Review: THE UNHEARD, Nicci French

• 
  this edition an uncorrected proof
  
• Book published by Simon and Schuster September 2021
• Length: 464 pages
• ISBN13: 9781471179327

Synopsis (publisher)

He did kill. Kill and kill and kill.’
 
Tess’s number one priority has always been her three-year-old daughter Poppy. But splitting up with Poppy’s father Jason means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe.
 
When she finds a disturbing drawing, dark and menacing, among her daughter’s brightly coloured paintings, Tess is convinced that Poppy has witnessed something terrible. Something that her young mind is struggling to put into words.
 
But no one will listen. It’s only a child’s drawing, isn’t it?
 
Tess will protect Poppy, whatever the price. But when she doesn’t know what, or who, she is protecting her from, how can she possibly know who to trust . . . ? 

My Take

Three year old Poppy can't always tell her mother what she means. But Tess becomes alarmed when she finds a disturbing drawing which Poppy tells her is a woman being killed. Poppy increases her sense of anxiety by asking her mother if she is dead. Tess at first thinks Poppy is telling her about something her father Jason, whom Poppy stays with a couple of times a week, has done. Until now both she and Jason think they have been handling their separation, and his new marriage, pretty well. Now Tess is anxious about who Poppy has been having contact with when she is not with Tess.

Poppy is showing clear signs of anxiety: wetting the bed, biting other children and so on. Now Tess does not know who she can trust, and she doesn't know who she should tell. She stalks Poppy's father and his new wife, and does not like what she finds out, things that were happening when they were together. 

She tries to report things to the police, but, as they point out, there is no body, no evidence of a crime. By her 11th report they are threatening to take action, against her.

Nicci French has come up with a very believable scenario.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.3, BLUE MONDAY
4.5, TUESDAY'S GONE
4.7, WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY
4.7, FRIDAY ON MY MIND
4.7, THE LYING ROOM
4.5, DAY OF THE DEAD  

 

Review: INNOCENCE DIES, Colin Falconer

• 
  this edition large print, W F Howes Ltd, 2020
  
• ISBN 978-1-00400-164-4
• 386 pages
  
• #2 in the Charlie George series

Synopsis (author website)

 

He loves surprises. But not this one.

A schoolgirl is found dead in a park in North London and DI Charlie George is not short of suspects – is it her stepfather? Is it a sex crime? Is it race-related?

Charlie finally thinks he has it sorted, with his killer bang to rights. But then his lawyer gets him free on a technicality.

And that’s just the start of his troubles.

He’s been a cop all his life, he thought he’d seen everything . . . But Charlie soon realises, he hasn’t seen anything yet. 

My take

This is a year or so on from #1 in the series, LUCIFER FALLS. Charlie has been on leave recuperating from an injury received at the end of that story. He has "lost" his mistress from that book and has taken up with Pippa, a school teacher in London.

A phone call in the early hours calls Charlie to a suspected homicide on a disused railway line in Finsbury Park. It is an 11 year old girl who has only been missing for a few hours. Her body was found by her father. The body has been found near the ventilation shaft for the underground, and that's where the brick that killed her is also found.

 

The family is an immigrant one from Sierra Leone. They have already had a hard life,

 

CCTV footage shows the girl being followed by a known paedophile, and Charlie is convinced he is the murderer. Charlie teams up with a DC Lovejoy whom we have already met in the first novel in the series.

In Chapter 4 we "meet" the murderer, who  tells us what he likes doing, where he likes hanging out, and that he has only murdered one person... so far. There will be more of this dialogue later in the book, but we are no wiser about the identity of the narrator.

 

So, on the surface, this is a police procedural, but it also about child abuse, community tensions and expectations,  and the nature of evil.

 

A very good read!

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.6, LUCIFER FALLS

Review: HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Kate White

• 
  this edition published by Harper Collins 2020
  
• ISBN 978-0-00-842723-8
• 366 pages
• author website

Synopsis (author)

The key to her missing memories could bring relief—
or unlock her worst nightmares.

On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives soaked to the bone at her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard. When her boss shows, he’s shocked to see her—because, he explains, she hasn’t worked there in five years.

Ally knows her name, but is having trouble coming up with much beyond that, though after a trip to the psychiatric ER, she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance journalist; she’s married to a terrific man named Hugh. More memories materialize and yet she still can’t recall anything about the previous two days. Diagnosed as having experienced a “dissociative state,” she starts to wonder if it may have been triggered by something she saw—an accident, or worse, a trauma from her childhood that has risen to the surface.

