Review: BALLAD OF A DEAD NOBODY, Liza Cody

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1729 KB
• Print Length: 320 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: iUniverse (June 1, 2011)
• Publication Date: June 1, 2011
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0055S9U76

Synopsis  (Amazon)

Elly Astoria had a miraculous musical talent. As a little girl she taught herself to play guitar and keyboard so that she could feed herself and her junkie mother. One rainy night she was spotted singing and playing by the founder of an indy women’s band. Later, cleaned up and better fed, she caught the eye of her future manager – and his creepy sister. It should have been a rags-to-riches story. Instead Elly’s career was cut short by her perverted and grisly murder.

Years after her death it looks as if Elly’s life has been overlooked. If anyone deserves rediscovery and a biography, it’s Elly. Clearly there is a story to be told and a mystery to be solved. But how?

My take

Liza Cody is an author who went off the radar for the first decade of this century. I do remember reading BUCKET NUT and MONKEY WRENCH when they were published twent years ago. I think I also read some of her Anna Lee series.

This book though was quite different to what I expected. The structure is a series of recorded interviews, excerpts from letters, emails and telephone messages which Amy makes in her quest to write a book that will make her mark in the world. Once she settles on the idea of a biography about Elly Astoria, Amy discovers that there is bit more to being a biographer than just collecting material. What do you do about the gaps where you haven't a clue where the truth lies? For example no one was ever charged with Elly's murder. Is a biographer a detective too?

Amy's quest takes her to tracking down members of MotherHood, the band Elly was "adopted" by, and she makes some odd discoveries. The band broke up straight after Elly's death and went their separate ways, although they and Elly's agents continued to get income from recordings and performance rights.

There was a point when I nearly gave up on reading the book. It began to seem rather long winded and disjointed and Amy seemed no closer to the truth. I'm glad I didn't give up though.

My rating 4.3

About the author
Liza Cody is an English crime fiction writer. She is the author of thirteen novels and many short stories. Her Anna Lee series introduced the professional female private detective to British mystery fiction.
Cody was born in London and most of her work is set there. Currently she lives in Bath in England. Her informative website can be found at www.LizaCody.com.

Anna Lee
1. Dupe (1980)
2. Bad Company (1982)
3. Stalker (1984)
4. Head Case (1985)
5. Under Contract (1986)
6. Backhand (1991)

Eva Wylie
1. Bucket Nut (1992)
2. Monkey Wrench (1994)
3. Musclebound (1997)

Novels
Rift (1988)
Gimme More (2000)
Ballad of a Dead Nobody (2011)
Miss Terry (2012)
Lady Bag (2013) 

Review: JUST EVIL, Vickie McKeehan

I have discovered that I haven't got a review outline prepared for this novel by a new-to-me American author, so this post is just really to mark the fact that I have completed reading it, and also enjoyed it.

It is the first in a trilogy called The Evil Secrets. The novel is focused on Kit Griffin, proprietor of the cafe The Book & Bean. Kit's mother, Alana, from whom she is estranged, is murdered and the suspicion of local police falls on Kit.

Vickie McKeehan is an established author of romance novels, and this fact emerges clearly in some strong sex scenes in JUST EVIL.

My Rating: 4.2

I promise to expand this review with my usual format of synopsis and publication details when I get home from my travels.

Review: THE MOTH CATCHER, Anne Cleeves

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1419 KB
• Print Length: 400 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan (September 1, 2015)
• Publication Date: August 25, 2015
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B010NCHHDM
• #7 in the Vera Stanhope series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist named Patrick, to look after the place while they're away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley - a beautiful, lonely place to die.

DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, with her detectives Holly and Joe. When they look round the attic of the big house - where Patrick has a flat - she finds the body of a second man. All the two victims have in common is a fascination with moths - catching these beautiful, rare creatures.

The three couples who live in the Valley Farm development have secrets too: Annie and Sam's daughter is due to be released from prison any day; Nigel watches, silently, every day, from his window. As Vera is drawn into the claustrophobic world of this increasingly strange community, she realizes that there may be deadly secrets trapped here ...

