30 September 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: Z is for Zane Lovitt


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will mainly feature authors or books that I have read recently.

My choice today is MIDNIGHT PROMISE by Zane Lovitt,  the winner of the 2013 Ned Kelly award for best first fiction.
  • first published by Text Publishing 2012
  • ISBN 9-781921-922930
  • 283 pages
  • subtitled: a detective's story in ten cases
  • contains 'Leaving the Fountainhead', winner of the SD Harvey short story award at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards.
Synopsis (Publisher)

John Dorn is a private investigator. Just like his father used to be. It says ‘private inquiry agent’ in John’s yellow pages ad because that’s what his old man called himself, back before his business folded, his wife left him and he drank himself to death. 

But John’s not going to end up like his father. He doesn’t have a wife, or much business. He doesn’t really drink, either. Not yet. 

In each of these ten delicious stories Zane Lovitt presents an intriguing investigation filled with humour and complex, beautifully observed characters. At their centre is John Dorn, solving not so much crimes as funny human puzzles; but the crimes, and the criminals, are forever lurking nearby, taunting him from the city’s cold underworld.

It’s his job to unravel the mystery, or right the wrong, or just do what the client has hired him to do. Somehow, though, there is a misstep at every turn, and John takes another small stumble towards his moment of personal truth. His midnight promise. Perhaps even his redemption.

See my review

See what others have chosen for the letter Z

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter Z


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.

Last week we featured the letter Y



This week's letter is the last letter: Z

We have at last come to the end of our journey.
Many thanks to those who have contributed every week.

Thanks for hanging in there.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years, and for links to this year's entries.

Thanks for participating.

29 September 2013

Review: CLOUDSTREET, Tim Winton - audio book

Synopsis (Audible)

Two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives from scratch. For 20 years, they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts.

See Also Penguin Australia

From separate catastrophes two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives again from scratch. For twenty years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts. 

Tim Winton's funny, sprawling saga is an epic novel of love and acceptance. Winner of the Miles Franklin and NBC Awards in Australia, Cloudstreet is a celebration of people, places and rhythms which has fuelled imaginations world-wide.  

My Take

My listening companion and I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to this Australian saga, made all the more enjoyable I suspect by Peter Hosking's wonderful narration. He has one of those iconic Australian voices, without being over the top.

It covers a period we both remember well, from World War II to the early 1960s, being the period we both grew up in. Although it is set in Perth, there are many resonances with Adelaide. My husband's family came from the bush to the city in a similar time frame and then lived in a "shared" house, while I came to the city for my education in the early 60s.

But it isn't history that dominates but what happens to these two families as they share life in Cloudstreet. The characters are marvellously drawn.

This is not my usual crime fiction diet, being an attempt to read a  little outside the genre occasionally. It is, I admit with shame, the first Tim Winton novel I remember reading, and certainly the first I have written a review of. I have joined the ranks of those who love Cloudstreet.

My rating: 5.0

You might enjoy the longer outline on Wikipedia

For overseas readers who would like a copy, it appears to be available through Amazon US in a variety of formats.

27 September 2013

Forgotten Book: B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975.
In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.

In my reading 20 years ago I began reading a number of series that I have kept up with ever since.
That was certainly the case with last week's book, Reginald Hill's BONES AND SILENCE.

And it was certainly the case with this week's choice. Sue Grafton had quite recently begun her "alphabet" series, and, rather obviously, B is for BURGLAR was #2 in the series, published in 1985. By 1993 she was up to J.

News this week comes that Grafton has now published W IS FOR WASTED.
So at 73 years of age Grafton as 3 letters to go, if she is to finish the series.


Synopsis of B IS FOR BURGLAR (Amazon)

Business was slow, and there was nothing about Beverly Danziger to cause Kinsey concern. She was looking for her sister. She paid up front. And if it seemed a lot of money for a routine job, Kinsey wasn't going to argue.

She kicked herself later for the things she didn't see. But by then she was in danger, and money was the last thing on her mind...

Book Review: UNNATURAL HABITS, Kerry Greenwood

  • Published by Allen & Unwin 2012
  • ISBN 978-1-74237-243-3
  • 332 pages
  • #19 in the Phryne Fisher series
  • library book
  • read an extract
Synopsis (Allen & Unwin)

1929: pretty little golden-haired girls are going missing in Melbourne. But they're not just pretty. Three of them are pregnant, poor girls from the harsh confines of the Magdalen Laundry. People are getting nervous.

Polly Kettle, a pushy, self-important Girl Reporter with ambition and no sense of self preservation, decides to investigate--and promptly goes missing herself.

