Title: North by North East
Fandom: CI5: The New Professionals
Pairing: Chris Keel/Sam Curtis
Categories: action, case, slash (optional), first time, hurt/comfort
Length: Long (gen version: 32,000 words) or Epic (slash version: 46,000 words)
Warnings: Minor character death (mostly off-screen), murder investigation; nothing unusual for the genre.

Author on LJ: alyse
Author on AO3: Alyse
Author Website: Unconscious Mind

Summary:
Following the mysterious death of a government MP, Curtis and Keel are sent north to investigate.

Review:
I ought to declare an interest: Alyse is one of the women who dragged me into fanwriting lo! these many years ago. She's still a friend, though our fannish interests have drifted apart, and I still have a high regard for her writing ability. In other words, I may be a tad biased here. By way of compensation, you get two reviews for the price of one here; North by North East exists in two versions, one gen and one slash, hence the peculiar rating above.

The plot has about the right level of complexity for its source material; Our Heroes are sent to investigate a suspicious death, uncover the plot behind it and avert a disaster, with the requisite number of twists, turns and arguments with the local police. It's over-long to be an episode, but the structure is familiar and fits nicely. It works as a mystery too; all the information is there, just well enough hidden that you aren't sure until the right moment quite what is going on. The slash version necessarily goes further into the thoughts and feelings of Curtis and Keel, but the gen version doesn't sacrifice character for action either.

The flaw in this diamond is that it was written for a challenge, which was to work sixty particular words into the story. Mostly this is seamless, but one or two of the words are peculiar and at least one of them stands out as just plain odd. There's an entire scene which appears to have no purpose in the story other than to provide a place for one of these words to sit without sticking out too far, and I did find that quite annoying.

That said, sixty words out of 32,000 do not make that great an impact on the story. On the whole it's a very good read for action enthusiasts, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

North by North East (gen version: PG-13)

North by North East (slash version: NC-17)