No story end spoilers are in this review:
Les Clarke on launch day with his book
Les Clarke published his first novel, Kevin Doyle R.I.P in 2017 to rave reviews, a local Bournemouth author and award winning playwright his first novel is now also receiving much accolade including that of mountaineer Kirsty Brooks who enjoyed the book so much she took it 5300m up Mt Everest.
In our story we meet Kevin Doyle, a person like so many others struggling to make his way in the world surviving on limited income and his benefits. One sunny day he decides to go fishing, something he has not done in a very long time. The catch he makes is definitely one he was not expecting and it leads him on journey which has profound repercussions in his life.
Down at the lake he fishes out of the water a body, the body of a young female adorned with rings and jewellery. Realising this can help potentially alleviate many of his financial problems he takes the jewellery from the body, including the cutting off of her fingers to extract the rings before allowing the body to again slip back into the water where he hopes it will remain undiscovered. The jewellery he decides to pawn. Unbeknown to him the body was the wife of a gangster who sets out to find out who murdered his wife with the assumption that the person pawning the jewellery must have something to do with it.
This is a compelling story which just keeps going; it’s a good, well thought out story without too much padding. The only slight adverse comment I can make is that for my liking it did suffer from a slight overuse of bad language, yes stories have to be true to life so I do have to be fair and say on this occasion it probably did fit in the culture of the story. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will eagerly look forward to the author’s next work.
Rating: 4/5
Author: Les Clarke
Published by: Austin Macauley
Pages: 293
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback and Kindle
ISBN: 9781786939609
Reviewed by: Fred Williams, Poole, February 2018