Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham

Published by Orion

For rookie detective constable Fiona Griffiths, her first major investigation promises to be a tough initiation into Cardiff’s dark underbelly.

A young woman and her six-year-old daughter have been found brutally murdered in a squalid flat, the single clue a platinum credit card belonging to a millionaire businessman who died in a plane crash six months before.

For her fellow cops, it’s just another case of a low-rent prostitute meeting the wrong kind of client and coming to a nasty end, but Fiona is convinced that the tragic lives and cruel deaths of this mother and daughter are part of a deeper, darker mystery.

Fiona, however, has secrets of her own.

She is still recovering from a crushing psychological breakdown, and the feelings which haunt her are constantly threatening to undermine the mask of normality she has learned to wear.

As she begins to piece together a bizarre and terrifying conspiracy, Fiona finds that what makes her vulnerable also gives her a unique insight into the secrets of the dead, and in solving the murders of Janet and April Mancini she can begin to start solving the riddles of her own past.

This is most definitely one of those ‘I’d love to tell you lots more, but to do so would certainly spoil your enjoyment’ kind of crime fiction books.

I was fortunate and honoured to be invited along for a lunch with Harry Bingham and other Orion crime authors during the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at the weekend and was amused to see him having to stall at talking about his own book when introduced to anyone who hadn’t read it.

When approaching a novel written by somebody known for writing guides on how to write it’s often a little disappointing, but from this crime debut it is made clear in the very first pages that Harry Bingham really knows what he’s talking about – this is a novel with a story and a character that will grab readers from page one and haul them inside.

The central crime plot is more than enough to keep the reader turning the pages, but it’s whatever is going on with Fiona in the background and the reasons for her strange reactions and behaviour that really get their hooks in.  And to discover that the reasoning behind her condition is something based on fact in the closing of the book will shake you to the core.

More please, and make it soon !

You can check out an interview with Harry Bingham here.

Keith