It's time for Phryne and Dot to put a stop to this and find Polly Kettle before something quite irreparable happens to all of them. It's a tale of convents and plots, piracy, murder and mystery . . . and Phryne finally finds out if it's true that blondes have more fun.

My Take

Nearly a quarter of a century on from the start of the series, Phryne Fisher is going as strong as ever. This remarkable, seemingly ageless, sleuth has gathered quite a household around her now, and also has the local police in her pocket. Most of Melbourne's high society either count her as a friend, or they owe her something, and so she has passage into places that the police on their own could never penetrate, like the Blue Cat Club and the Abbotsford Convent and the Magdalen laundry.

For me Kerry Greenwood seems to have captured well the essence of society's attitude to unmarried mothers, as well the growing militant unionism of the late 1920s. A mark of her indefatigable research.

These novels carry the hallmarks of most cozies, with a tinge of Australian history and attitudes. There's plenty of humour, and loads of well drawn characters. At the same time they are well plotted, and I think UNNATURAL HABITS is almost Greenwood at her best. Their growth in popularity, and that of the Miss Fisher television series, ensure they are also available overseas, at least in e-format, for a reasonable price.

My rating: 4.8

I have reviewed
MURDER ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT
TRICK OR TREAT
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
4.3, DEAD MAN'S CHEST
4.4, COOKING THE BOOKS
4.3, TAMAM SHUD

Phryne Fisher
1. Cocaine Blues (1989)
     aka Death by Misadventure
2. Flying Too High (1990)
3. Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)
4. Death at Victoria Dock (1992)
5. The Green Mill Murder (1993)
6. Blood and Circuses (1994)
7. Ruddy Gore (1995)
8. Urn Burial (1996)
9. Raisins and Almonds (1997)
10. Death Before Wicket (1999)
11. Away with the Fairies (2001)
12. Murder in Montparnasse (2002)
13. The Castlemaine Murders (2003)
14. Queen of the Flowers (2004)
15. Death By Water (2005)
16. Murder in the Dark (2006)
17. Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008)
18. Dead Man's Chest (2010)
19. Unnatural Habits (2012)
20. Murder & Mendelssohn (2013) 

25 September 2013

Review: I CAN SEE IN THE DARK, Karin Fossum

  • Published by Harvill Secker 2013
  • translated by James Anderson from Norwegian
  • ISBN 978-1-846-55613-5
  • 250 pages
  • library book
Synopsis (Random House Australia)

A brilliant stand-alone crime novel from Norway's queen of crime.

Riktor doesn't like the way the policeman comes straight into the house without knocking. He doesn't like the arrogant way he observes his home.The policeman doesn't tell him why he's there, and Riktor doesn't ask. Because he knows he's guilty of a terrible crime.

But it turns out that the policeman isn't looking for a missing person. He is accusing Riktor of something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn't have a clear conscience, but this is a crime he certainly didn't commit.

My Take

If you have a loved one in a nursing home, this certainly might make you wonder what motivates the people who work there.

Riktor nurses the elderly. That is his speciality. He says he wants to bring something special to their last days. But it isn't the milk of human kindness that flows through his veins, but a very nasty sadistic streak, that is finally his undoing.

I CAN SEE IN THE DARK is told from Riktor's point of view. Because of his appearance he has been an outsider all of his life and it seems not even his mother really loved him. He lives on his own, and has no friends, although occasionally he thinks he would like a woman in his life.

But then he comes up against a policeman who says he can smell a crime.

An engrossing read, well up with Karin Fossum's best.

My rating: 4.7

Other reviews to check
Other Karin Fossum titles I've reviewed

BLACK SECONDS
BROKEN
THE WATER'S EDGE
4.9, BAD INTENTIONS
5.0, THE CALLER

24 September 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: Y is for Y.A. Erskine, THE BETRAYAL


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will mainly feature authors or books that I have read recently.

My choice today is THE BETRAYAL by Tasmanian author Y.A. Erskine.

Synopsis (Random House Australia)

An engrossing novel of corruption and injustice at the heart of the police system, from the author of The Brotherhood.

Tasmania is in the grip of one of the longest, bleakest winters on record and it's particularly icy at the Hobart Police Station. Of the many golden rules in policing, one is especially sacred: what happens at work stays at work.

So when a naive young constable, Lucy Howard, makes an allegation of sexual assault against a respected colleague, the rule is well and truly broken.

Soon the station is divided. From Lucy's fellow rookies right up to the commissioner himself - everyone must take a side. With grudges, prejudices and hidden agendas coming into play, support arrives from the unlikeliest of corners.

But so too does betrayal ...

See my review.

See what others have chosen for the letter Y.