My Take

I wondered whether I would have "seen" this story in the Vera series on TV. I am a great fan of the series but I am glad to report that this particular story has evaded capture, so far. I hope we continue to get some book-only Vera Stanhope stories.

For me the television series has given a vision of what Vera and the various members of her team might look like, and I must admit to their faces sitting there in my mind's-eye as I read, except that the "book" Vera is larger than the actress.

But what I love about the books is their language and the author's description of the other characters in the story. The words just slip down like good wine. The story flows and Ann Cleeves gives the reader  just enough for the little grey cells to work on. There are little puzzles to solve and little bits of humor to enjoy.

I also like the way Vera manages her team, and gets them to utilize their very divergent talents, by playing them off against each other. She is very sparing with her praise which just makes them work harder.

Six retirees, three couples, who decide to get away from it all, to make the most of the time that remains to them, and then find they haven't gone far enough. Three deaths, murders connected by place, but other connections very elusive. Cleeves makes the reader work hard to the very end.

A very satisfying read.

My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed
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

Review: MURDER IN THE FAMILY, Paula Bernstein

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 567 KB
• Print Length: 190 pages
• Publisher: M&Z Press (September 11, 2014)
• Publication Date: September 11, 2014
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00NIYXXR2

Synopsis (Amazon)

Hannah Kline is a successful Los Angeles obstetrician and the recently widowed mother of a young daughter. She is barely managing to hold it all together, when her life is shattered once again by the brutal murder of her beautiful, bright, zany and recently divorced sister-in-law Beth. Detective Daniel Ross of the LAPD thinks the killer had a very personal motive.

Hannah is determined to do whatever she can to assist the police in finding the murderer. She finds herself obsessed with the details of Beth's life, and as she encounters her sister-in-law's eclectic collection of friends and former lovers, she discovers that all was not as it seemed. Not only was Beth a woman with a secret life, but her secrets may have led her inexorably to a rendezvous with her killer.

My Take

The Introduction to this novel makes interesting reading: it gives the background to the story, and tells why the novel is the third published, although in fact it is the first in the series.

The author has done what many others have done: created a fictional sleuthing duo from complementary occupations, but this particular story was based on a true story, the brutal murder of a beloved friend and cousin. The first version of story as a psychological novel remained unpublished, and then came a short story written from another point of view, until the novel in its present form was accepted for publication.

Remembering all that as I read gave me a stronger appreciation of where this novel had its roots, and I think I enjoyed it all the more. I will certainly try to read the next in the series LETHAL INJECTION. I found Hannah Kline and Daniel Ross likeable characters that I would certainly like to see in action together again.

Reading MURDER IN THE FAMILY was prompted by the author offering me a review copy of the fourth in the series THE GOLDILOCKS PLANET.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
Paula Bernstein is an author who likes to think of herself as a multi-faceted career woman. She began her professional career as an academic chemist with a doctorate from Caltech. After realizing that she liked people far more than laboratory equipment, she went to Medical School and spent her professional life as a successful practicing obstetrician gynecologist.
Between deliveries, she has always indulged her creative side by taking courses in writing, interior design, graphic arts and astronomy. Over the years she's also published non-fiction, patient oriented medical books and professional papers, and written fiction for pleasure. Now that she is semi-retired she is busy editing and publishing her short stories and novels. Not surprisingly, her heroines are witty women in interesting professions from medicine, to physics to interior design. She is the author of Potpourri,an eclectic collection of short stories spanning several genres, and of Murder in the Family, Lethal Injection and Private School, the first three books in the Hannah Kline mystery series. Her latest Hannah Kline mystery is The Goldilocks Planet.

Review: MURDER IN THE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE, June Wright

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1357 KB
• Print Length: 368 pages
• Publisher: Dark Passage; Reprint edition (February 17, 2014)
  first published 1948
• Publication Date: February 17, 2014
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00G1SRCG0

Synopsis  (Amazon)

First published in 1948, when it was the best-selling mystery of the year in the author’s native Australia, Murder in the Telephone Exchange stars feisty young operator Maggie Byrnes. When one of her more unpopular colleagues is murdered — her head bashed in with a “buttinski,” a piece of equipment used to listen in on phone calls — Maggie resolves to turn sleuth.