Desperate for answers, Ally tries to track where she spent the missing days, but every detail she unearths points to an explanation that’s increasingly ominous, and it’s clear someone wants to prevent her from learning where those forty-eight hours went. In order to uncover the truth, Ally must dig deep into the secrets of her past—and outsmart the person who seems determined to silence her.

My take

When Ally Linden arrives at work, she doesn't realise she has been missing for two days. Her husband hasn't realised she is missing because when he last saw her she was storming out after an argument. 

Bits of her memory return but she still doesn't have answers to her fugue state, and it seems that something deep in her past may have triggered everything. A friend suggests that she may have had a shock, and Ally is inclined to believe that after she finds blood-soaked tissues in her coat pocket.

A book that kept me engaged right to the end.

My rating: 4.5

About the author 

Kate White is the New York Times bestselling author of fifteen novels of suspense: seven standalone psychological thrillers, including Have You Seen Me? (an Amazon Editors’ mystery and thriller pick for 2020), as well as eight Bailey Weggins mysteries.

Her next suspense novel, The Fiancée, will be published on June 29, 2021.

For fourteen years Kate served as the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and though she loved the job (and all the freebies to be found in the Cosmo beauty closet), she decided to leave eight years ago to concentrate full-time on being a suspense author.

Her first mystery, Even If It Kills Her, was a Kelly Ripa Book Club pick and #1 bestseller on Amazon. She has been published in countries around the world. Her most recent Bailey Weggins mystery, Such a Perfect Wife, was nominated for an International Thriller Writers Award.

Like many female mystery writers, Kate fell in love with the genre after reading her first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of Redgate Farm.

Kate is a frequent speaker at libraries and conferences and loves to share her journey from magazine editor to suspense novelist in a talk called “On Becoming an Author: Forging a New Creative Path and Finding Winning Ideas All Around You.”

She is also the editor of the Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, a collection of recipes from the field’s top-selling authors. In addition to writing mysteries and thrillers, Kate is the author of several bestselling career books, including The Gutsy Girl Handbook: Your Manifesto for Success, as well as I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: How to Ask for the Money, Snag the Promotion, and Create the Career You Deserve, and Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do.

She divides her time now between New York City and Las Flores, Uruguay.

Review: THE CUTTING PLACE, Jane Casey

• 
  format: Kindle e-book (Amazon)
  
• ASIN : B07ND6691Q
• Publisher : HarperCollins (April 3, 2020)
• Publication date : April 3, 2020
• File size : 1217 KB
• Text-to-Speech : Enabled
• Print length : 390 pages 
• #9 in the Maeve Kerrigan series 

Synopsis (Amazon)

Rumours…
Everyone’s heard the rumours about elite gentlemen’s clubs, where the champagne flows freely, the parties are outrageous…and what goes on behind closed doors is darker than you could possibly imagine.

Scandals…
Paige Hargreaves was a young journalist working on a story about a club for the most privileged men in London. She was on the brink of exposing a shocking scandal. Then she disappeared.

Secrets…
DS Maeve Kerrigan must immerse herself in the club’s world of wealth, luxury and ruthless behaviour to find out what happened. But Maeve is keeping secrets of her own. Will she uncover the truth? Or will time run out for Maeve first?

My take

A Thames mudlarker discovers a human hand and an investigating team finds a few other pieces of a body, enough for the forensic pathologist to say that these are female remains, and enough to yield some DNA which eventually leads to identification of young journalist who has disappeared just when she was about to break a shocking story. 

There are several threads to this plot: a male voice recounts something that happened two years earlier, and Maeve Kerrigan works on the current story. But the thread that virtually takes over is the domestic violence that Maeve becomes part of, something she had never thought would happen to her.

An engrossing read.

My rating: 4.8 

I've also read

4.6, THE MISSING 
4.3, THE BURNING #1
4.5, LET THE DEAD SPEAK #7
4.6, CRUEL ACTS - #8
4.5, THE RECKONING - #24.6, SILENT KILL - #8.5

Review: KILL A STRANGER, Simon Kernick

• 
  this edition published by Headline Publishing 2020
• ISBN 978-1-4722-7096-2
  
• 376 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

They took your fiancée.
They framed you for murder.

