Book Review: Darkness Darkness by John Harvey – Hankies out folks cos this is the last ever Charlie Resnick book!

Having just heard John Harvey ‘In Conversation’ with Mark Billingham at Theakston’s Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate I can announce that I am in love with him, as I suspect are most of the audience. 


I mean who wouldn’t love a crime fiction writer who admits that his first influential read was…  

Wait for it...                                        

Little Grey Rabbit by Alison Uttley,  

John went on to explain that it was a skilful way of telling the story of WW2 and that the Weasel Invasion made it Crime Fiction and that Attley’s play on words with Hare mishearing the word ambush and making ham sandwiches to catapult at the weasels in a ‘Hambush’ made it a great read.   
However, I digress…  

Back to the review…

Darkness Darkness pays homage to a well - respected Police Officer, jazz fanatic and solid man nearing the end of his policing days.  It pays tribute to the obstacles he’s overcome in both his career and personally, yet through various ‘day dreams’ we see Resnick preparing to bow out.  That said, I’m not going to spoil it by revealing his exit – but I will say I think it was the perfect exit for him.  

For followers of the series, Harvey skilfully reminds us of different episodes in Charlie’s life: From the time he missed seeing ‘Thelonious Monk’ by being paged, to his relationship with Lynn Kellogg, which ended so tragically.  The book had a philosophical feel to it that synchronised perfectly with the retrospective moods of those involved in the strike in the eighties.

In the midst of The Miner’s strike, a young scabbing miner’s wife who supports the strike goes missing.  Consensus agrees that she’s run off down South.  However thirty years later her body is discovered near her home.  Charlie Resnick had a special role during the miner’s strike as an ‘information gatherer’ and worked closely with the miners, pickets and local Police.  Naturally, he is called in to assist in the enquiry.

As a student in Scotland during the Miner’s Strike this book brought back many memories.   John Harvey brings the strike back to life and I swear as I read I could smell the coal dust, feel the stampede of police horses making the ground beneath my feet tremble, hear the chants from both sides and sense the insidious venom as communities got ripped apart.  

Darkness Darkness is a brilliant book by a brilliant writer and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, but particularly to those who lived through the miner’s strike!  A wonderful book about community!