 17-year-old Moldovan boy is found dead on Hampstead Heath, the case falls to DCI Karen Shields and her overstretched Homicide & Serious Crime Unit. Karen knows she needs a result. What she doesn’t know is that her new case is tied inextricably to a much larger web of gang warfare and organised crime which infiltrates almost every aspect of London society.
    Several hundred miles away in Cornwall, Detective Inspector Trevor Cordon is stirred from his day-to-day duties by another tragic London fatality. Travelling to the capital and determined to establish the cause of death and trace the deceased’s daughter, Cordon becomes entangled in a complicated situation of his own. A situation much closer to Karen’s case than either of them will ever know.
    Brilliantly plotted and filled with rich, subtle characters, John Harvey’s latest novel reveals him once again as a masterful writer with his finger firmly on the pulse of twenty-first century crime.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPegasus Books
    Release dateJan 8, 2013
    ISBN9781453271568
    Unavailable
    Good Bait: A Novel
    Author

    John Harvey

    John Harvey has been writing crime fiction for more than forty years. His first novel, Lonely Hearts, was selected by The Times as one of the '100 Best Crime Novels of the Century' and he has been the recipient of both the silver and diamond dagger awards.

    Read more from John Harvey

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    Reviews for Good Bait

    3/5

    5 ratings6 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      So-so, but I still miss the old Resnick. Harvey's newest policeman is a bit more flawed than is appealing.
    • 4/5
      "Good Bait" by John Harvey is a stand-alone novel written by the highly regarded author of the Charlie Resnick series, a number of single novels and two or three other series. He won a Dagger for the first in the Resnick series, Flesh and Blood. GB has two cop protagonists, Cordon, a police detective on the English sw coast, and Karen, a detective chief inspector in London. Karen's story begins with the discovery of a 17 year old male's body in a frozen pond, and it quickly becomes only one more in an already heavy caseload of unsolved murders. Not much of note happens in Cordon's sleepy little town, until he is approached by a somewhat familiar woman. Years ago, Cordon tried to help a young girl who was on a path to drugs and prostitution, now her mother reports her missing somewhere in London. Meanwhile, new crimes and many new characters surface in Karen's life, and some of the crimes she is working on begin to link to each other. Back and forth the story flows between these two characters. When and how, if ever, will they link up? I had a fair amount of difficulty following the Karen portion of the story - wish I had kept a scorecard of all the characters and their linkages to each other. And there is a fire toward the end that made absolutely no sense to me. But the story was well done, interesting, and moved along at a brisk pace, and had plenty of interesting characters. I'll read another Harvey or two.
    • 4/5
      In his latest novel John Harvey shows a reassuring return to form.In his famous series featuring Charlie Resnick, the long-suffering, jazz- and cat-loving Detective Inspector based in Nottingham, Harvey showed his deftness at managing multiple plot lines. Here he takes that to a new pitch with one of the most intricate and involved plots that I have read recently, though the quality of his prose, and the intrinsic plausibility of his characters are such that the reader's attention doesn't wane.In Good Bait there are two separate storylines unfolding. Firstly the investigation, led by DCI Karen Shields, into the murder of a young Moldovan man whose corpse is found frozen into one of the ponds on Hampstead Heath. Meanwhile, DI Trevor Cordon, reduced to marking time in Newlyn in Cornwall, is approached by a face from the past when a degenerate figure from his past asks for help tracing her daughter. He finds himself dragged into an uncompromising subculture of drugs and violence as he tries to help.As the story proceeds we see more deeply into the mire of people trafficking and drug smuggling, though, as always with Harvey, there is a marvellous jazz-based soundtrack to ease some of the pain.The plot resolution is deft, and Shields emerges as a fine character in her own right after her earlier cameos in some of the Resnick books. I look forward to reading more about her.
    • 2/5
      John Harvey is an accomplished novelist with several fine pieces to his credit. Good Bait: A Novel is Harvey’s latest offering and despite rave reviews and a good opening I found it ultimately disappointing.

      Having read several of Harvey’s previous efforts I found Good Bait had the strengths I have come to expect. Characters are finely drawn, interesting, with both flaws and admirable qualities. These are people I wanted to get to know, admire or despise and ultimately care about. The plot is robust, convoluted and complex. Dialogue is artfully used to move the story along. Two story lines, two smart cops, bring the reader glimpses of relationships hidden to the main characters but ultimately critical to the story’s final resolution.

