Review: RIDGEVIEW STATION, Michael Trant

• 
   this edition supplied by my local library as an e-book on Libby
  
• ISBN:978176029420
• Publisher:Allen & Unwin
• Imprint:Arena
• Pub Date:28 Jun 2017
• Page Extent:336  

Synopsis (publisher) 

A vast outback property. An unforgettable season. A family's fight to save their livelihood. A sweeping tale of love and loss, and the highs and lows of life on the land, from an utterly authentic new voice in rural fiction.
Many of Peter and Kelsie Dalton's friends thought they were crazy when they bought Ridgeview Station. But five years on, their hard work, help from Kelsie's parents, and record rainfall have them in high spirits as the summer muster approaches.

Realising they're going to need more help this season, Peter rings around the neighbouring stations to try and find a good worker. After a glowing recommendation, Alexi arrives to give them a hand - and is not at all what they'd expected ...

Everything is going smoothly with the muster before disaster strikes and the Dalton's find themselves battling to save their livestock, their property and their lives.

An entertaining yarn set on a vast outback property peopled with colourful and authentic characters, Ridgeview Station is about love, loss and the spirit of the bush.

My Take

Please note- not crime fiction. But if you are looking for something authentic about life on an Australian outback station then this might be just the book for you.

My rating: 4.4

 Author bio:

Michael Trant been involved with agriculture for most of his life. After 16 years running a sheep station, he took up writing to report on the live export controversy from the farming side. Michael currently lives in Perth. Ridgeview Station is his first novel.

Review: THE WOLF TREE, Laura McCluskey

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CXK1WL9Y
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins (February 28, 2025)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages  

Synopsis (Amazon)

A gripping and atmospheric debut crime thriller set on an isolated Scottish island ... where outsiders are not welcome.

'There's always someone whispering about something.'

On a small island off the coast of Scotland, an isolated community is grieving. Eighteen-year-old Alan Ferguson was found at the foot of the lighthouse - an apparent suicide.

DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart are sent to investigate. A raging storm keeps them trapped on the island for five days. And the locals don't take kindly to mainlanders.

As George and Richie question the island's inhabitants, they discover a village filled with superstition and shrouded in secrets.

But someone wants those secrets to stay buried. At any cost.

My Take

DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart have 4 years of working together, but recently George was severely hurt at the hands of a druggie. After months of recuperation the question is whether George is ready to resume work. 

It looks as if this case will be a fairly soft one, probably over in a day or two, but they have 5 days on the remote island to carry out their investigation. The victim has already been buried and not everyone is willing to talk to the police. There are layers of secrecy and years of tradition. There are some residents who obviously resent the presence of mainlanders.

And towards the end, a resolution you will not see coming.

This is an excellent novel for a debut title, an Australian author no less. Well worth reading. An author to watch.

My rating: 4.8

About the author:

Laura McCluskey is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and actor. She created the production company Sibylline Films and co-founded Three Fates Theatre Company. The Wolf Tree is her first novel. 

Review: SEVENTEEN: Last Man Standing, John Brownlow

• 
  This edition an e-book read on my Kindle from Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09FZJ4B1X
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hanover Square Press (November 1, 2022)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 425 pages
• *Winner of the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Best Thriller*
• *A Financial Times Best Thriller Book of 2022*

Synopsis (Amazon) 

You'll never know my name.

But you won't forget my number.

Behind the events you know are the killers you don’t. When diplomacy fails, we're the ones who gear up. Officially we don’t exist, but every government in the world uses our services. We’ve been saving the world, and your ass, for one hundred years.

 Sixteen people have done this job before me. I am Seventeen. The most feared assassin in the world. But to be the best, you must beat the best. My next target is Sixteen, just as one day Eighteen will hunt me down. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and it gets lonely at the top. Nobody gets to stay for long. But while we're here, all that matters is that we win.

Visceral, cinematic and wildly addictive, Seventeen will keep you on the edge of your seat and live long in the memory. Until Eighteen comes along…

My Take

Seventeen is part of a line of assassins, which began with Reilly, the Ace of Spies, and included 007 and others. They seem to be mostly, but not all, British. They simplify government, performing the dirtiest of tasks, quietly and efficiently. The resolution of major events in recent world history can be traced back to them.  Most recently there was Sixteen, but he is still to be properly eliminated by his successor. And that is Seventeen's task - locate and remove Sixteen.  

Mr Jones, as Seventeen is generally known, has located Sixteen but is having trouble eliminating him. He seems to those watching out for him, and, in retirement, is leading a rather odd life, almost offering himself up to his successor.

