Published:

The Twilight Time

IT IS so refreshing to read a crime novel which is believable.

Author Karen Campbell is a former Strathclyde Police officer and it shows in her depiction of how the boys and girls in blue work.

The book follows the main character, Anna Cameron, as she is plunged into the seedy world of prostitutes, drug dealers and sad men.

Along the way, there is love interest for her in the shape of an old flame from her days as a new recruit and how his new life with his wife – also a former officer – is intermingled with Anna’s.

The sympathies of the reader lie with the wife, Cath Forbes, which makes Anna seem a bit one-dimensional and a bit too hard-bitten at times.

But Anna is an original character compared with many churn ’em out crime novels and the plot whizzes along at a cracking pace.

The humour is dark, with enough atmosphere taken from Campbell’s days as a police officer to make the dialogue feel very real.

She does not hold back in how desperate the lives of these prostitutes are, and does not dress their situation with “poor little me” words – she just tells it as it is.

Campbell worked in many parts of Strathclyde Police before deciding to become a writer, and the politics, back-stabbing and frustrations of the everyday life of a police officer are a refreshing change from many crime novels which glamorise what is often a dangerous profession.

Karen Allan

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