Detective Nathan Stone finds himself taken off the armed robbery he was about to crack for a far more important case: the kidnapping of a business mogul’s daughter. The first in a new series, this is a good standalone read.

There are a lot of British pop culture references in this book, which may make it transfer poorly abroad. I’m not sure how many people outside the UK will have seen “On the Up”.  The other thing is that the references are age-appropriate to the character making them, which is a nice touch.  There are a few groaners: the Undead Evil series is a very, very, poorly disguised take-off of Resident Evil. People familair with the genre will spot the bad guy the moment he shows up, but then the police’s problem isn’t finding the bad guy, it is getting the evidence.

The writing style is fluid and it is easy to get swept along with the story. If I spotted typos I didn’t remember them by the end, or want to stop reading long enough to make a note of them.

The weakest part from a literary point of view is the strongest from a genre point of view: because the characters focus so much on their work we get a sense of their personalities but no real insights into them as people. It doesn’t matter. The story rattles along at a cracking pace, the plot is detailed enough with enough procedural work to keep British crime readers happy, and if we don’t see the characters outside their work, neither did their families while they were in the middle of not one but two high-profile cases.

If I may make a pop culture reference of my own? The people who liked the original series of The Bill back when it focused on cases, not officers, will love this.

Crime readers, police procedural fans and mystery fans might really want to check out this, and if the following books are as good it promises to be a series worth following.