A spy thriller rather than a mystery

My rating: 4.5

About the author

John Brownlow is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. Born in Lincoln, UK, after studying maths and English at Oxford he produced and directed more than a dozen documentaries for British TV. In the early 2000s he turned to screenwriting, and wrote the film SYLVIA about Sylvia Plath, starring Gwynneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig. He also wrote the TV series FLEMING, about Ian Fleming's work in wartime intelligence, and the TV adaptation of Jessie Burton's best-selling novel THE MINIATURIST. His debut novel, SEVENTEEN, was published in 2022, and the sequel is due to be published in 2023.

John holds British and Canadian citizenship and lives in Ontario, Canada.

Review: THE SUMMER PARTY, Rebecca Heath

• 
  This edition made available by my local library as an e-book on Libby
  
• Published     05 Jan 2023
• Format     Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
• Extent     416 pages
• ISBN     9781804540978
• Imprint     Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book
• Publisher     Bloomsbury Publishing

Synopsis (publisher)

Perfect families are only as perfect as their best kept secrets.

Summer, 2000
The Whitlam siblings have it all and sixteen-year-old Lucy only wants one thing – to be close to them. Soon she's lazing around their impossibly large pool, wearing Annabel's expensive clothes and having secret rendezvous with Harry, until at their lavish clifftop party she sees something that could jeopardise it all.

Winter, 2020
One failed marriage later, Lucy is back in town and quickly lured back into the Whitlam's shiny world. But when a body washes up on the beach and someone seems determined to frame her for murder keeping their secrets this time could cost her everything.

Now that summer is over is she with them or against them? 

My Take

Lucy came to stay with her grandmother for the summer when she was 16. The Whitlams lived in the white mansion on the hill in a rural town on the Yorke Peninsular in South Australia.  Lucy's grandmother's cottage was next door. Alongside the three Whitlam siblings Lucy was an unsophisticated teenager and she idolised them. Lucy's grandmother worked as a cleaner for the Whitlam family and she warned Lucy not to get too friendly with them.

At the end of the summer, on the last night Lucy was there, the mother, Brooke Whitlam, left home forever and Lucy witnessed something without really realising what she had seen.

Twenty years later Lucy's grandmother has died and Lucy comes back to clear out the cottage. A foot is washed up under the jetty on the Whitlam's property, and it is identified as Brooke's. Lucy renews her "friendship" with the Whitlam siblings, their father, and the local policeman.

This is Rebecca Heath's debut novel, and though her later novel THE DINNER PARTY is much better, THE SUMMER PARTY is very readable and the plot is well constructed. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

5.0. THE DINNER PARTY

Review: THE WAITER, Ajay Chowdhury

• 
  This edition read on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B088GQDNLG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Digital (27 May 2021)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 283 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Ex-detective Kamil Rahman is embroiled in a case that might just change his life - for better or for worse . . .

Disgraced detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the peace of his new life is soon shattered. The day Kamil caters an extravagant party, the powerful host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool.

Suspicion falls on Rakesh's young and glamorous new wife, and Kamil is called to investigate for the family. Kamil and Anjoli, his boss's daughter, prove a winning team - yet as the case progresses, and their relationship grows, the events of Kamil's past threaten to catch up with him . . .

My Take

Dismissed and disgraced Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman moves to London to shake off his past but he soon finds himself attempting to solve another murder, and to his amazement finds the events are connected, and that people have followed him to London.

A competently constructed first novel with an interesting scenario.

My rating: 4.3

About the author

Ajay Chowdhury was the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night. His children's book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical.

The Waiter, published in 2021, is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures. Follow-up The Cook was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series - The Detective - is about government surveillance and AI. 

Review: WAKE, Shelley Burr

• 
   this edition published by Hachette Australia 2022
  
• 363 pages
• ISBN 9-780733-647826
• winner CWA Debut Dagger 2019
• WINNER OF THE DEBUT CRIME ACWA NED KELLY AWARD 2023
  

Synopsis (publisher)

A Top Ten bestseller, WAKE is a searing debut crime novel where the grief and guilt surrounding an unsolved disappearance still haunt a small farming community . . . and will ultimately lead to a reckoning.

Evelyn simply vanished.

The small town of Nannine lies in the harsh red interior of New South Wales. Once a thriving outback centre, this ghost town now has one sinister claim to fame: the still-unsolved disappearance of Evelyn McCreery nineteen years ago from the bedroom she shared with her twin sister.

Mina McCreery's life has been defined by the intense and ongoing public interest in her sister's case. Now a reclusive adult, Mina lives alone on her family's sunbaked, destocked sheep farm. The million-dollar reward her mother established to solve the disappearance has never been paid out.

Enter Lane Holland, a private investigator who dropped out of the police academy to earn a living cracking cold cases. Lane has his eye on the unclaimed money, but he also has darker motivations.

WAKE is a powerful, unsparing story of how trauma ripples outward when people's private tragedies become public property, and how it's never too late for the truth to set things right. 