23 September 2013

Review: THE CLOCKS, Agatha Christie

  • originally published in 1963
  • this edition read by me in an Agatha Christie Crime Collection, published by Hamlyn in 1971
  • pp 7 - 195
Synopsis (Official Christie site)

Sheila Webb, a typist-for-hire, has arrived at 19 Wilbraham Crescent to accept a new job. What she finds is a well-dressed corpse surrounded by five [my note: six clocks?] clocks, each one set to a different time. But by the time the authorities arrive, four of the clocks have vanished. And unfortunately, the blind mistress of number 19 never saw a thing. Luckily the retired Hercule Poirot has nothing but time to piece together one of the most baffling puzzles of his career...

It was adapted for TV in 2011 as part of the twelfth series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot starring David Suchet.

My Take

I seriously could not remember if I had read THE CLOCKS before.
I think perhaps I must have because I worked the solution out well ahead of time.

What I found particularly interesting is the way an aging Hercule Poirot tries to demonstrate his ability to solve the mystery from his armchair. Eventually he comes to London to be closer to to the scene of the crime, to satisfy his curiosity, he says.

Colin Lamb, into whose arms Sheila Webb flees when she rushes out 19 Wilbraham Crescent after finding the body, decides to consult Hercule Poirot, a friend of his father's, when he is stumped by the mystery, and Poirot uses him as his sniffer dog, interviewing the residents of nearby houses.

The plot is similar in ways to Christie's previous novel, THE MIRROR CRACK'D FROM SIDE TO SIDE, written the previous year, in which an aging Miss Marple does a spot of armchair detection, and uses her friend Dolly Bantry to get the facts so she can work out who killed Heather Badcock.

The admission here is that both Christie's popular detectives are aging, as indeed the author herself is. To be honest they haven't aged as quickly as she has, having already been quite elderly when they made their debuts 50 years before. The inference is of course that though they are each becoming more infirm, that their brilliant minds are still capable of deduction. This despite the fact that those around them sometimes regard them as a little "gaga".

Of course armchair detection has to be possible if one is given all the relevant facts, because that is what we, the readers, indulge in.

There are a few little things that don't quite work in THE CLOCKS, and I thought the story became rather too convoluted, as if the author had changed her mind several times about which solution to adopt in the end, resulting in rather too many red herrings

My rating: 4.2

I read this as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. It is my 55th novel in a list of about 67.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter Y


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.

Last week we featured the letter X




This week's letter is the letter Y
 - After this week we have only one letter to go.

Thanks for hanging in there.

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years, and for links to this year's entries.

Thanks for participating.

22 September 2013

Of centuries...

At the beginning of this week I reached the milestone of 100 books read so far this year.

I'm not sure why centuries are such milestones but we celebrate them in sport, in age, in exams and more.

With over three months to go, it looks like I stand a good chance of reaching about 140 books by the end of December,

I find it fascinating to consider what the 100 books are composed of.
I keep track of these stats through my Reading Challenges Update page. 

Some of the stats of course overlap from category to category.

8 Agatha Christie titles
20 e-books
31 titles by Australian authors, 15 of them by female authors
20 titles for the 2013 Global Reading Challenge
39 books by British authors
50 books by new-to-me authors
11 titles by American authors
7 historical crime fiction
6 for the Nordic challenge
6 for the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge - but most if not all these are Christie's
9 books by Canadian Writers
9 are translated
7 that I have classified as not crime fiction

So, if I had to write a profile:
This reader loves crime fiction and shows a predilection for British and Australian authors.
One in every five books is read on her Kindle,
and one in every two books is by a new author.
She also enjoys crime fiction titles in translation from around the world.


20 September 2013

Forgotten Book: BONES AND SILENCE, Reginald Hill

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975.
In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.

BONES AND SILENCE, which I read just on 20 years ago, is #11 in Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series.

The series began with  A CLUBBABLE WOMAN published in 1970.
BONES AND SILENCE was published in 1990.

Just recently a local TV station has been doing re-runs of the Dalziel & Pascoe series and this one was shown.

It is a bit reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcok's Rear Window although of course Andy Dalziel is anything but immobilised.
Just recently I read TRUST YOUR EYES by Linwood Barclay which visits the "observed murder" aspect from a different angle.
And of course there is also Agatha Christie's 4.50 FROM PADDINGTON (aka WHAT MRS MCGILLICUDDY SAW, MURDER SHE SAID)

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

When Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel witnesses a bizarre murder across the street from his own back garden, he is quite sure who the culprit is. After all, he's got to believe what he sees with his own eyes. But what exactly does he see? And is he mistaken? Peter Pascoe thinks so.

Dalziel senses the doubters around him, which only strengthens his resolve. To make matters worse, he's being pestered by an anonymous letter-writer, threatening suicide. Worse still, Pascoe seems intent on reminding him of the fact. Meanwhile, the effervescent Eileen Chung is directing the Mystery Plays. And who does she have in mind for God? Daziel, of course. He shouldn't have too much difficulty acting the part...

