Publisher's Weekly Review
The London we encounter in Ridgway's (Animals) unsettling new novel is a city of mystery, a cloud of fog which allows few glimpses of clarity-despite the many attempts at crime-solving made by the two police detective protagonists. The book reads like a collection of short stories, unified only by the continuing presence of the police partners, a crime lord named Mishazzo, and an atmosphere in which answers are always just out of reach. Characters, with varying levels of criminality, appear and disappear: a man shot by someone in a vintage car no one else witnesses; a potentially psychopathic editor who obsesses over a strange fantasy manuscript; a pickpocket; a daughter in the throes of her first sexual relationship. In spite of the book's general obscurity, two protagonists are fully realized, intriguing characters: exact opposites, one black, straight, good-looking, and secure; the other white, gay, and neurotic. Their appearance is always a welcome moment within each chapter. Ridgway's writing is beautiful, sardonic, and well-contained. A detective novel with many crimes and few solutions concerned more with human connection (or lack thereof) than cases and clues, Ridgway's book is successfully thought-provoking and haunting. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
About halfway through Hawthorn & Child we meet an editor character (who may also be a sex killer), who tells us: "I weigh characters in my hand like I am buying fruit. I purse my lips and roll my head on my shoulders and I suggest this and that." Reading this book positions the reader alongside not just this editor, but the detectives at its centre. Hawthorn and Child roam across London trying to make stories out of things, even though things don't always make stories. They look for plot and we look for plot. The punchline? There is no plot. At his best, Ridgway is unapologetically strange. But then there's the really dark stuff: something like The Bill being directed by Braindead-era Peter Jackson and written by Irvine Welsh. A baby is dropped down the stairs, the editor peels skin off his victims. This world of missing connections is indeed like the actual world, perhaps too much like it, and Hawthorn and Child, who see the worst of it, make rather unnerving company. - Scarlett Thomas About halfway through Hawthorn & Child we meet an editor character (who may also be a sex killer), who tells us: "I weigh characters in my hand like I am buying fruit. - Scarlett Thomas.