My Take

Lane Holland, private investigator, comes to Nannine to see if he can talk to Mina McCreery about the disappearance of her twin sister nineteen years before. He has done his homework and finds her fairly easily at the general store. But she doesn't, not surprisingly, doesn't want to talk to him. Lane also tries to talk to locals, but they are as reticent as Mina. So Lane uses plan B. He investigates another missing girl, the sister of a friend of Mina's, and her he eventually has some success.

The novel carefully takes readers over what happened nineteen years earlier, and then what has happened to Mina's family since. 

On the surface Lane appears to be mainly interested in the million dollar reward that Mina's mother established in a trust fund over a decade earlier. But what he doesn't reveal is his ulterior motive, that he suspects that he already knows who was responsible for the 9 year old's disappearance.

A very atmospheric book. The Australian setting comes through strongly. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.8 

About the author

Shelley Burr is the winner of the CWA Debut Dagger award with Wake, an alumni of the ACT Writer's Centre Hardcopy program (2018) and a Varuna fellow. When not writing she works at the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. She lives in Canberra, but grew up splitting her time between Newcastle and Glenrowan, where her father's family are all sheep farmers. WAKE is Shelley's first novel.

Review: THE NOWHERE CHILD, Christian White

 Once again I am using my iPad to record this review so I am hoping that I will eventually be able to update this review so it looks more like my usual format.

I originally read this soon after its original publication in 2019. My earlier review can be located in this blog if you search for it. I have re-read it as part of the list of books we are tackling with my U3A Crime Fiction group. I must confess that I seem to have enjoyed it more this time around, certainly my rating is just a tad higher.

Originally I read it on my kindle as a pre-publication preview from Net Galley. This time I have read it as a hard copy from my local library. Perhaps in e-book format I read it too quickly to appreciate things that I enjoyed this time. 

This was Christian White’s debut title. The theme is an unusual one - an abducted child identified 30 years later by her older brother who has been searching for her almost all his life. The format is unusual in that there are two time frames, current time, and the time the two year old disappeared. And there are really two narrators - Kim/Sammy who was abducted, and then third party narration that tells the main story. 

True to form, I remembered clearly the first part of the book, and then I’d forgotten how the plot resolved. 

So what questions am I going to pose for my U3A readers?

• First of all, the standard ones: did they enjoy the story? What did they like most? What least?
• How plausible did they find the story? What questions did the author pose in his plot?
• What parts of the plot stood out for them? Which characters?
• Was everybody happy when Stu managed to eventually track his little sister down? Who wasn’t?
• Does it feel like an Australian novel? Why so? Or why not? In other words, if you didn’t know the author was an Australian what clues are there to his nationality?
• The author uses some really creepy settings. How effective were they?
• Was Dean wise in returning to the USA? 
• Did the ending take them by surprise? What strands of the plot had they worked out?

My rating: 4.6

Review: FLIGHT RISK, Michael McGuire

• 
  this edition published by Allen & Unwin 2019
• ISBN 978-1-76063-288-5
  
• 294 pages

Synopsis (publisher) 

Disgraced former pilot Ted Anderson works for a top-secret government organisation set up to investigate terror-related incidents. Sent to Jakarta to find out as much as he can about the pilot of a vanished Garuda flight, he discovers a flight simulator in the pilot's apartment.

When the investigation turns sour, Ted escapes to New York as further disaster strikes.

Another plane disappears from the sky. Then another. Three planes and hundreds of passengers and crew, vanished, without a trace. Panic is widespread and the world is teetering on the brink.

Still no one has come forward to claim responsibility.

At an eerily deserted JFK airport trying to get a flight back home, Ted witnesses a suspicious exchange between an airport cleaner and a nonchalant airline pilot. He follows the pilot to his destination: a Ukraine International Airlines flight, due to leave in an hour.

All his instincts tell Ted that this is the next plane to go down. But what on earth can he do? Take the flight and face almost certain death? Or fly back home and wait for the news headlines?

He does the unthinkable and gets on the plane.

Astoundingly original and utterly gripping, Flight Risk is a white-knuckle ride of nonstop suspense - a high-octane thriller full of pure adrenaline, explosive action and jaw-dropping revelations

My Take

This novel is certainly a page turner.

It is one of the books chosen for the monthly book group that I belong to, mainly because the author is from Adelaide.

One of the greatest mysteries of aviation history happened on March 8, 2014. Malaysia Airlines MH370 went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane left its programmed flight path and headed south towards the Indian Ocean. Over the years Australian aviation authorities, among others, have spent a lot of time and energy on working out what happened to this plane, and finding its final resting place. There have been tv programmes about it. My recollection of that latest one I saw is that it is thought the pilot deliberately took the plane off course and eventually crashed it. The remains are supposedly somewhere off the West Australian coast. Bits and pieces have been found.

