New to Me Authors read January-March 2020

I've read 37 books in the first 3 months of 2020, and 11 of those were "new-to-me" authors.

If you'd like to tell me what you've read, please leave the titles in a comment.

1. 4.3, BROKEN BONE CHINA, Laura Childs
2. 4.7, LOCK EVERY DOOR, Riley Sager
3. 4.5, WHO KILLED RUBY? Camilla Way
4. 4.3, SIX MINUTES, Petronella McGovern  
5. 4.4, EYES LIKE MINE, Sheena Kamal
6. 4.4, LONG TIME LOST, Chris Ewan
7. 4.8, THE VAN APFEL GIRLS ARE GONE, Felicity McLean  - Australian
8. 4.5, DEAD MAN SWITCH, Tara Moss
9. 4.5, THE LOST GIRLS, Jennifer Spence - Australian
10. 4.5, THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, Heather Morris - Australian author
11. 4.4, THE AU PAIR, Emma Rous

Review: BLOOD RIVER, Tony Cavanaugh

• Format: Kindle Edition (Amazon)
• File Size: 951 KB
• Print Length: 416 pages
• Publisher: Hachette Australia; Digital original edition (23 April 2019)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group (AU)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07KPKB63Q

Synopsis  (Amazon)

Brisbane 1999. It's hot. Stormy. Dangerous. The waters of the Brisbane River are rising.
The rains won't stop. People's nerves are on edge. And then...
A body is found.
And then another.
And another.
A string of seemingly ritualized but gruesome murders. All the victims are men. Affluent. Guys with nice houses, wives and kids at private schools. All have had their throats cut.
Tabloid headlines shout, THE VAMPIRE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN!

Detective Sergeant Lara Ocean knows the look. The 'my-life-will-never-be-the-same-again look'. She's seen it too many times on too many faces. Telling a wife her husband won't be coming home. Ever again. Telling her the brutal way he was murdered. That's a look you never get used to.

Telling a mother you need her daughter to come to the station for questioning. That's another look she doesn't want to see again.

And looking into the eyes of a killer, yet doubting you've got it right. That's the worst look of all - the one you see in the mirror. Get it right, you're a hero and the city is a safer place. Get it wrong and you destroy a life. And a killer remains free. Twenty years down the track, Lara Ocean will know the truth.

My take

I thought this was such a cleverly constructed novel with themes that resonated in the Australian setting: Queensland weather, rise of the Brisbane river and flooding of the city, corruption in the Queensland police force, corruption in government, the glass ceiling both for women and for women of mixed race.

A culture of corruption leads to the decision to look for a quick resolution and conviction in the Vampire Slayer case. The story begins on the eve of 2YK, with 3 seemingly ritualised killings of middle-aged men, and the tracking down of the killer on the basis of what other teenagers and her teacher said about her. The culprit is quickly brought to trial, and sentenced to life amid public jubilation.

The plot directions often took me by surprise. I certainly hadn't expected the plot to cover 20 years, nor had I expected Billy Waterson to become essentially a "reformed" character. I thought it got under the skin of the main characters, and it kept my interest throughout.

My rating: 4.8

I have previously read
4.3, PROMISE, Tony Cavanaugh

Review: DARKNESS FOR LIGHT, Emma Viskic

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 4347 KB
• Print Length: 213 pages
• Publisher: Echo (2 December 2019)
• Sold by: Amazon Australia Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0821FDXFL
• #3 in the Caleb Zilic series

Synopsis  (Amazon)

The third thrilling instalment in the award-winning Caleb Zelic series. After a lifetime of bad decisions troubled PI Caleb Zelic is finally making good ones. He's in therapy, reconnecting with the Deaf community, and reconciling with his beloved wife.

But he can't escape his past.

A violent confrontation forces Caleb back into contact with his double-crossing partner, Frankie. When her niece is kidnapped, Frankie and Caleb must work together to save the child's life. But their efforts will risk everything, including their own lives.

