BURIAL GROUND by John Rickards

Penguin Books, £7.99, ISBN 978-0141021171

With each installment of his series featuring ex-FBI agent Alex Rourke, John Rickards seems to be attempting a different feel while keeping the same characters in believable circumstances. 2005's The Touch of Ghosts was a well written PI story with a personal angle and a couple of intriguing scenes - specifically the single gunshot and the possibility of Rourke being able to say goodbye to someone he loved - that marked it out from the crowd. 2007's The Darkness Inside slipped gears to become a Cobenesque thriller of a man caught up in increasingly insane circumstances that seem wildly beyond his control and in his latest novel, Burial Ground, Rickards plays with the "survival horror" genre that has often been used in movies and video games, but rarely in novels.

There are noteable exceptions, of course. David Morrell attempted to put a group of character in an isolated situation with his highly succesful Creepers and Scavengers, but even if these books went over well with readers, this reviewer was left somewhat cold by characters who seemed to service the plot more often than they engaged as people, and specifically in Scavengers there was a sense that the author knew a great deal about the genre and the subject matter but didn't particularly have the kind of heartfelt enthusiasm that convinces a reader to believe in a novel.

The setup here is intriguing: Rourke recieves a note asking him to find "the crosses" or more people will die. It sounds like the kind of mad quest a James Patterson serial killer might construct, and Rourke isn't so dumb as to ignore the possibility of a madman behind the note, so sets off to find the person who wrote the note in an isolated midwestern community. Trapped in a bar with a group of disparate individuals, a storm blowing the roads to hell and preventing any contact with the outside world, Rourke soon realises there may be a killer in their midst. The question is who? And are they the same person who wrote the note?

In this kind of story - where a group of people are isolated from the rest of the world in a dangerous situation - character should be vitally important. The stakes should be high and personal. Video games get away with using the player as a central character, creating a false sense of idetification. Movies use THX and impressive light shows to distract from concerns and pull in the viewer. Novels must use the psychological nature of these situations to their advantage.

Its a trick that, for the most part, Rickards manages well. Alex Rourke has been previously established as a man of convictions and morality who sometimes walks in shadows. We can identify with his good intentions and the ways in which he sometimes strays from these. At the start of this novel, we have some indication that he is troubled by some of his past choices, particularly those he made in The Darkness Inside. These come mostly from strange momentary hallucinations where he seems to envision himself in a world rotted from the inside out, trying desperately to save an innocent girl from some threat he cannot comprehend. The doctors - and the readers - know exactly what symbolism to take from this and its a pity that Rickards swiftly seems to forget this aspect of ourke's psychology at the novels midway point where no real resolution is reached.

Luckily, while this intriguing aspect of the character is swiftly dropped it does nothing to diminish the rapport we have built with him across the course of the novel and by the time we realise that these "hallucinations" or dreams, whatever they are, have become non-existent we are invested in Rourke's fate as well as those trapped with him.

Rickards is a relatively young novelist (in fact not much older than your reviewer), and as such provides a degree of easy pop-culture cool that drop convincingly into the narrative. Given the nature of the story, there are horror references a plenty including an appearance from the bridge out of the Evil Dead movies, while Rourke's visions are clearly a reference to the survival horror video game series, Silent Hill. The MacBride clan (named for fellow crime writer, Stuart MacBride, a joke that is wisely not overplayed) seem to reference any number of backwoods horror movies, and made this particular reviewer think specifically of the Jack Ketchum novel, Off Season. Although for every cliche he throws in, Rickards is smart enough to throw an extra curve ball that is especially surprising and welcome with the MacBride subplot.

Burial Ground is a smart thriller with some surprising elements thrown into the mix. At times, Rickards seems to let go of ideas just when they become intriguing, but he succeeds in crafting a page-turner of a book with a protagonist just the right side of moral and a cast of supporting characters who can surprise the reader as much as they do Alex Rourke. It whips along at a snappy pace, and the sense of isolation is effectively unnerving. Rickards is a writer with some serious chops, who adapts and grows with each book. And as to the blurb on the back about this being an update of Christie's And Then There Were None? No. Its much, much better than that.

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland, 05/03/08

Get Burial Ground at Amazon.co.uk

THE DARKNESS INSIDE By John Rickards

Penguin, £6.99, 978-0141021164

Ex-FBI agent turned PI, Alex Rourke returns in John Rickard's third novel, The Darkness Inside, facing personal demons from his past when a convicted child-killer offers up a deathbed confession... in exchange for a confession from the man who put him behind bars in the first place...

This third novel feels almost like a relaunch of Rickards's series of novels featuring Alex Rourke. There's a partial sense of a slate being wiped clean, of the novel being an excellent jumping on point for new fans.

Indeed, there's very little mention of Alex's previous work beyond the return of some recurring characters (including his current boss), and this serves to bring a whole new set of readers directly on board without weighing them down with emotional baggage.

There are advatanges and disadvantages to this approach, of course. The advantage of clarity and relatively little backstory is immediately obvious. But some of the emotional resonance that could be brought to the story is diluted by almost glossing over past events. By which this reviewer means the traumatic incident that formed the heart of the second novel, A Touch of Ghosts. The death of a lover - particularly one who seemed so important to Alex just one book earlier - seems to have been hushed up. There are moments here and there where we notice this new Alex Rourke seems a little harder round the edges. More melancholy than before and perhaps even more reckless. And just a small acknowledgement of the trauma that brought this about might have rounded him out slightly. After all, in the opening sequence where Alex talks about people saying he's a "nice guy" there's a beautiful air of melancholy to the character that wisely stays away from self-pity, and it would be nice to know that there was something behind that air other than his current situation.

But all of this is a minor point, because if you take The Darkness Inside as a reboot to the series, a fresh jolt of adrenaline, and you have a novel that moves fast and quickly pulls the reader into its world. We know from word one that something bad is going to happen. That Alex's personal morality is about to be tested.

This new pacing works well, and after the set up, which is admittedly a little long - especially when we know what's coming - the book moves into a kind of freefall as Alex's life falls apart. There's a great adherence to the old adage of having a man walk through the door with a gun whenever the pacing falters, but Rickards keeps his action under control and believable for the most part, grounded by the more confident sounding narration of Alex Rourke. There is still the odd moment where Alex betrays his author's British roots (the phrase, "student-types" sounds particularly out of place when used to describe patrons at a bar) and sometimes the first person, present tense narration comes off a little clumsy, particularly during the flashbacks that take up the early part of the novel (although this reviewer is not a great fan of first person present-tense for precisely these reasons) but as we move to the climax, the narration gathers its pace and the confidence builds nicely. In fact, confidence is the key word here - while Rickards's earlier novels had nice touches (there is one - relatively quiet, almost incidental - scene in particular towards the end of Touch of Ghosts that stayed with this reviewer long after closing the pages) there is more consistency on display here that bodes well for future novels.

In all, The Darkness Inside is a well constructed thriller with a likeably down to earth protagonist caught up in an increasingly dangerous situation. Narrative nods to shows like Twenty-Four and novels by writers such as Harlan Coben are easy to spot as Rickards piles the pressure on his hero to ludicrous degrees. Its all a little unlikely, as these things are, but ultimately engaging and the well-executed tension keeps those pages turning.

Its a nice turn out for a series, too, with the drive and tone inkeeping with previous books, but shaking up the situation to make things more action packed. For readers like me, a few more continuity nods might have been nice, but as a relaunch to the series, this breezy thriller makes an ideal jumping on point for readers who are new to Rickards' world.

Russel McLean for CrimeSceneScotland, 26/05/07
Buy The Darkness Inside from Amazon.co.uk