Smile, You're on Camera
- vanessajknipe
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
A review of All Out of Leeds by Kim M. Watt
Smile, You’re On Camera
New Maths
Kim M. Watt has an interesting numbering system for the DI Addams series of books. She called All Out of Leeds, Book 1. But Detective Sergeant Addams appears in her own book, What Happened in London, explaining why she left the Big City and moved to Yorkshire (to escape the Things under bridges). So, All Out of Leeds is either Book 1 or Book 2, depending on whether you count the DS Addams book as part of the DI Addams series. Anyway, that’s a side-track from the main issue, which is, does Addams rely on forensics to solve crime or is she just a clever detective?
Introducing DI Addams
We first meet DI Addams in the Beaufort Scales books, which are described as Mysteries with dragons and baked goods. Those previous books are cosy mysteries, but the DI Addams stories are a little bit darker. It isn’t a problem for me, as I like most mysteries from cosy to hard boiled and noir, but it is worth noting.
So, What Happens?
In All Out of Leeds, Addams is given a case involving a woman of a certain age complaining that her necklace was stolen by a jeweller’s shop, which had accepted it for repair.
The shop insisted that the woman had collected the item, and the woman said she hadn’t. It all devolves into one of those cases that Addams hates. The ones that involve the M-word (that’s magic, by the way). And she left London to escape from that sort of case. Addams has to solve the mystery, protect her detective constable from learning about other cases, and get the magical jewellery safely back to its owner.
Aren’t we here to learn about the forensics?
There’s a nice lot of forensics in All Out of Leeds. In this book, there are no Sherlock Holmeses wandering around looking for fingerprints. It’s all up to date with digital forensics. The shop has CCTV, so the case will be a doddle.
Let me explain about surveillance cameras
CCTV isn’t necessarily the marvellous tool that the crime shows pretend. On television, you see the digital team enhance the image down to the micropixel level, and the police end up with a clear picture of whodunnit.
In real life, it’s not like that at all. CCTV cameras have low resolution. If enhanced at all, the image turns up blurred. And you can bet the criminal isn’t looking into the lens anyway, so the police get to work with a blurred, half a face as their best image.
Back to our regularly scheduled review
The video file is sent off to the lab, expecting a quick solution. But no, the document is corrupted, but only at the point where the necklace is on display. It’s one of those cases that gives DI Addams headaches.
“It’s not the only file like this.”
Adams stared at her. “What, so someone’s going around injecting viruses into CCTVs?”[i]
A theft at a car dealership shows up with the same problem. Someone is using the magical (and DI Addams hates that word, by the way) necklace to commit crimes, and the digital forensics can’t help.
Any other interesting details?
All Out of Leeds is about the only police procedural where I noticed the police officer had to remember they work within a budget. In modern policing, there’s no calling out the full forensics team for each crime. The tests have to be carefully chosen, and will hopefully provide maximum information for minimal expenditure.
“I’ve asked the parents to leave the house, and I’d like the CSOs to go over it and see what they can come up with.” [DI Addams said.]
The discovery, by the forensics team, of links between the two crimes, actually reduces the cost of two separate investigations.
Magic affecting modern science?
It’s not uncommon in Urban Fantasy to use the theme that magic cancels out electronic equipment. Ben Aaronovitch used that notion in Rivers of London, where magical use trashes most electronic gear.
But do you recommend it?
Oh, yes. All Out of Leeds and all the DI Addams books (no matter how you count them) are well worth the read. And you get a tour of the seedier side of magic in Yorkshire. They are all standalone books, so you can read them in any order, without having to worry about working with non-Archimedean mathematical numbering systems.
(Although, checking the author's website, I see that the books have been renumbered starting from What Happened in London as book 1)
If you are interested in the book, try here, or of course they are on Amazon.
References
Watt, Kim M. All Out of Leeds: A DI Adams mystery - magic, menace, & snark in a Yorkshire urban fantasy (Book One) (p. 64). Kim M. Watt. Kindle Edition.
[i] Watt, p64
[ii] Watt, p156
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