You’re given one chance to save her. To clear your name.
You must kill someone for them.

They give you the time and place.
The weapon. The target.

You have less than 24 hours.
You only know that no-one can be trusted…and nothing is what it seems.

My Take

Matt Walters comes home late one night to find his pregnant fiance gone, and a strange woman in his bed .. dead in a pool of blood, with a phone in her hand. The phone rings and Matt's nightmare begins. Webcam footage shows Kate with a noose around her neck, and a voice on the phone tells Matt he must follow instructions or Kate will die.

There are are four main narrative voices in this story: Matt, Kate, a British policeman, and Kate's father.  The trouble is that we, the readers, don't know which has the true story, and which is the unreliable narrator. One of them, at least, is a killer.

To be honest, I was 10 pages from the end before I had the plot worked out.

I know I have read a Simon Kernick novel sometime in the past, but apparently not in the history of this blog (13 years) so I am claiming him as a "new to me" author. A much neglected one.

My rating: 4.5

Review: THE FAMILY DOCTOR, Debra Oswald

• 
  This edition published Allen & Unwin 2021
• ISBN 9-761750-877781
  
• 357 pages

Synopsis (publisher) 

Paula is a dedicated suburban GP, who is devastated by the murder of a friend and her children by their estranged husband and father. Stacey and the children had been staying with her after fleeing his control, and Paula is haunted by the thought that she couldn't protect them when they most needed it. How had she missed the warning signs? How had she failed to keep them safe?

Not long after, a patient with suspicious injuries brings her anxious young son into Paula's surgery. The woman admits that her husband hurts her, but she's terrified to leave for fear of escalating the violence, and defeated by the consistent failures of the law to help her.

Can Paula go against everything she believes to make sure one woman is saved, one child spared? She isn't motivated by revenge. She's desperately trying to prevent a tragedy . . .

A riveting, provocative novel about women's fury, traumatic grief, new love, deep friendship, and the preciousness of life, The Family Doctor asks the questions: Should you cling to faith in a flawed system, or take control the only way you can? Can a good person justify taking a life to save a life?

My Take

A very topical read given what is being discussed both in the Australian Parliament and elsewhere at present. Domestic violence is a community concern because it has such widespread social and economic consequences.

Finding her friend Stacey and her two lovely children already dead in her house and then watching Stacey's husband take his own life, has the effect of tipping the balance for Paula. She becomes much more aware of the signs of domestic violence which she sees in her work as a GP in a Sydney suburb. To be honest, Paula has not really recovered from the death of her own husband from cancer in the previous year. 

In the months that follow Stacey's death Paula and her good friend Anita can't steer away from the issue of domestic violence, but Anita does not realise how it has affected Paula's thinking. They talk about how good it would be to rid the world of monsters, but neither imagine that they would take action themselves. 

When the opportunity presents itself to actually rid the world of one monster Paula takes it, and everything else stems from there. In fact it all starts much earlier - in Paula's failure to protect Stacey and her children, in the failure of the legal/police system to protect them, or even to keep them informed.

An impressive novel.

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Debra Oswald is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She is a two-time winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award and author of the novels Useful (2015) and The Whole Bright Year (2018). She was creator/head writer of the first five seasons of successful TV series Offspring. Her stage plays have been performed around the world and published by Currency Press. Gary's House, Sweet Road and The Peach Season were all shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award.

Debra has also written four plays for young audiences - Dags, Skate, Stories in the Dark and House on Fire. Her television credits include award-winning episodes of Police Rescue, Palace of Dreams, The Secret Life of Us, Sweet and Sour and Bananas in Pyjamas. Debra has written three Aussie Bites books for kids and six children's novels, including The Redback Leftovers, Getting Air and Blue Noise. Debra has been a storyteller on stage at Story Club and will perform her one-woman show, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady?, in 2021.

Review: THE TALLY STICK, Carl Nixon

• 
  this edition on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN : B089SC8KLH
• Publisher : Random House New Zealand (August 4, 2020)
• Language : English
• File size : 547 KB
• Print length : 234 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)  

A compulsive and chilling novel about subjugation, survival and the meaning of family.

Up on the highway, the only evidence that the Chamberlains had ever been there was two smeared tyre tracks in the mud leading into the almost undamaged screen of bushes and trees. No other cars passed that way until after dawn. By that time the tracks had been washed away by the heavy rain . . . It was a magic trick. After being in the country for only five days, the Chamberlain family had vanished into the air. The date was 4 April 1978.

