The Man on the Street - Trevor Wood

It’s getting harder and harder to come up with a new variation for contemporary crime thrillers. Plots are one thing and there appears to be no shortage of good ones in the ‘crime fiction biz’ but detectors and investigators?  Trevor Wood has come up with a new and unusual investigator in the form of a homeless man. It’s unique and without wishing to make a ‘big issue’ out of it, (I’m SORRY, okay? ), it has to be a good thing to draw attention to this sector of our society in a sympathetic but not sentimental way.

Jimmy’s our guy; ex military, ex con, PTSD, untreated. He hears and sees something one night that is the catalyst for the rest of the book. Here’s the blurb -

It started with a splash. Jimmy, a homeless veteran grappling with PTSD, did his best to pretend he hadn't heard it - the sound of something heavy falling into the Tyne at the height of an argument between two men on the riverbank. Not his fight.

Then he sees the headline: GIRL IN MISSING DAD PLEA. The girl, Carrie, reminds him of someone he lost, and this makes his mind up: it's time to stop hiding from his past. But telling Carrie, what he heard - or thought he heard - turns out to be just the beginning of the story.

The police don't believe him, but Carrie is adamant that something awful has happened to her dad and Jimmy agrees to help her, putting himself at risk from enemies old and new.

But Jimmy has one big advantage: when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

Okay. But be careful when you pick up this book to read, as I’m sure you will, because you will not want to put it down. Wood has constructed an absorbing tale set in Newcastle, that glorious city that appears here as another character almost, which gives a positive slant and reeducation on some maybe stereotypical ideas of homelessness. As well as the unravelling of a crime Jimmy’s story is unraveled too and the reader is enlightened as to how someone can end up homeless, there but for the grace of God etc. It’s humbling. The skill with which the characters are drawn ensure that the reader roots for them, cares about them, likes them. Hopefully next time readers of this book come upon anyone who is homeless they will remember Jimmy, Gadge and Deano and see the people as well as their circumstances.

The title’s dual meaning is potent too, Jimmy is on the street but that does not mean that Jimmy, as a person, doesn’t think like most other people, thinks like ‘the man on the street’. Conscience plays a part in Jimmy’s motivation to do the right thing but ultimately his doing the right thing leads him to do everything almost! But it is not one of those crime stories that has you realising who did what and when and where and why, no, it’s a complex set of circumstances with some red herrings to be sure that I feel the reader will struggle to second guess. 

Jimmy’s dynamic with the police is interesting. I think the book illustrates how members of the constabulary are ‘just’ people doing a job and bringing their personalities and motivations to that job. There’s good ‘uns and bad ‘uns just like anywhere else including the homeless. 

And if all of that isn’t enough, there’s Dog. ;) No, I'm not going to tell you. Read the book!

I’m wondering if this is going to be a series? I think it has the potential.

My thanks to Quercus Books for a proof of this book.