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Each Man Kills opens with a flurry of deaths: three in fifteen pages. None, however, is a murder, though one is claimed to be. The pivotal killing, when it arrives, is puzzling. A nondescript, alcoholic, debt-ridden Welsh farmer is shot through the head as he urinates outside his isolated farmhouse. The job has clearly been carried out by a professional assassin. Why? Here I will say that my immediate guess at an explanation proved correct, but only after the devious plot had seemed to negate it.
The man charged with apprehending the killer is Detective Inspector Harry Lambert. He quickly succeeds, for a suspicious black Sierra has hit another car while leaving the scene of the crime at speed. Easily identified and arrested, Gary Evans, the Sierra's owner, an ex-SAS man, confesses: but beyond that, he will say not a word. He is given a life sentence in a psychiatric hospital. When, some months later, he escapes from confinement, Lambert is one of those who must track him down.
Each Man Kills - which I take to be the author's debut novel - is tightly plotted. Its characterisation is taut and functional, and there is a neat twist at the end. Its plot strands are tightly intertwined, and the author's liking for structural parallelism offers us romantic interests for both the hunter, Lambert, and the man he twice hunts - one in the form of Helen, the detective's ex-wife, the other in that of Gwyneth, Evans's prison pen-friend. Both women, as it happens, are into Celtic mythology, ancient monuments and ley lines, material of which the plot makes due, if somewhat perfunctory, use.
I enjoyed the book without being captivated by it. A couple of things failed to convince me with regard to the plot: first, that the convict should be sentenced to a mental hospital (he seems perfectly sane); second, that the detective asks himself certain key questions only after the convict's escape. That these things had to be if the plot was to function perhaps reveals David Barry's newness to the crime thriller. But then, even celebrated and experienced writers sometimes come a cropper in this respect.
Richard Poole
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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