Review: THE DEVIL'S MOON, Peter Guttridge

  • Published by Severn House Publishers 2013
  • ISBN 978-0-7278-8225-7
  • 244 pages
  • Source: my local library
Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Brighton's murderous past and criminal present are intriguingly combined in this absorbing thriller. Something strange is in the Brighton air around newly-promoted Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist.

A body is found inside a burnt Wicker, a painting and manuscript are stolen, a vicar is missing. Gilchrist's flatmate, Kate Simpson, discovers acts of sacrilege and grave robbing taking place in Brighton and the surrounding villages.

And ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts is puzzling over inscriptions in his late father's books - occult books. Old Religion and New Age collide and the body count mounts as the Devil's Moon slowly rises . . .

My Take

The novel begins in arresting style: a twenty foot high Wicker Man burns at dawn in the water at the Brighton promenade; then a water spout pours thousands of live fish from the sky onto shoppers in the Brighton precinct; and later in the day a robbery takes place at the Brighton Museum and Gallery, but nothing appears to have been stolen.

I spent most of this novel thinking this title was the 4th in a series. There is certainly a lot of barely explained back-story including separate stories of Bob Watt's fall from grace as Chief Commissioner of Police, journalist Kate Simpson's illegal use of a stun gun supplied by her flatmate policewoman, and now newly promoted Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist, against whom some charges have been dropped because the evidence has disappeared.  Some of these threads get more explanation than others.

And it appears THE DEVIL'S MOON is actually the fourth of a trilogy.
 
Brighton Trilogy
1. City of Dreadful Night (2010)
2. The Last King of Brighton (2011)
3. The Thing Itself (2012)
then
The Devil's Moon (2013)

As I struggled to overcome these back-story conundrums, the plot of this novel emerged. The end of April is coming, and believers are preparing for Walpurgis Night. Hence the Wicker Man, and various manifestations of the occult, with the rain of fishes seen by some as a sign of impending doom.

The Brighton police force become involved when a corpse is discovered inside the burnt Wicker Man. Simultaneously the disgraced ex-Chief Commissioner Bob Watt, who has remained friendly with Sarah Gilchrist since his fall from grace, becomes involved in learning more about the occult when he starts investigating some books he finds in his recently deceased father's library. The paths of the two investigations move in tandem, ending up in the same places without really crossing paths.

So here are the makings of an enthralling read, but for me there was too much background information. It felt as if the author had at hand too much research about the Knights Templar, witchcraft, and the occult that he simply couldn't leave out. That, and my struggle with the back-stories, reduced my level of enjoyment dramatically.

My rating: 3.8

19 September 2013

Review: GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, Maggie Groff

Synopsis (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Intrepid investigative journalist Scout Davis has given herself a holiday, but when Hermione Longfellow accosts her in the supermarket, she stops to listen.

Most people in Byron Bay are aware of the eccentric Anemone sisters. Always dressed in black, they rarely leave their home nestled in the hills - but Scout is sure that the drinking of chicken blood is just idle gossip. When Hermione asks Scout to track down her sister Nemony's AWOL husband, believed to have died at sea thirty years ago but recently popped up again on the Great Barrier Reef, Scout jumps at the opportunity.

Another source of intrigue falls close to home when Scout's sister Harper despairs over her husband's odd behaviour. And as if that wasn't enough, Scout's journalist boyfriend is finally coming home from Afghanistan. Trouble is, Scout thinks she may be falling in love with irresistible local cop Rafe - who coincidentally is also Toby's best friend...

Delightfully witty and addictively fast-paced, this is the second hilarious outing for unforgettable sleuth Scout Davis.

My Take

I wasn't sure whether this title by 2013 Davitt Award winner Maggie Groff (she scooped the Australian Sisters in Crime pool of Best Novel and Best First novel with MAD MEN, BAD GIRLS a few weeks ago) would actually be my cup of tea. It seemed that it would be "lighter" than my usual crime fiction fare. But then I chose it for my face to face reading group to read in the coming month, so in a sense I was committed.

I did have my doubts in the first 50 pages or so, but then things settled down a bit, and I must admit to enjoying both the plot and the plotting skill. The blurb on the front cover calls sleuth Scout Davis " a successor to Evanovich", and I thought I could detect a bit of Phryne Fisher there too.

I also enjoyed the quirky humour - who would call their cat Chairman Meow? - but underneath it all there is some serious, realistic characterisation and some careful plotting. There are a couple of other humour lines such as the guerilla knitting group that I thought were a bit superfluous but I guess they show another dimension of Scout's character.

