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m_jetski's review against another edition
5.0
I discovered this series after reading about how the French were turning it into a television show. More fool us for not getting there first.
I adored this gritty police procedural. The plot and the characterisation are fully realised, and Hurley writes economically but beautifully about people's emotions, the landscape, birdwatching, even sign language in between the bent coppers, drug dealing and the GBH. The setting is Portsmouth, so I knew the places described and it felt vivid, but with a strange sad dreamy quality. This had a different effect than other detective novels, usually set in places I've never visited like Chicago. Honestly, it made me a little homesick.
I am hooked and want to read the following eleven other novels immediately.
I adored this gritty police procedural. The plot and the characterisation are fully realised, and Hurley writes economically but beautifully about people's emotions, the landscape, birdwatching, even sign language in between the bent coppers, drug dealing and the GBH. The setting is Portsmouth, so I knew the places described and it felt vivid, but with a strange sad dreamy quality. This had a different effect than other detective novels, usually set in places I've never visited like Chicago. Honestly, it made me a little homesick.
I am hooked and want to read the following eleven other novels immediately.
jimbowen0306's review against another edition
3.0
This wasn't a brilliant book, but given that at the time this was the author's first attempt at a detective novel (he wrote several more in this series), it wasn't bad either.
I lived in Portsmouth (where this series is set) for a good while, and he has caught the people and the general griminess of the city well, which is good. The overall plot was a bit silly (a young girl reports her Daddy's gone missing, which results in a murder investigation involving teams of competitive sailors), but it is a decent enough read to start a series, and has made me want to go back, and read book two.
I know that further down the line, the series gets much better. I've gone back to the start to watch the characters evolve.
I lived in Portsmouth (where this series is set) for a good while, and he has caught the people and the general griminess of the city well, which is good. The overall plot was a bit silly (a young girl reports her Daddy's gone missing, which results in a murder investigation involving teams of competitive sailors), but it is a decent enough read to start a series, and has made me want to go back, and read book two.
I know that further down the line, the series gets much better. I've gone back to the start to watch the characters evolve.
sandin954's review against another edition
3.0
A quite good first entry in a long running English police procedural series. I liked the gritty Portsmouth setting, found all the characters interesting, and thought the plotting was well done.
exurbanis's review against another edition
4.0
(Fiction, Police Procedural, Series)
This turned up in my library queue because it fulfilled a reading challenge that unfortunately, ran out the previous month. Still, it looked interesting enough to try.
“Turnstone is the 1st of Graham Hurley’s Portsmouth based Faraday and Winter novels. Portsmouth is a city on the ropes, a poor, dirty but spirited city, with a soaring crime rate. And it is home for DI Joe Faraday.” (Amazon)
Faraday is a crusty old coot but when eight-year-old Emma Maloney gathers the coins out of her bank, gets on a bus by herself, and walks into the Kingston Crescent Police Station hoping just maybe the police could find her dad, just like they’d found her bike that time, he sees a case worth taking.
Despite the ever-growing caseload of a city torn by violence, poverty, drug-dealing and petty crime, Faraday spares time and resources for an investigation unsupported by hard evidence and works loosely with Paul Winter, another member of the CID force, whose ambition and methods Faraday dislikes and distrusts, but who gets results.
The characters are well-drawn and not at all one-dimensional, and the plot stands up.
4 stars
This turned up in my library queue because it fulfilled a reading challenge that unfortunately, ran out the previous month. Still, it looked interesting enough to try.
“Turnstone is the 1st of Graham Hurley’s Portsmouth based Faraday and Winter novels. Portsmouth is a city on the ropes, a poor, dirty but spirited city, with a soaring crime rate. And it is home for DI Joe Faraday.” (Amazon)
Faraday is a crusty old coot but when eight-year-old Emma Maloney gathers the coins out of her bank, gets on a bus by herself, and walks into the Kingston Crescent Police Station hoping just maybe the police could find her dad, just like they’d found her bike that time, he sees a case worth taking.
