Turnstone (DI Joe Faraday)

DI Joe Faraday of the Portsmouth CID is a widower with a deaf, 22-year old son. As with other police departments, the Portsmouth CID is awash in budget cuts, way too much crime on the streets, with not enough people to handle it. As the book opens, a little girl walks into a police station to report her dad missing. But it's a while until Faraday hears about it ... his bosses want him to do damage control with the press, with developers who want to bring foreign investors to the area, and who want the crime level reduced. Basically, he's swamped. So when he begins to look into the little girl's missing father case, he's grateful to be doing some real detective work instead of being a desk jockey. There's just one problem: he wants to devote resources to the missing dad case, convinced it's murder, but there's no body to prove his theory so, and he's being pressured by the people upstairs to drop it. However, he's so convinced that there's foul play involved that he takes the case on anyway.

The writing is very good and the characters come across as realistic, especially those people with whom Faraday works. The storylines also work well together, and Hurley doesn't get bogged down in one to the point where the others don't get fully explored.

I'd definitely recommend it to readers who enjoy a good British police procedural and people who enjoy British mysteries. It's not a cozy so definitely don't go here if that's what you're looking for.

All in all, a fine series opener and good read.