Review: THE GOOD SISTER, Sally Hepworth

•  this edition supplied by my local library

• first published by Pan MacMillan Australia 2020
• ISBN 978-1-76055-219-0
• 330 pages
  

 Synopsis (publisher)

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be ... dangerous.

When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of unexpected love.

WINNER OF THE DAVITT AWARD FOR ADULT FICTION 2021

My Take

Sally Hepworth has become one of those Australian authors that I look out for,  and in this case, an authors whose past titles I track down.

Fern and Rose are fraternal twins, that is, not identical, in reality very different. 

We begin the story with Rose's journal, recently begun, but beginning with a major event in their lives when they were 12 years old. So we see things in the journal from Rose's point of view. But then we begin to see things from Fern's point of view in chapters headed with her name. Rose appears to be the controller of their lives while Fern comes over as introverted and retiring.

As we put together the picture of their past, we also begin to see their mother, mainly from Rose's point of view, and are led to conclude that their childhood was an unhappy one. 

And then comes the question of a baby, which Rose desperately wants, and Fern thinks she has a solution.

An engrossing read.

My rating: 4.7 

I've also read

• 4.5, THE MOTHER IN LAW
• 4.7, THE YOUNGER WIFE 
• 4.7, THE SOULMATE
• 4.8, DARLING GIRLS
• 4.7, THE YOUNGER WIFE 

Review: ONE PERFECT COUPLE, Ruth Ware

 This edition an e-book from Amazon on Kindle

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CL5G23Z

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gallery/Scout Press (May 21, 2024)

Print length ‏ : ‎ 395 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them—from Ruth Ware, the New York Times bestselling author who “is turning out to be as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post).

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she agrees to try out with him.

A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla finds herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death. 

My Take

This novel is an interesting reflection on the creation of reality TV shows. As we know, these shows rely heavily on factors like surprise "tests", contrived romances, losers and winners, the embarrassment of participants, early ejections and so on. In this case the storm that strikes the island soon after the group's arrival complicates the scenario beyond all predictions.  Not only does the boat that dropped them all at the island depart soon after their arrival, taking with the first ejection,  the storm causes huge destruction and a couple of deaths.

The novel is very well written, and structured with a couple of very interesting plot lines.

Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

• 4.8, IN A DARK, DARK WOOD
• 4.4, THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10
• 4.8, THE DEATH OF MRS WESTAWAY
• 5.0, THE TURN OF THE KEY
• 4.6, THE IT GIRL
• 4.8, ZERO DAYS
• 4.8, ONE BY ONE

Review: A DEATH IN THE PARISH, Richard Coles

ISBN 978-1-4746-1-269-2 published in UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2023 this edition made available by my local library 414 pages #2 Canon Clement Mystery series Synopsis (publisher)  It’s been a few months since murder tore apart the community of Champton apart. As Canon Daniel Clement tries to steady his flock, the parish is joined with Upper and Lower Badsaddle, bringing a new tide of unwanted change. But church politics soon become the least of Daniel’s problems. His mother – headstrong, fearless Audrey – is obviously up to something, something she is determined to keep from him. And she is not the only one. And then all hell breaks loose when murder returns to Champton in the form of a shocking ritualistic killing…

My Take

There is more than one death in the parish in this book. An elderly parishioner is dying of cancer, and there is a couple who seem to keep turning up at death beds, and more than one case of an altered will. But Daniel and his mother Audrey become executors of her will, and when Audrey is going through the papers she has left, she finds out how the old lady made her money.

There is also a pretty horrific murder in this story. The perpetrator and his reasons comes as a shock.

There are a number of very interesting characters and I think this is one of those series where you need read the series in order so you understand relationships and character development. On the other hand I became annoyed at times with how "guff" in the form of ecclesiastical details slowed the story down.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.5, MURDER BEFORE EVENSONG - Canon Clement Mystery #1

Review: CLOSE TO DEATH, Anthony Horowitz

• 
• This edition supplied by my local library
  
• Published by Penguin Random House 2024
• ISBN 9781529904246
• 415 pages 
• Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery #5

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

In New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunnit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong, and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect? 

