Death in the Family by David Belbin

When I was around ten years old, I was obsessed with Agatha Christie novels. One of my favourite Christie books was One, Two, Buckle My Shoe which involved the solving of the murder of a dentist. Well, Lo and behold, many years later and I am asked to review a book called Death in the Family, a story which also involves the untimely death of a dentist. Death in the Family, however if more Rebus than Poirot, it is far grittier and racy than the cosy Upper Class England of Dame Agatha.

Death in the Family is the fourth of David Belbin’s crime and politics novels featuring Bone and Cane, and comes all of six years after the third instalment. It is self-contained, there really is no need to read its predecessors but as someone in that category I, while reading, had an inkling that, maybe, it would have helped. The novel is written as four sections of points of view, which I understand was an experiment for the Author, and one that seems to work well.

As I have already indicated, the novel, set in 2001 and around the General Election, begins with the suspicious death of a dentist, Omar, whose wife, Nazia, immediately comes under suspicion when Omar’s brother claims to have found a syringe in Nazia’s bedroom and that she was having an affair, possibly with Nick Cane.

The second element to the book revolves around the double murder from the previous novel The Great Deception, which the journalist Pete Carlson is determined to solve.

At the centre of all this is Sarah Bone MP, who is desperately trying to hold on to her Nottingham parliamentary seat, and the last thing she wants is the scandal that threatens to bubble up from both situations.

The story has a good few twists and turns, some I spotted coming (but then I am I big crime reader and difficult to side track) and has an unexpected twist in the tail, which was well worth waiting for. I liked the Author’s descriptions of Nottingham which made me think that his love for his city matched that of Ian Rankins for Edinburgh, no mean feat!

In conclusion, Death in the Family is far more Line of Duty than Murder on the Orient Express but, even for an old fashioned whodunnit aficionado like me, I would suggest it is worth giving a try.