Random Things Tours: Black Hearts by Doug Johnstone

 

Can a crime novel be funny, hilarious even, still convening that dark ambiance open to secrecy and spontaneous twists? Depends on the writer´s ability to follow the general rules of the genre without stereotypically conforming. 

Black Hearts by Doug Johnstone, published by the Orenda Books whose books are hard to forget, is my latest example. Part of the multi-awarded Skelf series, featuring the members of a family in Edinburgh, happily owning both a private investigation business and a funerals company, the book has an unexpected cast of characters - obviously besides the members of the family themselves: some are hunted by ghost, a faked death, maybe some ghosts too. Everything taking place in a normal big city like Edinburgh, whose intimate descriptions and realistic ambiance takes you out from your crime reading couch to the streets of the Scottish city.

Built on multiple levels, as a dialogue in development between different characters and episodes of the story, it leaves a cinematic impression: you are reading a script, highly visual and easily represented visually. Not everyone can make words play a movie. 

A crime novel means more than having a crime and an idea about how to solve it, through dedicated characters with a love for investigations. It unveils as well the skeletons in the most hidden closets of the soul and mind of humans involved in comitting the crime while adds new layers of understanding the human nature by the investigators and those involved in solving the crime. Black Hearts has as well a strong philosophical layer, asking questions after questions about life and death, but with a smart natural sciences touch.

Black Hearts is a recommended read for anyone looking for a different kind of crime novel. The quality humour balances the dark sides and promises an unique reading journey in a world of six feet under and ghosts and hunted humans. Definitely smitted for other books from the series.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own