My Take

I'd forgotten the structure of my first experience of this series - the fact that the author actually makes an appearance in the novel as himself. That makes reading the novel a bit of a challenge - part of the narrative is in the third person, retelling and embellishing what investigator Daniel Hawthorne has told the author; and part of it is in the first person as the author steps onto the canvas himself and converses with the characters.

The plot is in fact quite complex, lots of solutions are on offer to the two murders that take place, and there is eventually a third murder that takes some believing.

In Acknowledgements in the final pages the author tells the readers that this was a complicated novel to write, and that while it was finished in 2020, for one reason another it wasn't published till 2024. 

Enjoy!

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• 4.5, THE HOUSE OF SILK
  4.7, MAGPIE MURDERS
  4.3, THE WORD IS MURDER -Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery #1

About the author

You've probably come across the work of Anthony Horowitz without realising it:

Anthony Horowitz is the author of the bestselling teen spy series, Alex Rider, and is also responsible for creating and writing some of the UK's most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

He has also written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty; a James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis; and his most recent stand-alone novel, Magpie Murders, was a Top Five Sunday Times bestseller.

He is on the board of the Old Vic Theatre, and was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.

Review: THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, Laura Dave

 

I last read this book at the beginning of the year and now I have re-read it for discussion with my U3A Crime Fiction reading group. My review is here.

I am looking forward to our discussion mainly because the last time we read something by an American author, many of the group found both the style and the content difficult to get to terms with.

I will attempt to use some of the discussion questions provided by the publisher in their Reading Group Guide

In Conversation with Michael Robotham

 
Last night I attended a session in Adelaide at the Howling Owl Cafe to meet up with my favourite author Michael Robotham. The occasion was to launch his new book STORM CHILD, #4 in the Cyrus Haven series.

I reviewed it here. It was also a celebration of the fact that Michael has been publishing crime fiction now for 20 years. In that time he has published 18 books and I have reviewed all of them.

His new website is here

Events where you can meet Michael

Review: PAST LYING, Val McDermid

• 
  this edition published by Sphere 2023
  
• ISBN 978-1-4087-2908-3
• 452 pages
• #7 in the Karen Pirie series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist . . .

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

My Take

I really should read more by Val McDermid. As you can see from my list below I always enjoy her books. I don't think I have read any others featuring DCI Karen Pirie. I usually favour reading a series in order to pick up on character development etc. But in this case I don't think it makes much difference. McDermid has done a lovely job of filling in the bits from the past that I needed to know. 

The novel is set in Edinburgh in April 2020, the beginning of the Covid lockdown with all sorts of regulations and restrictions that placed limitations on "normal" life including where we could go, what we could do etc. In fact, so well is this setting described in the novel, I had to remind myself as I set the novel down for a breather that we are not now in isolation.

The plot twists and turns as DCI Pirie and her team attempt to work out the correlations between the unexplained disappearance of student in Edinburgh a year before and a manuscript donated to the National Archives which seems to describe what happened to her. About half way through the novel, as my mind played with what DCI Pirie had uncovered so far, I came up with a "what if" which in fact was close to the final resolution. Now, it is not often that happens, but it didn't prevent me from reading the rest of the book, nor did it remove the pleasure of finding out that I was "nearly right".

Somebody wiser than me remarked a year or two ago that just as World War One, and World War Two, and the assassination of JFK, have provided time markers for us where we say pre-war or post-war, so Covid 19 will provide a similar time marker for us. I really haven't read too many books that have done that so far, but here is one that reminds of the impact Covid 19 had on our daily lives. Here in Australia variants of Covid are still having an impact. For example, there are still thousands in hospital. There are still people in our communities who disappear for a week or two with it. We are raising a whole generation of young people whose schooling has been disrupted by Covid. So much is different to what it was 4 years ago.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

• BENEATH THE BLEEDING
• 4.8, THE SKELETON ROAD
• 4.8, OUT OF BOUNDS
• 4.7, 1979
• 4.8, INSIDIOUS INTENT