Published by Freight Books in paperback.ISBN: 978-1-908754-47-9
Space scientist, trainee astronaut – and now published novelist at the
ripe age of 61. Hania Allen has led a varied and interesting life.
Technically
Jack in the Box is her second novel, but her print debut, as the first
was download-only. It caught my attention because of the theatreland setting,
but in fact has a far more grittier theme in which drugs, rent boys and
corruption in high places figure strongly.
There
are two parallel investigations, triggered by the brutal murder of Max Quincey,
a theatre director who is about to revive the play which was his greatest
success. His killing mirrors that of three rent boys fifteen years earlier,
when the play has its first outing. DCI Von Valenti is put in charge of a case
which is complicated by the fact that the latest victim is the brother of her
senior officer.
But
Von’s career has been troubled, and she has a lot to prove. She sees the
connection with the earlier deaths, and makes it her mission to seek justice
for the boys even when the odds stack up against her.
The
jack in the box in the title is exactly that: a chilling, sinister piece of
merchandizing which became a cult during the play’s first run and seems set for
a repeat performance. One of the toys was found at each of the earlier murders,
and another beside Max Quincey’s body.
Allen’s
main strength lies in her characters. Von Valenti herself is an interesting mix
of tough and vulnerable, especially when her past rears up to bite her. I
especially liked Rose, the theatre’s long-time wardrobe mistress, who has more
to her than meets the eye; and Sir Bernard, the sharp-eyed pathologist whose
‘Vulture’ nickname belies a kind heart.
The
novel isn’t without its problems. Some of the background would have benefitted
from more detailed research; and by the end I felt that Allen had been a little
over-ambitious, and could have saved some of the characters’ past history for
later in what seems set to become a series.
But
it’s well written, and has plenty going for it. It’s only her second novel, and
experience will smooth away the rough
edges.
Taken
overall, Jack in the Box is a workmanlike police procedural which
doesn’t shy away from the more unsavoury face of crime.
------
Reviewer: Lynne Patrick
Hania Allen was
born in Liverpool of Polish refugees. She always wanted to go into space and
came a fair way (but not far enough) in the Project Juno competition to find
Britain’s first astronaut. Her career in education culminated in
information management at the University of St Andrews, a post she left to
write full-time. When not writing, she plays the piano with her musically
gifted godchildren, making up for in enthusiasm what she lacks in talent. Hania
has lived in Scotland longer than anywhere else and loves the country and its
people, despite the nine months of rain and three months of bad weather.
She currently resides in a fishing village in Fife. Jack in the Box is her first published crime novel.
Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.
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