My Take

This must have been just a bit too noir for my tastes, but I just found it a bit of a slog.

I don't actually warm to the central character Caleb Zelic, nor to many of the central characters he works with.

There is a lot of background material where I feel I have missed out on the full story, and that was actually how I felt when I read the previous title in the series.

The rating I gave it reflects the way I felt about the book, but others readers may well rate it more highly.

My Rating: 4.2

I've already  read
4.3, RESURRECTION BAY
4.3, AND FIRE CAME DOWN
 

Review: A MATTER OF MOTIVE, Margot Kinberg

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 4353 KB
• Print Length: 235 pagesPublisher: Grey Cells Press (March 16, 2020)
• Publication Date: March 16, 2020
• Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B081TLQMX5

Synopsis (Amazon)

A man is dead in his car, slumped over the steering wheel. But who killed him? Ron Clemons is the last person you’d think would be murdered. His wife and son love him. His employees respect him. His business is doing well. His clients seek him out. But someone wanted him dead.

The Clemons case is a golden opportunity for newly minted police detective Patricia Stanley to prove herself. It’s her first murder investigation, and she wants to do well. But it’s not going to be easy. For one thing, she has plenty to learn about handling a murder. And nearly everyone involved in this one is hiding something. Patricia faces her own challenges, too, as the investigation brings back the murder of an old love.
 
My Take

A police procedural with two rookie detectives being trained in acceptable techniques by their new boss. The book title poses the question that the reader asks constantly: who profited by the death from digitoxin poisoning of Ron Clemons, successful publicist? I must confess that I solved the "who" about half way through the book, bit was a little astray on the "why".

It was a satisfyingly complex plot though, and it kept me engaged.
Apparently the beginning of a new series, and I look forward to the next.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
PUBLISH OR PERISH
4.5, B - VERY FLAT
4.3, IN A WORD: MURDER  (edit)
4.4, PAST TENSE
4.5, DOWNFALL

Review: THE AU PAIR, Emma Rous

• Format: Kindle Edition (Amazon)
• File Size: 505 KB
• Print Length: 386 pages
• Publisher: Piatkus (6 December 2018)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group (AU)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07DNDJ7SH
• author website

Synopsis (Amazon)

Seraphine Mayes and her brother Danny are the first set of twins to be born at Summerbourne House. But on the day they were born their mother threw herself to her death, their au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of a stolen baby.

Now twenty-five, and mourning the recent death of her father, Seraphine uncovers a family photograph taken on the day the twins were born featuring both parents posing with just one baby. Seraphine soon becomes fixated with the notion that she and Danny might not be twins after all, that she wasn't the baby born that day and that there was more to her mother's death than she has ever been told...

Why did their beloved au pair flee that day?
Where is she now?
Does she hold the key to what really happened? 

My take

Seraphine and Danny's father has recently died from falling off a ladder and now who will inherit Summerbourne House hangs in the balance. The decision is in the hands of Vera, Seraphine's maternal grandmother.

In her father's possessions Seraphine finds a photo of her mother holding a baby, looking happy, just hours before she jumped over the cliff to her death. But which baby is it? Why is there only one baby in the photo?  Seraphine and Danny are twins although she was born first.

Seraphine is gripped with a passion to know who she really is. Is she the baby in the photo? She needs to find the au pair who was there at her birth. But someone does not want her to find out the truth.

An interesting read but I think the author was confronted with an almost impossible problem at the end which I am not sure she resolved all that well.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
Emma grew up in England, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal and Fiji, and from a young age she had two ambitions: to write stories, and to look after animals. She studied veterinary medicine and zoology at the University of Cambridge, then worked as a small animal veterinary surgeon for eighteen years before switching to full time writing in 2016. Emma lives in Cambridgeshire, England, with her husband and three sons.

The Au Pair is her first novel. It will be published in ten countries, in nine languages. She is currently writing her second book.

