The Calling: A John Luther Novel

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Ace detective John Luther and his team of crack investigators try to follow the trail of a dangerous thief. Glory, honour, pride, shame, and betrayal weave a tapestry of truth and lies that the Supreme Grand Masters of the Dark Angels have sought to understand and unbind across ten bloody millennia. His previous works include Historical Dictionary of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation (Scarecrow, 2010) and John Calvin (Routledge, 2011). The Luther book tells the tale of the case of child killer Henry Madsen who was a major bad guy in the TV series. He thinks of standing underneath a great railway bridge as a locomotive shrieks overhead, the shocking power of it.

Ned Dennehy (Tyrannosaur, Parade's End) joins the cast as a recently un-retired officer charged with weeding out corruption in the force, assisted by Luther's one-time colleague and now foe, Erin Gray. A tall and intuitive detective follows leads, but not necessarily the rules, to obtain a just solution.

It’s also understood to share more insight into the break-up of Luther’s marriage to his wife Zoe (played in the show by Game of Thrones star Indira Varma) and the corruption of his friend DCI Ian Reed (Steven Mackintosh). At the other end of the scale, the character that is so blatantly included just so those people who watched the TV serial can go "ah-hah" is Justin Ripley, there's no valid reason for him to be in the novel, he doesn't interact with Luther at all, just briefly collects a statement half way through the story. The Luther book focuses on introducing Idris Elba’s DCI John Luther and how he’s tormented and surrounded by rumors. Her past is most definitely troubled, she’s morally ambiguous but with a strong sense of justice – be that within the law or otherwise – and in this, her first outing and first murder case, she is up against a copycat Jack the Ripper. This factor is a particular relief for this reader who has ploughed through way too many film scripts loosely disguised as novels over the years to be at all comfortable.

Neil Cross's characterization is excellent, and I often found myself disgusted by the the people and crimes portrayed, as well as sympathy for Luther's unraveling career, marriage, and emotional stability. The story is gripping from the start dragging me into a world where there are goodies and very baddies but the lines are blurred. Some of them make perfect sense to exist in this novel: Zoe, his wife, is still the complex cross of selfish and trapped in a relationship that does her no good; and Rose Teller, his boss, is still the same acidic cop first human second character – the two women in Luther's life. When a photographer is found inside an LA warehouse slumped in bed, shot to death, it sets in motion a complex and dangerous case for Lieutenant Milo Sturgis and Psychologist Alex Delaware.My only other minor point - without providing any spoilers - is that I found the inevitable showdown between Luther and the villain of the peace to be a little too similar to one of the early, if not the first, episode of the TV series. A sick killer is at large in London, slashing his way through "perfect families", and Luther is in charge of tracking him down.