One Oblique One — Keith Wright

Shortlisted for the best debut crime novel by The Crime Writers Association. It is the summer of 1987.It is three years away from the world-wide-web being inaugurated. It is ten years before the first accessible mobile phone and a whole twenty-one years before they launch the first iPhone. 'It's A Sin' by The Pet Shop Boys is number one in the UK charts, available on cassette and vinyl. The sun is rising on political correctness ye news of this has yet to reach Nottingham CID. AIDS is rife. Hugging is for Hippies, and the author of this book has recently been appointed a Detective in the CID. Of course, some things are the same as today; people still get bludgeoned to death in their own homes. Same as it ever was. You just can't tweet about it yet.Detective Inspector David Stark and his team of detectives investigate the brutal murder of the Marriott family in their own homes. The murderer? It could be Charles Lyon, wealthy, but pathetic sugar daddy, Winston Kelly, notorious Rastafarian drug-dealer with psychotic tendencies, or Stan Tindle, the burglar who is seen in the location at the time of the offence, or...?Stark struggling to keep a lid in his secret anxiety, and his team strives to discover the truth, which lies just outside of their grasp until they obtain a clue from an unlikely source, but sadly by then, it is sadly too late. 'A most promising debut' –  The Times'A very well crafted plot' –  Sunday Express'The writing is very reminiscent of Raymond Chandler. Wright pulls no punches.' The Book Dragon