Gregory & Company

Cooper, Natasha

A Greater Evil

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Review from Paul Blezard, Oneword Radio

"All good stories do a number of things; they entertain, they educate, they amuse, they inspire, they shed light on human truths. Great stories go yet further, they take the reader on a fabulous ride, the author having quickly gained the confidence of the reader as a good driver does a passenger. So forgive me if Blezard on books now sounds like Clarkson on cars but I have an idea.

Natasha Cooper has an impressive back catalogue - under a number of noms des plumes - encompassing romantic fiction, historical fiction and of course journalism. It is however with crime fiction that she has found a voice of excellence. She does that rare thing within the genre that puts her in the same pantheon as Ian Rankin and a small handful of others, she makes crime writing an expression of high art, literary fiction.

I am deadly serious here and that’s where the cars come in. Not for Cooper the flashy, aural pyrotechnics of an eye-catching Italian super car, oh no. She is about far more than mere sleek lines, tuned exhausts and raw power that breaks down at the first hill. Her stories have more staying power, more class. With “A Greater Evil” there is a sense of calm heritage, of understated confidence that avoids the arrogance of vanity.  Nor is her work the literary equivalent of a mass-produced, Detroit-made, box-on-wheels that will get you to journey’s end reliably and without fuss but also devoid of style, bereft of joy and somehow feeling lessened by the experience. Cooper’s ride is altogether more joyous, more considered and somehow subtly empowering. You arrive renewed, refreshed and having learnt from the journey.

It helps of course that her protagonist, Trish Maguire is a barrister, all that imagery of leather seats in chambers, wood-panelled courtrooms and the feint whiff of Cuban tobacco and premier cru claret in barrister’s bars. That fact that Maguire has a deliciously eccentric domestic life, a passion for fine food and an abiding and visceral love of art, specifically sculpture, all adds to the mix. That Cooper shares some of these traits bestows authenticity on her fiction. Cooper’s former career in publishing gives her a finely-honed eye for a well parsed sentence that would make not only Lynne Truss – the patron saint of good grammar – but also Diana Athill – the doyen of all that was good in 20^th century publishing – bestow alpha plus grades on her syntax.

So if Cooper as car neither represents Italianate flash nor American trash, what is her automobile avatar?

It would be trite to invoke here that enduring icon of Englishness, Sir Alec Issigonis’s triumph, the Mini Cooper. It would also be very wrong. Cooper’s writing represents elegance, style and seriousness but with a wry grin. Her structure of story equates to the highest quality of engineering excellence. Her superb raw materials are made art. The resulting ride is silky smooth, embracing, exciting and quintessentially British. That’s it. I’ve got it. Natasha Cooper is to crime writing as a Bentley is to cars. A Grand Tourer of classic style, endless power and with a ride that you never want to end. I defy you to prove me wrong."