Dying Fall

Quite often when I see that a book is 23rd in a series, I start looking around for sharks being jumped and characters looking as tired as the cheese sarnies on a train. So let’s strew flowers at Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ shapely feet for keeping DCI Bill Slider and his team steaming on serenely.

It’s only fair to point out that you know exactly what you’re going to get with a book in the Slider series: some of the best and funniest dialogue around and a slice of life in west London where class differences still hang around like the crusts of yesterday’s bacon sandwich. The police team do genuinely seem to like each other, even if they do moan about DS Atherton, Slider’s bagman, shagging around (yep, I know how they feel).

Atherton ranks high up on the smart-arse scale with his word play and constant witty ripostes. But he and Slider, who’s one of life’s pragmatists, work well in tandem. And on the subject of words, I’m very fond of Detective Superintendent Porson and his constant mangling of phrases. In the wrong hands we’d be encouraged to see him as a figure of fun. In Harrod-Eagles’ tender care, yes, we do laugh at his eccentric language – but also click that he’s a no-nonsense, old-fashioned cop who’s got his team’s backs.

Previous books in the series capture the two extremes of Slider’s west London patch, with both council estates and posh villa-style houses. Dying Fall has the assiduous PC D’Arblay investigating one of the latter following an anonymous tip-off. He finds a young woman dead at the foot of the stairs. It all seems blindingly obvious – she fell down the stairs and hit her head. Except, even though there’s a deep wound on her head, there’s no blood trail down the stairs …

Dying Fall is a slow burner where Slider and Co have to find out who the woman is, hampered by no murder weapon or clear motive. There’s lots of plodding (so to speak) around London interviewing posh sorts and those less so. And rarely for me, given I tend to get more hooked by characterisation rather than plot mechanics, I guessed whodunit and whydunit quite some way from the end. Expect, as well, the usual snapshots from Slider’s amiable but faintly chaotic home life.

It’s not one of the standout books in this series, as the plot is a touch underwhelming and the pace might politely be described as sedate. But its strength is the supporting cast, where Harrod-Eagles inks in cameos of the likes of D’Arblay, Elsie and the wonderfully named Rancid Ron with an affectionate hand. And as always, there’s a deceptive layer of steel under the frothy dialogue.