FLIGHT RISK reminded me of that event. And what if, instead of just one plane, there were four? And what if, in true Agatha Christie style, there was a mastermind behind it all? I won't say any more. I will let you discover the plot yourself.

One of the things McGuire makes you think about is how the pilot could get away with an event like this. Why wasn't he overwhelmed by other crew and passengers? Read the book to explore this scenario. Will you ever get on a plane again?

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Born in Glasgow in 1971, Michael McGuire moved to South Australia with his family at the age of 10.

Michael has worked as a journalist in Sydney and Adelaide for The Australian, The Sunday Mail and The Advertiser, with a couple of forays into the state and federal politics as an advisor.

Michael is married to Rachel and they have two children, Tom and Ruby. NEVER A TRUE WORD, his first novel, is a satire about politics and was published in March 2017 by Wakefield Press.

Review: BLACK RIVER, Matthew Spencer

• 
  this book made available as an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• author website
• eBook ISBN: 9781761064388
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Publication Date: 31 May 2022
• Page Extent: 352
   

Synopsis (author website)

A long, burning summer in Sydney. A young woman found murdered in the deserted grounds of an elite boarding school. A serial killer preying on victims along the banks of the Parramatta River. A city on edge.

Adam Bowman, a battling journalist who grew up as the son of a teacher at Prince Albert College, might be the only person who can uncover the links between the school murder and the 'Blue Moon Killer'. But he will have to go into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together the clues. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley, meanwhile, is part of the taskforce desperately trying to find the killer before he strikes again. Adam Bowman's excavation of his past might turn out to be Rose's biggest trump card or it may bring the whole investigation crashing down, and put her own life in danger.

My take

According to booksellers, this new novel has simply flown off the shelves.

Part Australian police procedural, part psychological thriller. A police taskforce is investigating a serial killer who has already killed two young women in their houses close to each other on the banks of the Parramatta River near Sydney. Now a third body is found. But it doesn't follow the pattern set in the first two murders. So is it also the work of BMK? There are some doubts.

By chance an online newspaper The National sends Adam Bowman to the scene, a house in the grounds of a boarding school, as a backup journalist. Adam knows how to avoid the police presence on the gate, because he lived in the grounds when he was a teenager. On a hunch, Adam is used by the investigating team to release select pieces of the investigation, and through him information about the principal and other staff becomes known.

A well constructed and very authentic-feeling novel. An author to be watched.

My rating: 4.6 

About the author

Matthew Spencer was a journalist at The Australian for twenty years, with long stints running the Foreign News desk and as Opinion Editor. He has written for newspapers and magazines in Uganda and Kenya and been published in The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Matthew has an Honours degree in English Literature from the University of Sydney. Black River is his first novel.

He was born in Parramatta. The son of teachers, he lived with his sister Kate on the 320-acre campus of a boys’ boarding school. Long summers on the largely deserted property while exploring the remnant bush with its tributary of the Parramatta River inspired the book.

Black River is published by Allen and Unwin and is out now.

Matthew lives in Sydney with his wife, Ritu Gupta, and their three children.

Review: HER PERFECT TWIN, Sarah Bonner

• 
  this edition from my local library
  
• published 2022 by Hodder & Stoughton UK
• ISBN 978-1-529-38271-6
• 325 pages

Synopsis (Publisher)

THE MOST ADDICTIVE THRILLER YOU'LL READ IN 2022. HER PERFECT TWIN. YOUR NEW OBSESSION.

HER PERFECT TWIN. YOUR NEW OBSESSION.

When Megan discovers photographs of her estranged identical twin sister on her husband's phone, she wants answers.

Leah already has everything Megan has ever wanted. Fame, fortune, freedom to do what she wants. And when Megan confronts Leah, an argument turns to murder.

The only way Megan can get away with killing her twin is to become her.

But then lockdown hits. How can she continue living two lives? And what happens if someone else knows her secret too? 

My Take

Megan lives with her husband of three years, Chris. They spend a lot of time apart because of the nature of their individual jobs. Megan has never "strayed" although she suspects that Chris has. When Chris is home he likes things to go his way.

Megan's mother is in a nursing home with the early onset of dementia and Megan constantly looks for signs that her mother's memory loss is hereditary. Chris realises this, and plays on it.

The story begins with Megan's discovery on her husband's phone of a picture of herself in underwear that she has never seen. That's how she knows that he is seeing her identical twin Leah. She and Leah have a very fractured relationship and rarely see each other. 

Her knowledge that Chris is having an affair with Leah gives Megan "permission" to find someone new for herself. She also decides to confront Leah, with dreadful consequences.

From that point, you are hooked. The story becomes compulsive with sections narrated by Megan, Chris, and Leah, cleverly following on from each other. Until an incredible finale. Megan told you what was going to happen, but did you take her at her word?

