The Hanging Club: (DC Max Wolfe)

This is a fast-moving, hard-hitting crime story, set in London, which raises all sorts of interesting questions, quite apart from being a really gripping and well-written story. It starts shockingly, with the kidnapping and execution-style hanging of a London taxi driver, which grim event is then posted live on You Tube. But this is only the beginning. A band of vigilante executioners are abducting evil men and hanging them by the neck until dead. To many, these vigilantes are heroes, and feelings are running high.

DI Max Wolfe is a member of the West End Central murder squad, and in the absence of his boss, finds himself appointed Acting Investigating Officer. It puts him squarely in the centre of all the hate being aimed by the public at the police for doing their job. The story develops at a shocking speed with one or two quite grim and unexpected twists as we follow not just the main plotline of the hangings but several other unrelated, but well-described and gripping crimes. It’s a really excellent book.

I like Max and find him a very believable hero. But it’s not just Max, because the whole team are well-realised characters, from his DCI boss all the way down.

Tony Parsons has touched on a difficult subject in this book and handles it really well. How much punishment is enough? Do vicious criminals have the same human rights as their victims? Does the Law know what it is doing? Should the police protect the hate-filled agitators? How close is revenge to justice? Max says it himself: he and his colleagues protect everyone without fear or favour, and they investigate all crimes, no matter how seemingly justified.

Tony Parsons hasn't written a Max Wilfe novel since 2019 and i do hope that doesn't mean the series is finished. All the books are really interesting and well-written, and Max is a great hero.
Freyja, Oundle Crime