In 2010 the remains of the eldest Chamberlain child have been discovered in a remote part of the West Coast, showing he lived for four years after the family disappeared. Found alongside him are his father’s watch and what turns out to be a tally stick, a piece of wood scored across, marking items of debt.

How had he survived and then died? Where was the rest of his family? And what is the meaning of the tally stick?

My Take

Thirty two years after he and his family disappeared in a remote part of New Zealand Mo Chamberlain's skeleton turns up on an equally remote beach.  At the time when the family and their car disappeared the land near the highway was searched extensively but no trace was ever found, of the car, of the husband and wife, or the four children.

We are in the car with them as it plunges off the road, and with the children as they wait for rescue. What follows is beyond belief.

We are with Suzanne, Julia Chamberlain's sister, when the New Zealand High Commission rings 32 years later to say a body has been found. We know Suzanne has been to New Zealsnd 4 times in the intervening years, the first just 3 weeks after the family disappeared, trying to work out where they had gone.

Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.7

About the author

Carl Nixon is an award-winning short story writer, novelist and playwright. He has twice won the Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition, and won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition in 2007. His first book, Fish ’n’ Chip Shop Song and other stories went to number one on the New Zealand bestselling fiction list, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book.

Nixon completed his first novel while he was the Ursula Bethell/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence at Canterbury University in 2006. Rocking Horse Road saw him identified as ‘a major talent’ by North & South, and was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2009. It has been published in China, France, and Germany and was on several lists for the best crime novels in Germany in 2012. His second novel, Settlers’ Creek, was also long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award. His novel, The Virgin and the Whale is being developed as a feature film by South Pacific Pictures.

His stage plays have been produced in every professional theatre in New Zealand. They include Mathew, Mark, Luke and Joanne,The Birthday Boy and The Raft. He has adapted for the stage Lloyd Jones’s novel The Book of Fame and JM Coetzee’s Disgrace. He was awarded the 2020 Howard McNaughton Prize at the Adam NZ Play Awards, recognising excellence in a unproduced script.

In 2018 Carl Nixon was awarded the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in France where he worked on The Tally Stick.

See more at www.carlnixon.co.nz/

Review: OLD BONES, Aaron Elkins

• 
  this issue published Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy; Reissue edition (8 July 2014)
  
• Paperback : 216 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1497643155
• ISBN-13 : 978-1497643154
• #4 in the Gideon Oliver series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery novel of the year. 1988

With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man's family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning. 

But too quickly, this "accident" is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. 

Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones. He quickly demonstrates why he is known as the "Skeleton Detective," providing the police with forensic details that lead them to conclude that these are the remains of a Nazi officer believed to have been murdered in the area during the Occupation. Or are they? Gideon himself has his doubts

Then, when another of the current du Rochers dies - this time via cyanide poisoning - his doubts solidify into a single certainty: someone wants old secrets to stay buried . . . and is perfectly willing to eradicate the meddlesome American to make that happen.

My Take

Members of the du Rocher family have been "summoned" to a meeting at which it's oldest member Guillame intends to make an important announcement. But before they can all get together he is dead, accidentally drowned on the flats of Mont St. Michel, caught by the galloping tide. Guillame's nephew claims to have been in his confidence, and to know what the meeting was about, but he is an unlovely character, and at least one other has a different idea about why they have been brought together.

Then the discovery of a skeleton in the cellar of the chateau, one that has apparently been there for over 40 years, calls for the involvement of the police and a bones expert, an American who is lecturing at a forensic science conference.

This is the first in this series that I have read, and it certainly won't be the last - there are plenty to choose from.

This is a many stranded plot, lots of red herrings, with engaging and interesting characters.

My rating: 4.6

About the author
Aaron Elkins is a former anthropologist and professor who has been writing mysteries and thrillers since 1982. His major continuing series features forensic anthropologist‑detective Gideon Oliver, "the Skeleton Detective." There are fifteen published titles to date in the series. The Gideon Oliver books have been (roughly) translated into a major ABC‑TV series and have been selections of the Book‑of‑the‑Month Club, the Literary Guild, and the Readers Digest Condensed Mystery Series. His work has been published in a dozen languages.
Mr. Elkins won the 1988 Edgar Award for best mystery of the year for Old Bones, the fourth book in the Gideon Oliver Series. He and his cowriter and wife, Charlotte, also won an Agatha Award, and he has also won a Nero Wolfe Award. Mr. Elkins lives on Washington's Olympic Peninsula with Charlotte.

