8 books like Roy Grace

Few characters in crime fiction are as charismatic as Charles Paris, a struggling actor whose career has more ups and downs than a seesaw. Simon Brett presents us with a fascinating character, a middle-aged man who is endearing even though he is a drunk and a womaniser. 

There is always a murder whether Paris is acting in weekly rep or has a cameo role in a film. So Much Blood involves Paris appearing at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Brett skilfully weaves in the drama of putting on a show and the dynamism of the Scottish city with Paris’ occasionally amateurish sleuthing as he tries to uncover who committed the crime. Excellent entertainment.

Peter Robinson has managed to create a character, DCI Alan Banks, who remains likeable even though he can be petty, headstrong and displays behavioural traits not expected of a top police officer. We can all empathise with him when he acts in a way that causes him shame and regret.

In Strange Affair he’s become depressed after a devastating fire at his cottage. But he’s shaken out of his lethargy when he gets a telephone call to say his estranged brother Roy is missing and Roy’s girlfriend has been shot dead. 

The clever plot involves Banks digging into his brother’s life and discovering Roy’s dodgy business practices which threaten to engulf Banks whose life is in danger. It’s one of Robinson’s best thrillers.

The 12th and final novel in John Harvey’s series about Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick, the jazz-loving, exotic sandwich-eating loner who investigates crimes in the East Midlands city of Nottingham where I’ve spent a lot of my working life.

Darkness, Darkness is partly set in 1984 during the miners’ strike which threatened to tear England apart. Thirty years later the remains of a young woman, an activist who campaigned for justice while her husband continued to work during the strike, are found in a garden.

You root for Resnick, the world-weary detective who despite coming across every possible flaw in the human condition is still driven to bring criminals to justice – even if this means troubled times in his life come back to haunt him.

For more than three decades Ian Rankin has been the master of “tartan noir” – police procedural fiction set in Scotland. The curmudgeonly, hard-faced, no-nonsense detective Inspector John Rebus has a tendency to bend the rules as investigations take over his life.

A Song For The Dark Times starts with Rebus’ daughter Samantha calling him to say her husband is missing. Rebus fears the worst and from his experience realises that his daughter will be the prime suspect. You’re always on the edge of your seat wondering whether Rebus will have to prevent the truth from coming out and compromising his position as an upholder of the law.

The Black House is a Scottish-based mystery featuring the remote Hebridean island of Lewis. I loved how May captures the essence of this island in this trilogy and uses actual historical and cultural events to weave the plot. Each of the Scottish Isles has its own unique culture, and I love how May explores this through the interactions between the characters from Lewis and mainland Scotland. 

I also really enjoyed the character arc and the prodigal-son-esque storyline of jaded detective Fin Macleod returning home. As he solves the murders, he has to face his own dark past.  

In this book, the author uses a new character Elvira (her character reappears in subsequent books) who leads the reader forward in the first person, a breakaway from the usual (close) third person in the other books in the series. Her voice is so clear, you can’t help but fall in love with her strange quirks. She is a medical student and trained in body combat. Elvira’s sister has been missing for 59 days and she can’t get the police interested enough to take her seriously. Her sister was an adult after all and left with a packed bag. Anderson and Costello eventually do get involved as more and more young women disappear.

The action in this novel is fast and furious. It left me breathless at times. I had to put the book down and walk away a few times near the end it was that intense.

In A Litter of Bones, DCI Logan is sent to investigate a child’s disappearance and is suddenly thrown back to a previous case of a child disappearance and death he was involved in solving. The killer called Mr. Whispers is in prison, so why are children disappearing in the same manner as when he was out? Logan is perplexed. Can his small band of misfit detectives with Police Scotland handle the case? I haven’t read a suspenseful book that made me laugh out loud, and then cry a few pages later like this. The funny Scottish words, the author throws in occasionally like a wee delicious tidbit, were enough to set me laughing, too.

The series continues and still makes me laugh, while unable to turn pages fast enough to find out what happens next. Really, if you want a laugh while reading incredible suspense, you’re going to want… show more.

It may be a cliche but my first experience with nordic noir was The Killing (Forbrydelsen). This Danish TV series in which inspector Sarah Lund goes in search of the murderer of a young girl fascinated me enormously. Not only because of the oppressive atmosphere that grabs you by the throat at times, but also because of the fantastic character development. The series was created by Søren Sveistrup, the author of the equally magisterial The Chestnut Man. The book begins when a young woman is found horribly mutilated in a playground on a chilly October morning. Next to her is a doll made of chestnuts and sticks. When a chestnut man is also found at the scene of a subsequent murder, it is clear that a serial killer is at work.