CRUCIFIXION CREEK
By Barry Maitland.  Text. $29.99.

Val McDermid and Australian-based Barry Maitland are two of the best writers of British police novels in the world today.

McDermid has enjoyed considerable success with her popular series about Carol Jordan and Tony Hill, while Maitland's series about London detectives David Brock and Kathy Kolla is frequently acclaimed for its plotting and strong descriptions.

In their latest books, however, both authors are trying something different.

McDermid's standalone novels, such as the outstanding A Place of Execution, have often been among her best works. In The Skeleton Road she brings back cold case officer Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie from the earlier A Darker Domain.  When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a crumbling Gothic building in Edinburgh, Pirie is given the difficult task of identifying the bones and finding the killer. As she investigates, Pirie finds links back to the bloody days of the Balkan conflict. Meanwhile a man is killed in Crete and two disgruntled officers from the United Nations War Crimes Commission are bullied into trying to track down an assassin who seems to be extracting revenge for atrocities committed in Croatia.

McDermid does a terrific job of shifting the narrative between Pirie's investigation and that of the two war crimes officers, and intersperses the story with extracts from the diary of academic Maggie Blake who was trapped in Croatia during the conflict. The plot moves seamlessly back and forth between Edinburgh, Croatia and Oxford and Blake's first-person narrative is used to dramatic effect to both explain and keep the plot moving.

The seemingly simple murder mystery gradually expands to be an exploration of geopolitics and genocide and the impact of the past on the present. It is a powerful story, although the mystery elements become slightly lost towards the end and the final resolution seems insignificant against the broader concerns canvassed by McDermid.

In Crucifixion Creek Maitland has deserted his regular pairing of London detectives Brock and Kolla for Sydney policeman Harry Belltree.  Belltree is still coming to grips with the suspicious car accident that killed his parents and left his wife blinded, when a new case threatens to reopen old wounds.  His brother-in-law is stabbed to death and Belltree finds connections to other recent deaths. Forced off the official investigation Belltree has to go off-grid to find out what really happened.

This is a very briskly paced crime story and the impulsive and violent Belltree is in marked contrast to the conservative and considered Brock. Like most "lone wolf" detectives Belltree works to his own code and is not afraid to break the rules in order to find the killers.

Crucifixion Creek is an enjoyable novel, but it lacks the complexity and subtlety of Maitland's usual plotting. The story unfolds smoothly and the action is frequent, but the plotting is clunky. Coincidence and luck play a big part in determining the outcome and Belltree's actions are not always convincing.

Nevertheless, Crucifixion Creek is a terrifically exciting novel and it will be interesting to see how the remaining two novels in the proposed trilogy unfold.