The Birdwatcher
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4.4 • 14 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Police Sergeant William South has a good reason to shy away from murder investigations: he is a murderer himself.
A methodical, diligent, and exceptionally bright detective, South is an avid birdwatcher and trusted figure in his small town on the rugged Kentish coast. He also lives with the deeply buried secret that, as a child in Northern Ireland, he may have killed a man. When a fellow birdwatcher is found murdered in his remote home, South's world flips.
The culprit seems to be a drifter from South's childhood; the victim was the only person connecting South to his early crime; and a troubled, vivacious new female sergeant has been relocated from London and assigned to work with South. As our hero investigates, he must work ever-harder to keep his own connections to the victim, and his past, a secret.
The Birdwatcher is British crime fiction at its finest; a stirring portrait of flawed, vulnerable investigators; a meticulously constructed mystery; and a primal story of fear, loyalty and vengeance.
**Longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of British author Shaw's engaging crime novel, William South, an avid birdwatcher and a community policing officer in Kent, England, muses on why he doesn't want to be part of a murder team. First, it's October, and the migratory birds are arriving. And, second, because "he was a murderer himself." (As a child, he may have killed a man.) William is even more reluctant to participate when he learns that the victim is fellow birdwatcher Robert Rayner, a friend and neighbor. Rayner's death is a mystery, and his life turns out to be an equally big one. Shaw (A Song for the Brokenhearted) has more than enough material there for a fine procedural, but he interweaves the present-day case with a more personal one, set in Northern Ireland in an earlier generation: 13-year-old Billy McGowan's father is murdered during the Troubles between the Protestants and the Catholics, and locals, not all of them official, want to know who did it. Both plotlines intrigue, but the crosscutting weakens the overall impact. Still, the action builds to a thrilling ending.
