Hawthorn & Child
Keith Ridgway
Hawthorn & Child
The two protagonists of the title are mid-ranking policemen operating amongst London's criminal classes, but each is plagued by dreams of elsewhere and, in the case of Hawthorn, a nightlife of visceral intensity that sits at odds with his carefully-composed placid family mask but has the habit of spilling over into his working life as a policeman. Ridgway has much to say, through showing not telling, about male violence, crowd psychology, the borders between play and abuse, and the motivations of policemen and criminals. But this is no humdrum crime novel.
4.0 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction, Crime, Thrillers & Mystery |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
288 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
July 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1847085269 |
| Publisher |
Granta |
| |
The two protagonists of the title are mid-ranking policemen operating amongst London's criminal classes, but each is plagued by dreams of elsewhere and, in the case of Hawthorn, a nightlife of visceral intensity that sits at odds with his carefully-composed placid family mask but has the habit of spilling over into his working life as a policeman. Ridgway has much to say, through showing not telling, about male violence, crowd psychology, the borders between play and abuse, and the motivations of policemen and criminals. But this is no humdrum crime novel.
Reviews
The Guardian
Scarlett Thomas
“… incredibly good … then there's the really dark stuff: something like The Bill being directed by Braindead-era Peter Jackson and written up by Irvine Welsh. A baby is dropped down the stairs. A woman dies by simultaneously asphyxiating and burning to death (it's not clear whether she did this to herself, or someone else was behind it). The editor peels skin off his victims. This world of missing connections is indeed like the actual world, perhaps too much like it, and Hawthorn and Child, who see the worst of it, make rather unnerving company.”
11/07/2012
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The Observer
Killian Fox
“This is a detective novel in which the mysteries of people's lives threaten to overshadow mysteries born of criminal activity. The crime that gives the novel its initial momentum fades away like the half-glimpsed vintage car, never to reappear. We don't witness the detectives solving anything of particular note: they, too, are preoccupied by personal issues. Hawthorn is openly gay and has to put up with constant ribbing from colleagues and his own family. And his grip on the reality of his job grows increasingly strained.”
29/07/2012
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The Independent
Leyla Sanai
“One of Ridgway's key aims is to reflect the reality about events in life – that, unlike stories in books, they very seldom have a defined beginning, middle and end. To illustrate this, many of the stories and protagonists here have no clear resolution and are left hanging (sometimes literally). The drawback to a format such as Ridgway's is that his characters are so compelling and the situations in which he thrusts them so gripping that there's an inevitable sense of frustration – no, incompletion – when threads are left untied”
29/08/2012
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The Literary Review
Sam Kitchener
“Hawthorn & Child insists that the satisfactions we expect from fiction – an authoritative account of human motivation; a sense of narrative resolution – are carried away from us, as they are in life, by the dizzying emptiness of language. It is an attitude that could feel tired, but this sly, strange and quietly wonderful book also reminds us that talent is always innovative. ”
01/11/2012
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