The Night Watch
DETAILS: Series: DS Max Craigie Scottish Crime Thrillers, #3 Publisher: HQ Digital Publication Date: September 8, 2022 Format: eBook Length: 461 pg. Read Date: January 9-10
Being alive is dull, being dead is tedious. The transition is what counts. Watching him die made me feel more alive than I could ever describe to anyone.
What’s The Night Watch About?
After a high-profile trial, a drug dealer walks free. He and his lawyer go separate ways to celebrate and are both soon dead. Theoretically, the lawyer’s death wasn’t suspicious, but the dealer was clearly murdered. The coincidence is too much for Max and his team to believe—and they soon find the evidence to back that up. The two of them killed near the same time? That smells like a vigilante.
These weren’t the vigilante’s first two victims either. A tip from an oddly cooperative reporter puts them on the right track—the victims appear to all be connected with the same investigative team. A vigilante cop is the last thing that Craigie and the rest want to imagine—but now they have to stop the killer before they strike again.
The Killer’s POV
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned a time or twelve that I rarely find chapters from the Killer’s POV in a Detective/Procedural novel to be that effective. I figure I’m in the minority on this point—if only because authors keep using them. And after the first one in this book, I made the note, “Did we need this? Did it add anything?” and it took a while before I saw Lancaster’s point with them in this one.
But note “it took a while,” by the end—I saw (at least most of) what Lancaster was doing with these moments from the Killer’s POV. Not only did I understand the point, but I appreciated what he did with them.
So, what did I think about The Night Watch?
I’m tempted to just copy and paste what I said about the last Max Craigie book, The Blood Tide—it all fits, once I swap out the titles. The Blood Tide was a noticeable growth over everything Lancaster had written before, and The Night Watch is even better.
Some procedurals are about figuring out who did what, and some are about figuring out how to prove they did it—or apprehending them before they do something else. This is about all of those. But—like the others in this series—it’s also about the toll paid by those involved in stopping the killing.
There’s some good character development with all the characters—not just our protagonist. Although most of it is happening between novels, and we just get to see the effects—I really like that style, it’s so much easier to buy than growth in the middle of one case that takes place over a limited time.
The Night Watch had some very effective twists, some great reveals, and some genuine surprises. Yeah, I identified the killer right away—but Lancaster fooled me and I abandoned the idea—and I just love that. As always, Lancaster knows how to keep the reader turning pages because you just have to know what happens next. Basically, this is exactly what I’m looking for in a police procedural.
Wholly satisfying and it just made me more eager for the next DS Craigie book.
Read Irresponsibly, but please Comment Responsibly