A Poison Tree is the debut crime novel of Merseyside author, JE Mayhew. Set on the Wirral Peninsula, the main character Detective Chief Inspector Will Blake, struggles with the guilt of his missing mother. A dementia sufferer, she wandered out of the house and never returned some two years before the events of this story. He also struggles with Serafina, the cat she left behind; a mean and constantly hungry creature with a deep-seated hatred of Blake.
If that weren’t enough, Blake is constantly plagued by his past role as ‘professional cop’ on a TV crime programme Searchlight. Blake presented the CCTV footage part of the programme, asking for witnesses to come forward and name the various miscreants filmed robbing corner shops or burgling houses. His moment of fame was brief but enough for members of the public to recognise him, and his colleagues to rib him about it.
Although no relation to the poet, William Blake, some moments of humour are drawn from this as characters try to draw Blake into a recital of Tyger Tyger, only to receive withering scorn.
Blake’s team are equally well-drawn and don’t always get along with each other. Another character worth mentioning is the setting. Mayhew describes the Wirral Peninsula beautifully and atmospherically. The book had me searching Google maps for each location. It would be easy to set such a story in Liverpool, playing the well-visited tropes of tough scousers and lawless streets. But, although Blake’s team are based in the city, they don’t linger there, which I think gives the story some originality.
In this first case, a young girl is found strangled in a local beauty spot but her shoes have been taken. Blake’s search for clues leads him back forty years to a series of seemingly unrelated killings that weren’t unrelated at all. Was there a serial killer on the loose then and has he returned? Is this just a copycat? Or is there a more sinister link between all the victims? Blake and his team race against time to find the killer and stop further bloodshed.
It’s a great twisty-turny plot with links to the past, shocks along the way and it left me guessing until the last moment. The short chapters each end with a barbed hook and it drags you along, just daring you to read on, making it one of those books you might read in one sitting.
A Posion Tree, the first DCI Will Blake novel by JE Mayhew is available from Amazon via the links below.