Review by Booklist Review
Two of New Zealander Cleave's Theodore Tate novels (Collecting Cooper, 2011; The Laughterhouse, 2012) have already been published, out of sequence, in the U.S. This volume, which appeared in New Zealand in 2008, is the series' opener. Tate, former cop and now private investigator, is asked to oversee an exhumation, and what seems to be a simple job turns into a head scratcher. A lake in the cemetery reveals bodies, and the coffin he's asked to unearth contains the body of a young girl, not the man who is supposed to be in it. Tate's former colleagues want him to stay out of the way, but he can't let it go and decides to pursue justice at any cost. Tate is hardly the first dark, brooding detective with a tragic past in crime fiction, but he brings a fresh twist to the familiar type, as does the setting of Christchurch, New Zealand, which Cleave evokes with masterful precision. Cleave fans will enjoy the backstory this tale provides, and newcomers will be happy for the chance to start at the beginning.--Ayers, Jeff Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
New Zealander Cleave's powerful third Christchurch noir (after The Killing Hour) introduces PI Theodore Tate. Two years earlier, the grown daughter of bank manager Henry Martins asked Tate, then a policeman, to investigate what she believed to have been her father's murder. Tate found nothing, but now the second husband of Martins's widow has died, possibly of poisoning. Martins's body is exhumed-a measure that wasn't taken initially-revealing some unpleasant surprises, and three bodies surface in a lake adjacent to the cemetery, one belonging to a missing 19-year-old girl. Tate, who's been borderline functional since a car accident killed his daughter and seriously injured his wife, gets drawn into an incredibly complicated case that puts him at odds with his former colleagues and renders him a murder suspect. The unrelenting grimness, reminiscent of James Ellroy, and the uncompromising portrayal of a man in torment, make for a fully absorbing, if disturbing, read. Agent: Jane Gregory, Jane Gregory and Co. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Thriller author Cleave (The Laughter House, 2012, etc.) opens the door on the haunted history of his disgraced detective Theo Tate. In this dark mystery, originally published in New Zealand in 2008, Cleave presents Tate's earlier narrative to North American readers. Once with Christchurch police, Tate is now a private detective. He's a man eaten up with grief, a man battling anger, depression and guilt with alcohol and self-isolation. Tate's daughter died in a car-pedestrian accident, and his wife rests in a convalescent center, catatonic from a brain injury suffered during that tragedy. After the accident, Tate "fell into the abyss," with this novel a first-person narrative of his ongoing battle with existential despair. The novel opens with Tate being hired to look into a death he ignored while a police detective. Henry Martins is two years dead, but his daughter always believed he was murdered. Since Martins' widow, remarried, has had another husband die, Tate has secured an exhumation order so that Martins' corpse may be autopsied. But Martins' body isn't in his coffin. It's among several grave robbed and tossed into a nearby lake, all to find spaces for a serial killer's victims. Cleave is a powerful writer, conjuring a malevolent atmosphere, creating a relentless momentum propelling Tate deeper into a moral swamp. However, given Cleave's psychological insight, it's ironic the narrative catalysts--a priest and the serial killer--are the two least-defined among the story's characters. Others among the attending cast are magnificently drawn, including the retired cemetery caretaker, a malignant drunk with dark secrets and a discredited television reporter willing to manipulate sound bites in a vendetta against Tate. Contemporary crime noir at its best, mined from the dark pit of the human psyche.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.