Rod Reynolds
Orenda Books, 22 May 2025
Available as: PB, 355pp audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781916788091
I'm grateful to Orenda for sending me a copy of Shatter Creek to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.
This one put me in mind of one of my favourite Springsteen songs, Atlantic City:
Now there's trouble busin' in from outta state
And the DA can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade
And the gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth...
Also set in a coastal town that's seen better days, like Atlantic City Shatter Creek sees hard-pressed officialdom - in this case the Hampstead County Police Department - hanging on by the skin of its teeth, threatened by by a wave of murders, by political interference and by the taint of corruption.
Sergeant Casey Wray is back, naturally. She's the woman trying to hold it, and herself, together. Casey - just - survived the violent events of Black Reed Bay, both physically (unlike her partner she's alive!) and reputationally, back on duty after a lengthy investigation exonerated her (though not in everyone's eyes). Now it all seems to be happening again, with her superior officer mistrustful, mysterious calls from a would-be informant, and pressure to resolve the murder of a wealthy political donor without raking up further dirt.
We're in for a tense few days, then, as Casey has to balance the different pressures on her.
But someone else seems to be interested in recruiting her...
This certainly is not a relaxing read. As with its predecessor, Shatter Creek is a tense book, a window into a high pressure world where nothing can be fixed and just getting to the end of each working day is a minor miracle. Casey's clearly a good cop, and a good friend - she spends as much time sorting out the frictions among her team as in chasing down the suspects - but she's in a tight place. By the time I was a third of the way through this book I was beginning to dread every phone call and text that interrupts Casey's day, because each one piles more and more pressure on.
As the story progresses, the limited normality and security that Casey has reestablished is stripped away leaving her very exposed. She's pressured to do favours for the politicians - but we just know that if she gives in, it'll blow up in her face. If she resists, though, she'll end up being the fall girl when the enquiry goes wrong, as it seems to be doing.
Through it all, Reynolds keeps a plot moving that is - once we reach the end and see what's gone on - beautifully simply, yet fiendishly complex and misleading as it unfolds. And he makes real a whole train of characters - broken people, who've lost loved ones or discovered someone wasn't what they seemed. Rage, loss, jealousy, greed and pride chase each other down the pages of this novel as though someone had set up a track and field tournament for the Seven Deadly Sins.
And amidst it all are those broken people, desperately vulnerable. It's not just Casey who's in jeopardy (though she does seem at risk). There's a missing mother and child. Other women are dying, with a particularly nasty form of patriarchy and coercive control on display. Each death leaves a dreadful void for the survivors. Protecting them all is Casey's touchpoint, her still centre in this storm - one of the reasons she's such a relatable and compelling protagonist - but other actors, bad actors, seem more concerned with covering their own backsides, or finding advantage in the chaos.
It is a riveting read, and one hard not to undertake in a single go, though if you suffer from high blood pressure, well, you may want to make sure you take regular breaks... or medication.
For more information about Shatter Creek, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below.
You can buy Shatter Creek from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.
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