The Murder Code by Steve Mosby
My rating: 4/5 cats
As bad as this murder was – and it was bad – I knew it would also be explicable. Because, ultimately, they all are.
famous last words.
this is a better-than-average crime novel. it’s a british police procedural with psychological elements featuring detective inspector hicks, your typically confident investigator who is far enough along in his career that he’s pretty sure he’s seen it all and nothing can surprise him. his longtime partner, detective laura fellowes, thinks he’s maybe a little too fond of jumping to conclusions – relying on statistics and probabilities and forming judgements on the basis of them. She considered it one of my greater failings, but we both knew it wasn’t much of one, really, considering I generally ended up being right.
but when he suddenly finds himself confronted with a series of brutal and seemingly random murders and he is unable to rely upon the stolid dependability of statistics and probabilities, it’s like starting over from scratch; like learning a new and unpredictable language with terrible risks.
after several bodies turn up with their faces completely obliterated by a hammer; victims who seem to have no connection to each other, a letter arrives addressed to hicks from the killer himself, taunting him with his claims that the murders will continue and will never be solved. obsessed with the illusion of randomness, the killer has devised a code even you won’t be able to crack. A string for which the underlying pattern cannot possibly be discerned. at the mercy of his own code, the killer himself does not know where or when or who the victims will be.
which totally blows hick’s mind.
and of course, he’s got his own things going on in his personal life with an eight-months-pregnant wife at home with whom he has been having difficulties because of his reluctance towards fatherhood, and the challenges of this case are NOT helping that situation. plus – complicated secret backstory intensified by people from his past showing up and many ruminations about the existence of evil and fate. so – not a great headspace for hicks to have to relearn how to solve crimes.
despite the over-the-top natures of the murders, what i liked most about this were the realistic procedural elements. i enjoyed the behind-the-scenes and especially the more frustrating necessities of investigation – even though the detectives know that these crimes are being set in motion based on some random-seeming pattern, they still have to investigate each murder individually, just in case; interviewing family members and lovers and wasting a lot of time doing so.
in the killer’s second letter, he seems to also be enjoying this aspect:
I was far too careful to allow you to trace my message, as I’m sure you will have discovered. You will find similar efforts have been taken with this one, although no doubt you will be compelled to check. That is one of the reasons I will stay ahead of you. You have too much to do, while I only have one thing.
the actual process used to make headway in solving seemingly unpredictable murders is fascinating – calling in a mathematician but allowed to tell her very few details, analyzing the difference between serial killers and mass murderers, despite knowing that these crimes display evidence of both types, the dance of withholding they have to do with the press while still wanting to keep the public safe – at every turn it seems that the typical investigative routes introduce new impediments to actually solving the crime.
“We only need him to make one mistake; that gets more likely with every murder. But the more he doesn’t make one the busier we are and the harder it’ll be to spot when he does. Perhaps he already has…And we’re too lost in fucking paperwork to see it.”
that’s what worked best for me – the emphasis that crime-solving is not as glamorous or dramatic as it is typically portrayed.
In the movies, there’ll be some sharp flash of insight that leads the detective to the culprit, but real life tends to be more mundane – and reassuringly so. The killer is often the first person you think did it, and he did it for the first reason you thought of. In the vast majority of other cases, you catch people through a shitload of hard work: processing the data and winnowing down the options. Flow-chart stuff, really.
because what’s less romantic than a flow-chart?
the resolution/explanation was not completely convincing, but it’s a really great read for people tired of reading the same old kinds of crime novels. it’s got good turns and good energy, and i’m looking forward to reading more from this guy. you squeamish folks, though, be warned – animal and human carnage up the wazoo. if you do not like carnage in your wazoo, stay away.
