Thursday 25 May 2000

Ann Granger: Running Scared (1998)

Edition: Headline, 1998
Review number: 512

The third Fran Varady novel continues with the themes which shaped the first two. Fran is currently working with her friend Ganesh in his uncle's corner shop. She becomes involved with crime once again when a man staggers into the shop, having managed to escape from a car in which he was being abducted. She does not immediately connect the discovery of an envelope containing a set of photographic negatives with this man, until his body turns up on the doorstep of her flat. Then she realises that this envelope is what the kidnappers were after, and that she and Ganesh are in a lot of danger.

With the discovery of the body, the police of necessity become involved, and the distrustful relationship between them and Fran has not changed. She continues to have friends among the homeless, and the them the police have always been objects of fear.

Fran is an interesting character, and the background of these novels is rather different from the vast majority of detective novels. I suspect that the series will continue to entertain for some time to come.

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