I think this series has a future.  My rating: 4.6
International readers can find it here on Amazon US for Kindle or audio.

See Bernadette's review

17 September 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: X is for Hauxwell and Fox


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will mainly feature authors or books that I have read recently.

X is my most challenging letter so far and I've had to choose a couple of Australian female authors whose surnames contain X.

They are IN HER BLOOD by Annie Hauxwell and COLD GRAVE by Kathryn Fox

The first is a newbie on the Australian crime fiction scene and IN HER BLOOD is her first novel.

Synopsis (Penguin Australia)

Everyone is hooked on something.

It's not that easy to kick the money habit. After the world meltdown forces London's bankers to go cold turkey, people look elsewhere for a quick quid: the old fashioned East End.

So when investigator Catherine Berlin gets an anonymous tip-off about a local loan shark, the case seems straightforward – until her informant is found floating in the Limehouse Basin.

In another part of town, a notorious doctor is murdered in his surgery, and his entire stock of pharmaceutical heroin stolen. An unorthodox copper is assigned to the case, and Berlin finds herself a reluctant collaborator in a murder investigation.

Now Berlin has seven days to find out who killed her informant, why the police are hounding her and, most urgently of all, where to find a new – and legal – supply of the drug she can't survive without.

Read my review.

The second author is well established and COLD GRAVE is her 6th outing in a series featuring Dr Anya Crichton.

Synopsis (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Forensic physician Dr Anya Crichton needs a break. Cocooned from the world aboard a luxury cruise ship, nothing can interrupt time with her precious six year old son.

Peace is shattered when the body of a teenage girl is discovered shoved in a cupboard, dripping wet. With no obvious cause of death and the nearest port days away, Anya volunteers her forensic expertise.

She quickly uncovers a sordid pattern of sexual assaults, unchecked drug use and mysterious disappearances. With crew too afraid to talk, she is drawn into the underbelly of the cruise line, its dangerous secrets and the murky waters of legal accountability.

Shadowed by a head of security with questionable loyalties, Anya can trust no one. Her family's lives depend on what she does next.
One thing is certain. There is a killer on board.

Read my review.

See how others have handled the letter X

16 September 2013

Review: LORD JAMES HARRINGTON AND THE WINTER MYSTERY, Lynn Florkiewicz

  • published on Amazon (Kindle)
  • File Size: 482 KB
  • Print Length: 253 pages
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B0082NSDVU
Synopsis (Amazon)

Meet Lord James Harrington and his delightful wife, Beth; residents of the tiny village of Cavendish, deep in the heart of West Sussex in England. They adore hosting seasonal events, running their country hotel, keeping the local folklore alive and listening to the latest murder mystery on the wireless. But mysteries don’t always remain on the airwaves.........

It’s 1957 and James and Beth are discussing the latest Cavendish Players production, The Devil Incarnate, when their cleaner voices her concern over missing farmer, Alec Grimes. When James finds Grimes dead, he is certain of foul play. But the doctor confirms natural causes and even good friend Detective Chief Inspector George Lane dismisses his suspicions. So James decides to put his own sleuthing skills to the test.

Delving into Grimes’ affairs, it soon becomes clear that not all is what it seems. What are the strange symbols discovered on the floorboards at Grimes’ farm? Who attacked the new vicar on Halloween? Why was Grimes disliked by so many villagers? What are the mysterious pieces of china? Whose body is found on Guy Fawkes Night?

With so many suspects, all with motive and opportunity – will James be able to solve the mystery? Or will his meddling put him and his wife in mortal danger.

My Take

The author's own assessment of this novel (see below) is pretty spot on.

If you are looking for a cozy to read on your e-book reader this may well hit the spot. In true cozy fashion there is little actual violence, a body, and some mystery threads. In Midsomer Murder style the action is set around some seasonal festivities. The characters are pretty well drawn (I found myself even detecting Beth's American accent), and it is set in a close knit village. Lord James Harrington makes a good if at times annoying and tunnel-visioned sleuth. I did get annoyed at times with his lord-of-the-manor mannerisms.

There were a couple of times when I predicted fairly accurately what would happen next, but that happens a lot with cozies. There were some good red herrings, and the threads came together passably, and just to make sure, the connections are all explained at the end.

My rating: 4.1

From the author

On Lord James Harrington: I devour cosy crime novels. I particularly love the American cosies that involve you in the town activities, food festivals, fashions and suchlike. Having successfully published a number of short stories and articles I decided to create my own cosy mystery series and came up with Lord James Harrington.

