Shaw Thing – Book Review 5

By: snowgood

When I put down William Shaw’s “The Birdwatcher” I was so excited I had to follow it up with another of his books.

Trouble is I couldn’t find any of his older works “in store”, and got fed up searching.

In the end I turned to “T’interweb” and bought three books from the Breen and Tozer series on line for just £5.99.

The Book People delivered my order in days, and I “got my fix” soon after.

A Song from Dead Lips is set back in the swinging sixties. Shaw has a magnificent grasp on life back then.

The feel of the pre-digital era comes at you like the sea on a sandy shoreline. Page after page Shaw washed up a fresh memory from my youth.

Fashion, language, and gonks! It’s all there.

I came to the conclusion that we now live in a better world, where offensive “labels” are no longer applied to minority groups.

Imagine a cup of tea where the milk has gone off. You have to spit it out.

In fifty years multi-cultural Britain has woken up to the fact that everyone has a value regardless of race or disability.

But I was there, when we used these awful labels with a sense of superiority. If anything this novel shows that imperialism had tainted a nation.

Once again the story-line drew me in. Breen and Tozer get together to solve a murder.

The book is set in central London, but also heads out west to Liskeard and Kingsteignton.

It also sets a spotlight on the “Biafran Crisis”, and ends with a short unpacking of the political scene at the time.

A good book, seven out of ten!

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