Hear Me Talking to You by David Craig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

" [...] everyone recognized that in running an informant a complex relationship might hatch out. A formidable link could develop, and not at all to do with money or career. In fact, if the arrangement between the detective and source really worked, the relationship was almost certain to get warm and tender."

Sally Bithron, a Detective Constable on the Cardiff (Wales) police force, has an unofficial and unregistered confidential informant, who goes under the pseudonym Godzilla. He tells Sally about a major drug deal to be carried out on Schooner's Way in Cardiff Bay dockland area. Alas, instead of catching the criminals in flagrante, she witnesses a gun battle that leaves several people dead or dying. The carnage shocks the city that has long ago shed its brutal, "Tiger Bay" image.

Sally's superiors ostensibly praise her first-hand account of what transpired on Schooner's Way and her help in the investigation but, naturally, they suspect that she is not telling them everything. Sally cannot divulge her acquaintance with Godzilla as this would put him in danger. Her situation is additionally complicated by the fact that her childhood friend seems to be connected to the events on Schooner's Way and Sally's supervisors suspect she is protective of him. She has to defend herself not only from her superiors and peers on the police force but also from the criminals. Moreover, it soon becomes obvious that the interests of powerful drug lords and gang bosses from London may be at stake.

On the surface David Craig's Hear Me Talking To You (2005) is a police procedural. Many readers will be captivated by a fast moving plot that largely avoids the usual implausibilities and contrived literary tricks that fill up cliché stories in 95% of procedurals and thrillers. However, there are deeper layers to the novel, ones that may interest readers much more than the plot. The relationship between a police detective and a confidential informant is portrayed and analyzed in believable detail. We also get insightful observations of police department politics, for instance,

"[Disbelief] came easily to police of all ranks, but the higher the easier. For God's sake, you didn't get a beautiful smooth uniform like Bullfinch's by thinking well of colleagues."

The author has a remarkable gift for capturing dialogue. Virtually all conversations in the novel are riveting. What I find particularly stunning is that almost every spoken sentence is supposed to mean something else than it appears to mean. A character says something and their interlocutor has to internally translate it into what the sentence was supposed to mean, which is often the exact opposite of what was said. Everybody knows that everybody else is lying; what's more, everybody knows that everybody knows it, and still everybody keeps lying with straight face because it is precisely what the circumstances require. Things would get really bad if someone told the truth. Strongly recommended read!

Three-and-three-quarter stars.

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