The Dentist (The DS Cross Mysteries #1), by Tim Sullivan

The Dentist by Tim Sullivan

My rating: Four out of five stars

I have mixed feelings about “The Dentist”. The mystery brings together a fatal accident from long ago, an unsolved murder, and a new killing in the present. With those events connected, some movement between past and present is inevitable. I expected the investigation to circle back and reconsider earlier events. Even so, the retrospective passages sometimes feel longer than they need to be, and the case takes a while to gather pace. I was interested in the pieces, but not always eager to find out what came next.

What kept me engaged was DS George Cross. He is on the autism spectrum, in the area once labelled Asperger syndrome, and I felt a real affinity with him. His interactions felt plausible to me. He is not simply eccentric for effect; the effort of navigating the expectations of others is part of his everyday life. When he asks, »Why should a lie have a colour?«, the literal question is funny, but it also captures a difference in how he handles language. The noise in his office is described as »almost physically impossible«. Details like that ground his experience in ordinary life. I like Cross, and I recognise something of myself in him, but that does not mean I imagine we would want to spend time together. Were our roles reversed, I suspect I would be just as content in my own company.

As the first book in a series, this one has a lot of groundwork to do. Sullivan needs to establish Cross’ private life, his colleagues, the rhythms of the Major Crime Unit, and the history behind his complicated route to where he is now. The partnership between Cross and Josie Ottey lets us see how he comes across to other people, while Cross’ own perspective helps us understand why familiar social conventions can be bewildering or exhausting. I could see why this foundation mattered, even when I wanted the mystery itself to move forward a little faster. The book must introduce a detective readers will follow through later cases, and that takes space away from the investigation in this first instalment.

The plotting is clever. Cross’ approach to interviews is summed up as »It was a chess game and Cross was the grand master.« That description also suits the wider investigation. Details that initially seem incidental gradually acquire meaning, and the past keeps reshaping what the detectives think they know. I enjoyed following those connections. The case is interesting, at times genuinely tense, and, most satisfying of all, wonderfully logical. The reasoning feels earned, with the clues and earlier events forming a coherent whole rather than a solution appearing from nowhere.

The slower stretches are real, but they did not outweigh what worked for me. Cross gives the series a distinctive centre, and I found him both convincing and compelling, even when the pace tested my patience. By the end, I was more impressed by its intelligence than swept along by its speed. I will definitely continue with the series.

Four out of five stars.

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam

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