Killing the Rabbit

In between my usual activities of defending human liberty and taking swipes at sanctimony and godliness, I managed to put aside some time last week to read Killing the Rabbit (Bantam 2007), a wonderful crime thriller by (my dear friend) Alison Goodman. Rather than dropping spoilers, I'll just say that you ought to kill whatever large or small mammal you need to in order to read Alison's book. As she knows, I'm awed by her. In particular, the depth of her research is enormously impressive: for those who know the intellectually fierce, but basically rather gentle, Alison, it's amazing how much information she's been able to master about guns, the workings of gangland, how to talk to the Yakuza, carry out a "hit" with a long-range rifle, use a knife or a garrotte, etc. All this is woven in seamlessly. Alison has a huge talent, and as more of her work keeps coming out she's going to end up being a famous, celebrated author.