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DI Joe Faraday #7
One Under
Detective Inspector Joe Faraday investigates the apparant murder of a man who was run over after he was chained to railway tracks in a dark tunnel.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 2006
27 people are currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Graham Hurley
71 books152 followersGraham Hurley was born November, 1946 in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. His seaside childhood was punctuated by football, swimming, afternoons on the dodgems, run-ins with the police, multiple raids on the local library - plus near-total immersion in English post-war movies.
Directed and produced documentaries for ITV through two decades, winning a number of national and international awards. Launched a writing career on the back of a six-part drama commission for ITV: "Rules of Engagement". Left TV and became full time writer in 1991.
Authored nine stand-alone thrillers plus "Airshow", a fly-on-the-wall novel-length piece of reportage, before accepting Orion invitation to become a crime writer. Drew gleefully on home-town Portsmouth (“Pompey”) as the basis for an on-going series featuring D/I Joe Faraday and D/C Paul Winter.
Contributed five years of personal columns to the Portsmouth News, penned a number of plays and dramatic monologues for local production (including the city’s millenium celebration, "Willoughby and Son"), then decamped to Devon for a more considered take on Pompey low-life.
The Faraday series came to an end after 12 books. Healthy sales at home and abroad, plus mega-successful French TV adaptations, tempted Orion to commission a spin-off series, set in the West Country, featuring D/S Jimmy Suttle.
Launch title - "Western Approaches" - published 2012. "Touching Distance" to hit the bookstores next month (21st November).
Has recently self-published a number of titles on Kindle including "Strictly No Flowers" (a dark take on crime fiction), "Estuary" (a deeply personal memoir) and "Backstory" (how and why he came to write the Faraday series).
Married to the delectable Lin. Three grown-up sons (Tom, Jack and Woody). Plus corking grandson Dylan.
You're very welcome to contact Graham through his website: www.grahamhurley.co.uk
Or direct on seasidepictures@btinternet.com.
Series:
* D.I. Joe Faraday
Directed and produced documentaries for ITV through two decades, winning a number of national and international awards. Launched a writing career on the back of a six-part drama commission for ITV: "Rules of Engagement". Left TV and became full time writer in 1991.
Authored nine stand-alone thrillers plus "Airshow", a fly-on-the-wall novel-length piece of reportage, before accepting Orion invitation to become a crime writer. Drew gleefully on home-town Portsmouth (“Pompey”) as the basis for an on-going series featuring D/I Joe Faraday and D/C Paul Winter.
Contributed five years of personal columns to the Portsmouth News, penned a number of plays and dramatic monologues for local production (including the city’s millenium celebration, "Willoughby and Son"), then decamped to Devon for a more considered take on Pompey low-life.
The Faraday series came to an end after 12 books. Healthy sales at home and abroad, plus mega-successful French TV adaptations, tempted Orion to commission a spin-off series, set in the West Country, featuring D/S Jimmy Suttle.
Launch title - "Western Approaches" - published 2012. "Touching Distance" to hit the bookstores next month (21st November).
Has recently self-published a number of titles on Kindle including "Strictly No Flowers" (a dark take on crime fiction), "Estuary" (a deeply personal memoir) and "Backstory" (how and why he came to write the Faraday series).
Married to the delectable Lin. Three grown-up sons (Tom, Jack and Woody). Plus corking grandson Dylan.
You're very welcome to contact Graham through his website: www.grahamhurley.co.uk
Or direct on seasidepictures@btinternet.com.
Series:
* D.I. Joe Faraday
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
September 18, 2018
Well enough written; two parallel cases of men dead or missing, presumed dead. In one case the police haul in the usual suspects in Portsmouth, even though they are pretty sure it isn't the drug dealer's style. A man was left chained to a train track in a tunnel, and the parallels are also clear to the method of killing discovered in the second case.
Joe Faraday is more clean cut and I was sad to read about him knowing what happens in a later book. I still don't believe that incident, given how much this man enjoys birdwatching and his own company.
