Book review: Murder for Busy People by Tony Parsons

Murder for Busy People by Tony Parsons is the seventh in the series featuring detective and single dad, Max Wolfe. I assumed I’d missed more recent ones but discovered I’d read the sixth when it was released in 2019… so it’s been a while between books in this series (of which I’ve only read #1, #3, #6 and now #7). Wolfe’s daughter Scout seems to be ageing in real-time. She was eight in Taken and is now 12, almost 13, nevertheless I was quite surprised at the freedom she’s offered here given Wolfe certainly knows that London is not a particularly safe place.

Emma Moon is out. She’s served 16 years for a notorious armed robbery that left two men dead – and enriched many more.

But Emma Moon never talked. She kept the code. She never revealed who was with her on the day of the robbery. She never told who killed those two men.

And now she is free – and everything has gone. Her family. Her share of the money. And her faithless boyfriend.

So Emma Moon is in a hurry. Because it is payback time. And after all those years inside, she has friends who will do anything for her.

As the bodies of the innocent and the guilty pile up, only one detective stands between a career criminal and her quest for revenge.

The same man who, as a fresh-faced policeman, arrested her all those years ago.

Max Wolfe is back. Single parent to a teenage daughter, owner of an ageing dog, music lover, hopeless romantic - and a murder detective who has his own code of honour.

In re-reading some of my earlier reviews I’d talked about some plot weaknesses but it’s certainly not an issue here, other than a few coincidences… such as Wolfe being the one to come across a few of the bodies and Emma just happening to be in Wolfe’s neighbourhood on a number of occasions. But this is really solid crime fiction with two mysteries for the price of one. There’s the case of the sixteen year old heist and Emma’s silence on her accomplices (now dropping like flies following her release) not to mention what was in the safe that allowed the two instigators behind the robbery to live-large ever since. And then there’s the murder of a homeless woman who’d been telling Wolfe she’d been harassed by police officers prior to her death.

Parsons keeps a good pace here as both plot-lines are complex and include the usual red herrings as well as some impressive twists. And again he gives us really strong character development, as Wolfe starts to worry he and Scout are less-close as she gets older. I loved the way Parsons has Wolfe being extremely proud of the person Scout’s becoming but at the same time fearing for her and not wanting her reliance on him to change.

This is my favourite of this series to date, so I hope now we don’t’ have to wait another five years for the next instalment. (I should mention though, there’s a slight sense of finality at the end of this book so I hope there will be another to come!)

Murder for Busy People by Tony Parsons will be published by Century (Cornerstone), Random House UK in early 2025.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.