      The first case involves the murder of a 17-year-old Moldovan boy found in a frozen pond, assigned to DCI Karen Shields and her team. But more bodies pile up and there is every appearance that all the mess is related. Separately, Cornwall DI Trevor Cordon is troubled by the death of a woman he’s known, is her death in the London Tube suicide, accident or murder? Well outside his realm of responsibility he takes time off and calls in favors to poke around until he become embroiled in a plot bigger than he could have expected.

      This is a police procedural. It gives a solid view of methods, problems and even technologies used by the UK police. It does this quite well. It is accurate, authentic and believable. But it like many crime stories it is ultimately a character study and here it falls short. While there is a stark contrast between the thirty-ish Jamaican Shields and the fifty-ish Cordon these differences are never fully developed. There is only a hint of the racism and sexism Shields must have experienced. She is efficient, a sound investigator and manager but she is sterile and left this reader wanting to know more. Condon is aptly described as a lonely, divorced old cop waiting for his retirement but his emotions and motivations are at times vague. There are glimpses of the workings of his mind but they are all too brief.

      I found the vast cast of characters, good guys and bad, a challenge to keep straight. The multitude of UK place and roads names, to this reader who is not familiar with the county, also became a distraction.
      I read the Kindle version of Good Bait. I found spelling and formatting errors throughout. This novel came from a major publishing house. Don’t they have editors or readers anymore? These errors, in addition to the British spell, Harvey is after all a British author, were a distraction but unfortunately, I have come to expect this from Kindle books.

      Good Bait, while a good read, was ultimately a disappointment. It needs more characterization and a conclusion that ties the initial murder back into the plot. I give it a lukewarm one thumb up.
    • 3/5
      Some titles describe the book others don't and some titles have nothing to do with anything 'Good Bait' is a good title but it gets a little over used in the story itself - the story is kinda okay but rambles on too much in places with the old white cop and of course the all new black female cop. The kid in the middle is just there and at times I wish he wasn't - it's not a bad read it's just the title is too good for the book
    • 2/5
      John Harvey is an accomplished novelist with several fine pieces to his credit. Good Bait: A Novel is Harvey’s latest offering and despite rave reviews and a good opening I found it ultimately disappointing.

      Having read several of Harvey’s previous efforts I found Good Bait had the strengths I have come to expect. Characters are finely drawn, interesting, with both flaws and admirable qualities. These are people I wanted to get to know, admire or despise and ultimately care about. The plot is robust, convoluted and complex. Dialogue is artfully used to move the story along. Two story lines, two smart cops, bring the reader glimpses of relationships hidden to the main characters but ultimately critical to the story’s final resolution.

      The first case involves the murder of a 17-year-old Moldovan boy found in a frozen pond, assigned to DCI Karen Shields and her team. But more bodies pile up and there is every appearance that all the mess is related. Separately, Cornwall DI Trevor Cordon is troubled by the death of a woman he’s known, is her death in the London Tube suicide, accident or murder? Well outside his realm of responsibility he takes time off and calls in favors to poke around until he become embroiled in a plot bigger than he could have expected.

      This is a police procedural. It gives a solid view of methods, problems and even technologies used by the UK police. It does this quite well. It is accurate, authentic and believable. But it like many crime stories it is ultimately a character study and here it falls short. While there is a stark contrast between the thirty-ish Jamaican Shields and the fifty-ish Cordon these differences are never fully developed. There is only a hint of the racism and sexism Shields must have experienced. She is efficient, a sound investigator and manager but she is sterile and left this reader wanting to know more. Condon is aptly described as a lonely, divorced old cop waiting for his retirement but his emotions and motivations are at times vague. There are glimpses of the workings of his mind but they are all too brief.

      I found the vast cast of characters, good guys and bad, a challenge to keep straight. The multitude of UK place and roads names, to this reader who is not familiar with the county, also became a distraction.
      I read the Kindle version of Good Bait. I found spelling and formatting errors throughout. This novel came from a major publishing house. Don’t they have editors or readers anymore? These errors, in addition to the British spell, Harvey is after all a British author, were a distraction but unfortunately, I have come to expect this from Kindle books.

      Good Bait, while a good read, was ultimately a disappointment. It needs more characterization and a conclusion that ties the initial murder back into the plot. I give it a lukewarm one thumb up.