The new novel, Flesh and Blood, featuring retired police detective Frank Elder, was published by William Heinemann on April 1st, and, so far, has been accorded a warm welcome. Reviews have been more than kind – see later – and sales, thanks to the stalwart efforts of the parent publishers, Random House, have shown a healthy increase on past performances.

Carroll & Graf, who did such a handsome job with In a True Light in the States, are bringing out Flesh and Blood there in hardback in July, while the first paperback edition is due here in the UK from Arrow in February, 2005.

A second Frank Elder novel, Ash and Bone, is currently languishing in the rewrite stage, and as long as that process is concluded satisfactorily, should make its first appearance next April. In this, Elder, still based in Cornwall, is drawn into a series of events which, for the most part, unravel in north London, though Resnick aficionados will be pleased to know that there’s time for a brief trip or two north to Nottingham to check out how Charlie and Lynn are getting along.

The principal reason for setting Ash & Bone temporarily aside, is that, in tandem with Shelley Silas, my co-writer on this project, I’ve been struggling to transform Paul Scott’s complex and hefty Raj Quartet into eight hours of radio drama. Memorably shown on television some years back as The Jewel in the Crown, the radio version will be transmitted early in 2005.

Flesh and Blood Reviews

‘It is a brave writer who changes tack from a successful formula. John Harvey has taken the risk, and it has paid off handsomely. After 10 of the Charlie Resnick series, featuring a lonely, jazzloving Nottingham policeman, that complex character looked set to rival Rebus. Elmore Leonard has said that Harvey is ‘a stylist who tells you everything you need to know while keeping the prose clean and simple’, and compared him to Graham Greene.

Although Harvey was among the few crime writers to gain generous plaudits from the literary world, the Resnick books never made it to the ranks of fame. The problem has been Nottingham: interesting though the author has made that city, Harvey’s hero was confined to a small world, lacking the variety and strangeness of Rebus’s Edinburgh.

Harvey’s previous book, In a True Light, departed from Nottingham to explore the underworld of art. Now he returns to a policeman as central character, but with a difference. In Flesh and Blood, he has new settings, as well as a detective whose wide-ranging physical world can match an interior odyssey.

Retired DC Frank Elder is running from his past, from personal betrayal and professional doubt. He is haunted by the disappearance of 16-year-old Susan Blacklock, 12 years previously. Two men, convicted of the murder and rape of another girl, were Elder’s prime suspects. One of them, Shane Donald, obtains early release from prison.

His barrister claimed that Shane was himself a victim of abuse, led into crime by an older, dominating character. How far was this special pleading, and how likely is the youth to repeat the crime? These questions drive the plot as Shane breaks parole, kidnapping his social worker. He forms a relationship with Angel, a damaged teenage girl, and together they travel around the fringes of society, dubbed the ‘21st century Bonnie & Clyde’. Their relationship of violence and dependency is powerfully described, with its intermingling gentleness and brutality.

Elder, from his redoubt in Cornwall, sets out to track Shane down, haunted by the memory of the previous killing and fearful of another. The man convicted at the same time as Shane is still in prison, but has not lost his ability to manipulate, nor his savagery. Elder’s quest takes him on a long journey across Britain and ultimately to the other side of the world, as well as moving through Harvey’s stomping ground of Nottingham. The plot twists and turns as another girl is murdered in a beauty spot and Angel becomes aware of Shane’s cruelty.

Elder’s difficult relationship with his daughter is subtly achieved, as is his affair with the mother of the vanished girl. These histories are interwoven with scenes from the life of the psychopathic young killer. His unpredictable mixture of cruelty and tenderness is frighteningly well delineated, reinforcing the well-plotted suspense of a book with a depth few works of crime fiction attain.’

Jane Jakeman, The Independent

‘Troubled, haunting novel about memories of crimes past reawakened by crimes present … As much a meditation on middle age and Middle England, where most of the action takes place, as it is a study of the crimes themselves, with Harvey fusing time and place, motive and milieu into a backdrop against which lives are lived, spoiled and frequently wasted. … There is no fictional glue: things come together because they fit and because they must. Harvey handles his characters and their circumstances with extraordinary tact, which in no way slackens the tension or slows down the chase. What matters is that you really care. That concern, woven into the texture of the book, is the stamp of a major novel: thrilling, urgent, important.

Harvey addicts should watch out for the appearance on page 80 of his most celebrated character, DI Charlie Resnick, still soldiering on and now happily shacked up with DC Lynn Kellogg. No hint of a comeback; they’re already doing what they want to do. That’s what you call a happy ending.’

Philip Oakes, Literary Review

‘Flesh & Blood is a terrific comeback, restoring Harvey to the very top echelons of British crime writing … There’s nothing particularly original about the plot (except for its resolution); what takes Flesh & Blood into the highest league are Harvey’s exquisite writing and utterly convincing characters.’

Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘There is a power and dignity in Harvey’s storytelling, and his finely drawn characters propel the story to a conclusion which is both surprising and satisfying.’

Susanna Yager, The Sunday Telegraph

‘Harvey was always good at cranking up the tension to the very last page, often the very last paragraph. If he does not do that here, it is a close-run thing and the depth of characterisation he puts into his large cast makes Flesh & Blood one of the most satisfying British crime novels of the year.’

Mike Ripley, Birmingham Post

‘Using no device flashier than detailed characterisation, finely-crafted writing and gentle humour to build his story, Harvey grabs your interest and holds it. And that’s no mean feat.’

Andrea Henry, The Mirror

‘Harvey quietly orchestrates a sinister thriller with economy and empathy and proves once again that he is one of Britain’s leading masters of atmosphere.’

Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian

See the Playlist, May 2004