Sorcerer

DSI Jeff Barton Investigation #1

by David Menon

The remains of three bodies, one an infant, one a child, are found in an old house close to Manchester University. The house used to be a care home for teenage boys and Detective Superintendent Jeff Barton and his team uncover a history of horrifying brutality and abuse. Their investigations lead them to the former manager of the home and his wife who are now living in Spain. Their twisted family secrets are then exposed and Jeff, who's a single Dad following the death of his wife and balancing a demanding job with caring for his five year-old son Toby, begins to unravel an audacious plan by a former victim. But will it serve justice or revenge? And can Jeff and his team get to him before that decision is taken out of their hands?

Genres: Ebooks

167 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 7, 2013

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

[Mikeh5972 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read a book before with so many errors in it, some of which were very annoying. Grammatical errors were numerous and I found incorrect use of apostrophes truly irritating particularly when they were incorrectly omitted. It could not possibly have been proofread before publication.
The plot was very heavy on child abuse and the story was unpleasant as a read. Police procedural details were laughable and it was amazing that they seemed to solve the crime so easily in the end.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was quite a powerful story in places where abused children told their stories as men.

[Milena · Rating 2 out of 5]

The problem with Merton’s writing is that he has really good ideas to create a good classical criminal story. Multicultural Manchester is a perfect setting for a crime story. The author includes the socio-political issues into his books and it seems that he really enjoys writing about politics, the contemporary race and gender problems or homosexuality. The ideas are fine but lack execution. Although I’ve read almost all of his books from the series I still cannot get used to his style of writing that is too stiff for me – there’s no fluency, funny jokes nor vivid characters. The same case happens with Sorcerer. Maybe the book would be more digestible if there were no so many comments on how bad raping small children is and how horrid are the psychopaths committing such horrific acts. I was already horrified imagining it and I’m really not so stupid not to judge it as morally wrong by myself.

[Alan O'Boyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This has truly got to be one of the worst books that I have ever had the misfortune to read. The style of writing could be summed up as being Enid Blyton writing scripts for Coronation Street with the worst actors in the world giving it their best. The storylines were completely implausible, the author seems to have some issues about sexuality and overweight people and I don't know who proofread the book but there were some glaring errors. Can't say a positive thing about it and regret that I am obliged to give it one star.

[Paul Trembling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good character development here, especially in the villains, who are people you desperately want to see come to a bad end. The good guys seem a bit lacklustre by comparison. The plot is complex but well put together. Unfortunately it's let down by slow pacing, poor word flow and some awkward sentence construction. Some aspects of Police procedure seemed a bit unlikely to me, and the ending was rather weak. In spite of which it was, overall, a good and readable story - but it had the potential to be a lot better.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good book, and it certainly kept my interest, its the first one I've read by this Author, but I shall certainly read more.

[Joan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a particular fan of British detective novels and when I saw this - a revised and re-edited version - I snapped it up quickly.

Oh.

‘Morning Becky’ said Jeff after he’d got out of his car.

‘Morning, sir’ said Rebecca. She didn’t let many people call her Becky but Jeff was one of them. ‘June Hawkins is waiting for us inside’.

‘The builders must’ve started early’ said Jeff as they headed for the front door. ‘It was just before eight when I got the call’.

‘Well I was staying over at my Mum and Dad’s last night, and they only live at the other end of this road, so I was able to get here quickly’.

‘How are they?’

‘They’re good, thanks’ said Rebecca. ‘And how’s Toby?’

‘He walked into school holding hands with his little friend Emma this morning’ said Jeff, smiling. ‘It was so sweet’.

‘He’ll be breaking hearts one day’.

‘Yep. That’s my boy’.

That is from a couple of pages in. I gave up counting the punctuation errors - in fact I had to give up reading, simply because every time there was an error, I was jerked out of reading the story.

Please. Is it that hard to learn the basic rules of punctuation?

DNFd at about the 20th error - in other words, pretty near the beginning.