Despite the ever-growing caseload of a city torn by violence, poverty, drug-dealing and petty crime, Faraday spares time and resources for an investigation unsupported by hard evidence and works loosely with Paul Winter, another member of the CID force, whose ambition and methods Faraday dislikes and distrusts, but who gets results.
The characters are well-drawn and not at all one-dimensional, and the plot stands up.
4 stars
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
3.0
Joe Faraday is a Detective Inspector in Portsmouth, England. He is a widower, father to 22-year-old deaf son J.J., and he is a birder. In short, he is an interesting mix, and about a third of the way into this book, I finally got really interested in him and empathetic toward him.
It wasn't that way at first. At the beginning of the book, Hurley's characters left me a bit flat. I found I really didn't care what happened to them. But as I got to know them a bit better, I began to care and I wanted things to come out well for them in the end.
The story starts simply enough with a young girl, 8-year-old Emman, who has lost her dad and seeks the help of the police in finding out what has happened to him. There are red herrings aplenty that initially lead Faraday in the wrong direction in his investigation of the disappearance.
It turns out that the story is not simple at all. In fact it is extremely complicated. The plot takes lots of twists and turns and for the longest time, it is hard to see how it might all come together with some kind of coherence. Oddly though, it finally does. Not all the loose ends are tied up but enough so that the reader is left with a feeling that some kind of rough justice has been done.
This was Hurley's first entry in this Faraday series and I am advised by those who have read further in the series that the books get better as one goes along. It doesn't hurt at all that this detective is a dedicated birder and the bird references in the book are accurate and lend credibility to the tale.
It wasn't that way at first. At the beginning of the book, Hurley's characters left me a bit flat. I found I really didn't care what happened to them. But as I got to know them a bit better, I began to care and I wanted things to come out well for them in the end.
The story starts simply enough with a young girl, 8-year-old Emman, who has lost her dad and seeks the help of the police in finding out what has happened to him. There are red herrings aplenty that initially lead Faraday in the wrong direction in his investigation of the disappearance.
It turns out that the story is not simple at all. In fact it is extremely complicated. The plot takes lots of twists and turns and for the longest time, it is hard to see how it might all come together with some kind of coherence. Oddly though, it finally does. Not all the loose ends are tied up but enough so that the reader is left with a feeling that some kind of rough justice has been done.
This was Hurley's first entry in this Faraday series and I am advised by those who have read further in the series that the books get better as one goes along. It doesn't hurt at all that this detective is a dedicated birder and the bird references in the book are accurate and lend credibility to the tale.
graculus's review against another edition
3.0
First in another series of crime books, this time set in the English town of Portsmouth and featuring Detective Inspector Joe Faraday as the main protagonist.
In 'Turnstone', we're introduced to Faraday in a tried and tested way, partly through a case he's investigating (a missing father) and partly through his own domestic difficulties (mainly centering around Faraday's push-pull relationship with his deaf son, now an adult). We're also introduced to a cast of supporting characters, who will doubtless go on to play greater or lesser roles in future books - there are 11 in the series to date.
It's an unprepossessing enough start to a series, low-key rather than spectacular, with enough depth given to the main character yet just about avoiding the requisite Tragic Past. I'd recommend these books to anyone who's interested in what life is like in the UK outside of London, which is after all not particularly typical of where most of us live. The series continues in [b:The Take|3032159|The Take|Graham Hurley|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cJU9S9gFL._SL75_.jpg|1513656].
In 'Turnstone', we're introduced to Faraday in a tried and tested way, partly through a case he's investigating (a missing father) and partly through his own domestic difficulties (mainly centering around Faraday's push-pull relationship with his deaf son, now an adult). We're also introduced to a cast of supporting characters, who will doubtless go on to play greater or lesser roles in future books - there are 11 in the series to date.
It's an unprepossessing enough start to a series, low-key rather than spectacular, with enough depth given to the main character yet just about avoiding the requisite Tragic Past. I'd recommend these books to anyone who's interested in what life is like in the UK outside of London, which is after all not particularly typical of where most of us live. The series continues in [b:The Take|3032159|The Take|Graham Hurley|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cJU9S9gFL._SL75_.jpg|1513656].