Neil CrossRecensioni

Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross is a 2011 Simon & Schuster publication.

My DH and I watched every Luther episode ever made- all without the benefit of having read this book first. While I kept intending to read it- I never quite managed to work it into my schedule… until I noticed it was part of the KU program. I immediately borrowed it, super excited by the prospect of getting to read a ‘Luther’ story.

I will confess, though, that both my husband and I were occasionally put off by the show due to the very dark nature of the plotlines. It seems we’ve both mellowed just a bit over the years. So, though I was somewhat prepared for a dark, gritty crime thriller I was not ready for the descriptions of one of the most heinous sorts of crimes out there. I had to take a few breaks before I was able to complete the novel.

This book is basically the setup for the series- the case that nearly breaks the unorthodox John Luther. This meant that “Alice” had not come along just yet- and I was a bit disappointed she was not a part of this book. I always thought the series was better when she was a part of it.

That said, John Luther is a flawed, complicated character-an anti-hero type who flaunts the rules and manages to somehow come out of it with his job still intact. The book is well-written and executed and is unflinchingly realistic at times- from the graphic depictions of the crimes and the criminals- but also the corruption and vigilantism. I am disappointed to see that a planned follow-up has never materialized. I’d love to see more installments in the series, even though I found this one a bit hard to get through due to its graphic nature and subject matter.

Overall, I was glad I finally got around to reading this book. I wish I’d done so before watching the show, though, as I feel it would have given me a better understanding of John’s actions in that first season. Even if you have not seen the show- if you like dark, twisted, gritty crime thrillers this is one you might want to consider.

4 stars

Sam is a widow and Father of Jamie his wife Justine recently dies.
Sam and Jamie move away from London to Sam's original home town.
They see more of Sam's sister Mel.
Sam has a job working in Social care at a local Mental hospital he doesn't really like it.
Jamie is getting bullied at school, Sam talks to the bullys Dad a man called Dave Hooper, it backfires and then the Hooper family make life a misery for Sam and Jamie.
Sam speaks to Mels ex husband Unca Frank he knows some dodgy folk.
They teach Dave Hooper a lesson nearly kill him.
Jamie gets left alone, Mel falls out with Sam. Things are ok for while then saddly Jamie kills himself.

Good but very sad book.½

Hard-boiled. That's what they used to call this sort of thing. I guess they still do. In any event, this is hard-boiled, even brutal, detective fiction. Sparse, hard-hitting prose. Gritty, realistic characters and settings. Bad, bad, bad guys. Basically decent, but driven cops that sometimes cross the line in order to get the bad guys and protect the innocent. Classic hard-boiled.

DCI (that's Detective Chief Inspector - this is a British novel, through and through) John Luther first came to life as a television character for the BBC. This novel, written by the show's creator and writer, is a prequel to the series, showing that the detective was just as driven, just as brilliant, before those episodes. It also shows a man tormented to the point that he cannot sleep and he can no longer connect with his wife. He is a driven man. Driven to use his powers of deduction and insight to find a serial killer. A killer that is stealing children for purposes that are beyond the imaginings of even DCI Luther. From page one you know he will not let up until he tracks down the fiend. Until the last page you do not know if he will succeed or destroy himself trying. Or perhaps both.

This is top-flight writing. As I said above, the prose is sparse and hard hitting and will keep you turning pages. Not a book for the squeamish. It's written in the present tense, which adds to the immediacy and probably reflects its origins in television. Highly recommended for those that can take it.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.

Gross content. Just seems like the author wants to shock people with depravity. Did not finish.

Compelling but absolutely disgusting in its relentless portrayal of sick minds and innocent people being murdered in the worst ways. This is as far as I can go. As much as I like Idris Elba and the other actors, this show is indefensible.

There is so much wrong with this show. The plots are zero percent believable and filled with the worst sort of human evil. The flawed hero has a Sherlock Holmes-like knack of walking into a crime scene or suspect's home and immediately arriving at the needed clue (or book being used for a code in one case). In one episode, the London police engage helicopters and all available resources, but when the killer goes to an industrial estate it is left to the detectives to get there in a car, even though they have already radioed in where he is going. Like London Kills, which is a pale imitation of this show and which I have also reviewed, this series gets by on its cast, but the cast of Luther is far superior. And the writing, while still ridiculously unbelievable and reveling in evil, is bad in a much better way than London Kills. It makes it hard to stop watching, even if it means seeing people get their heads bashed in by hammers at Liverpool Street Station or while sitting in their car during a traffic jam. My goodness, things aren't that bad in Britain, and the worst crimes have been committed by terrorists, not by evil twins, fake taxi drivers, or failed art students. Surely Britain can come up with a more intelligent crime show for this stellar cast to appear in.

