Book Review : The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith.

  The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith.

We normally focus on British crime writing but I enjoyed this book so much I felt it had to be reviewed by The Crime Warp.

The Inquisitor is Mark Allen Smith’s debut novel and it’s one of those novels that even after a few months you can pick it up and still remember the whole plot, specific details about the characters and even some of the dialogue.  For someone who reads a lot of crime novels, I was amazed when on browsing my book shelves I picked this up, four months after reading it and knew by the title (not the blurb or first page) exactly what was going on in the book.  As a debut novel, I think that is noteworthy.

The Inquisitor, Geiger, basically extracts information from human targets for a fee.  He is professional and hides his privacy under layer upon layer of security.  His only human contacts, excluding his targets,  are his business partner (a man whose life he saved) a rich business man (whose business he once saved ) and... his psychiatrist.

The problem arises when Geiger is forcibly expected to renege on one of his most voracious taboos:  he will not extract information from a child.  Suddenly his privacy is penetrated, his values are put to the test and he is forced to trust people he has no guarantee are on his side.

As a protagonist, Geiger may seem a weird choice, but I think it is this that makes him so irresistible.  Smith skilfully uses a blend of humour and harsh violence to portray his flaws and insecurities, but without feeding us the full story.  Smith’s characters range from the poignantly comic to the harshly realistic violent to the ordinary. 

I can’t wait for the sequel and strongly recommend this book.  It has a novel concept which draws sympathy to a protagonist we would normally despise- well worth the read