Ragged Alice by Gareth L. Powell

In Gareth L. Powell's Ragged Alice a detective in a small Welsh town can literally see the evil in people's souls. Orphaned at an early age, DCI Holly Craig grew up in the small Welsh coastal town of Pontyrhudd. As soon as she was old enough, she ran away to London and joined the police. Now, fifteen years later, she’s back in her old hometown to investigate what seems at first to be a simple hit-and-run, but which soon escalates into something far deadlier and unexpectedly personal—something that will take all of her peculiar talents to solve. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ragged Alice, a novella by author Gareth L. Powell is a whole lot of information in a tiny package. It is one of the novellas that had me shouting, “why aren't you a full novel?” A problem that novellas and short stories can run into is trying to do too much in a small amount of narrative time. When doing too much, and covering to much ground, it can come off flat because of the lack of character definition, exposition, and world-building. Powell's novel is such a good premise but comes off as rushed because there is not enough of it to connect thoroughly to everything.

The premise is thus, “Orphaned at an early age, DCI Holly Craig grew up in the small Welsh coastal town of Pontyrhudd.” Holly is a damaged inspector type character. She has been broken by her past and is held together with tea and whiskey in equal parts. After fifteen years in London, Holly is back on assignment in Pontyrhudd. A town full of all sorts of ghosts, both literal and figurative. Holly has a peculiar “gift” that helps her solve cases and determine the innocence of suspects, and now she gets to use this gift on a hit and run case in her hometown.

Ragged Alice is a good story, Powell is an excellent author but try as I might this story came off as midgrade. Enjoyable, but didn't stay with me. I did not care as much about Holly as I wanted to, and due to the format of a novella, there wasn't enough meat to bring more story elements in that would allow me to connect. Don't let this put you off this story or Powell in general. He is a killer author, but this book didn't allow him to shine.

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DCI Holly Craig has returned to her unpronounceable Welsh home town of Pontyrhudd after some unexplored disaster in London. After graduating high school or second form, whatever it's called in Pontyrhudd, Craig shook the dust of Pontyrhudd from her feet and left for London and a career in law enforcement where she did very well because she is blessed or cursed with the ability to read souls. This essential gift has vaulted her to DCI rank at 32 but also left her with a penchant for alcoholism and coffee.

The first day she is in Pontyrhudd, Craig is assigned to a death by vehicular accident, which she intuits is a murder. Then suspects begin to die in a pattern that seems to implicate her long-dead mother who has become a bit of local folklore known as “Ragged Alice.”

I enjoyed this story. I thought it moved along at a nice clip. The plotline was a bit busy and tangled up. There didn't seem to be much in the way of character development. If this is the first instalment of a longer DCI Craig, paranormal cop series, then that would make sense. I enjoyed the character enough that I would stick around for the next installment.