Paul Winter is an older and less politically correct copper, I don't much like him but there is an equivalent in just about every police series. He has recently survived a brain tumour operation. Here he rather stupidly denies having talked with Baz McKenzie the drug lord when half the town saw them sit down in a restaurant. Again, I know where this leads, and could see the set up coming. Winter spends more time working alone than seems feasible but we do learn about the co-operation given by phone firms.
Not for the squeamish, but we know the difference between police procedurals and village cosies. I found the many names get thrown at us rather as labels and if you put the book down for a few days you will be confused as to which character is part of which investigation and why. I presume the author works with name cards on a corkboard, or similar, as he writes.
This is an unbiased review.
Joe Faraday is more clean cut and I was sad to read about him knowing what happens in a later book. I still don't believe that incident, given how much this man enjoys birdwatching and his own company.
Paul Winter is an older and less politically correct copper, I don't much like him but there is an equivalent in just about every police series. He has recently survived a brain tumour operation. Here he rather stupidly denies having talked with Baz McKenzie the drug lord when half the town saw them sit down in a restaurant. Again, I know where this leads, and could see the set up coming. Winter spends more time working alone than seems feasible but we do learn about the co-operation given by phone firms.
Not for the squeamish, but we know the difference between police procedurals and village cosies. I found the many names get thrown at us rather as labels and if you put the book down for a few days you will be confused as to which character is part of which investigation and why. I presume the author works with name cards on a corkboard, or similar, as he writes.
This is an unbiased review.
February 27, 2017
Enjoyed this entry in the series set in Portsmouth, UK. DI Joe Faraday is back, investigating a possible suicide of a man on the railroad tracks in a tunnel. Further investigation indicates that he had to have had help...and thus, more likely a murder. But by whom? There was not really enough left of the person for ID by typical means--they can only hope to match missing persons' DNA to the bits left. Faraday gets DC Paul Winter in on the Intelligence portion of the investigation, trying to figure out who he can be. One of the other missing persons he looks into piques Winter's interest and he ends up going off in another direction that leads to a whole new major investigation.
The appeal of the series aside from the strong writing, is that there is just the right mixture of the main characters' personal lives with police procedure and detective work. The mix of action is perfectly balanced with introspection and thought. It's one of those books that once started, tends to keep me up too late reading "one more chapter."
The appeal of the series aside from the strong writing, is that there is just the right mixture of the main characters' personal lives with police procedure and detective work. The mix of action is perfectly balanced with introspection and thought. It's one of those books that once started, tends to keep me up too late reading "one more chapter."
July 3, 2011
Graham Hurley's British police procedural series featuring DI Joe Farraday and DS Paul Winter has grown on me. At the beginning, I did not find either of the two main characters particularly attractive or sympathetic, although they were certainly interesting, but as the series has continued, now into its seventh entry, those characters have become better defined and more complex and I find that I quite like them both.
Hurley's usual modus operandi is to have the two detectives working two separate cases which intersect or overlap at some point and that is the situation here.
We begin with a man dying horribly while chained to a railroad track. The main questions are, how did he come to be there and is this murder or some weird kind of suicide? If it is murder, what could the man have done to have made someone want to kill him in this fashion? As the detectives begin to piece together the victim's story, they discover an obsessive loner who was politically active and engaged, but was there a motive for murder in any of his activities?
Meantime, while working this case, Paul Winter discovers another missing person. It turns out that this missing man has a connection with one of Paul's mates who works at the morgue, one Jake Tarrant. The missing person had sought to ingratiate himself with Jake and his family and the investigation reveals that he had turned over a lot of money to Jake, enough to help him get the home that he wants for his wife and two children. Why would the man do that? And has he now simply disappeared or is he dead? Winter begins to suspect the latter and, at some length, surmises what might be a motive for murder, but will he ever be able to prove it?
Hurley is meticulous in taking us through the process of the investigations on both cases and his writing, which has always been good, was really excellent this time. He paints such clear pictures of all the different characters that I felt as if I had actually met and talked with them. I could always understand why they did what they did, even if I did not necessarily agree with it. I think this is really the best of the series so far and I look forward to reading the next entry.
