Review: THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING FRENCHMAN, H. L. Marsay

• This edition read as an e-book on Kindle (AmazonAU)
• 
  ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CXP7YRDP
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tule Publishing, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 13 August 2024
  
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 276 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1962707633
• Book 3 of 4: The Lady in Blue Mysteries 

Synopsis  (AmazonAU)

Even in war, your enemies can linger too close to home…

While war and revolution continue to ravage Europe, Dorothy Peto embraces her new role at Scotland Yard as she and several detectives investigate a series of jewel thefts. Then Dorothy is tasked with assisting the inscrutable Inspector Derwent and the charming Colonel Lamarchant to find a missing French aristocrat. Their enquiries take them to a country house in Yorkshire, that’s been converted to a hospital for wounded soldiers and was the last place the Frenchman visited. However, the more questions they ask, the more questions they have.

When the body of a man suspected of being the marquis is discovered, the investigative team returns to London, but the dead man is a stranger. Dorothy speculates that the death, the jewel thefts and the missing Frenchman may be connected. She finds herself tangled in a web of conscientious objectors, Irish republicans and communist agitators, and not everyone is who they appear to be.

My Take

I must confess that I haven't read earlier titles in this series but this one seems to work well enough as a stand-alone. However while the story was interesting, it didn't feel particularly enriched by the historical period in which it is set.

It comes with this disclaimer: Inspired by the remarkable life of Dorothy Peto, the Metropolitan Police’s first female superintendent. 

My rating: 4.4

I have also read

4.4, A LONG SHADOW -#1

4.4, A VIKING SHADOW - #2 

4.4, A GHOSTLY SHADOW -#3

4.4, A ROMAN SHADOW -#4

4.5, A FORGOTTEN SHADOW #5

4.5, A CHRISTMAS SHADOW #6

Review: THE LITTLE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL, Georges Simenon

• 
  this edition from my local library
  
• first published 1956
• translated from French 2021 by Sian Reynolds
• ISBN 978-0-241-48706-8
• 186 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

The poignant story of an outsider falsely accused of murder from the celebrated author of the Maigret series

She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older, a dusty, lonely bookseller whose only passion in life was collecting stamps.

Jonas is used to his young wife disappearing. Everyone in the town knows that she goes off with other men. This time, however, he tells a small lie to protect her, saying she is visiting a school friend. It is a lie, however, that eats into him like an illness, provoking hostility and resentment against this timid little Russian-Jewish bookseller, who always thought he had been accepted. As suspicion mounts, his true, terrifying isolation is revealed. 

My Take

Jonas had always thought of them as friends, but this time when his young wife disappears, the villagers turn on him. His background is that he is a Russian-Jew, whose family fled the Revolution, and he had almost forgotten that and thought they had too. But when young Gina leaves him they remember everything that makes him different and he becomes an outsider.

This is a sad story for there is no way back for Jonas as Simenon explores his final path. 

I read this to discuss with my U3A Crime Fiction Reading Group. Our focus this month is Georges Simenon. 

My rating: 4.5 

I've also read

4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD

4.5, MAIGRET & THE HEADLESS CORPSE

4.3, PIETR THE LATVIAN

THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET

4.4, THE RULES OF THE GAME

4.2, THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY

4.3, THE CARTER OF LA PROVIDENCE

4.3, LOCK NO 1. Maigret #18

4.0, MAIGRET IN NEW YORK

4.2, A MAN'S HEAD 

4.4, THE CAT 

4.4, THE TRAIN 

Review: THE TRAIN, Georges Simenon

• 
  Read as an e-book on Libby per my local library
  
• first published in 1961
• e-Publisher ‏ : ‎ Melville House Publishing, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 6 October 2011
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 154 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1935554468
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1935554462

Synopsis (AmazonAU)

Against all expectations Marcel Féron has made a “normal” life in a bucolic French suburb in the Ardennes. But on May 10, 1940, as Nazi tanks approach, this timid, happy man must abandon his home and confront the “Fate” that he has secretly awaited. 