Review: WHITE THROAT, Sarah Thornton

• 
  format: e-book Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN : B084RSGCG1
• Publisher : Text Publishing (1 December 2020)
• Language : English
• File size : 3336 KB
• #2 in the Clementine Jones series 

Synopsis  (Amazon)

Looking out over an ebb tide from the back verandah was like watching God paint stripes…

Disgraced former lawyer Clementine Jones is on the shores of paradise—Queensland’s Great Sandy Straits—trying to outrun her past.

Bored with her house-sitting gig, she becomes a reluctant recruit to the local environmental group, campaigning to save an endangered turtle as developers close in. Then a body is found at the base of a quarry, and Clem’s world is turned upside down.

The police say suicide. Clem’s convinced it was murder. She also knows she’s the only one interested in tracking down the killer.

Well, the only one apart from her friend Torrens, ex-con and reformed standover man. And he’s got his own fight on his hands.

My take

Clem has fled north after the people of the Victorian town of Katinga have become aware of her past, after she brought its footy team to a premiership. She has ended up house/dog sitting in the coastal Queensland village of Piama.

There she meets up with a close family friend Helen who is working to save the white-throated turtle from extinction and its habitat from being destroyed by a mining company. Helen asks Clem to give legal advice to the conservation society and would like her to be more active and front-line.

Then Helen’s body is found at the base of a fifteen-metre cliff in the local quarry; the police rule suicide, but Clem is certain that Helen has been murdered and tries to work out who has been interested in getting rid of Helen. There are several candidates including some people who have been contributing financially to the cause.

Clem is also under pressure to say she will return to Katinga for the footy season, but she has other irons in the fire.

I didn't enjoy this novel as much as the first in the series, but Clem Jones is certainly a strong and interesting character.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read
4.7, LAPSE

Review: THE NIGHT SWIM, Megan Goldin

• 
  this edition available from my local library as an e-book through Libby
  
• Published: 4 August 2020
• ISBN: 9781760897208
• Imprint: Michael Joseph
• Pages: 352

Synopsis (Publisher)

Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name – and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognised for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.

The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial.
A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation – but the mysterious letters keep coming.

Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered. When Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases, past and present collide. What she finds will change not just the course of the trial, but the lives of everyone involved. 

My take

As the blurb says, past and present collide in this story, and the two cases 25 years apart are strikingly similar except that the death of Jenny Stills was never investigated and never came to trial. Once again Megan Goldin has set her story in a small town in North Carolina. but you can imagine that it could be set anywhere. 

Rachel Krall's podcast takes her readers to the Scott Blair's trial and tries to put them in the role of the jury. She tries to get them to see that it really isn't Scott that is being tried, that the real substance of the trial is what is happening to K. the alleged rape victim. She has already been victimised by a large section of the town's population for her allegations, but as Rachel says, who would allege rape if it hadn't happened?

Simultaneously we are investigating the much older case of Hannah's sister Jenny who drowned twenty five years earlier. The case got very little footage in the local paper because of a car crash at about the same time in which two teenage boys were killed. Jenny's mother died of cancer a few weeks later and there was no-one to push for an investigation.

An interestingly constructed book with three main narrative voices.

One thing that has struck about the 3 books that I've read so far by Megan Goldin is that they are all very different, but all very believable.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• 4.6, THE GIRL IN KELLERS WAY
• 4.7, THE ESCAPE ROOM 

Review: THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS, Elly Griffiths

• 
  this edition published 2020 by Quercus
  
• #2 in the Harbinder Kaur series
• ISBN 978-1-78747-764-3
• 344 pages
• source: my local library 

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s carer, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.

But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

And then things escalate: from an Aberdeen literary festival to the streets of Edinburgh, writers are being targeted. DS Kaur embarks on a road trip across Europe and reckons with how exactly authors can think up such realistic crimes . .

My Take

Peggy Smith, murder consultant, is 90, living in sheltered accommodation, seemingly healthy and fit, but dies unexpectedly. At first there seems nothing suspicious about her death, but questions are raised when a gunman breaks into her flat just to steal a book. Her death is followed by the murder of a popular crime fiction author whom she assisted with unusual plots. Her carer decides to tell the police that her death was unexpected.