Some of her coworkers are acting strangely, and Maggie is convinced she has a better chance of figuring out who is responsible for the killing than the rather stolid police team assigned to the case, who seem to think she herself might have had something to do with it. But then one of her friends is murdered too, and it looks like Maggie might be next. Narrated with verve and wit, this is a whodunit in the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Daphne du Maurier, by turns entertaining and suspenseful, and building to a gripping climax.

 My Take

There are a few hints in the story about the time frame of this novel. It is set in Melbourne very definitely after World War One and very likely after World War Two, about the time of publication. The initial murder victim, Sarah Compton, is described as middle aged, and has been working at the telephone exchange since 1917. Many people have cause to hate her: she is greedy, grasping, and not above using people's secrets for blackmail.

The setting is the manual telephone exchange in Melbourne where Compton works as a monitor or supervisor. Hundreds of people, mainly girls and women, work here in shifts. The twenty four hour  exchange controls telephone traffic in Melbourne and between Melbourne and the country side and other Australian cities. All connections are facilitated by a telephonist, written dockets are kept detailing time and length of calls as well as numbers. The system means that each phone call leaves an extensive paper trail. Despite frantic activity at some parts of the day, the telephonists also have the opportunity to listen in on calls, and in rural towns switchboard operators are often the source of the latest news and gossip.

I am just old enough to remember the time when not everyone had a telephone line to their house, when households shared 'party' lines, when you rang the operator requesting a number rather than dialing it yourself. At peak times there could be extensive delays in connecting calls, and even then there was a three minute limit on the length of the call.

The Melbourne exchange was huge, employing hundreds, and so this means there are a large number of suspects for Compton's brutal murder. Maggie Byrnes sees herself as a bit of a sleuth, but she is young, and not much of a judge of character. With a misguided sense of loyalty she withholds information from the investigating police with the result that another of the telephonists dies, and then another. Maggie herself is attacked as the police close in on their main suspect.

Despite a lot of muddying of the waters I managed to select the right candidate for murderer early on, but really wasn't sure of the motive. In the long run I thought the motive was a bit far fetched.

An interesting novel which I thought needed a bit of editing in the last half. I thought the denouement was rather long winded and some of the final reasons given could have been released as clues earlier on. Not bad for a debut novel though.

My rating 4.1

Another review to check: @arm chair reviewer 

About the author
June Wright (1919 - 2012) was the Australian author of six detective stories, the last three featuring Mother Paul. Born in Melbourne, where most of her books are set, she had begun her writing career by winning a competition run by a London publisher. This ensured the publication of her first book, Murder in the Telephone Exchange in 1948. She herself had been working in a telephone exchange for four years. She was the mother of six children. Her last novel was published in 1966. She then retired from writing to help her husband with his business.

Review: THE SHIVERING SANDS, Victoria Holt

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1769 KB
• Print Length: 331 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca; Reprint edition (September 3, 2013)
  originally published in 1969
• Publication Date: September 3, 2013
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00D2XA1GU

Synopsis (Amazon)

Ancient ruins. Family scandal. Forbidden love.

Caroline knows something is wrong. Her sister Roma has gone missing, and no one can tell her why. The only option is to go where Roma was last seen—an estate with a deadly history...

The Stacy family has lived off the Dover coast for generations, carefully navigating the treacherous quicksands nearby. But the sands aren't Caroline's biggest threat. Everyone here has a secret, especially enigmatic young heir Napier Stacy. No matter where Caroline turns, the ground she walks is dangerous. And the closer she comes to unraveling the truth, the closer she comes to sharing her sister's fate...

My Take

I read this for  the Crime Fiction of the Year (1969) Challenge, a meme housed at Past Offences.
In my younger days I read lots of Victoria Holt, and so I wanted to see whether for me this title weathered the test of time.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I found the plot developed much more slowly than it would in a more recently written novel. There are very heavy Gothic overtones right from the beginning: the black sheep of the family who accidentally murdered his elder, popular, handsome elder brother, banished to Australia but now summoned to return by his dying father to marry his father's ward; the mysterious disappearance of Caroline's sister from an archaeological dig; a building destroyed by fire where lights now show at night.

