There are a dozen other books I should be reviewing before I do this one, but I can't help myself.If Snow Hadn't Fallen (2013) (short story) (book 1.5 in the Lacey Flint series)
S. J. Bolton
Grade: A
Genre: gothic thriller horror
Source: own, eBook
Lacey Flint series: (1) Now You See Me; (2) Dead Scared
Ever wonder what Lacey got up to between the closing of Now You See Me and the opening of Dead Scared? Now is your chance to find out …
It’s like trouble follows DC
Lacey Flint’s heel like a loyal Labrador. Off-duty and on her way home, there’s
a call for assistance on her radio, just a stone’s throw away from her flat. Instinct
and duty prompt her to answer it, but it’s not the teenage scuffle or canoodling
couple that she expected to break up and hurry along. Five masked persons
surround a burning pyre in the centre of the park. A burning pyre of human
flesh that’s still alive. Lacey’s appearance sends the perpetrators running,
but with such extensive burns, there’s little she can do to prevent death.
Dr Aamir Chowdhury was from a
devout Muslim family and an upstanding citizen. The investigation points to a
group of five white, young men who had an encounter with Aamir several months
ago, but they have solid, unshakeable alibis and there is no conclusive
evidence on which to press charges. Lacey has a niggling feeling that they’re
going down the wrong track – she just can’t figure out what’s the right one. That
is, until the snow starts to fall and she sees a woman in black at the scene of
the crime. With her nature being what it is, Lacey can’t help but get involved
and she finds herself drawn into circumstances that go deeper than anyone had
ever anticipated …
Ms Bolton is not an author to shy
away from topics just because they’re controversial and I love her for this. On
its surface, If Snow Hadn’t Fallen is
a book dealing with racially aggravated crime (a.k.a. hate crime), but it goes beyond
that and it’s refreshing to read about such a taboo subject with such brute honesty
that Ms Bolton manages. Hate crime was one area that we touched upon in
criminal law this year and I wish the syllabus and timetable allowed for us to
cover it in more depth. It’s one subject that I’m seriously considering taking
as an option next year and to read about it in its day-to-day context only
served to encourage me further.
Back to the controversial
storyline: to take on such a sensitive issue like this takes guts, and boy does
Ms Bolton have them. It’s a thorny issue, both legally and socially and she has
my respect for doing it so well. The police and Crown Prosecution Service have
recently agreed on the definition of ‘hate crime’ as follows:
“Any criminal
offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated
by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race or perceived race;
religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual
orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by a
hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be
transgender.” (1)
A bit of a mouthful, but you get
the idea.
Hate crime has been a growing
problem for decades but only with the high-profile murder of Stephen Lawrence
and the ensuing enquiry into his death and its handling by the police has it
been properly recognised as a social problem. A finding by the Macpherson
Report (2) that the police were “institutionally racist” was not, to paraphrase
Lacey, the Met’s finest hour. Thus, to take on this particular issue (and
especially from the police perspective) is a difficult task for any writer but
Ms Bolton succeeds with aplomb.
And yet, as mentioned, hate crime
is only the prima facie subject at
hand. What Lacey later goes on to discover is arguably even more sincere and horrifying
and still it’s all treated with the compassion it deserves. That balance
between depth and sensitivity is a fine one but so crucial to get right and I couldn’t
have asked for more from Ms Bolton.
So, enough of my lecture and onto
how much I love Lacey. When she’s not being so damn evasive and secretive (and
even then), I do love her. It’s a treat to be sent back in time to see her
response in the aftermath of the Ripper murders but before she was sent to
Cambridge in Dead Scared. Of course, I’ve
now read Like This, For Ever (review
coming soon!) and so I know what’s currently happening in her life, but I do
like to fill in the gaps. I felt that Lacey in ISHF was a very different Lacey to how we had seen her before. The format
of short stories has a lot to do with that. A short story needs to give a
reader familiar with the characters and the series sufficient sustenance while
we wait for the next full-length book to be published, while at the same time,
appeal and cater to the new reader. As a result, there wasn’t nearly as much
reference to past events and history as the Lacey as we know her would have
done, but I’ll take anything and everything I can get my desperate hands on.
There were some familiar faces
and that only served to solidify my love for Ms Bolton, as if that hadn’t been
certain already. Of course, there’s never enough room in a short story for them
all to have as much page-time as you’d like, but it whetted the appetite and
served as a reminder that although Lacey wouldn’t think herself as a person
with many friends, the value that these secondary characters add to the books
and Lacey herself is immense.
Of course, there’s one character
that I sorely missed: the one and only DI Mark Joesbury. In writing this
review, I had to remind myself that the Lacey of ISHF hasn’t met the post-Cambridge Lacey because on the topic of DI
Joesbury, they are two very different people. That’s probably a bigger spoiler
than anyone following the series wants to know, but I can’t help myself.
This is one short story that I will
be reading again and again. I don’t usually buy short stories and I don’t
usually buy eBooks, but since this is (i) S. J. Bolton and (ii) the only format
that ISHF was available, there was an
exception begging to be made and I’m glad I did so. In less than a year, S. J.
Bolton has made her way onto my automatic-read/buy list and I don’t even do
that for Nora Roberts, which is saying something. If you’re impatient for your
S. J. Bolton-fix in the eleven days before Like
This, For Ever is released, and you haven’t read ISHF, then read it now – you won’t regret it.
(1) Crown Prosecution Service, Hate crime and crimes against older people report 2010–2011, p.8 [Accessed from http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/4262.htm; date of last access 31 March 2013]
(2) The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (1999) [Accessed from http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/cps_hate_crime_report_2011.pdf; date of last access 31 March 2013]
Image courtesy of Fantastic Fiction
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