Review: Savage Moon by Chris Simms

In 2007, Chris Simms was picked by leading UK booksellers Waterstones as one of their ‘25 Authors of the future’. With his novel, ‘Savage Moon’ (Orion, Nov 2007), it is easy to see why.

It is immediately obvious that Chris Simms has a knack for taking elements of horror and using them in dark crime novels. In this offering, the body of a farmer is found amongst the carcasses of her sheep, with her throat ripped out. Evidence from the scene suggests a mysterious big black cat is involved. However, when a man who our protagonist, Detective Inspector Jon Spicer, is investigating turns up the same way, at a secluded car park which borders a field near Manchester, questions arise as to whether the killer is a monstrous human or a fabled creature.

The press and many authorities are quick to blame the killings on a panther, since panther hairs are recovered at both scenes. But DI Jon Spicer holds his convictions throughout the novel that the murders must be linked to a human motive for revenge. Especially when it seems the car park of the second murder scene is a popular gay rendezvous, and the victim was involved in an attempted bashing the night before. As DI Spicer attempts to find the identity and then location of this basher, a third victim is discovered on a golf course, his throat ripped out too, and the pressure mounts, time dissolving. Like any great crime novel, there are multiple suspects – a panther, the husband of the first victim, a policeman, a zookeeper who is profiting from the buzz on panthers, the basher with no fixed address... To say any more would ruin the wonderful tension and surprise that Simms creates in this novel, but let’s just say the killer…wow!

‘Savage Moon’ contains a great deal of research on several haunting topics. The first is on the big black cat – such sightings, even in Australia, are considered by many as more than just urban legend. Simms uses the mystery of this creature to create the feeling that the killer could be lurking anywhere, ready to pounce, feeding its way from the country to the city. My first impression was that it felt similar to James Herbert’s ‘Rats’ series (and the countless clones), though Simms takes the theme in another direction as more crimes develop. The second topic is the ongoing war in Iraq. DI Spicer’s wife becomes obsessed with the cover-ups apparently involved in the military operation, to the point where she neglects their new-born child to research on the internet and at the library. Many people in real life have certainly struggled to have their voice heard over the issue, an era of history still ongoing. I will not reveal too much of the third topic, to say that it parallels with Iraq as one of Britain’s greatest cover-ups in terms of its involvement in Kenya.

I haven’t devoured a crime novel so eagerly in quite some time. The characters were natural, instantly making them realistic (in my mind). I have not experienced a protagonist from a series who is so easy to like from the outset (without knowledge of the prior books in the series), such is Simms’ style of writing. He has made DI Jon Spicer human, instead of just a fabled hero who solves high-profile crimes. Spicer’s wife has just had a baby; there are tensions at home as he tries to balance work and family; the new case must be solved quickly and thus swings this balance the wrong way; he is severely lacking in sleep from the baby and the case and this alters his judgements; and his wife is suffering from post-natal depression but he just doesn’t have the time or ability to approach her, until it becomes dangerously close to being too late. I couldn’t have asked for more drama from a character and I simply didn’t want the story to end. Luckily, Simms will be providing more of DI Jon Spicer in July 2008, in ‘Hell’s Fire’. Until then, I hold my breath in anticipation.

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