Separated from his pregnant wife and young daughter in the chaos of flight, he joins a freight car of refugees hurtling southward ahead of the pursuing invaders. There, he meets Anna, a sad-looking, dark- haired girl, whose accent is “neither Belgian nor German,” and who “seemed foreign to everything around her.” As the mystery of Anna’s identity is gradually revealed, Marcel leaps from the heights of an exhilarating freedom to the depths of a terrifying responsibility—one that will lead him to a blood-chilling choice. 

My Take

Marcel Feron has poor eyesight, and has had tuberculosis, so he is not required for war service. He is married, his wife is heavily pregnant and they have a 5 year old daughter. As the German tanks approach the French village where he lives, he and his neighbours flee to the local railway station with no idea where the evacuation trains will take them or what the future holds for them.  When they board a train the women and children are put at the front in the first class carriages and the men are allocated to the rear carriages, which are mainly cattle trucks. The train meanders through France and Belgium and eventually is separated into two sections and Marcel has no idea where his wife and daughter have gone.

However a young woman and he pair up in the rear carriages and become an "item" in ways that Marcel could not have envisaged when his journey began.  

This is really a novella although the story is "complete". It explores what happened during the evacuations at the beginning of World War II, the uncertainty that civilians felt, and the way people behaved once they were "released" from their normal lives. At one stage German planes strafe the railway lines and stations and some civilians are killed. Marcel will survive this episode of his life, and indeed locate his wife and child, and resume his life in the Ardennes. For those of us who have only ever read about the impact of war, this is a rare glimpse of "there but for the Grace of God ...."

I have read this for my U3A Crime Fiction Reading group where our author this month is Georges Simenon. 

My rating: 4.4

I have also read

4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD

4.5, MAIGRET & THE HEADLESS CORPSE

4.3, PIETR THE LATVIAN

THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET

4.4, THE RULES OF THE GAME

4.2, THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY

4.3, THE CARTER OF LA PROVIDENCE

4.3, LOCK NO 1. Maigret #18

4.0, MAIGRET IN NEW YORK

4.2, A MAN'S HEAD

 4.4, THE CAT 

Review: THE MISSING CASE OF THE MISSING CRIME WRITER, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  this edition published by Penguin Random House UK 2026
  
• English translation by Victoria Cribbs
• ISBN 978-0-241-71111-8
• 314 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.

There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective, Helgi, to crack the case before it's leaked to the press.

As he interviews the people closest to her – a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge – he realises that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than her stories.

As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of a very unexpected life, before someone else goes missing . . .

My Take

A central theme to this novel is why people disappear. Helgi occupies an office once occupied by Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir whom we met in THE DARKNESS  when she had been forced into early retirement and then disappeared. No explanation has ever been given for her disappearance and occasionally Helgi thinks of her.

However the case he is working on at present is the disappearance of a popular crime fiction novelist who has apparently ceased writing after publishing 10 very popular novels over a period of twenty years. He learns from her friends that she has done disappearing acts before.

Helgi has other problems on his mind too - a new girlfriend is being stalked by one he walked on after she had become violent towards him.  

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.4, THE MIST

4.5, WHITE OUT 

4.5, WINTERKILL 

4.6, THE MIST

4.6, RUPTURE 

4.7, THE DARKNESS 

4.7, REYKJAVIK - with Katrin Jakobsdottir

4.6, OUTSIDE  

Review: THE GAMBLER, J. P. Pomare

• 
  This edition from my local library
  
• published by Hachette Australia 2026
• ISBN 978-0-7336-5308-7
• 330 pages
• #2 in Vince Reid PI series  

Synopsis (publisher)

A highly charged crime-thriller - launching an electrifying new series featuring PI Vince Reid - by multi-award-winning prince of the twist, J.P. Pomare.

PI Vince Reid is visiting an old friend when he's offered a case he can't refuse: Why did a respected local woman open fire at a political rally, killing a promising young university graduate? It's easy money, he's told. A sure thing.

