Cut to Black

DI Joe Faraday #5

by Graham Hurley

Time’s up for Bazza Mackenzie. His stranglehold on Portsmouth’s cocaine market has earned him millions of dollars he’s invested in legitimate businesses. The police have mounted an operation code-named Tumbril to take down the city’s biggest criminal. But when the detective in charge is nearly killed in a mysterious hit-and-run, it falls to Joe Faraday to put Mackenzie away. Tumbril is a career opportunity of a lifetime, but the team at the heart of the operation is fighting a war of its own. Then Faraday’s son is arrested after a student dies from a heroin overdose, and Faraday finds himself totally isolated. Just who can he really trust?

Genres: Mystery, Crime

480 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Graham Hurley was born November, 1946 in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. His seaside childhood was punctuated by football, swimming, afternoons on the dodgems, run-ins with the police, multiple raids on the local library - plus near-total immersion in English post-war movies.

Directed and produced documentaries for ITV through two decades, winning a number of national and international awards. Launched a writing career on the back of a six-part drama commission for ITV: "Rules of Engagement". Left TV and became full time writer in 1991.

Authored nine stand-alone thrillers plus "Airshow", a fly-on-the-wall novel-length piece of reportage, before accepting Orion invitation to become a crime writer. Drew gleefully on home-town Portsmouth (“Pompey”) as the basis for an on-going series featuring D/I Joe Faraday and D/C Paul Winter.

Contributed five years of personal columns to the Portsmouth News, penned a number of plays and dramatic monologues for local production (including the city’s millenium celebration, "Willoughby and Son"), then decamped to Devon for a more considered take on Pompey low-life.

The Faraday series came to an end after 12 books. Healthy sales at home and abroad, plus mega-successful French TV adaptations, tempted Orion to commission a spin-off series, set in the West Country, featuring D/S Jimmy Suttle.

Launch title - "Western Approaches" - published 2012. "Touching Distance" to hit the bookstores next month (21st November).

Has recently self-published a number of titles on Kindle including "Strictly No Flowers" (a dark take on crime fiction), "Estuary" (a deeply personal memoir) and "Backstory" (how and why he came to write the Faraday series).

Married to the delectable Lin. Three grown-up sons (Tom, Jack and Woody). Plus corking grandson Dylan.

You're very welcome to contact Graham through his website: www.grahamhurley.co.uk

Or direct on seasidepictures@btinternet.com.


Series:
* D.I. Joe Faraday

Reviews

[Rich Ivett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graham Hurley is simply the best Police procedural/ crime writer writing today; indeed the Joe Faraday series is probably the best of it's type since Sjowall and Whaloo created Martin Beck. What makes him so good is that he does not rely on sensationalist, unbelievable stories full of gory detail to maintain the dramatic tension that so many others in the field are inclined to do. His novels are based in strong character development; contain dialogue that feels real; and explores important practical and moral dilemmas, and the minutie of every day life without ever preaching or being boring. The reader is left to draw his/her own conclusions on the issues raised. The books seem meticulously researched; as a football fan I even checked the reference to the Preston v Portsmouth match record to check it's accuracy!!

Hurley uses two different types of police officers to develop his stories. Joe Faraday as straight as they come, a good man who you feel you would enjoy spending time with; and Paul Winter a cop who bends every rule in the book to the point of illegality because the end jusifies the means. The conclusion you reach is that effective policing in today's world probably needs both if it is to protect the communities in which they live.

"Cut to Black" deals with the thorny issue of drug use and how society can most effectively deal with it. It is done through the prism of an attempt to bring down one of the major players in Portsmouth's drug supply and the development of Farday's relationship with his son JJ and erstwhile partner Eadie. Eadie in pursuit of her own passions pushes the boundaries of what could be considered acceptable, while potentially, unwittingly endangering JJ whose career she is nurturing and her relationship with Faraday. The joy of this and other Hurley novels is that you can never guess how this will all play out, as the endings are always real rather than everything being neatly tied up; although there is always a resolution of sorts.

I can't wait to continue with the series but feel I must ration myself to prolong the pleasure; also this book introduces for the first time Jimmy Suttle who goes on to have a series of his own which will no doubt be another joy to anticipate.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Graham Hurley writes some of the best British police procedurals and this is one of few Faraday/Winter series I'd not read. Faraday is an interesting character, a yin to Winter's yang and while working on the same case, or close to it, their paths seldom cross, being in different teams of the Portsmouth police. Consequently, there are separate narratives, something I've fond frustrating in other writers in recent years. And yet, Hurley pulls this off with such skill and continuity that it works brilliantly. And not only two narratives but other characters are on their own paths. Hurley also sets the case in a specific time, here the start of the UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, with the TV broadcasts, marches and protests. At the core is the 'war on drugs' and the death of a young man. Hurley doesn't flinch from moral arguments, is it better to legalise and control and maintain a loosing battle between the force of law and the gangs? It's an interesting series, well researched and the central characters feel real, with natural human failings. I don't know why it isn't more talked about it.

[Margo Allore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Joe Faraday book. I enjoyed it; however, I had read Hurley's later book so I knew what had happened to some of the characters. There were a couple of intertwining stories - Faraday and his relationship with his Australian girlfriend, who was working with his son JJ. Trying to bust Bazza M. and the set up. The police business was quite interesting.

A good read but one has to pay attention to the characters.