I liken these to the mysteries you see on TV - Midsomer Murders, Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder, Miss Fisher Mysteries, that sort of thing.
This is a simple cosy; nothing more, nothing less. It's written for that Sunday afternoon/holiday/bedtime read. I am not a writer of literary prose; so, if you're after the next Booker prize winner, this is not the book for you. However, if you're looking for a light and gentle rose-tinted mystery, this may do the trick.

Lynn Florkiewicz is a self published author of e-books- see Amazon

See author's website

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter X


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.

Last week we featured the letter W




This week's letter is the letter X
 - Not the easiest to satisfy and 3rd from the end of our alphabetical journey.

Thanks for hanging in there.

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years, and for links to this year's entries.

Thanks for participating.

13 September 2013

Forgotten Book: DEADLY SCORE, Paul Myers

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase  is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975.
In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.

I read DEADLY SCORE just on 20 years ago.
It was published in 1988, #5 in Myers' Mark Holland series.
There were 6 novels in the series, published over 5 years, and since then Myers appears to have disappeared off the fiction writing landscape. [I believe he is a Canadian musician and writer who was part of a band called the Gravelberrys, although this could be another Paul Myers.]

1. Deadly Variations (1985)
2. Deadly Cadenza (1986)
3. Deadly Aria (1987)
4. Deadly Sonata (1987)
5. Deadly Score (1988)
6. Deadly Crescendo (1989)

Synopsis (Reed Publishing)

Since 1976, former spy Mark Holland has been managing classical musicians on tour. Ten years later in Tokyo, another agent, shot and dying, entrusts him with a message and Mark suspects that the games being played by his former bosses and international competitors are dirtier than before. 

Conferring with former colleagues in America and England, Holland intuits a sordid conspiracy in the making. He has no facts, however, as he leaves for Berlin to confer with a client, the renowned conductor Konstantin Steigel. Hoping to secretly buy recently discovered Gustave Mahler scores, Steigel asks Holland to handle the deal in East Berlin. Tense events reach a horrifying climax, with Holland seized and tortured, released only after an "arrangement" between British and Soviet agencies. 

He is traveling again, out to settle the "deadly score," as the author, a classical record producer, ends the story on a note of quivering suspense.  


12 September 2013

Review: A DARK ADAPTED EYE, Barbara Vine - audio book

Just over a month ago I wrote a post for Friday's Forgotten Books about A DARK ADAPTED EYE which apparently I originally read 20 years ago. As is the way of things, I could remember almost nothing about it and decided to re-read it. I settled on an audio version read by Harriet Walter available from Audible.

The book was first published in 1986.
The audio version is 11 hours and 46 minutes of enthralling listening.

Synopsis

When Faith Severn's aunt was hanged for murder, the reason behind her dark deed died with her. For 30 years, the family hid the truth--until a journalist prompts Faith to peer back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and entered a child's nursery.

The novel won an Edgar Award and then was made into a BBC film for TV in 1994.

The title: A dark-adapted eye is one that has adjusted to darkness so that it is able to discern objects. In the context of the novel, the title refers to Faith's ability, after many years, to examine and analyze her family's history and its tragedy.

Publisher's Summary

Like most families, they had their secrets...
...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

 My Take

This is one of those books that clearly show how Ruth Rendell becomes a different writer when she uses the Barbara Vine pseudonym, at least in the early days. I think later Rendell novels actually have Vine overtones; the police procedurals have more psychological explorations, more description of why characters have acted as they did.  A DARK ADAPTED EYE was the first of the novels written as Barbara Vine and was very different to the Wexford novels, although it showed many similarities in style to the stand alone novels she had already published.

So why did Rendell write as Barbara Vine? I believe she was just too prolific as a writer, writing at least two novels every 3 years, perhaps leading buyers to believe that she was writing pot boilers. Quite simply the extra pseudonym gave her more publication opportunities, and many of her readers did not realise the two writers were the same person.

A DARK ADAPTED EYE explores family relationships. During the bombing of London in 1940 Faith, not yet a teenager, is sent to stay in the country with her father's half-sisters Vera and Eden. In the following years Faith periodically spends extended periods of time with Vera. The setting of England in the 1940s and early 1950s helps us reflect on the impact of events like war on society's values as well as their impacts on individuals.

The novel explores family jealousies that eventually lead to murder. Faith gets an opportunity to look back over events, and to consider what happened with an older eye, when a journalist contacts family members because he wants to write a book about Vera. What is interesting about how Vine has handled this plot is that even in the last pages of the novel there are a number of questions that are not finally resolved, where the reader is required to make their own judgement.

An excellent read and a good Barbara Vine to start with if you've never read one.

