The Tin Man by Brian W Caves
Almost eight years after ex Detective Sergeant Simeon Cain fell into the deepest, darkest hell when his wife committed suicide, he has managed to rebuild his life and is now running a private investigation agency.
He is hired to investigate a nine month old murder that the police have all but given up on, the killer has never been caught; the murder classed as a random violent mugging. Cain, finds himself thrown into a complex puzzle left behind by the murder victim, a translator who has by accident discovered information regarding drugs and people trafficking involving a Romanian gang and three prominent local business men.
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The daughter of the murdered man hires Simeon to do what he can to bring the real killer to justice, but all is not what it at first seems and Cain ends up fighting for his life and the life of a young Hungarian university student he has accidentally involved in the case. To the very end Cain is unaware that he has been manipulated right from the very start.
The Tin Man is the first of a new series, which you will not want to miss. The novel is full of action and intrigue and the series is set to grow. Brian Caves is a great storyteller and this book is pure action all the way through, with twists and turns aplenty. The plotting is genius…
My Review
I loved this book far more than I thought I would when I read the blurb. Simeon Cain is hired by a famous model to look into the murder of her father Edward Knox, nine months ago. The killer has never been found and the crime was decreed a mugging that went tragically wrong. But daughter Sam is not convinced and wants Simeon to look for clues.
Simeon Cain has a tragic past. His wife committed suicide – we later find out what happened to her – but he is still struggling to come to terms with it. As this is the first in a series we are slowly building his character and personality. He’s empathic and hard at the same time. He can be quite judgmental. He can get angry when he sees injustice. Like his friend Dean – still a police officer – he needs to turn over every stone. The smallest details niggle. And he notices things.
Each time we meet a new character he describes them in detail eg ‘He was about thirty-eight, shoulder length dark hair parted in the middle, dark eyes…He had on a white T-shirt, oil-stained jeans and scuffed work boots. He was shorter than me by a couple of inches and slighter in build…’
Now initially I found this quite odd (as a writer this goes against everything I was taught), but then I realised that being an ex-cop turned private detective, he was describing someone from the point of view of being a witness as in what can you tell me about the person you saw? Very clever rule-breaking which definitely works.
So much more I could say about this exciting new novel, but I can’t give anything away and there were some seriously unexpected twists, especially towards the end.
According to Simeon, the great James M. Cain (Simeon’s namesake a coincidence – I doubt it very much) wrote in his novel Double Indemnity, that there are three essential elements to a successful murder. One, help. Two, everything known in advance: the time, the place, the how. And three is the most important element of all: audacity. ‘I’d abridged Cain’s text, but that was the gist of it,’ says Simeon, ‘…and turned it around to suit what I needed to do…a huge risk, and it was an audacious plan.’
In fact the whole book is audacious, and Simeon takes risks that had me reeling in shock, literally. I was gobsmacked at one of the things he does. In fact more than one.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
From the Author
“I started out as an engineer, then an estate agent, followed by senior management roles in cable TV and telecoms. Spent a few years as a management consultant and now work in the language translation industry.
“I have played music all my life. Classically trained on the clarinet from the age of eight until fourteen when my world took a quantum leap forward after hearing Jimi Hendrix and Voodoo Child on the radio. I thought, wow, I gotta do that. I dumped the clarinet and I picked up the guitar and have never put it down. I have played alongside topflight musicians, both live and in studios.
“From a young age I read books like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Black Beauty, Swallows and Amazons, then The Famous Five, Billy Bunter, Jennings and Derbyshire, Biggles, and Tarzan. Agatha Christie had a major impact as did Georges Simenon. I penned short stories at school – mostly adventure, but it wasn’t until I became hooked on American Crime Noir that my urge to write came crashing to the forefront of my mind. Reading Hammett, Chandler, Jim Thompson, Macdonald, and the master, James M. Cain had the same effect on my potential writing career as Hendrix had for my music.
“Currently, having been further influenced by the greats of Southern literature, I write crime stories based in the Deep South as well as UK based dark noir crime set in the county of Northamptonshire where I reside. Throw into the pot crime and horror short stories and novellas and you’ll have some idea of what goes on in my head.”
Follow Brian at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bwcaves
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/caves.brian/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brian_caves
Buy Links – https://geni.us/Xbs0Hw
