The Cutting Season
by M.W. Craven
DETAILS: Series: Washington Poe, #3.5 Publisher: Constable Publication Date: April 14, 2022 Format: Kindle Edition Length: 105 pages Read Date: April 15-16, 2022
What’s The Cutting Season About?
In lieu of writing a synopsis, how about the first four paragraphs?
It started with an old lady.
An old lady who had stepped in front of a train.
There were gangsters and bent cops and a contract killer called the Pale Man, but they were not as important as the old lady. And neither was the dead good man who turned out to be a dead bad man.
In the years that followed, some people would forget about the old lady. They would forget that, if it was not for her, none of this would have happened. Nobody would have been murdered. Nobody would have dangled from a meat hook in a cold warehouse. Nobody would have called in the Pale Man.
There you go—there’s murder, there’s drama in a warehouse, there’s a man known by a title, and a dead woman. There’s your hook. Add in a detective from the National Crime agency—Washington Poe, who’s called in to help with the murder investigation (although he usually investigates serial killers)—and his friend/colleague who is a wizard with tech—Tilly Bradshaw—and you’ve got yourself the makings of a great thriller.
Quick Reads
The Cutting Season was one of eight novellas published this year as part of The Reading Agency’s Quick Reads program.
Quick Reads provide a route into reading that prioritises great story telling and adult-focused content while ensuring the books are written in an accessible and easy to read style. The books are written by some of the most popular authors in the UK – including Andy McNab, Jojo Moyes, Anne Cleeves, Ian Rankin and Benjamin Zephaniah – so they can be a brilliant entry point to new genres, authors as well as the spark to reignite or build up the joy of reading.
The Quick Reads programme has collaborated with over 30 publishers to produce a total of 135 titles since 2006 (many still available to borrow from your public library or buy from The Reading Agency’s bookshop) with over 5 million copies distributed and over 6 million library loans.
That just sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
So, what did I think about The Cutting Season?
This is a novella—short, sweet, to the point. Well, not that sweet—there’s a lot of dead people and threats to health and well-being. So it’s short and to the point. Think of it as a Washington Poe/Tilly Bradshaw novel in espresso form.
It’s got everything you want—a disturbing killing, Poe’s antics, Tilly saving the day—and as a nice bonus, there’s a chapter at the beginning where Poe is enjoying himself at the office with co-workers, so we get to see there’s more to him than just the single-visioned man we see when he’s on the case (a great way to introduce Poe and Tilly to new readers).
Given the streamlined way this story had to be told to fit, there weren’t any twists or nuance—for a 105-page novella, I’m fine with that. I think this’d work well to introduce Poe and Tilly to a reader who hasn’t done much in the genre before—and I could definitely see this convincing someone who really doesn’t read novels to give one in the series a shot.
As is to be expected from a M.W. Craven work, I strongly recommend this. I had a blast reading it, you will, too.
