The Crooked Man (1997)
Cabinet ministers have to be protected, even when they are out cheating on their wives. If a cabinet minister is out cheating on his wife he doesn’t want to bring his Special Branch bodyguards with him. He tries to give them the slip. He is happier knowing that they are guarding his wife and children while he is making his visit. If the jolly coppers know about his little ploy some new faces are drafted to cover those visits. As a matter of course they bring their expensive camera equipment and take some photographs. Taking account of these additional man hours it would appear that more tax-payers’ money is spent protecting the male cabinet minister than the female cabinet minister. She is either more faithful, or she is more cunning in conducting her affairs. If, however, the jolly coppers are not aware of our man giving them the slip, he continues to be protected at the cheaper rate.
Hamilton is in a position to hear about such affairs. His tentacles have a long reach. Officially, he is a lowly civil servant working for the Joint Intelligence Committee which operates out of the Cabinet Office. When he isn’t busy meeting people like me he is responsible for bringing together and presenting information from the different services. Hamilton serves more than one queen. He can poo–poo any suggestion that a politician be put under surveillance because of gossip or rumour. He can then put me on the job.
An exciting, literate thriller SUNDAY TIMES
As flawed heroes go, Harry Fielding must rank as among the best of them IRISH INDEPENDENT
Davison has perfectly captured, in short, clipped prose, the world of a man …whose only skills are survival and patience and whose basic decency is an inconvenience that he tries to overcome. Harry is compelling in his stubbornness to endure… It is his prosaic nature that makes him fascinating, and that makes The Crooked Man such a scarily convincing book. CRIME TIME
A darkly merry story about the individual in society… Davison’s lean and ultra-minimalist style evokes an atmosphere that is quite surreal. THE IRISH TIMES