Consequences
By R.C. Bridgestock
Published by Caffeine Nights
ISBN 978-1-907565-16-8, eBook 978-1-907565-17-5
Consequences by R.C. Bridgestock was an extremely interesting book to read. It is written by Robert and Carol Bridgestock, people with 45 years of cumulative police service between them, and it deals with the world of murder and crime in the fictional city of Harrowfield in England.
Consequences vividly portrayed the lives of real detectives as seen through the experiences and eyes of former officers. It was an absolutely fascinating read. I couldn’t put it down. I found the story to be very well-crafted and even though it is not meant to be read in a single sitting, I read it through in a day.
Consequences is a tale of greed, betrayal, murder, child abuse and the horror of being a detective in today’s world. It takes you into the world of a typical English police department and shows you the real work that goes on behind the scenes in major murder investigations. It talks about the miracle of forensic science and everything it can accomplish – which is really quite amazing. And it also talks about the horror of a terrible murder investigation where the victim has been deliberately set aflame, only to die a terribly moments later, asphyxiated by the fire.
DI Jack Dylan is the most believable police detective I’ve run across. He doesn’t make grand leaps of intuition, even when what he thinks happened is correct, but rather he waits for the slow and often tedious accumulation of evidence to strongly point to the guilty party, or parties.
Consequences deals with how one man tries to be responsible for everything in his world, constantly second guessing himself and wondering if he had only done things differently could he have changed the outcome for the people involved. Dylan is strong and has a no-nonsense approach to police work, but at the same time he is warm, caring and has just the right amount of vulnerability. His character is genuine and human. A man any detective would want to work for.
The other officers in the book are just as believable. Most are tough and dedicated to their work, wanting to see justice for the victims of the crimes they investigate. There are hardships along the way and they acknowledge they deal with an imperfect system, but they do their best to function within it.
I found Consequences renewed my faith in the officers charged with upholding the law. Because it is written by former members of the police service it is incredibly real and vivid. The mortuary scenes are heartbreaking. The fact the officers will have to sit in on multiple autopsies of the same body is something I was never aware of. Not only is there the official post-mortem to determine the cause of death, but the defense gets to have their own doctors conduct an independent post-mortem. In a case with multiple defendents each defendant have their own specialist resulting in many post-mortems on the same person. It’s heartrending thinking of what that must put families through.
I was also impressed by the fact the book brings to real life the many things a detective must be willing to sacrifice for the people he or she represents. It’s not a 7:00 to 3:00, or 9:00 to 5:00 job. It means incredibly long nights during active investigations and working fourteen or more hours a day.