Hurley's usual modus operandi is to have the two detectives working two separate cases which intersect or overlap at some point and that is the situation here.
We begin with a man dying horribly while chained to a railroad track. The main questions are, how did he come to be there and is this murder or some weird kind of suicide? If it is murder, what could the man have done to have made someone want to kill him in this fashion? As the detectives begin to piece together the victim's story, they discover an obsessive loner who was politically active and engaged, but was there a motive for murder in any of his activities?
Meantime, while working this case, Paul Winter discovers another missing person. It turns out that this missing man has a connection with one of Paul's mates who works at the morgue, one Jake Tarrant. The missing person had sought to ingratiate himself with Jake and his family and the investigation reveals that he had turned over a lot of money to Jake, enough to help him get the home that he wants for his wife and two children. Why would the man do that? And has he now simply disappeared or is he dead? Winter begins to suspect the latter and, at some length, surmises what might be a motive for murder, but will he ever be able to prove it?
Hurley is meticulous in taking us through the process of the investigations on both cases and his writing, which has always been good, was really excellent this time. He paints such clear pictures of all the different characters that I felt as if I had actually met and talked with them. I could always understand why they did what they did, even if I did not necessarily agree with it. I think this is really the best of the series so far and I look forward to reading the next entry.
April 19, 2017
How is it I regularly seem to pick up a book part way through a series and not at the beginning :-)
This author was new to me and reading the back this looked likes it could be a gory one, it actually wasn't that bad. There is a bit of a description of what faced them in the train tunnel, but nowhere near as bad as it could be. Starting the investigation on what happened opens up a new line of enquiry on a missing person so essentially the book follows two cases. I found it interesting that the two main characters investigate in different ways, one by the book and one taking a less conventional route, and although I didn't really like Winter I can understand the route he took with the case he was investigating. There are hints on the a back story to Winter which I guess was covered in previous books, but overall it stood well on its own.
This author was new to me and reading the back this looked likes it could be a gory one, it actually wasn't that bad. There is a bit of a description of what faced them in the train tunnel, but nowhere near as bad as it could be. Starting the investigation on what happened opens up a new line of enquiry on a missing person so essentially the book follows two cases. I found it interesting that the two main characters investigate in different ways, one by the book and one taking a less conventional route, and although I didn't really like Winter I can understand the route he took with the case he was investigating. There are hints on the a back story to Winter which I guess was covered in previous books, but overall it stood well on its own.
June 18, 2015
A Joe Faraday novel is always a welcome read, despite being gritty, often violent and unsettling. Of all the writers of detective novels I've read, Hurley is the most convincing, showing the police stretched, juggling time and resources. Not for them the luxury of taking their working life one case at a time: there's paperwork, other calls on their time, other cases demanding attention. It feels real.
This is a particularly nasty case, involving an apparently brutal murder in which the victim has been strapped to the line shortly before the first train of the day comes through. All the usual police characters play their part in arriving at the solution to the mystery of who could have been responsible for such a crime: Winter, Suttle et al, as well as Faraday himself. All are believable, developed characters, as are many of the civilians called on to help piece the story of the murder together.
A satisfying read.
This is a particularly nasty case, involving an apparently brutal murder in which the victim has been strapped to the line shortly before the first train of the day comes through. All the usual police characters play their part in arriving at the solution to the mystery of who could have been responsible for such a crime: Winter, Suttle et al, as well as Faraday himself. All are believable, developed characters, as are many of the civilians called on to help piece the story of the murder together.
A satisfying read.
August 17, 2016
I see that the last Graham Hurley I read was awarded 3*. This is better than that, I think. Basically this is a painstaking police procedural with one, then two enquiries. The lives of the dead and missing are confusing and many red herrings have to be explored before the truth in both cases comes out. I do wonder, however, whether DC Paul Winter would really act as he is portrayed doing at the end of the book. Be warned there are some prety gruesome descriptions both at the beginning of and during the narrative.