The lockdown caused by the global pandemic adds another element to the whole scenario.

My rating: 4.9

About the author

Sarah Bonner grew up in Salisbury, dreaming of a career as a writer and performer. Instead, she became an accountant! After a fifteen-year career, she decided to answer her original calling and completed her first novel, Her Perfect Twin. She lives in West Sussex with her husband and very spoiled rescue dog.

Review: THE CURLEW'S EYE, Karen Manton

• 
  This edition an e-book made available by my local library through Libby
  
• ISBN: 9781760879518
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin, Australia 
• Pub Date: September 2021
• Length: 352 pages 

Synopsis (publisher)

A richly atmospheric Gothic mystery set around a ruined homestead in the NT's Top End.

'It struck her that in all these years, every highway and meandering track they'd taken together had been heading towards this destination. A shack perched halfway up a hill in an other-world of bizarre shadow plants and dark sentinel trees . . . Every road had been leading here, to this place.'

Greta's partner Joel grew up with five brothers and a sister in a feisty household on an isolated NT property. But he doesn't talk about those days - not the deaths of his sister and mother, nor the origin of the scars that snake around his body.

Now, many years later, he returns with Greta and their three young boys to prepare the place for sale. The boys are quick to settle in, and Joel seems preoccupied with work, but Greta has a growing sense of unease, struggling in the build-up's oppressive heat and living in the shadow of the old, burned-out family home. She knows she's a stranger in this uncanny place, with its eerie and alluring landscape, hostile neighbour, and a toxic dam whose clear waters belie its poison. And then there's the mysterious girl living rough whom Greta tries to befriend.

Determined to make sense of it all, Greta is drawn into Joel's unspoken past and confronted by her own. Before long the curlew's haunting cry will call her to face the secrets she and Joel can no longer outrun.

My Take

The Northern Territory, the tough lifestyle, and the isolation are elements that Greta has never known. Like her husband Joel, Greta is an orphan, although she still has family down South. But there is so much about his past that Joel has never told her. She knows that Joel's parents came from Europe at the end of the Second World War, that they were determined to start a new life. She knows that he is from a large family of five sons and one daughter, and that they grew up on this homestead; that his sister died young in a car accident, but there is so much Joel will not talk about.

Setting up home for her 3 boys, herself and Joel at the ruined homestead is tough, as is the time when Joel goes away to work to bring in some extra money.

Greta is lucky that she makes friends with a couple of local women, mainly through her children, and they help her hold things together. She finds remnants of the past, photos and other things in the burnt out homestead which give her puzzles to solve, and gradually she is able to piece together what happened to Joel's parents and his sister.

Apart from the main narrative, the author has used to ploys to add to the story: the Gothic element of the past intruding into the present, and between chapters, small snippets of narrative in different voices which supply more clues for the reader.

An interesting read, and certainly an accomplishment for a debut novel 

My rating: 4.4

Author bio:

Karen Manton lives in Darwin and Batchelor in the Northern Territory. Her short stories have won five NT Literary Awards and are published in various anthologies, including Best Australian Stories, Award Winning Australian Writing, Review Australian Fiction and Landmarks. She has been awarded the Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship Varuna Writers' House, the NT Writers Centre Hachette Mentorship and the Arts NT Varuna Residential Fellowship. The Curlew's Eye is her first novel.

Review: GREENWICH PARK, Katherine Faulkner

• 
  this edition published 2021 by Raven Books, Bloomsbury Publishing
• ISBN 978-1-5226-2633-2
  
• 442 pages

Synopsis (publisher) 

Daniel is the perfect husband.
Rory is the perfect brother.
Serena is the perfect sister-in-law.

And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare.

When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel.

Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen's friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret…

Masterfully plotted and utterly addictive, Greenwich Park is a dark, compelling look at motherhood, friendships, privilege and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves.

My Take

This is one of those books that just keeps the reader guessing. There are dark secrets to be unearthed, and just when I thought I had them all sussed out, then something else popped up.

As seems to be the fashion with the recent crime fiction novel, there are several narrators and their names head the various chapters. The "hook" is a letter written after the action is complete by an inmate of HMP Bowood to Helen saying that she needs to hear the truth, and here it is. There is no indication who the writer might be. The next chapters regress to when the pregnancy is at 24 weeks, and with Helen who is waiting at the antenatal class for her husband, brother, and sister in law to join her. Her sister in law Serena is also pregnant, more or less due at the same time. They don't arrive and Helen is joined by Rachel who is similarly pregnant and also on her own.

The novel then counts down each week, and new narrators pop up. Helen and Rachel become closer, until eventually Rachel moves in with Helen and Daniel. There are also scenes from Greenwich Park involving characters who remain unnamed.