[Mark Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I ended up reading for the 2nd time.... However I still enjoyed it especially as I lived in Portsmouth for many years. The characters are well drawn and the back drop of the 2nd Gulf war compelling. The ending was unexpected too (well not this time round).

[Houlahan houlahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second Faraday book for me. Very good. Gritty, realistic portrayal of the realities of the drug economy. Well worth reading.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[P M FYFE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurley does not disappoint . This is a good read.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a copy of another of Hurley’s Inspector Faraday novels in Books and Company a couple of weeks ago, mostly on the strength of the cover, the same design and photo treatment as on the covers of the Orion editions of the Rebus novels. I have been reading that one, BLOOD AND HONEY, aloud to Maggee, but I checked the library collection for other titles and came away with CUT TO BLACK, which, it turns out is the book immediately before BLOOD AND HONEY. On the strength of two and a half books, the series looks promising. The books are set in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. We had to go to Google Maps to check out where the Isle of Wight is and where it is in reference to Portsmouth. Getting a tentative fix on the geography was a bit of a challenge, because, unbeknownst to us, Portsmouth is also known as Pompey, and characters use the two names interchangeably. (The other bit of geo-cultural trivia that a reader of the series will want to know is this: scousers are people from Liverpool. I am not sure whether the term applies to all Liverpuddlians or just the rougher element…) The main plot of CUT TO BLACK deals with a high-level, very hush-hush operation to nab a very successful and very rich local villain named Bazza Mackenzie. A secondary plot focuses on Faraday’s woman friend and his (deaf and dumb ) son who are working on a video production which is designed to give an uncompromisingly graphic picture of what heroin use and addiction leads to.

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

DI Joe Faraday is recruited for an undercover operation, code named Tumbril. The aim of the operation is to take down Portsmouth's biggest criminal, Bazza Mackenzie. Mackenzie made his killing - so to speak - in drugs trafficking, but now most of his investments are legit - at least on the surface. The objective of the undercover operation is to dig deeper.

Faraday would like to bring Mackenzie, down but he finds that he hates this operation. After just a few days of it, he doesn't know who can be trusted any more. It is not a good feeling. In the end, the operation all goes pear-shaped and the question becomes why? Who betrayed it?

This book took a while to get going, but once all the tendrils of the story came together, it began to pick up speed and it definitely held my interest right through to the end. I had narrowed the suspects down to two, but didn't quite figure it out and so the ending still held some surprises for me.

Hurley is a good writer who makes the (to me) arcane procedures of British police work lucid. I find that his characters sometimes irritate me, but then I think they probably are supposed to. Overall, this has been a very interesting series and I definitely will be looking to read more of it.

[Spuddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fifth book in the Joe Faraday and Paul Winter series, set in Portsmouth, UK. I thought this one was rather predictable, had pretty much figured out early on what was going to happen. And as much of it dealt with a covert sting operation against one of the city's big crime lords, I didn't find it overly interesting...I am not really a fan of mafia or crime boss/crime organization stories. I also am wondering how in the heck Winter gets away with the shit he does and remains a cop. It's beginning to stretch the bounds of believability like the elastic on a pair of ten year old knickers.

Going to leave plenty of time before picking up the next one in the series. I love the main character and his family, the setting, the descriptions of his bird-watching forays, but the actual mystery in this one just didn't pique my interest much.

[Abholler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Police procedural set in Portsmouth, England. Two main characters, Faraday and Winter, balance personal problems against police business. It's a reliably good series, with good detail on the area. Some of the British, and esp the Scottish, mysteries can tend to be a bit bleak, but this series, while not light, is not bleak either.

[Sue Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Irresistibly complex characters, Joe Faraday and teetering-on-the-edge Paul Winter, find themselves in murky situations. Bazza McKenzie is a seductive but dark villain who features in both their lives in very different ways. This trio makes for a winning combination in the entertaining police procedurals category. Set in Portsmouth, England.

[Mary Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is a firm favourite of mine. There was a lot to love in this novel - the paper trail, the inclusion of Palmerston's Follies, Faraday's deteriating mental state and above all the very real backdrop of Portsmouth. As stunning as the second season of The Wire.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like this series and I love the characters, but I found this one a bit of a slog - plot got quite convoluted and I found it hard to get into any one of the threads. That said, I'll definitely go on to the next in the series.

[Gary Van Cott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I thought this was a fairly good book. The author continues his practice of jumping abruptly between characters (mostly Fraraday and Winter) and narrative threads. It was perhaps a bit too long and sagged a bit in places.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Portsmouth is the gritty setting for this series featuring DI Joe Faraday. This one focuses on drugs and was not one of my favorites.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the best one to date. The series started off a little weak but has got better.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of the Gs . Gory, gritty, grim, and sometimes ghastly. That's life in the city for you. Thank God I don't live there.

[Lynne Elsisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice. I like this series :)

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read from start to finish first one of Graham Hurley that i have read but i will be reading more

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hugely competent and thoroughly engaging tale. Faraday, Winter and J-J very well-drawn three-dimensional characters, along with Baz MacKenzie, Misty et al and a strong sense of place.

[Myrna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars.

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heart breaking story about drug use...

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bazza MacKenzie at his best... What a nasty piece of work...

[Adrian Wilding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love these Joe Faraday books, full of gritty realism.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A substantial improvement over Deadlight.

[Maureen Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense detective procedural. Good read but I should have started with the first in the series to get to know the characterisation.