I have a confession to make – this year, on the recommendation of a friend, I discovered John Harvey – a little late I hear you say – or maybe not? Maybe like me you’ve come more recently to crime fiction and have yet to read him in which case you are in for a treat. While I was in France I read Lonely Hearts, the first in the Charlie Resnick series and I fell in love with the man, and of course with his three cats: Dizzy, Miles and Pepper. Dizzy, by the way, is a hooligan who if he were human Resnick suspects would ‘spend days meandering drunkenly around shopping centres,’ splashing ‘through municipal fountains with a red and white scarf dangling from his belt.’
So what’s so good about John Harvey? In the first place there’s the writing itself: elegant and witty, Harvey paints a rich canvas, making us see everything. It’s a visual treat. Then there are the characters: beautifully drawn especially Charlie Resnick, a man who cares about victims, about those on the bottom of the heap and a man who cares about women. Charlie Resnick likes women! Place is here too and the whole is deliciously downbeat – definitely my kind of music!
John Harvey loves Jazz that’s his kind of music and he’s a poet too. His 1998 collection Bluer Than This which I’ve just started reading shows the influence of jazz and painting on his writing – Roland Kirk, Chet Baker, Edward Hopper, Pierre Bonnard. The poems are tender, about love and loss, straight from the heart – my kind of poems too!
One last thing – John Harvey blogs. YES! This seems to me to make him instantly inclusive – inviting as it does comment and dialogue. He’s not too grand despite being the Master of British Crime – just can’t believe it’s taken me so long to find him.