But as Reid delves further into the case, the stakes are higher than he imagined. There are invisible players pulling the strings. Will he walk away a winner or pay for the ultimate gamble with his life?

My Take

An intriguing thriller. The original investigation is concerned with why a young woman is shot dead at a political rally. Was the target the female politician? Did the shooter miss? Vince Reid begins by looking at the victim and her friends. And then he watches the CCTV footage of the shooting and realises something.

There is an interesting side story about scams and how they work, how you influence what victims believe.

Recommended. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.6, IN THE CLEARING

4.8, CALL ME EVIE

4.8, TELL ME LIES 

4.7, THE WRONG WOMAN

4.7, HOME BEFORE NIGHT 

4.8, 17 YEARS LATER

Review: WHISTLE, Linwood Barclay

• 
  This edition read as an e-book through my local library on BorrowBox
  
• eBook, Imprint: HQ
• ISBN: 9780008735005
• Pages: 432
• Publication Date: 5th June 2025 

Synopsis (author) 

Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.

Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children’s books she’s built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal.

But Annie’s year is about to get worse.

Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there’s something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night—she could swear she hears a train, but there isn’t an active track for miles—and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can’t seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children’s book.

Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she’s walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying…

My Take

A thoroughly creepy read which I wasn't expecting (I didn't read the blurb before picking it up.) Don't let my description put you off - the story is well crafted and gets you thinking, plenty of little mysteries to solve.  I hope the blurb doesn't reveal too much - blame the author - it is from his site. He calls it a "chiller".

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

NO TIME FOR GOODBYE

TOO CLOSE TO HOME

4.5, FEAR THE WORST

4.6, NEVER LOOK AWAY

5.0, TRUST YOUR EYES

4.7, NEVER SAW IT COMING

4.4, BROKEN PROMISE

4.4, A NOISE DOWNSTAIRS

4.7. LOOK BOTH WAYS

Review: THE REDLINE, Adrian Hyland

• 
  This edition an e-book made available through my local library on BorrowBox
  
• ISBN: 9781761153556
• Published 25 / 11 / 2025
• Pages: 336
• QBD Books 
• #3 Jesse Redpath series 

Synopsis (publisher)

An open road. A dead cop. A killer in the hills ...I flicked on the torch, swept the surrounds. Nothing. Then I directed the beam into the trees on the other side of the road.

Up on a high, jutting branch, something moved. It may have been a white face, a pale body, a curved leg. Or it may have been none of those things. Was it human? Too quick for me to tell. A ripple, a blink and it was gone. But it seemed to leave an afterglow, an impression upon the fabric of the night.

I took a deep breath. What had I seen? It had appeared to be a pair of piercing eyes in a pale visage. It could almost have been an owl, so compelling was its gaze, so swift its departure. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, a distorted shadow?

There was a crunch of leaf in the litter below and it was gone.

Whatever it was, it sent a chill through me.

It's the festive season in the Windmark Ranges and Sergeant Jesse Redpath's day is going from bad to worse. It begins with her having to arrest the usual drunks and troublemakers and ends with the death of a colleague out on the Redline road. A death which may or may not have been an accident.

Jesse learns there have been other deaths and disappearances in the ranges, and that the local rumour mill suggests the perp is an elusive, semi-mythical character who goes by the name of 'Anarchy'.

Beneath the charm of a close-knit community, a darker truth festers, and Jesse's driven to expose it, no matter the disruption to the valley's fragile tranquillity.

My Take

Three years since we have had a novel from Adrian Hyland. 

Jesse Redpath is filling in for a colleague on leave and is a little older than we last met her but no less enthusiastic about her job. This novel turns out to be a fast pace thriller.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

5.0, GUNSHOT ROAD

4.5, CANTICLE CREEK -#1

4.7, THE WIREGRASS -#2

 
The Redline is the third in Adrian Hyland’s Australian regional crime series featuring Sergeant Jesse Redpath. The books are is set in a group of small towns in the fictional Windmark Ranges, a few hours drive from the centre of Melbourne. This entry is named after a local road that has earned the nickname “the redline” due to the drivers who redline their cars while speeding along it.