Great cast and acting, but the scripts are beyond sick. The bad guy may get his or her desserts in the end, but not until they have shot, stabbed, cut out tongues, blown up people, etc. etc. etc. Only the fascinating, but also rather sick, relationship between Idris Elba's and Ruth Walker's characters keeps me watching.

loved loved loved it! it also helped that I pictured idris elba as dci luther

Fucking great

"One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered." Michael J.Fox

As the book opens Sam’s wife Justine has just cruelly died from a degenerative brain disorder and he decides to move back to his home-town with his thirteen year old son, Jamie. Assisted by Sam’s sister, Mel, Sam and Jamie move into their new home, Sam gets a job as a psychiatric nurse at the local mental hospital, and Jamie begins school at Churchill Comprehensive. Initially the move goes well but when Sam realises that Jamie is the object of bullying things begin to go downhill. Faced with an indifferent school administration Sam takes matters into his own hands.

Always the Sun is not what you would call an uplifting or inspiring read by any means. What's more I certainly wouldn't recommend this to some one who who was already struggling with depression or had themselves suffered at the hand of bullies. My copy of this book had the tagline on the front cover of "All he wanted to do is keep his son safe" but as I have seen on other copies the question should be “How far would you go to protect your child?” This isn't because of the actual bullying which despite being undoubtedly cruel is subtle rather than vicious but rather the emotions that it instils in the reader and certainly the book left me with an uncomfortable after-taste when I finished it.

As a parent I thought that Always the Sun was certainly depressing, unsettling and disturbing, but it is also an impressive piece of writing. Author Neil Cross might take things to extremes but at the centre of this story asks his readers to question what we would do if we were in Sam’s shoes and that in my books can be no bad thing.

"Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right." Theodore Roosevelt½

If you've enjoyed Luther on TV Luther Season 1, this is required reading. Fairly standard crime thriller, but well done, and with all the back story you need: this novel is basically the prequel to episode 1. Brilliant.

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

I first got interested in Mr. In-Between when I learned Neil Cross is behind the series Luther and used to work on Spooks. While I was expecting it to be a raw story, I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for the thoroughly depressing world of Jon.

As an assassin to The Tattooed Man he kills and maims on order, without ever feeling anything about it. It is not just his job, but everything that seems to have this dark, gruesome and hopeless atmosphere. Even when he meets some people from 'before' and he is said to re-enter the normal world, a feeling left me wondering whether he was being pulled there, or was he not pulling them with him into the darkness.

Nice is not a term to describe a novel like this. I can't even say I enjoyed reading it. But somehow it did have something interesting. However, I bore quickly from lengthy descriptions of torture and I'm not sure I would read more books by Mr. Cross.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This book is ok bit confusing at times though.
Its really about 2 main characters and how they get to come together.
1st man is Andrew who fakes his death and becomes Jack Sheppard he moves from Bristol to London under his new identity. He does miss his old life though.

2nd man is Police Detective William Holloway who also after a botched rescue mission runs away with the Ransom money. Holloway has a past of being extremely violent.

Andrew/Jack has premonitions about future bad events, He ends up in New Zealand and meets up with Holloway, they meet the family of the murdered girl and slowly figure out what happened to her.
This book lost its way a bit and really confused me.

Portrait painter Kenny Drummond learns that he will die of a brain tumor in a few weeks. He has relatives and friends to reach out to, and he does, but his focus is on the people he believes that he owes. He makes a list. The last name on that list is the little girl who was his only friend in the English version of upper elementary school. He learns that she married, was abused by her husband, and then disappeared, with the husband the only suspect. Drummond is neither a detective, a kidnapper, or a torturer, but he does what he must, in the true British manner. This was not a sweet, charming story, but a plausible psychological thriller with convincing twists and characters that you understood, even the bad ones.½

The ease with which Cross conjures the image and voice of John Luther is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I've read a lot of very high quality tie-in products to movies and TV shows where, as here, the creator is personally the author of the spin-off product as well. Usually, when they're done well, if I read a line of dialogue conscious of the character's voice and mannerisms in my head, I can hear and see the character in my mind's eye, as though played by the on-screen actor.

