Pick of the Month - November 2019

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2019

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for November 2019, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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Review: THE MISSING PIECES OF SOPHIE McCARTHY, B. M. Carroll

• this edition published 2018 by Michael Joseph (Penguin)
• ISBN 978-1-405-93916-0
• 389 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

She's the victim.
But is she so innocent?

Sophie McCarthy is known for her determination, ambition and brilliance at work. She's tough, but only because she wants to get the best out of people.

Aidan Ryan is strong, honourable, and a family man. He's tough too; the army requires it.

When these two strangers are brought together in a devastating incident, Sophie's life is left in ruins. Her family wants to see Aidan pay for what he did.

Aidan's prepared to sacrifice everything - including his marriage and his child - to fix the mess he's made.

But some things can't be fixed, and Sophie is not at all what she first appeared . . . 

My Take

More a novel of mystery than crime fiction, although there are crimes: physical violence, bullying, and abduction. If I had to pick an element that I think the novel is about: it is about pain, and the effects of stress, the sort of stress created by our modern society.

Aidan and Chloe's happy family life comes to an abrupt end the day that he swerves out into the traffic without looking and smashes into Sophie McCarthy's oncoming car. Aiden and Chloe are not significantly injured but Sophie has horrific injuries. Aiden's feelings of guilt don't allow him to move on, and his stress leads to the break up of his family.

In another way this story is about the impact of something like a car crash on both sides: the person who causes it, and the person who suffers it.

We hear the story from a multitude of narrators, and sometimes see an event from numerous points of view. This seems to make it all the more mesmerising.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Ber Carroll was born in Blarney, a small village in Ireland. The third child of six, reading was her favourite pastime (and still is!). Ber moved to Sydney in 1995 and spent her early career working in finance. Her work colleagues were speechless when she revealed that she had written a novel that was soon to be published. Ber now writes full time and is the author of eight novels, including Once Lost, Worlds Apart and Less Than Perfect. The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy is her first book published under the name B M Carroll.

Review: CRUEL ACTS, Jane Casey

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1536 KB
• Print Length: 369 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0008149038
• Publisher: HarperCollins (April 18, 2019)
• Publication Date: April 18, 2019
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B073YKXHHL
• Maeve Kerrigan #8

Synopsis (Amazon)

Guilty?
A year ago, Leo Stone was convicted of murdering two women and sentenced to life in prison. Now he’s been freed on a technicality, and he’s protesting his innocence.

Not guilty?
DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent are determined to put Stone back behind bars where he belongs, but the more Maeve digs, the less convinced she is that he did it.

The wrong decision could be deadly…
Then another woman disappears in similar circumstances. Is there a copycat killer, or have they been wrong about Stone from the start?

My Take

If anyone can work out whether Leo Stone is truly guilty of at least two nasty murders, it will be Maeve Kerrigan. He has been released, pending re-trial, because members of the original jury were influenced by media and internet resources. One of the things that Maeve and her boss has to do is to go through the original case to see if anything was missed.

Leo Stone is not a particularly nice person, but despite that, Maeve is finding that some of the evidence the police based their case on just doesn't add up.

I think I suffered a bit from not reading 4 of the books in this series and I was floundering a bit with details of Maeve's personal life, and how it is she comes to be living in a flat owned by her boss.

Nevertheless I have to admire her dedication to the job and her willingness to go that little bit further.
This is a tightly plotted book with some threads that give the reader plenty of food for thought.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read
4.6, THE MISSING #1
4.3, THE BURNING #2
4.5, LET THE DEAD SPEAK #7

Review: LAPSE, Sarah Thornton

• This edition published by Text Publishing 2019
• ISBN 9-781925-773941
• 293 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

All it took was a lapse…a momentary lapse…to bring Clementine Jones’ world crashing down. Now she’s living like a hermit in small-town Katinga, coaching the local footy club. She’s supposed to be lying low, but here she is, with her team on the cusp of their first premiership in fifty years—and the whole bloody town counting on her, cheering her on.

So why the hell would her star player quit on the eve of the finals?

It’s a question she wishes she’d left alone. Others are starting to ask questions too—questions about her. Clem’s not the only one with a secret, and as tension builds, the dark violence just below the town’s surface threatens to erupt. Pretty soon there’ll be nowhere left for Clem to hide.

My take

This is a rare novel in Australian crime fiction: set in the Australian footy world (rural AFL) and resonating with elements footy followers are familiar with: among them an Aboriginal player who quits mid season.

Clem Jones lives on the outskirts of a small Victorian town and she has brought the local footy team from bottom last year to the brink of a premiership. Last year the team members were no-hopers and some of them still are, but she has raised their level of fitness and they walk tall in their town. Clem is very secretive about her background but the reader is given clues about where she has been.

Clancy is a vital part of her team and then he tells her he has to quit but he won't say why. At the same time he loses his job, and Clem takes it upon herself to find out why.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward to the next in the series.