So there is plenty of mystery for the reader to unravel, there are references to things that have happened in the past, as well as strange events occurring now. We are never quite sure about the relationship between various characters, but we tend to see things mainly from Helen's point of view.

Enjoy!

My rating: 4.6

About the author

An award-winning journalist, Katherine Faulkner studied History at Cambridge. She has worked as an investigative reporter and an editor and was formerly the joint Head of News at The Times (London). She lives in London, where she grew up, with her husband and two daughters. Greenwich Park is her first novel.

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.

Review: THE HUNTING PARTY, Lucy Foley

• this edition published by Harper Collins 2019
• ISBN 978-0-00-829712-1
• 389 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

The beautiful one
The golden couple
The volatile one
The new parents
The quiet one
The city boy
The outsider

The victim.

Not an accident – a murder among friends.

My take

They've been meeting every New Year's weekend for as long as most of them have known each other, and everyone has agreed that this remote location north of Fort William in Scotland is the best ever.

Four days in Highland wilderness in cabins and a lodge near Loch Corrin. It's very exclusive, nine guests and the gamekeeper and the manager.

Right from the beginning of the book, on 2nd January 2019,  we know there is a body, but we don't know who it is or, for most of the time, whether it is male or female.

The narration hops around the time frame from 30 December to 2nd January, and from narrator to narrator. So we see events from several sets of eyes, but events don't necessarily overlap.  The guest is reported missing on New Year's Day and the gamekeeper finds the body early the next day.

I must admit to worrying about whether I would find the structure of the novel confusing, but it certainly gives the reader an "insider's view" of the relationships between the characters.  It also preserves the anonymity of the victim, because the person keeps contributing to the narration right up to the end.

A good read.

My rating: 4.6

About the author
Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities. She then worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry – during which time she also wrote The Book of Lost and Found. Lucy now writes full-time, and is busy travelling (for research, naturally) and working on her next novel.Visit her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LucyFoleyAuthor and follow her on Twitter @LucyFoleyTweets and Instagram @Lucy_F_Author

Review: MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER, Oyinkan Braithwaite

• this edition printed by Atlantic Books 2018
• ISBN 978-1-78649-762-8
• 226 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...

My take

Korede knows that she shouldn't be helping Ayoola to dispose of the bodies of the men that she "accidentally" kills, but she is good at it. After all she is a senior nurse at the local hospital. She keeps hoping each body will be the last. Their mother is amazingly unaware of what is going on as Ayoola's boyfriends go missing.

But then things get really serious when Ayoola begins to drop in to the hospital for lunch and meets Korede's colleagues, in particular a male doctor that Korede has her eye on.

Korede begins sharing her secrets with a patient who is in a coma, and then he wakes up and remembers some of what she has told him.

An interesting read. Really about so much more than murders.

This is really one novel where you need to look at the chapter headings because they tell you the focus of the chapter.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Creative Writing and Law from Kingston University. Following her degree, she worked as an assistant editor at Kachifo, a Nigerian publishing house, and as a production manager at Ajapaworld, a children’s educational and entertainment company. She now works as a freelance writer and editor.

In 2014, she was shortlisted as a top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam, and in 2016 she was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019
Winner of the LA Times Award for Best Crime Thriller, 2019 

Review: THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T DIE, Marnie Riches

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1124 KB
• Print Length: 314 pages
• Publisher: Avon (April 2, 2015)
• Publication Date: April 2, 2015
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00U1K18VY

Synopsis (Amazon)

HE’S WATCHING HER. SHE DOESN’T KNOW IT…YET

When a bomb explodes at the University of Amsterdam, aspiring criminologist Georgina McKenzie is asked by the police to help flush out the killer.

But the bomb is part of a much bigger, more sinister plot that will have the entire city quaking in fear.

And the killer has a very special part for George to play…

A thrilling race against time with a heroine you’ll be rooting for, this book will keep you up all night!

WINNER OF THE 2015 DEAD GOOD READER AWARD FOR MOST EXOTIC LOCATION

My Take

I'm afraid this book didn't grab me in quite the way the blurb promised. I found the plot overly complex and black. It would probably appeal to a much younger reader.

George McKenzie presents as a Cambridge student studying sociology in Amsterdam where girls are going missing. When a bomb explodes in an old library of the University of Amsterdam, and other students go missing, it is George who works out that there must be some connection with the faculty she belongs to. That's when the reader finds out that George is not quite who she seems.

Not quite my cup of tea.

My rating: 3.5

About the author
Marnie Riches is an award-winning, best-selling British author of crime-fiction, making her debut in the US with "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" - the first novel in her gritty, gripping George McKenzie series. The series of five books has sold approaching two hundred thousand copies in the UK and continues to garner critical acclaim from her peers and in the press, as well as a loyal readership.