One of the aspects of the plot that has interested me is the actual time setting of the story. I have come across a reference to the vicar being appointed in 1888 so I am assuming it is all late 19th century. There are other factors that reinforce this: the curate goes off to Africa as a missionary, the main mode of transportation is horseback or trap, and there are no mentions of the dislocations that World War One will later cause.

So is this crime fiction? It is a question I constantly asked myself as I was reading. Certainly crimes have been committed - there is no doubt right from the beginning that Napier killed his brother Beau, accident or not, and these days that would have led to a homicide trial, rather than a retribution exacted by his father. And there are two other unexplained disappearances. But this is much more Gothic romance, closer to Daphne du Maurier and Georgette Heyer rather than Agatha Christie. The ending made me think of Edgar Allen Poe.

And here is an author that eventually led me on to crime fiction addiction.

My rating: 4.0

About the author
Victoria Holt 1906-1993 was a pseudonym used by Jean Plaidy.

Novels

Mistress of Mellyn (1960)
Kirkland Revels (1962)
Bride of Pendorric (1963)
The Legend of the Seventh Virgin (1964)
Menfreya in the Morning (1966)
     aka Menfreya
The King of the Castle (1967)
The Queen's Confession: The Story of Marie-Antoinette (1968)
The Shivering Sands (1969)
The Secret Woman (1970)
The Shadow of the Lynx (1971)
On the Night of the Seventh Moon (1972) (with James Ramsey Ullman)
The Curse of the Kings (1973)
The House of a Thousand Lanterns (1974)
Lord of the Far Island (1975)
The Pride of the Peacock (1976)
The Devil on Horseback (1977)
My Enemy, the Queen (1978)
The Spring of the Tiger (1979)
The Mask of the Enchantress (1980)
The Love Child (1981)
The Judas Kiss (1981)
The Demon Lover (1982)
The Time of the Hunter's Moon (1983)
The Landower Legacy (1984)
The Road to Paradise Island (1985)
Secret for a Nightingale (1986)
The Silk Vendetta (1987)
The Captive (1988)
The India Fan (1988)
Snare of Serpents (1990)
Daughter of Deceit (1991)
Seven for a Secret (1992)
The Black Opal (1993)

Review: THE DEVIL'S CAVE , Martin Walker

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1071 KB
• Print Length: 385 pages
• Publisher: Quercus (August 2, 2012)
• Publication Date: August 2, 2012
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007C4G0CO

Synopsis  (Amazon)

It is springtime France's Périgord, a time of beauty and calm. But not for Bruno, chef de police of the small town of St Denis. A woman's body has been found on a boat, bearing signs of a black magic ritual.

Bruno has too much on his plate as it is - mediating a domestic abuse case that needs careful handling and a dodgy local development proposal that seems just too good to be true.

But a murder case must take precedent and the roots of this one lie buried deep in the past - linked to a chateau above a bend in the river, to the reclusive old woman who lives there, and to the secret hidden in the Devil's Cave.

My Take

I have read a number of this series (see the list below) and really had them mentally categorized as cosies. But in THE DEVIL'S CAVE the action is grittier and the novel becomes quite a tense thriller.

The action starts off with a naked female body floating down the river in an old boat. It appears that she may have committed suicide, but may also have participated in some Satanic rites. Around the thread of identifying this woman Bruno's normal work continues on. Some developers want to build holiday villas but a number of the residents are opposed, including the assistant bank manager, despite the fact that his bank is participating in the project. Then there is the farmer who has beaten up his wife in a drunken rage, and the young girl who has gone missing.

I do like way Martin Walker has populated the town and surrounds with persistent characters, while at the same time the plot of a new novel introduces some ones and some new issues to keep the mix fresh.

These are police procedurals, but the way things are done in St. Denis is refreshingly different from both British and American ones. Bruno is a well developed and fascinating character too.

If you haven't yet tried this series, you are missing a treat.

My rating: 4.5

I've also reviewed
4.6, BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE 
4.6, THE DARK VINEYARD
4.6, THE CROWDED GRAVE
BRUNO and LE PERE NOEL: a Christmas Short Story