Year 2 / Book 52: Eleven Days

52) Eleven Days by Stav Sherez

Yay, book 52 – book a week for a year done with a few days to spare (and a couple of long train journeys to read on still). And a good one to hit the 52 mark on, as well. I read the first Carrigan and Miller book by Stav Sherez earlier in the year, A Dark Redemption, and really enjoyed it. So I was looking forward to reading the next two, and had kept them back in a kind of delayed reading gratification kind of way. This, the second in the series, is thoroughly excellent as well.

It is set in London again, and revolves around the burning down of a convent in St Peter’s Square, killing ten nuns in the process. From there the plot expands and weaves in and out in lots of different trails and directions, with Carrigan and Miller’s instincts at times leading them in divergent paths. Those paths lead to a Catholic Church hiding things, Peruvian activism in the 1960s and 1970s, a dysfunctional upper-class London family, and an Eastern European drugs gang. When I write that down, I wonder quite how it works, but I think the variety is partly why: the reader is quite unsure which area is going to prove the one that holds the answers.

There are plenty of neat twists, nice detail, and interesting back story to get your teeth into, and it moves page-turningly along with gusto. Carrigan and Miller are as likeable as ever, and growing in depth and colour as the series moves along – there is a bit of standard ‘will they, won’t they’ about it, but largely their interplay is more interesting than that. The same is true of the book as a whole: there’s a lot of elements here which could be clichéd here in other hands, but Sherez keeps it fresh, dynamic and interesting. I can’t wait to read the third instalment in the series, and if you haven’t read these yet (and especially if you’re a Londoner), you should get cracking. Great stuff.

Score: 8.5/10

BUY IT NOW: Eleven Days (Carrigan & Miller Book 2)