With "The Calling", I never had to try. John Luther was voiced and played by Idris Elba for me when reading this, in every line, every move, every thought. To say this adds to the experience is an understatement ... but the book really doesn't need nor rely on this. The plotting is exciting -- albeit horrific in typical Luther fashion -- and impressingly able to shed lights on the backstory immediately preceding the first series of the TV show. Somehow, it does this without undermining the weight of its own narrative, and I'd be very surprised if people uninitiated to the TV series would not also find this crime thriller very enjoyable.

The writing is sparse and efficient, conveying more vivid behaviours and character insights in clipped, short phrases than most authors manage in a half-page of florid descriptions. A particular strength here is Cross' ability to have the reader learn not only about the character speaking, but also the character listening, in nearly any given scene.

If you like the TV series at all, you positively must read this book. And if you haven't watched the TV series, this book takes place before it, so if a tortured but brilliant London detective chasing a horrible murderer for 340ish pages sound at all appealing, there's no reason not to jump in right here.

Quick engrossing read. I hadn't read any of his before this one. Very Hitchcockian. I have Captured waiting for me.

Quite simply, this is an excellent book that I'd recommend to any crime fan.

“Closure may never come. And if it does come, it may not be what you were hoping for.”

Zoe, when referring to Luther: “So I tell him this, all about myself. Then I ask him about himself, and he tells me about books. As if he's made up of all these books he's read, or was going to read.”

My first Neil Cross, and it won’t be my last.

I’m not familiar with the TV Series. This book, I’m told, works as prequel to the series. I’m going to rectify soon the fact that I’ve never seen it.

I was not prepared for it. There was a lot of gore, including the deaths of animals and children. The book is ghastly, gory and not for the faint of heart. Would I still recommend it? Without a shadow of a doubt. It’s a solid Crime Fiction (Horror?) novel that manages to be a great addition to the genre with no pretensions or designs to be anything other than being a piece of wonderful Crime Writing.

You can read the rest of this review on my blog.

This is the story of a boy who is lost amidst the totally incomprehensible doings of the adults in his life. The adults do untold damage to this child and have no idea what is going on in his life.
The one adult who takes him in hand, and who he idolises, is his stepfather, a basically empty person. One of the few good things this man does in Neil's life is turn him onto books.
Well and simply written.

If you've enjoyed Luther on TV Luther Season 1, this is required reading. Fairly standard crime thriller, but well done, and with all the back story you need: this novel is basically the prequel to episode 1. Brilliant.

Six weeks. That’s the sum total of life remaining for Kenny Drummond who has inoperable brain cancer. He is a portrait artist. Mary is his ex-wife. He gives her the portraits he’d created of her. She knows something is wrong, but Kenny decides to keep it to himself – at least for now. As he thinks back on his life, he makes a list of people he feels he’s let down. They are: Mary; Mr. Jeganathon; Thomas Kintry; and Callie Barton. He only has six weeks to make it right.

He manages to resolve most matters to his satisfaction, but then there’s Callie. She had been his best friend when they were in junior school together. Then one day she just disappeared from class. He was told she moved. Now in present day, he wants to find her so he hires Pat Maxwell, a local and the closest thing they have to a PI. She finds good news and bad news for Kenny. She confirmed Callie’s parents had moved to London. However, in 2004, she’d been hospitalized with a broken wrist and cracked ribs. This info was in the police file. Callie didn’t press charges. Her husband was suspect. Kenny goes to seek justice for Callie. He tracks down her husband, Jonathan Reese.

This story took place near Bristol in South West England. As a psychological thriller, it certainly held my interest. Kenny and Mary had divorced. She remarried Stever five years before and they had two children. They are all close friends. Kenny and Mary even still say “I love you” to each other. I know that brain tumors can change one’s personality, but I found some of the changes to be somewhat unlikely. Additionally, in one scene, Kenny managed to ‘vault’ over furniture. If he was becoming weak as it was portrayed, he would not be able to ‘vault’ over anything. My rating for Captured is 3.5 out of 5.½

This is a fairly brutal psychological thriller and if you like that kind of thing you will like this book. I am not overly enthusiastic. The three stars are for the technical competence of the writing.

I received an advance review copy of "Captured" by Neil Cross (Open Road Integrated Media) through NetGalley.com.

A quick and easy murder mystery. The basic plot is interesting and there are a couple of surprises, but the ending and the characters leave the reader feeling empty. Although that may be the point. I kept picturing Javier Bardem as one of the characters. The author nails the suspenseful scenes. For readers of dark murder mysteries.

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It was a slow starter but it slowly gained momentum. I can't remember a story more different than this one. Not only was it a good mystery but a study of what could go wrong in some people. I don't want to give anything away because it would ruin it. I must say that this is well worth the read. Don't put it down because you will get hooked.