Touching Distance

By: Graham Hurley

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Jimmy Suttle has barely got his feet under the desk at his new job. Having flown in the face of his superiors on his first big case he now finds himself trying to track down a hugely skilled killer before another innocent dies and before the media tear the force apart.

Jimmy is facing a case that could end his career. And his life.

Full of a sense of place, sensitive to the deep rooted agonies of a policeman alone and facing disaster, and with a chilling understanding of the motivations of the killer this is a bravura piece of crime fiction that will secure Hurley's reputation and win new readers.

©2013 Graham Hurley (P)2014 Isis Publishing Ltd

Am I the only one who cares?

So, in the first book, I was annoyed by how relentlessly selfish and American-style good looking every character (well, except the victim, who was not attractive, so, I suppose, deserved to die) was. I was also annoyed by the whole crime becoming personal to the detective scenario that is way too common in books and just absolutely grates on my nerves. But...at least it didn't involve a serial killer, so that was a plus. And, Hurley can write without grammatical errors, which seems to be less and less common these days, so...I figured I would try book 2.
Ugh. Even MORE good looking, super self-centered characters. Not-yet-divorced Mothers who are too busy falling in love (and, of course, into bed) with a man they met 10 minutes ago to have any time for offspring. Men who have a wedding planned for later in the week, but who cannot keep their members in their pants when a willing wife of someone else is willing to play love interest for a weekend.
I'm not married, myself, but that's partly because I have respect for promises and don't make any I can't keep. I guess that's old fashioned. And it made me loathe the people in this book. I can't feel any more sympathy for the wronged husband in the aforementioned scenario, because he was the one f---ing (that's what they fondly call it - which is jarring in a book that has little profanity) around in the last book.
And all of that might have been bearable had the characters had any redeeming qualities, but, as far as I could see, they did not. They are selfish, impulsive, whiny...oh, my god! They are the essence of the so-named millennials!! Is this the future of literature?! Stories about loathsome people doing loathsome things while, on the periphery, doing some mediocre police work? AND the crime intruded into the detective's life AGAIN!!!!!
Why does none of this seem to bother anyone else?