No Questions Asked

DSI Jeff Barton Investigation #4

by David Menon

Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

No Questions Asked picks up where 'Storms' left off in the back garden of Jeff Barton's house where he's hosting a barbecue for neighbours, family and friends. But the party is abruptly ended when the body of an eleven year-old child, the son of one of Jeff's neighbours, is found in the woods nearby. As the covers are lifted on the secrets held by those living around him he wonders if a child killer could be actually living on his street. Whilst he tries to take his relationship with his deputy, DI Rebecca Stockton, to a deeper level the investigation brings him back into confrontation with his old nemesis Bernie Connelly who is one of Manchester's most notorious gangsters and has a personal interest in finding the child killer, leading him to pick off a list of paedophiles who are the prime suspects. Added to everything else is a case of political corruption that may or may not be linked to the murders and this proves to be one of Jeff Barton's most complicated and yet most urgent of cases to solve.

204 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 27, 2014

About the author

David was born of an English mother and an Indian father, neither of whom brought him up. He spent his childhood in Derby but has since lived all over the UK, and also for several very happy years he lived in Paris. He loves to travel, loves Indian food closely followed by French, he’s into politics and current affairs and all the arts – books, films, TV, theatre, and music. He’s a seriously devoted fan of Stevie Nicks who he calls ‘the voice of my interior world’. When he’s not writing he teaches English to Russian students for a school in St. Petersburg.

Reviews

[Milena · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s the first book from the series that I read. Fortunately (and I guess unfortunately for people who read the previous parts) the characters’ descriptions were so detailed that I did not have any difficulty in grasping who is who. The book was easy to read. Probably I would reach for another parts of the series from mere curiosity but still I found more drawbacks of this book than advantages. What I expect from crime stories is a vivid portrayal of the main dominant hero supported by some interestingly sketched minor characters. "No Questions Asked" lacks such portrayals – its characters are easy to forget and hard to remember because all of them seem to be rather flat and clichéd. I liked the idea of setting a crime scene in a quiet suburban neighborhood because it is always the good opportunity to uncover the dark secrets and tragedies concerning only superficially decent citizens. But the way the author pictured the whole drama made the book more similar to the soap opera than to the crime story with some deeper psychological analysis.

[Tabitha Ormiston-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

These Jeff Barton books are wonderfully constructed crime novels, and I do enjoy them. Of particular note are the intricately constructed plots, the very relatable characters, the deft weaving in of backstory, the way the conclusion resolves the book while leaving way for the next one. All of these things are done very well.

There are a couple of issues, though, with this book as with the others in this series, that prevent me from rating it more highly. The first issue is the moral content. While I love to see moral issues drawn out and illustrated in fiction, I dislike being preached at, and I feel there is far too much of that in Menon's work; the points he makes, all good points, need to be made more subtly.

The second issue I have is with presentation. Spelling errors, grammatical errors and tense switching intrude themselves on the reader's notice and mar the overall impact of the story. If it were not for these two issues, I'd have given the book four stars.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone wanting to try this series, it needs to be read in order as there is so much pertaining to previous books. This was the third back to back and really enjoyed.