Eventually an investigative trio decides to track another author, who also used Peggy's services, to a crime fiction festival in Aberdeen where another author dies and it seems the suspicions about Peggy's death were well founded.

This novel felt a little too cosy at times, and perhaps a little slow, but the various threads are brought together with a sure hand.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES
4.6, THE JANUS STONE
4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END
4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES
4.8, DYING FALL- audio book
4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book
4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book
4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE
4.7, THE CHALK PIT
4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Review: LOCKDOWN, Peter May

• Written 2005
  
  
• Published 2020 by riverrun 
• ISBN 978-1-52941-169-0
• 398 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Written over fifteen years ago, this prescient, suspenseful thriller is set against a backdrop of a capital city in quarantine, and explores human experience in the grip of a killer virus.

"They said that twenty-five percent of the population would catch the flu. Between seventy and eight percent of them would die. He had been directly exposed to it, and the odds weren't good."

A CITY IN QUARANTINE

London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed.

A MURDERED CHILD

At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified.

A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY

D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first - the virus or the killers?

My take

After what we have all been through in 2020, and are still undergoing, this novel set in a global pandemic of bird flu is one that most of us can approach with some understanding. Self-isolation, public panic, and permits restricting us to our homes and local areas all ring bells. But this pandemic, admittedly not Covid-19 in origin, didn't just happen. Someone, something, caused it. And the world is waiting for a vaccine.

Jack MacNeil has decided that there has to be life outside his work, and so he has resigned, and now has only about 24 hours left to his working career. The bones in the bag will very likely be his last case and he is determined to solve it. When coincidences indicate that someone is tracking his every move, even protecting him against attack and robbery, he has to ask why.

At times the scenarios strained credibility but the characters and plot threads felt real enough. And with what we know of the "China virus", we might even ask some cynical questions about what has been happening in our world.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read
THE RUNNER
VIRTUALLY DEAD
FREEZE FRAME
4.7, THE BLACKHOUSE
5.0, THE LEWIS MAN
4.5, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
5.0, ENTRY ISLAND
4.9, COFFIN ROAD

Review: THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR, Rose Carlyle

• 
  this edition e-book (Libby) through my local library
  
• Publisher : William Morrow & Company (20 October 2020)
  
• Language: : English
• Hardcover : 304 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0063030144
• ISBN-13 : 978-0063030145
• author website

Synopsis (Amazon)

Twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beyond what the eye can see lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of Summer's seemingly never-ending good fortune.

When Summer calls Iris to Thailand to help her sail the family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris has secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But after a disturbing incident in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes.

Now Iris has the chance to step into the golden life she's always envied-and get one step closer to the hundred-million-dollar inheritance left by her manipulative father. All Iris would need to do is ensure she's the first of his seven children to fulfill the strange conditions of his will.

But Iris soon discovers that her twin was keeping more than one secret, and Iris's life lurches between glamorous dream and paranoid nightmare. In a family in which the winner takes all, whom can she trust? And how far will she go to get the life she's always dreamed about?

My Take

The narrator at first is Iris, second-born of "mirror" twins. Summer, the older twin, is perfect. Iris has always been conscious of being the less beautiful, the less perfect, although most people, including their younger brother, find it difficult to tell which is which.

Both women are recently married, but Iris's marriage has recently collapsed. Summer and her husband are in Thailand with her infant stepson and call for Iris to come to them because of an emergency with the little boy. 

Much of the plot becomes predictable once Summer and Iris begin sailing the family yacht from Thailand to the Seychelles. In the long run there is only one of them on the boat when it arrives. 

From that point on there are several plot twists. The last, in the final few pages, sent me back re-reading the final few chapters to check if there were any indications about where the plot was heading.

This book just kept me reading, mainly because I wanted to know how the plot worked out.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Rose Carlyle is a law professor who has written intermittently throughout her life and who began writing fiction in 2016. She was awarded first class honours in her creative writing Masters at the University of Auckland and was granted a prestigious mentorship under which she developed and completed this manuscript. She spends her spare time in far-flung places and currently lives in New Zealand. The Girl in the Mirror is her debut novel. 

Review: THE MIST, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
   First published in Icelandic in 2017
  
• Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb 
•  Published in English by Penguin Random House: 30 April 2020
•  ISBN: 978-0-718-18908-2
•  Pages: 302

Synopsis  (Penguin Random House)

The final nail-biting instalment in the critically acclaimed Hidden Iceland series

1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland. The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn't. The couple should never have let him in. But they did. An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir will be haunted forever.