Marnie grew up in a tough neighborhood in Manchester, England, infamous for its violent crime but loved for its world-class music and friendly people. Exchanging the spires of nearby Strangeways prison for those of Cambridge University, she gained a post-grad degree in German & Dutch. She has been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist and professional fundraiser. When she's not writing, Marnie likes to run, refurbish old houses and drink gin.

Her George McKenzie crime thrillers, tackling the subject of trans-national trafficking, were inspired by her time spent in The Netherlands. "The Girl Who Wouldn't Die" and subsequent four books are must-reads for all fans of Scandinavian and British mystery, suspense and thrillers, who love a kickass heroine who will happily flout the rules if it means catching a killer. George's partnership with troubled Inspector Paul van den Bergen of the Dutch police and her complex family relationships back in London have readers returning, book after book, to see how George's life unfolds...

Marnie is also the author of "Born Bad" and "The Cover-Up" - the critically acclaimed UK hit series about Manchester's notorious gangland.

Review: THE BODY IN THE DALES, J. R. Ellis - audio book

• format: audio book (Audible.com)
•  Narrated by: Michael Page
• Series: Yorkshire Murder Mystery Series, Book 1
• Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
• published 2017
• Release date: 08-09-18
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• aka The Body in Jingling Pot

Synopsis  (Audible.com)

An unpopular victim. An impossible crime. A murderer on the loose.

A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London.

The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped. How did Atkins’s body end up in such a remote section of the cave? When someone with vital information turns up dead, it becomes clear that whoever is behind the murders will stop at nothing to conceal their tracks.

Oldroyd and his team try to uncover the truth, but every answer unearths a new set of questions. And as secrets and lies are exposed within the close-knit community, the mystery becomes deeper, darker and more complex than the caves below.

My Take

This story certainly takes most of us to places we have not been - underground into a cave system.
In reality this is something I would much rather do vicariously. Getting stuck underground would not be my idea of fun. Nevertheless I learnt a lot about caving

The first mystery to be solved is how the body got there? a remote section of a cave that is relatively difficult to get to. Did somebody carry the body there? It doesn't seem that the location was where the murder was committed. And then what was the motive for the murder?

DCI Jim Olroyd is an interesting character, and one can't help thinking of Andy Dalziel, and his treatment of newcomer DS Carter is kindly. I could have done without Carter's phone conversations with his inane London mate, although I suppose they do emphasis how very different life in Yorkshire is.

There were some inconsistencies in the mental picture of the deceased Dave Atkins who is described as both attractive to women, and a difficult person to like, but perhaps the last was from the point of view of cuckolded husbands.

The final solution to the first mystery was similar to my first thoughts on the topic, although the actual motive was harder to guess.

The narrator was set a hard task in this reading in that he attempts to reproduce an incredible number of voices. In the main he manages to make most voices distinctive.

My Rating: 4.3

About the author
John R. Ellis has lived in Yorkshire for most of his life and has spent many years exploring Yorkshire's diverse landscapes, history, language and communities. He recently retired after a career in teaching mostly in further education in the Leeds area. In addition to the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series he writes poetry, ghost stories and biography. He recently completed a screenplay about the last years of the poet Edward Thomas and he is currently working on his memoirs of growing up in a working class area of Huddersfield in the 1950s and 1960s.

Review: AS THE CROW FLIES, Damien Boyd

• this edition published 2015 by Thomas & Mercer (first published 2015)
• ISBN 978-14778210239
• 160 pages
• #1 in the DI Nick Dixon series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Rock climbers can't afford to make careless mistakes. But Detective Inspector Nick Dixon's former climbing partner, Jake Fayter, died doing just that. Or so it seems. Dixon suspects foul play, but his only leads are unreliable accounts of something odd happening in Cheddar Gorge seconds before Jake fell.

The more Dixon learns about Jake's life, the more he realises that Jake hadn't been quite the man he remembered...and a lot of people could have wanted him dead. Once Dixon gets too close to the truth, those people will emerge from the shadows and kill to protect their secrets.

As the body count rises, Dixon bends the rules to breaking point to lure out a killer and unravel a conspiracy of silence that will rock the sleepy town of Burnham-on-Sea to its core.

As the Crow Flies is the electrifying first novel in the DI Nick Dixon Crime Series.

My take

In the Prologue we are there when Jake Fayter falls from the Crow climb at Cheddar Gorge. The fall is so uncharacteristic of Jake who is Nick Dixon's former climbing partner that Jake's father John contacts Nick to ensure that the police carry out an investigation into whether this really was an accident.

The book nearly lost me right at the very beginning: the details about climbing felt so very technical that I wondered whether I would persist.

Dixon is newly appointed to the Avon & Somerset police and is currently involved in a case where funeral notices appear to be leading to burglaries. Nevertheless, on a Sunday, when he gets Jake's father's call, he heads over to Cheddar Gorge to see the scene of the accident himself. He decides that, for his own peace of mind, there is something to investigate.