My rating: 4.8

Review: THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, Eduardo Sacheri

  • originally published 2005
  • Published by Harper Collins Australia 2011
  • ISBN 978-0-7322-9386-4
  • translated from Spanish by John Cullen
  • source: my local library
Synopsis (Amazon)

Benjamín Chaparro is a retired detective still obsessed by the brutal, decades-old rape and murder of a young married woman in her own bedroom. While attempting to write a book about the case, he revisits the details of the investigation. As he reaches into the past, Chaparro also recalls the beginning of his long, unrequited love for Irene Hornos, then just an intern, now a respected judge.

Set in the Buenos Aires of the 1970s, Sacheri’s tale reveals the underpinnings of Argentina’s Dirty War and takes on the question of justice—what it really means and in whose hands it belongs.

My Take

I have read this novel for the 2013 Global Reading Challenge, and, to be quite honest, didn't find the first 100 pages very easy going at all. The structure of the book took some getting used to.

Benjamin Chaparro, a recently retired court investigator, decides to fill his days with writing a book about the case which has most affected his working life. The case is the murder/rape in Buenos Aires of Liliana Colotto, the young wife of Ricardo Agustin Morales in May 1968.

It is well over three decades later when Chaparro retires and begins to write his book on a borrowed typewriter. As the story unfolds we learn not only how this case has stayed with him for all those years, how he has intermittently been in touch with the widowed husband, but also how in fact it impacted his whole working life.

The structure of THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES allows us to read the book that Chaparro is writing as he writes it, while he occasionally jumps out of writing mode, into present time, becoming part of the narrative that surrounds the writing of the book.  As we enter the final 100 pages of the book, the author makes us surmise what the conclusion might be. The ending is stranger than I could ever have guessed.

So this is a book in which I changed my mind from tolerance to admiration for the cleverness of the plot. The plot takes place in part during Argentina's Dirty War (1976-1983), during which as many as 30,000 people disappeared. While this doesn't seem to directly impact on the plot, it does help to explain why a case might take so long to be resolved, if ever, and how stretched the forces of justice could be. My impression in reading the first 100 or so pages was of a literary style which softened as the plot progressed.

My rating: 4.6

In 2010 the film based on the book won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
David Stratton's review - view an extract.

11 September 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: W is for Ben H. Winters


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will mainly feature authors or books that I have read recently.

This week's choice is THE LAST POLICEMAN by Ben. H. Winters.

Synopsis (Amazon)

Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award Winner for Best Paperback Original!

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank [Henry] Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

See my review

See what others have chosen for the letter W.



9 September 2013

Review: BURIAL RITES, Hannah Kent

Synopsis (Pan Macmillan Australia)

In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.

Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters.

Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes's ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn't she?

Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

My Take

I guess the first question any reviewer must address is whether BURIAL RITES actually fits into the category of crime fiction. Bernadette at Reactions to Reading calls it "speculative biography".

The author says "While this novel is a work of fiction, it is based on real events.... 
Many known and established facts about Agnes's life and the murders have been reproduced in this novel, and events have either been drawn directly from the record, or are the result of speculation; they are fictional likelihoods."

The most notable precursor for this style of "novel", which seems to move seamlessly from fact to fiction, so that the reader has little idea of where one ends and the other starts, is Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. (see my mini-review below).

In reality Agnes Magnusdottir was the last person to be executed in Iceland (in 1829). From the novel the reader pieces together the enormity of the crime with which Agnes was accused, the harsh Icelandic setting, and what seems to be the barbaric nature of her execution. How life has changed in Iceland in nearly two centuries can be judged through the work of modern author Arnaldur Indridason.

The reader moves with the Jonsson family with whom Agnes is billeted awaiting her execution, and with Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, to try to assess whether in fact Agnes is guilty of the crime. During long Icelandic nights Agnes tells us the story of her life and of the events leading up to the Illugastadir murders.

It is obvious that Hannah Kent has done a lot of research, and throughout the "novel" letters, documents and extracts from the public record are presented. The merging of fact and fiction is cleverly done, the resultant writing stunningly empathetic.

My face to face book group, which usually reads crime fiction only, decided to read BURIAL RITES mainly because Hannah Kent is a South Australian writer and it is hard to ignore local displays of the book in our book shops. It was an excellent choice that should provoke a good amount of discussion.

My rating: 4.5

See other reviews

About the author

Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. As a teenager she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange, where she first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir. Hannah is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. Burial Rites is her first novel.

Hannah Kent's website.

As an attendee of this year's 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Burial Rites is eligible for the 2013 FIRST BOOK AWARD.
Vote for Burial Rites in the First Book Award, sponsored by eBooks by Sainsbury’s. (Voting will close on Monday 14 October)

Mini-review: IN COLD BLOOD, Truman Capote, published 1966
This reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and their two children by 2 amoral young killers. The book presents the true-fact story almost as if it were fiction with descriptive passages where truth and journalism are inextricably intertwined. The structure that Capote chose for the book gave him the leeway to use the facts to explore the circumstances surrounding the murders, and to consider why they happened, and what the effects were on those who not only remained but investigated the crime.
My Rating: 4.2

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter W


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.

