Simon Hall - The Judgement Book

Review by Brian on show 12th May 2011
This is the fourth book by Simon Hall, the BBC Spotlight Reporter, in the series featuring Dan Groves, who has a similar job with a fictitious TV company in the south west and Adam Breen, a Detective Chief Supt. with the Police force in Plymouth.

We all have our shared secrets and one of our greatest fears is seeing them revealed.
The Judgement Book – just a pocket diary, but festering with so much sin. A faceless criminal, seeking not money, but revenge. Secret after secret of the prominent are revealed – sordid sex, corruption and murder, followed by suicide, scandal and humiliation.

Then Dan Groves and his detective friend Adam Breen discover they too are in the Judgement Book.

And so Dan sets off assisting the police in solving this latest crime. The book follows the same pattern as the previous novels in this series with riddles to solve to lead them to the final solution.

Whilst this is a good story which I enjoyed reading, I feel it is time that Simon Hall changed the theme, as it is stretching my credulity by the way that this crime reporter works so closely with the police, attending briefings in the main incident room and even going with Adam to interview suspects. He does only report on the TV what Adam has given permission for but it does result in a number of “exclusive reports”. Why havn’t other reporters complained?

However, I will still recommend it and look forward to the next book when hopefully he can sort things out with his girl friend who has just had an abortion.
by Brian