My Take

The Prologue tells us that Reykjavík detective is coming back to work after 2 months leave following a family tragedy. She is not sure she is ready to return to work but she knows it will be better than what is happening every day at the moment. A suspected murder has been called in from a farm in the east of Iceland. The bodies have been lying there since at least Christmas, over 2 months.

The time frame then jumps back 2 months, before Christmas, two settings: the farm in the east, and Hulda's own home in Reykjavík where she and her husband and teenage daughter are preparing for Christmas. In addition Hulda is investigating another case: a teenage girl who has gone missing while taking a gap year to travel on her own around Iceland.

Predictably these plot strands come together but what is not predictable is the how and why of their concatenating. Very cleverly plotted, and an excellent read.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
Ragnar Jonasson is an international number one bestselling author who has sold over one and a half million books worldwide. He was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, where he also works as an investment banker and teaches copyright law at Reykjavík University. He has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, and, from the age of seventeen, has translated fourteen of Agatha Christie's novels. His critically acclaimed international bestseller The Darkness is soon to be a major TV series.

Review: THE DARKEST EVENING, Ann Cleeves

• 
  e-book from my local library on Libby
  
• Published by Macmillan September 2020
• ISBN 9781509889518
• 384 pages
  

Synopsis (publisher)

DCI Vera Stanhope returns in The Darkest Evening, the ninth novel in Sunday Times bestseller Ann Cleeves' enduringly popular series.

Driving home during a swirling blizzard, Vera Stanhope's only thought is to get there quickly.

But the snow is so heavy, she becomes disoriented and loses her way. Ploughing on, she sees a car slewed off the road ahead of her. With the driver's door open, Vera assumes the driver has sought shelter but when she inspects the car she is shocked to find a young toddler strapped in the back seat.

Afraid they will freeze, Vera takes the child and drives on, arriving at Brockburn, a run-down stately home she immediately recognizes as the house her father Hector grew up in.

Inside Brockburn a party is in full swing, with music and laughter to herald the coming Christmas. But outside in the snow, a young woman lies dead and Vera knows immediately she has a new case. Could this woman be the child's mother, and if so, what happened to her?

A classic country house mystery with a contemporary twist, Ann Cleeves returns with a brilliant Vera novel to savour.

My take

As you will see from my list below, Ann Cleeves is one of my favourite authors, and one that I love to follow. This latest offering in the Vera series does not disappoint.

I particularly enjoyed the exploration of the connections between Vera's familial history and the stately home of Brockburn. In each novel a little more of Vera's character is tweaked out and we gain more insight into what makes her "tick".

A complex plot comes to the fore as Vera discovers what has happened to the child's mother. Several characters are explored and a number of red herrings laid across our path. There's plenty of mystery on our plate. A very good read.

For those interested, there are differences between the books and the television series, but I feel that central character of Vera is essentially the same person. There are differences in the personnel of her team, but the interplay between the main characters is similar.

My rating: 4.9

I've also read

RAVEN BLACK - Shetland #1
WHITE NIGHTS - Shetland#2
RED BONES - Shetland #3
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING - Shetland#4
5.0, DEAD WATER  - Shetland#5
4.6, THIN AIR - Shetland #6
4.3, MURDER IN PARADISE - Palmer-Jones series #3
TELLING TALES (Vera Stanhope) #2
4.8, SILENT VOICES, (Vera Stanhope) #4
5.0, THE GLASS ROOM (Vera Stanhope) #5
4.9, HARBOUR STREET (Vera Stanhope) #6
4.5, BURIAL OF GHOSTS - stand-alone
4.8, THE MOTH CATCHER (Vera Stanhope #7)
4.4, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE (Quick Reads)
4.7, THE SEAGULL - (Vera Stanhope #8)
4.6, THE LONG CALL - Two Rivers #1

Review: STICKS AND STONES, Katherine Firkin

• 
  This edition published by Bantam 2020
  
• ISBN 978-1-76089-302-6
• 392 pages
• source: my local library
• author website

Synopsis (author website)

It’s winter in Melbourne and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk.

So when Natale Gibson goes missing, he’s convinced this is the big case he’s been waiting for – the woman’s husband and parents insist the devoted mother would never abandon her children, and her personal accounts remain untouched.