December 25, 2016
I just don't know about this one. It struggled to keep my focus for a number of reasons. The first is that there were too many mid-weight characters to keep track of, I almost had to write out a list to remember who the author was referring to. For a crime novel, there is perhaps one scene which involved action, which was disappointing. And I think the surroundings were a little too familiar to the author. So much so that the reader couldn't effectively relate or become engaged. Probably 2.5 stars out of 5 for me here.
July 17, 2017
This book, and I suspect all of Hurley's books, are psychologically astute and at the same time disturbing. The victims, the villains and the police are all complex people with sometimes twisted motivations. Unlike some mystery writers, his "heroes" are not always comfortable to be around. This book ends with a real twist that is a particularly disturbing window on people and personalities. The entire book is a page turner, and it's very surprising that Hurley is not better known in the US.
May 30, 2017
Great book, my only criticism is too many characters. The twists and turns of two murder cases with dozens of witnessess and suspects is a bit mind boggling. So don't let your mind wander or you will find yourself re-reading a few paragraphs. The combination of Faraday and Winter is mesmerising and I look forward to reading more from Graham Hurley.
January 2, 2010
Very good. Similar parallel stories approached by two very different cops naturally with different outcomes. Does the best man win?
March 7, 2011
Story moves along well with just enough twists and turns. Keeps the interest by running two cases.
November 16, 2020
Too many Joe Faraday novels are never nearly enough. Graham Hurley is the doyen of police-procedure thriller writers, and his One Under is a classic of the genre that he now dominates.
As with all his Faraday books this is a crime novel for grown-ups. There are no cross-city car chases here; no melodramatic dénouement wherein the hero single-handedly beats the black-hearted villain into submission; and, indeed, there is no brilliant individual sleuth who defies all odds and with razor-sharpness uncovers clues that are unfathomable to everyone else.
Instead, the intelligent, unassuming and, to many of his colleagues at least, the slightly aloof Faraday is the leader of a team that does the painstaking work of cleaning up crimes committed in the unglamorous but compelling city of Portsmouth in England. This is a tale of teamwork, not Dirty Harrys. Among the disparate group of detectives and straight-out Bobbies-on-the beat is Paul Winter, a flawed and superficially unattractive detective on both the professional and personal level.
Hurley has created flesh and blood with Joe Faraday and his subordinate, Winter. The inveterate bird-watcher, Faraday has his own crosses to bear – he is a widower with a young adult deaf-mute son. Like most others, he seeks companionship but remains outwardly calm and philosophical when, as again, with pretty well all of the rest of us, life takes frequent unforseen and unfortunate twists. Winter, also a widower, is by his own description, a FOB – a Fat, Old Bastard. He paints an unattractive picture as he often drinks copiously and sloppily and may, on occasion, be seen to scratch at a pub floor in search of a dropped peanut. He’ll ram anything into his mouth to appease that massive belly of his. But he is a good and committed detective even if he is no team player in a team game.
The opening of One Under is a gripping lead to, ostensibly, a shocking crime even by the standards of Pompey’s (Portsmouth’s) low life. It results in Faraday and his extensive squad being assigned to the case to try to fathom what actually has happened and to pin it on those responsible. Enquiries result in the strong suspicion of a quite separate serious crime and we follow the course of the investigations into both.
As these dual investigations unfold, Hurley puts us smack-bang right into Serious Crime Room briefings, informal bar chats, into the squad cars that take us through the warrens of the city’s unsavoury suburbs of the underclass, and we become close witnesses to the scribbles in police notebooks as they interview many and varied ‘persons of interest’. Along the way, we are introduced to memorable characters such as the menacing but cunning “Bazza’ McKenzie, who police well know to be the drug king of Portsmouth, but have been unable to produce the evidence to lock him up.
Slowly, ever so slowly, diligence and technology, and a little bit of luck, begin to shed some light on the investigations. The net closes…… somewhat. But, just as the vast majority of us are well aware, life doesn’t tie up every loose end. The Pompey police end up with acceptable results in one of the cases but the other has inconvenient threads left dangling; so much so that it is quietly tossed into the No-Further-Action basket’: nothing to see here. Meanwhile, the intimidating “Bazza” McKenzie continues to dominate the City’s underworld untroubled by the snooping of the “Old Bill”………… For now.