My rating: 4.7

About the author

Sarah cast off the lines to her law career not long after being awarded Australian Corporate Lawyer of the Year in 2016. She now lives with her husband aboard a 43-foot sailing catamaran, exploring this most magnificent blue planet and chasing an endless summer. She took up writing novels as a way to liberate her imagination after twenty years in the structured confines of legal and corporate life. Her debut novel, Lapse, is the first of a series featuring former corporate lawyer Clementine Jones.

Review: THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR, Liz Byrski

• this edition published in 2016 by Pan Macmillan (Read How you Want)
• ISBN 978-1-52522-793-6
• 530 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (author website)

Over the years, the residents of Emerald Street have become more than just neighbours, they have built lasting friendships over a drink and chat on their back verandahs.

Now a new chapter begins with the children having left home. Helen and Dennis have moved from their high maintenance family property to an apartment by the river with all the mod cons. For Joyce and Mac, the empty nest has Joyce craving a new challenge, while Mac fancies retirement on the south coast.

Meanwhile Polly embarks on a surprising long-distance relationship. But she worries about her friend next door. Stella’s erratic behaviour is starting to resemble something much more serious than endearing eccentricity…

My Take

First of all, blog follower, let me point out that this is not crime fiction.

It is in fact the second novel I've read by this remarkable writer who just seems to hit the spot for me. So many of the scenarios that she uses in this novel resonate with me.

I think when I was young, the people that I knew in their 60s and 70s all seemed at the end of their lives. I never thought of them as embarking on the next stage of life. They had had hard lives, compared with us, and I don't suppose many of them had so many years to go. Things are different now.

Our street, indeed our suburb, is going through something similar to what happens in Emerald Street. People are moving out, houses are being demolished, blocks sub-divided, apartments being built. Those of us left are well into retirement and things have changed for good, and not necessarily for the better.

This is a well constructed, well written book. To use the words of one of the characters, the scenarios feel very "authentic."

I have enjoyed it very much.

My rating: 5.0

I've also read
4.5, A MONTH OF SUNDAYS

What I read in October 2019

A number of good reads without any being outstanding

October 2019

• 4.1, THE NEVER GAME, Jeffery Deaver
• 4.3, SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD, Colin Dexter - audio book
• 4.5, THE BLACK ASCOT, Charles Todd 
• 4.5, THE AUTUMN MURDERS, Robert Gott - Australian author
• 4.7, THE NEIGHBOUR, Fiona Cummins 
• 4.4, SHE LIES IN WAIT, Gytha Lodge
• 4.5, A MONTH OF SUNDAYS, Liz Byrski
• 4.4, RUIN BEACH, Kate Rhodes  
• 4.4, LAST SEEN WEARING, Colin Dexter - audio book
• 4.3, THE CHILD'S CHILD, Barbara Vine

See what others have read this month.

Review: SILVER, Chris Hammer

• format: kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1958 KB
• Print Length: 444 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin (October 1, 2019)
• Publication Date: October 1, 2019
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07TNHDYBG

Synopsis (Amazon)

For half a lifetime, journalist Martin Scarsden has run from his past. But now there is no escaping.

He'd vowed never to return to his hometown, Port Silver, and its traumatic memories. But now his new partner, Mandy Blonde, has inherited an old house in the seaside town and Martin knows their chance of a new life together won't come again.

Martin arrives to find his best friend from school days has been brutally murdered, and Mandy is the chief suspect. With the police curiously reluctant to pursue other suspects, Martin goes searching for the killer. And finds the past waiting for him.

He's making little progress when a terrible new crime starts to reveal the truth. The media descend on Port Silver, attracted by a story that has it all: sex, drugs, celebrity and religion. Once again, Martin finds himself in the front line of reporting.

Yet the demands of deadlines and his desire to clear Mandy are not enough: the past is ever present.

My Take

Set in a fictional seaside town on the New South Wales northern coast, this novel seems to have a bit of everything. An undeveloped coastal retreat with a number of people with big ideas on how to make money, a swami taking advantage of the secludedness, others who enjoy the backwater nature of their home town. It starts with a murder and then follows with something even worse.

The plot has a number of complex threads and the book is definitely a sequel to the first Martin Scarsden novel, SCRUBLANDS for which the author recently won a CWA Dagger. However I felt my reading of SILVER was hampered by the fact that I seem to have forgotten some of the lesser threads of SCRUBLANDS. So, if you are wondering if you can read SILVER as a stand-alone, then the answer is probably no.

But Chris Hammer is obviously a writer to follow. The setting has a strong Australian flavour, and the main character Martin Scarsden is nicely flawed.

And will there be a sequel to SILVER? I'm not sure, unless Martin Scarsden becomes involved in an entirely new case. In this novel we learnt a lot about his past, his relationship with Mandy Blonde definitely went through some rocky times, so where now?

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
4.7, SCRUBLANDS

Pick of the Month - October 2019

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2019

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for October 2019, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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