This is one of those novels firmly bedded in the 21st century: FaceBook, Twitter, mobile phones and the tracing of calls etc. I understood most of that but it did add to the technicality of the plot, and wouldn't suit every reader.

There are now 9 titles in the series, and it will be interesting to read another to see what direction the author has taken. Here is the list from Fantastic Fiction.
1. As The Crow Flies (2013)
2. Head In The Sand (2013)
3. Kickback (2014)
4. Swansong (2015)
5. Dead Level (2016)
6. Death Sentence (2016)
7. Heads or Tails (2017)
8. Dead Lock (2018)
9. Beyond the Point (2019)

My rating: 4.2

About the author
Damien Boyd is a solicitor and crime fiction writer.

Drawing on extensive experience of criminal law as well as several years in the Crown Prosecution Service, Damien writes fast paced crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Nick Dixon. 

Review: MINE, J.L. Butler

• this edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2018
• ISBN 978-0-00-82641-9
• 424 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Set in the Inns of Court in London, where justice and corruption go hand in hand. J L Butler’s taut, gripping legal drama brims with suspense and obsession, and only you can solve the case…
A gripping, thrill-a-minute ride through London’s dark side’ Erin Kelly

Gripping, intelligent, thrilling’ Adele Parks

Intelligently written. Compulsive. I defy you to put this down.’ Jane Corry

Fatal Attraction meets Apple Tree Yard. This debut novel will be your new obsession.

Francine Day is a high-flying lawyer about to apply for silk, ambitious and brilliant. She just needs one headline grabbing client to seal her place as Queen's Counsel, Martin Joy. The attraction is instant. Obsessive.

They embark on a secret affair and Francine thinks she can hold it together. But then Martin's wife, Donna, goes missing. And Martin is the prime suspect.

As the case unravels so does Francine, because the last person to see Donna Joy alive, was her.

My client. My lover. My lawyer. My obsession.

My Take

This was a good book to start the year with.

In having an affair with her client divorce lawyer Francine Day is committing the unforgiveable. But she hopes she can keep it hidden. That becomes dangerous ground when Martin's wife Donna disappears. Francine has been suspecting that Martin and Donna don't really want a divorce, that they are still in love, or is Donna playing around with someone else?

Martin is worth tens of millions and Donna wants half his money in a divorce settlement. All sorts of thoughts go through Francine's head about why Donna has disappeared. But she can't stay away from Martin even though she suspects he has had something to do with Donna's disappearance.

The blurb says this is a slick page-turner, and it is not wrong. It will keep you reading until the very end.


My rating: 4.6

About the author
J.L. Butler trained as a lawyer and journalist. She lives in London with her husband and son. J.L. Butler is the pseudonym for Sunday Times bestseller, Tasmina Perry.

Review: THE GIRL IN THE ICE, Robert Bryndza

• this edition published by bookoutre 2016
• ISBN 978-1-910751-77-0
• 391 pages
• #1 in the Erika Foster series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Her eyes are wide open. Her lips parted as if to speak. Her dead body frozen in the ice...She is not the only one.

When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation.

The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound, and dumped in water around London.

What dark secrets is the girl in the ice hiding?

As Erika inches closer to uncovering the truth, the killer is closing in on Erika.

The last investigation Erika led went badly wrong...resulting in the death of her husband. With her career hanging by a thread, Erika must now battle her own personal demons as well as a killer more deadly than any she's faced before. But will she get to him before he strikes again?

A pause-resisting thriller packed with suspense. If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, and Karin Slaughter, discover Rob Bryndza's new series today.

My Take

This is the debut novel in what is quite a long series (see below). I read DARK WATER first and that made me determined to follow this author, and indeed I plan to read all the series.

This debut novel begins with Detective Erika Foster returning to work, so there is quite a bit of back story to catch up on.

In some ways it is typical police procedural with plenty of noir thrown in. At one stage Erika crosses her boss who is having strings pulled by some influential people, and she is taken off the case.  Erika feels an obligation to the victims she has discovered and continues her investigation unofficially, putting herself in great danger.

My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed
4.6, DARK WATER

Detective Erika Foster
1. The Girl in the Ice (2016)
2. The Night Stalker (2016)
3. Dark Water (2016)
4. Last Breath (2017)
5. Cold Blood (2017)
6. Deadly Secrets (2018)

About the author
Robert Bryndza was born in the UK and lived in America and Canada before settling in Slovakia with his Slovak husband Ján. His debut novel The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard became an Amazon bestseller.

When he's not writing Rob is learning Slovak, trying to train two crazy dogs, or watching Grand Designs all in the hope that he'll be able to understand his mother-in-law, build his dream house, and get the dogs to listen.