Take a bow, Graham Hurley. This is one of his many great books.
As with all his Faraday books this is a crime novel for grown-ups. There are no cross-city car chases here; no melodramatic dénouement wherein the hero single-handedly beats the black-hearted villain into submission; and, indeed, there is no brilliant individual sleuth who defies all odds and with razor-sharpness uncovers clues that are unfathomable to everyone else.
Instead, the intelligent, unassuming and, to many of his colleagues at least, the slightly aloof Faraday is the leader of a team that does the painstaking work of cleaning up crimes committed in the unglamorous but compelling city of Portsmouth in England. This is a tale of teamwork, not Dirty Harrys. Among the disparate group of detectives and straight-out Bobbies-on-the beat is Paul Winter, a flawed and superficially unattractive detective on both the professional and personal level.
Hurley has created flesh and blood with Joe Faraday and his subordinate, Winter. The inveterate bird-watcher, Faraday has his own crosses to bear – he is a widower with a young adult deaf-mute son. Like most others, he seeks companionship but remains outwardly calm and philosophical when, as again, with pretty well all of the rest of us, life takes frequent unforseen and unfortunate twists. Winter, also a widower, is by his own description, a FOB – a Fat, Old Bastard. He paints an unattractive picture as he often drinks copiously and sloppily and may, on occasion, be seen to scratch at a pub floor in search of a dropped peanut. He’ll ram anything into his mouth to appease that massive belly of his. But he is a good and committed detective even if he is no team player in a team game.
The opening of One Under is a gripping lead to, ostensibly, a shocking crime even by the standards of Pompey’s (Portsmouth’s) low life. It results in Faraday and his extensive squad being assigned to the case to try to fathom what actually has happened and to pin it on those responsible. Enquiries result in the strong suspicion of a quite separate serious crime and we follow the course of the investigations into both.
As these dual investigations unfold, Hurley puts us smack-bang right into Serious Crime Room briefings, informal bar chats, into the squad cars that take us through the warrens of the city’s unsavoury suburbs of the underclass, and we become close witnesses to the scribbles in police notebooks as they interview many and varied ‘persons of interest’. Along the way, we are introduced to memorable characters such as the menacing but cunning “Bazza’ McKenzie, who police well know to be the drug king of Portsmouth, but have been unable to produce the evidence to lock him up.
Slowly, ever so slowly, diligence and technology, and a little bit of luck, begin to shed some light on the investigations. The net closes…… somewhat. But, just as the vast majority of us are well aware, life doesn’t tie up every loose end. The Pompey police end up with acceptable results in one of the cases but the other has inconvenient threads left dangling; so much so that it is quietly tossed into the No-Further-Action basket’: nothing to see here. Meanwhile, the intimidating “Bazza” McKenzie continues to dominate the City’s underworld untroubled by the snooping of the “Old Bill”………… For now.
Take a bow, Graham Hurley. This is one of his many great books.
July 28, 2019
I think I am right in saying that "One Under" is train driver speak for 'body on the line". The opening scene is horrific but fortunately, the rest of the book is not so once you are over that, the action is less scary. I have now read several on this author's books and I find them quite enthralling. I know Portsmouth a little bit having been there and to Southsea several times and that helps to visualise the scenes of crime. As another reviewer mentioned, there is good counterpoint between the 2 detectives who work on the case and who are totally different in personality and approach to detective work.
February 11, 2021
I have read all of Graham Hurley's DI Faraday series and as an ex Policeman myself I find his understanding of the Police procedural Crime Novel outstanding. My only disappointment was when the Faraday series came to an end. This was my favorite but to do the series justice you need to start at the beginning. The French loved them so much they apparently turned some of the books into a TV drama.
June 21, 2017
Graham Hurley is always a pair of safe hands, and this is a joy. Well-rounded characters, excellent plot and thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable.
January 11, 2019
Enjoyed this police procedural though, I must admit, I didn't recognise Pompey!