Last week we featured the letter V



This week's letter is the letter W
 - we have just 3 weeks of our journey left after this one.

Thanks for hanging in there.


The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years, and for links to this year's entries.

Thanks for participating.

6 September 2013

Forgotten Book: THE GREEN MILL MURDER, Kerry Greenwood

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase  is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975.
In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.

Kerry Greenwood, recently given Australian Sisters in Crime Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award, is now well known, even outside Australia, for her Phryne Fisher series.  THE GREEN MILL MURDER is #5 in the series. The title was published in 1993.

The original books are available on Amazon in paperback and for Kindle.

Synopsis (publisher)

Dancing divinely through the murder and mayhem of her fifth adventure, the elegant Phryne Fisher remains unflappable.

Gorgeous in her sparkling lobelia-coloured georgette dress, delighted by her dancing skill, pleased with her partner and warmed by the admiring regard of the banjo player, Miss Phryne Fisher had thought of tonight as a promising evening at the hottest dancehall in town, the Green Mill.

But that was before death broke in. In jazz-mad 1920s Melbourne, Phryne finds there are hidden perils in dancing the night away like murder, blackmail and young men who vanish.

Phryne Fisher's fifth adventure leads to smoke-filled clubs, a dashingly handsome band leader, some fancy flying indeed across the Australian Alps and a most unexpected tryst with a gentle stranger.

Independent, wealthy, spirited and possessed of an uninhibited style that makes every one move out of her way and stand gawking a full five minutes after she walks by Phryne Fisher is a woman who gets what she wants and has the good sense to enjoy every minute of it!' Davina Bartlett, Geelong Times

A reminder too to Australian readers that the second Phryne Fisher series (6 episodes newly written) begins on the ABC tonight, Friday 6 September

Phryne Fisher
1. Cocaine Blues (1989)
     aka Death by Misadventure
2. Flying Too High (1990)
3. Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)
4. Death at Victoria Dock (1992)
5. The Green Mill Murder (1993)
6. Blood and Circuses (1994)
7. Ruddy Gore (1995)
8. Urn Burial (1996)
9. Raisins and Almonds (1997)
10. Death Before Wicket (1999)
11. Away with the Fairies (2001)
12. Murder in Montparnasse (2002)
13. The Castlemaine Murders (2003)
14. Queen of the Flowers (2004)
15. Death By Water (2005)
16. Murder in the Dark (2006)
17. Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008)
18. Dead Man's Chest (2010)
19. Unnatural Habits (2012)
20. Murder & Mendelssohn (2013)

5 September 2013

Review: PRIMAL, D. A. Serra

  • Print Length: 224 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1478198036
  • Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
  • Publisher: Perry Street Pictures, Inc. (May 13, 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.Kindle
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00839M7AQ
  • Source: review copy supplied by author.
  • Read an extract on author site
Synopsis (Amazon)

The writer who made you laugh with Punky Brewster, who made you cry with Just Ask My Children, will now make you cringe with PRIMAL. This story was originally purchased by one of America's most prestigious storytellers James Cameron.

What if the worst happens and you are not a cop, or a spy with weapons training and an iron heart? What if you're a schoolteacher - a mother? In this gritty crime thriller a family vacation takes a vicious turn when a fishing camp is invaded by four armed men. With nothing except her brains, her will, and the element of surprise on her side, Alison must kill or watch her family die. And then - things get worse.

My Take

Alison is just an ordinary Mum, an elementary school teacher in fact, who isn't much of an outdoors person, who would rather sit in an easy chair while her husband and son enjoy boating and fishing. But the Burne family put an end to those plans when they invade the fishing camp where Alison and her family are meant to be spending a few days.

The real tension in PRIMAL begins where most novels would wind the story up. Even so what happens initially to Alison and her family is horrifying enough to evoke Alison's primal instincts to protect her family. But then, perhaps a bit predictably, the horror isn't over, and Alison's primal instincts remain at the surface. Alison's husband and son are making a good recovery from their ordeal, but, just as clearly, Alison is not.

Perhaps, like me, your mind will come up with a scenario for the second half of the novel, but you'll  have to keep reading to see if you are right.

I'm not sure whether "enjoy" is the right word for reading a novel like PRIMAL. One review site I saw had it rated as "R". That seems a rather extreme reaction to me, but it certainly is a novel that requires the reader to make a personal response, to question whether their own primal instincts would surface in the same way under similar provocation.

My rating: 4.5

You might like to also read
Visit Deborah Serra's website

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