'Ashes to Ashes' by Paul Finch

Ashes to Ashes by Paul Finch is a detective thriller novel. The main character is Mark Heckenburg, otherwise known as Heck, and it is the sixth book written by Finch featuring this character. I picked up this book from the front desk of the hotel that I am staying at in Bali. I have been stuck here due to the pandemic, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Luckily the boss has a decent stash of English books which he is willing to lend me. This was the first one I picked up, as such, it is not the sort of book I’d usually be interested in. To be honest, I don’t like crime thrillers. Even all those detective shows like CSI and Bones, and the books of the same genre – they just don’t interest me. I am not sure why I have this predisposition, because nevertheless, despite my lack of interest, I found this book very enjoyable.

As a matter of interest, Paul Finch, the author, is a former cop and journalist, and has now become a full-time writer. He therefore knows the grisly details of administrative technicalities of police work, and is able to transpose his experience into his novels, which I appreciate. He has written for a British TV crime drama called The Bill, and is best known for this thrillers and crime novels. The first three novels in the Detective Mark Heckenburg series all become bestsellers. Apparently the more recent entries in the series have been less successful. Anyways, the books in the series, from 1 to 6 are titled: Stalkers, Sacrifice, The Killing Club, Dead Man Walking, Hunted, A Wanted Man, Ashes to Ashes, Kiss of Death. So there are so far 7 books, and I came in fresh on the sixth. I may not have the necessary context to fully appreciate this character. But I never felt as though there was missing knowledge. It was entertaining and easy to understand as a stand-alone story.

The book begins in London, where the police are investigating a torturer-for-hire named John Sagan. He is a freelance man, working for various mobsters to get information by torturing people in the back of his van, which is known as the pain box. The police become aware of this guy because a prostitute named Penny Flint came to give them information after having survived a session in the pain box. There are some pretty disgusting details revealed about what John Sagan did to her, and you get the impression that he is a sadistic psychopath. Anyways, the hunt for Sagan leads the police back to a city called Bradburn, which is where Heck grew up. He is forced to go up to Bradburn to continue working on the case there, but is confronted with unresolved traumas from his past. He has no choice but to struggle with these traumas throughout the book and it becomes intriguing to see how he remains so focused on the case while also having to deal with a dark and painful past.

When they arrive up in Bradburn, the police are confronted with a web of underground gangs who are at war with each other as well as a separate serial killer named the Incinerator. He got this title because he kills by flamethrower, torching his victims to ashes – hence the title of the novel. So there are two psychopathic criminals, a serial killer and a torturer, that the police are trying to capture, as well as two criminal gangs who complicate matters. We are exposed to the dark underbelly of the post-industrial town, with all its horrors, including drug use, prostitution and corruption.

Being in self-imposed quarantine for fear of getting sick, I was able to read through this book quick. There were times that I found it quite gripping and was reluctant to put it down. Other times, I was a little bored. For instance, often I felt that the action scenes were too long. There would be a chase, for example, that would go on for five pages, and I was tempted to skip through it and see how it is resolved a few pages later. Maybe I am unique in this way, but as a reader I don’t care about every step the character takes while chasing a criminal down a back alley. I don’t care about which street they turned onto, which fence they jumped over. I understand that it is good, detailed, description, but I was more interested in the story than the action.

That’s a very mild complaint, though. I grew to appreciate Paul Finch’s writing style as the book went on. I thought the dialogue was realistic and compelling. The character development and how he gradually revealed information about the character’s pasts was great. The story was also well planned and fairly believable. I found myself genuinely curious as to who the bad guys were, and how they were working in secrecy, out of the eye of the law. I wanted to know how the web of underground crime functioned and how the police would crack into it. The gradual nature as to how all this was exposed was really solid.

Although this type of book is not really my usual style, I am glad that I read it. I don’t do ratings on this channel – I feel it is arbitrary to assign a number. All I’ll say is that if you want a fun, casual read about a detective trying to solve a series of crimes, then you will probably enjoy this book. It is light, easily digestible, and not too long. I may even look into the other books in the series.