November 18, 2022
Lots of characters that change each chapter made it quite difficult to follow
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March 31, 2013A train conductor gets the shock of his life when he is forced to stop his train at the end of a tunnel because a man is laid out across the tracks. He can’t stop in time, and the man is killed. Inspector Joe Faraday is called to the scene because it appears to be homicide. There isn’t enough left of the body to identify it, at least initially, but the body was chained to the tracks with his legs chained open so the train would head right toward his middle and cut him in half. Faraday, and his immediate sergeant Paul Winter, start investigating-first to identify the man killed. In doing this, they come across at least two men who seem to have disappeared leaving no trace. One of them, either before or as a part of his disappearance, had his bank card stolen. A man used all the remaining money in his bank account to buy season tickets to scalp them for football. Sergeant Winter has made several people angry, including a mobster by sleeping with his mistress, and he is involved in fights and humiliating experiences as he looks for the answers to find both men who have disappeared. There are lots of red herrings in this book with the final outcome really not available until the very last pages of the book. It’s a very good book
September 18, 2023
I used to live in Portsmouth, where this book is set. Graham Hurley catches the city well. This said, the book is a little irritating, maybe?
In this book, there are 2 murders. Both are violent, one under a train (hence the name), the other violently in other ways, and uncovered trying to identify the first victim.
The murders are uncovered by 2 different types of cop (one by the book -Joe Faraday, one, not so much -Paul Winter). It wasn’t a bad read, just a little… irritating? I wanted a… more satisfactory ending (to my mind). I wonder if either of the murders would have been written in the same way as they were written when the book was published.
In this book, there are 2 murders. Both are violent, one under a train (hence the name), the other violently in other ways, and uncovered trying to identify the first victim.
The murders are uncovered by 2 different types of cop (one by the book -Joe Faraday, one, not so much -Paul Winter). It wasn’t a bad read, just a little… irritating? I wanted a… more satisfactory ending (to my mind). I wonder if either of the murders would have been written in the same way as they were written when the book was published.
March 1, 2015
Really torn with this one - likable characters but just don't like the way it is written - too slow, too drawn out but very realistic on the otherhand. More realistic than various other crime books, I'm sure there is even a name for this category as it seems to be following real police procedures (that's where it gets slow) mixed up with a lot of empathy. Two crimes two different outcomes but similar dilemmas attached to it. One handled with police textbook procedures and the other not.
March 1, 2009
If you like Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus, you'll like this authors characters. As much a character study of the detectives involved as a murder mystery. This is a British author that's not widely known in the U.S.
March 12, 2010
Mr. Hurley continues to improve - a joy to read. As usual, two story lines - Winter investigates a missing person, Faraday a death in train tunnel.
What I learned from this book: Don't throw the key away!
What I learned from this book: Don't throw the key away!
June 6, 2016
This one was really hard to read, partly because the text was so small, and partly because the story jumped around a lot.
The last chapter to me felt unnecessary.
It was a real slog but I was determined to finish it. I do know that I will not be reading any more in the series.
The last chapter to me felt unnecessary.
It was a real slog but I was determined to finish it. I do know that I will not be reading any more in the series.
January 22, 2016
This is my first Faraday and Winter book and it won't be my last. Good police procedural with strong believable characters. Didn't know much , if anything about this series and was pleasantly surprised at how good this book was.
February 26, 2008
This series gets better with each book. I am looking forward to reading #8 as soon as my public library catalogues it!
March 9, 2009
The "one under" refers to a body run over by a train. Gruesome! But most of the book is a good British police procedural.
May 9, 2010
DI Joe Faraday
DC Paul Winter - bent cop
Man found chained to train tracks and run over
Love this series
DC Paul Winter - bent cop
Man found chained to train tracks and run over
Love this series
March 8, 2012
Argh. getting pretty tired of this author and this will probably be the last one. Most of the crime in his books now is mob related so there is very little sense of closure.
May 28, 2012
I am liking this series, but the books are difficult to find at my library, and book stores.
Thoughtful writer, deep characters, good plot.
Thoughtful writer, deep characters, good plot.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews