The Blurb
What kind of person knows they may kill before the day is out?
Kate Arden must soon find out.
It's London, 1999. A family tragedy breaks her heart and forces her into a new job with an elite police unit called SO19.
SO19 is all speed, power and adrenaline. There are fast cars, serious weaponry, unpredictable threats. It's disciplined, aggressive, and highly addictive, a very long way from regular policing.
Kate is one of a tight team of firearms specialists. Their job is to protect the people from those who would steal, kill and destroy.
Including one ex-marine sniper with a grudge ...
My Review
Kate suffers a terrible family tragedy and wants revenge. She's in the police but doesn't feel she has the skills she might need so she applies for SO19, a police armed response unit, where she'll be trained in the use of weapons. It also gives her a focus, as she had been struggling mentally since the tragedy. It saves her, to a point, because she finds a degree of comfort in her role. she also finds a familiar face on her team, but not one she particularly wants to see...
The story is told from two points of view. It's mostly Kate's story, but we also see things from Gretten's point of view, and the reader knows that, at some point, the two main characters will meet.
I really felt for Kate. The author portrayed her feeling well as she struggles with guilt and grief and further family upset. It's a lot. She throws herself into her work, her new role as an armed officer, the only woman in a team of men. I was rooting for her from the start. Of course, I know nothing about armed response units but this feels very real and appears to be well researched. Gretton has had a hard time with his own trauma and initially I was sympathetic towards him. But, and I'm sure this happens often in real life, he doesn't get the support he needs for his mental health. And as the story moves on it's harder to feel sympathetic.
Mental health features a lot in this book, which is not surprising given the job these officers do, and the different traumas that Kate and Gretton have been through, and I think the struggle to cope is something many readers will connect with and may perhaps have experienced (with different triggers, of course).
I enjoyed Kate finding her feet in the team, and the relationships and banter between the members of that team. I liked, too, that we went with them on their callouts. The boy in the horse made me sad, Mog left me conflicted. The tension increased towards the end which was great but the ending was a bit of a let down for me. But I see there is a follow up to The Snake planned, and it would be good to see Kate back in action. An interesting read.
The Author
Philip Gladwin is a novelist, screenwriter, development executive and educator, with long experience of many different genres across TV, film and radio. Philip has over 60 TV broadcast credits in both primetime and children’s drama. He has developed for many long running TV series, and has been commissioned to write scripts by people like Lynda La Plante, Russell T. Davies and Tony Garnett. He is also strong at series construction, having worked on many bibles and series story documents, and has helped to create seasons of some of the UK's most loved shows, including Casualty, New Tricks, Grange Hill, Holby City and The Bill. The series of The Dumping Ground on which he was series script editor received two BAFTA nominations, including best Childrens’ Drama, and won a Writers Guild Award.
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