Tony Parsons, The Murder Man

The first chapter of this book is an adrenaline rush of a read and it sucked me in. Things calm down after that, which is a little disappointing, because it wasn't what I'd expected. But the book is still quite good. It's the first in a series featuring detective Max Wolfe, who's newly transferred to homicide after the events of the first chapter. This is in London, mind. Pretty soon he becomes involved in the investigation of an unusually gruesome murder, which ultimately leads to the grounds of an exclusive boarding school. Max is a single father with a five-year-old daughter, irritatingly named Scout. And a new dog, whom we hear a lot about. And Max likes to box. Clearly we'll be hearing a lot about that as well in upcoming installments. I liked the story and Max himself well enough to read another, but I probably won't go out of my way to keep tabs on the series.