Flesh & Blood (Frank Elder Mysteries) Hardcover – June 1, 2004

Between other reviews and the editorial reviews, you have an idea of what this book --and the series-- is about. Frank Elder is a middle aged retired cop who is drawn back to work searching for murderers--and murderers of the more chilling and mentally disturbed kind. In Flesh and Blood, his family is drawn into the story through his 16-year old daughter. His daughter, his ex-wife and her lover and an extraordinarily self contained female co-worker are continuing characters. In Flesh and Blood, he solves two mysteries combining police procedural with psychological twists. Harvey continues the traumas suffered by all through the two following books, Ash & Bone and Darkness & Light. This is not a series for those who dislike detailed gore, but there is more here than mayhem. Elder is emotionally sensitive but unable to express himself making relationships more fragile. His wife has made bad decisions she seems unable to undo. His daughter's trauma in Flesh & Blood starts the sequence of events in Ash & Bone. John Harvey moves back and forth between the violence of Elder's job and the mysteries of his relationships, and not always with success. Each of the characters is a mystery to themselves and they act in much the same way in each book, with little growth. The daughter is the least well drawn, predictably making bad choices, and female characters generally are more image than substance.It is hard to determine if Harvey wants to write a series developing characters or he is using characters with (so far) unrealized potential to tell his crime stories. Nonetheless, he is too skilled a writer to write a unsatisfying book. The plots unfold nicely and keep you reading, the mad motives behind the murders well handled even if they don't break new ground. Elder is sympathetic, though an ordinary man, unable to translate his feelings to words or firm action. They are a satisfying read for the unfolding plot, and interesting murderers, but the tone is unrelievedly gray and dour, without a touch of humor and only the barest touch of hope. Harvey builds the world effectively and convincingly. The series is a police procedural more than mystery, or is a psychological novel of the gritty kind or both. If you like Ian Rankin or Denise Mina or those perennially unhappy Scottish detectives, you will enjoy this. If you are a Deborah Crombie fan, this is not so much your cup of tea.

John Harvey wrote a famous series with Det. Charlie Resnick, who makes a cameo appearance in this book.After the series ended many a reader was sorely dissappointed.Luckily, he gave us Frank Elder, retired Det. Inspector, still fighting his demons. Mr. Harvey's poetic writing and deft hand with the construction of the plot is still present.His characters are alive and really flesh and blood as the title states. I am thrilled that there are two more books in the series, and I am hoping for more. This is the best of crime writing, as usual coming from the Brits.

John Harvey is an outstanding writer. HIs characters are believable and his plots well thought out. I'm a big fan of British mysteries.

As with Ash & Bone, the settings and characters are not really to my liking. Except for plot points, especially the reminder of war trauma, it feels more pre-war than post-war.

The other frank Elder novels refer to a seminal event in Elder's family that haunts them all profoundly; Flesh & Blood puts that question to rest. The course of events that forever traumatizes sixteen-year-old Katherine Elder is begun simply enough, one more case that Elder can't resist when his expertise is solicited. When his marriage to Joanna fell apart and her infidelity came to light, Frank moved as far away from his memories as possible, to the remote and wild Cornwall coast. Now he lives a spartan existence, solitary and healing, the emotional wreckage of a failed marriage gradually losing its power. Always a detective at heart, although loathe to leave his new home, Frank cannot resist the siren call of one more request, this time related to one missing girl and another brutally tortured and slain.Acting on the request of another detective, Maureen Prior, Elder returns to Nottinghamshire. It seems that one of the perpetrators of a kidnap-murder has been released on parole and Prior thinks Shane Donald may lead them to the missing girl who has never been found. Although Shane hasn't admitted knowledge of the disappearance of Susan Blacklock, he may know something that will enable them to renew their investigation. But when Donald, whose former crime was heinous, is threatened, he disappears from the assigned group home into the countryside. The police are diligently searching for Donald when another young woman is abducted, violated and murdered; the quest grows more frantic, everyone working against time.Between visits with his daughter and interviews with Susan Blacklock's friends and family, Elder participates in solving the latest crime. Meanwhile Harvey sweetens the plot with more than one resolution, another set of remorseless criminals, Frank's horrific dreams, too much publicity and Elder's daughter, Katherine, caught up in a nightmare beyond imagining. Harvey's dour protagonist is a driven man, no doubt, but one with a compassionate heart and a realistic take on the checks and balances of the world. Katherine's desperate situation draws Elder into the crux of his moral dilemma, his role as a father, an ex-husband and a man. Psychologically shredded by his own failings and inability to save his daughter from the underbelly of the criminal element he knows so well, Frank Elder faces the most important test of his life. pp Luan Gaines/ 2006.