Lucifer Falls

DI Charlie George, Book 1

By: Colin Falconer

Narrated by: Matt Bates

A killer stalks the streets of London....

When a priest is found crucified in a derelict North London chapel, it makes a dramatic change for DI Charlie George and his squad at Essex Road. The brutal murder could not be further from their routine of domestic violence and stabbings on the estates.

And that's only the beginning....

On Christmas Eve, a police officer goes missing, and his colleagues can't help but anticipate the worst. It turns out they're right to when eventually the body is found and they discover he's been stoned to death.

As tensions rise, it's up to Charlie and his team to venture into the city's cold underbelly to try to find an answer to the madness...before anyone else dies a martyr's death.

©2018 Colin Falconer (P)2018 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"Once you read [a] Colin Falconer [book], you'll want to read everything he's ever written." (Crystal Book Reviews)

Atmosphere and Angst to Burn

Colin Falconer writes with all of his senses alive. You feel damp, cold London, watch shards of light illuminate darkness (on streets and within souls), soak up mounting dread. Detective Charlie George is complex, conflicted and compelling. You veer between understanding his despair and wanting to give him a smack for being so dense. His sidekicks, Green, Lovejoy and Sister Agatha, are deftly and vividly drawn. Falconer's touch is almost always light, though the religious symbolism is a bit too distended, drifting uncertainly between uplifting and creepy, not often enough settling into a balanced depiction of day-to-day spiritual questioning. The novel's grit is welcome; its philosophizing needs to be more sophisticated. But the reader can bring his or her own mind to the matters at hand. Those bedeviling matters, ghastly, familial or personal, are set down with skill and insight. Falconer is a full-fledged writer. He sees humanity whole. He's written a thriller I couldn't stop listening to. I'm eager to read the next novel in the series.

A British police procedural set in London

This is a British police procedural set in London with the usual proper policing vs arse covering mismanagement by management issues that seem so common in British books. While I found it a little underwhelming, all of the main ingredients were there for a good book and the narrator was OK so it may be worth revisiting this author at a later date to see if his next book is more interesting, A second tier effort for me.

Where is the next one?

My new favorite author, narrator, series....
I just hope that Mr. Falconer is working quickly on number 2 in the Charlie George series.