But things aren’t all they seem. The close-knit Italian family is keeping secrets – none bigger than the one Natale has been hiding.

Just as the net seems to be tightening, the investigation is turned on its head. The body of a woman is found . . . then another.

What had seemed like a standard missing person’s case has turned into a frightening hunt for a serial killer, and time is running out.

But to really understand these shocking crimes, Emmett and his team will need to delve back through decades of neglect – back to a squalid inner-city flat, where a young boy is left huddling over his mother’s body . . .

My Take

We meet the murderer, who turns out to be a serial killer, right at the start, in the Prologue, but we don't know who he is. 

Two cases present themselves for the attention of the MPU almost simultaneously. Rosemary Norton is reported missing by her brother because she fails to turn up for her disabled brother's birthday party. The second case, that of Natale Gibson, mother of two, who fails to collect her two young children from day care, looks more serious.

The MPU is under pressure to perform. It seems likely that the future state budget will bring with it a cut to their funding, and the absorption of the MPU into other police departments.

In the background Emmett Corban's wife Cindy is excited to be taking up a new job, but, while Emmett is glad for her, he realises it will bring changes to the dynamics of their home life.

The plot is many stranded, with a load of red herrings to distract the reader. The way the strands are connected up is very clever. There are a range of well-developed characters too. Good reading.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Katherine Firkin is a Melbourne journalist, currently with CBS New York.
She has over a decade of experience and has worked across every medium – print, online, television and radio.
Katherine has been writing fiction from a young age, and she studied literature and journalism at university. Her debut novel is inspired by the many criminal trials she has covered.

 

Review: THE BLUFFS, Kyle Perry

• 
  Published : 2 July 2020
  
• ISBN: 9781760895679
• Imprint: Michael Joseph
• Format: Trade Paperback
• Pages: 432
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

At the bottom of the world, there is an island. It is a land of rugged wilderness, of ice and snow and blistering heat, of the oldest trees on earth . . . They say tigers still roam there. They say other things roam, too.

When a school group of teenage girls goes missing in the remote wilderness of Tasmania’s Great Western Tiers, the people of Limestone Creek are immediately on alert. Three decades ago, five young girls disappeared in the area of those dangerous bluffs, and the legend of ‘the Hungry Man’ still haunts locals to this day.

Now, authorities can determine that the teacher, Eliza Ellis, was knocked unconscious, so someone on the mountain was up to foul play. Jordan Murphy, the local dealer and father of missing student Jasmine, instantly becomes the prime suspect. But Detective Con Badenhorst knows that in a town this size – with corrupt cops, small-town politics, and a teenage YouTube sensation – everyone is hiding something, and bluffing is second nature.

When a body is found, mauled, at the bottom of a cliff, suspicion turns to a wild animal – but that can’t explain why she was discovered barefoot, her shoes at the top of the cliff, laces neatly tied.

My Take

Limestone Creek, a small town, exists on the very edge of the Tasmanian wilderness, so close that it is a short walk from the local high school to the mountains, rumoured to be inhabited by The Hungry Man. If you see him or hear him, you die. Is that what happened to 5 school girls 3 decades ago? And now, 4 girls go missing.

And Limestone Creek is put on the map by social media. People flood into the town from other places in Tasmania, a police investigator with a history sweeps in from Hobart, and a local teenager floods YouTube with pre-prepared videos. And then a body is found.

The author uses several voices to explore relationships at the school, between adults and the teenagers, and among the teenagers themselves. The father of one of the girls is the local drug grower and dealer. Some of the adults prey on the school girls, betraying their duty of care.

This is a novel that crosses boundaries. I'm not sure that the final resolution is particularly credible, but the author certainly achieved his aim of keeping me reading.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Kyle Perry is a counsellor who has worked extensively in high schools, youth shelters and drug rehabs. In his work he encounters stories and journeys that would fill a hundred books. Kyle’s mother grew up in the foothills of the Great Western Tiers, in Tasmania’s heartland, where his grandfather was called on for search and rescues in the mountains. Kyle himself has been lost in Tasmanian mountains twice, and once used ripped pages of a journal stuck on branches to find his way back out. He has also seen strange things in the bush that defy explanation and are best not spoken about. Kyle divides his time between his small country hometown in Tasmania’s North West and Hobart. The Bluffs is his debut novel.