Review: GONE BY MIDNIGHT, Candice Fox

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 925 KB
• Print Length: 353 pages
• Publisher: Random House Australia (January 22, 2019)
• Publication Date: January 22, 2019
• Sold by: RH AU
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07GVNBG51
• #3 in the Crimson Lake series

Synopsis  (Amazon)

Crimson Lake is where bad people come to disappear – and where eight-year-old boys vanish into thin air . . .

On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young friends are left alone while their parents dine downstairs. But when Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing. The boys swear they stayed in their room, and CCTV confirms Richie has not left the building. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the child is found.

Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake's unlikeliest private investigators: disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. This case just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda's blood pumping.

For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation and most importantly his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.

Ted must dredge up the area's worst characters to find a missing boy. And the kind of danger he uncovers could well put his own child in deadly peril .

My Take

Set in Cairns. An 8 year old boy goes missing from the fifth floor of a hotel. He has been in the company of friends while his mother dines with their parents downstairs.

The mother asks Ted Conkaffey to investigate her son's disappearance. The local police are opposed as his partner Amanda Pharrel was responsible for the death of one of their colleagues in their last case.

Days pass and the boy is not found until Ted and Amanada uncover the shocking truth.

Good reading but it would probably help if you had read the two previous books in the series.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read
5.0, HADES 
4.3, EDEN
4.6, CRIMSON LAKE  (#1)
4.7 REDEMPTION POINT (#2)

Review: THE LONG CALL, Ann Cleeves

• this edition published by Macmillan 2019
• Print Length: 384 pages
• #1 in the Two Rivers series
• see Ann Cleeves answering questions

Synopsis (publisher)

The Long Call is the latest novel from Ann Cleeves, and the first in the new crime fiction series, Two Rivers, which has been eagerly awaited by fans of her bestselling Shetland and Vera Stanhope series. Here, Ann introduces Detective Matthew Venn and tells us about the inspiration behind Two Rivers.

Set in North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge meet, Two Rivers is the new detective series from Ann Cleeves, the author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope series which both inspired hugely popular television adaptations. When Detective Matthew Venn turned his back on the strict religious community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now he’s back.

The first book in the series, The Long Call, sees Matthew return to the Two Rivers region as his father’s funeral takes place, not only to mourn him from afar but to take on his first major case in the area. A man has been found stabbed to death on a beach near to Matthew’s new home, and his team’s investigation leads straight to the heart of the community he left behind, all those years ago.

The Long Call has already been optioned for TV by Silverprint Pictures, the company which produced Shetland and Vera.

My take

Set in North Devon near Barnstaple with a new detective Matthew Venn, married to Jonathon Church who has set up and manages The Woodyard, a centre offering, among other things, learning disability services.

The body found on the beach is identified as an ex-soldier who has been volunteering in the kitchen at the centre.

The novel opens with Matthew Venn watching his father's funeral from a distance, long estranged from his parents when he chose to leave the Brethren in his first year at university.

This new series has given Ann Cleeves scope to create interesting new characters and different settings.

So there is a lot of background to learn, a new police investigative team, and then some interesting plot threads.

A good read.

I have followed Ann Cleeves since first reading the first novels in the Shetland series, and then meeting Vera Stanhope. I look forward to reading the second in this new series.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read
mini-review RAVEN BLACK - Shetland #1
WHITE NIGHTS - Shetland#2
RED BONES - Shetland #3
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING - Shetland#4
5.0, DEAD WATER  - Shetland#5
4.6, THIN AIR - Shetland #6
4.3, MURDER IN PARADISE - Palmer-Jones series #3
TELLING TALES (Vera Stanhope) #2
4.8, SILENT VOICES, (Vera Stanhope) #4
5.0, THE GLASS ROOM (Vera Stanhope) #5
4.9, HARBOUR STREET, Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope) #6
4.5, BURIAL OF GHOSTS - stand-alone
4.8, THE MOTH CATCHER, Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope #7)