Review: HOUSE OF GLASS, Susan Fletcher

• this edition published by Virago Press 2018
• ISBN 9-780349-007656
• 357 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

I had a curious sense of being watched.

June 1914 and a young woman - Clara Waterfield - is summoned to a large stone house in Gloucestershire. Her task: to fill a greenhouse with exotic plants from Kew Gardens, to create a private paradise for the owner of Shadowbrook. Yet on arrival, Clara hears rumours: something is wrong with this quiet, wisteria-covered house. Its gardens are filled with foxgloves, hydrangea and roses; it has lily ponds, a croquet lawn - and the marvellous new glasshouse awaits her. But the house itself feels unloved. Its rooms are shuttered or empty. The owner is mostly absent; the housekeeper and maids seem afraid. And soon Clara understands their fear, for something - or someone - is walking through the house at night.

In the height of summer, she finds herself drawn deeper into Shadowbrook's dark interior - and into the secrets that violently haunt this house.

Nothing - not even the men who claim they wish to help her - is quite what it seems.

Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier, this is a wonderful, atmospheric Gothic novel.

My Take:

As the blurb says, this attempts, and largely succeeds, to be an atmospheric Gothic style novel.
The mystery isn't confined to what is happening in Shadowbank and what has happened there before.

Clara Waterfield has had a confined childhood largely caused by the disease she has - brittle bones- which makes her susceptible to fractures. Her mother has recently died, and there is mystery there related to who Clara's father is.
After a relatively short time of studying plants at Kew Gardens, through the head keeper Clara is surprisingly invited to oversee the set up of a large glass house in the country.

There she hears stories about the recent owners of the house. The current owner who is paying for Clara's glass house project is frequently away and it is weeks before she meets him.

This is a book that keeps you reading even if only to solve the mystery of what is happening in the house.

My rating: 4.4

I have previously read:
4.8, THE HIGHLAND WITCH (aka CORRAG)

Review: MARLBOROUGH MAN, Alan Carter

• format: audio (mainly) Audible
• Narrated by: Jerome Pride
• Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Release date: 12-01-18
• Language: English
• Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Synopsis (Audible)

Nick Chester is working as a sergeant for the Havelock police in the Marlborough Sound, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. If the river isn’t flooded and the land hasn’t slipped, it’s paradise. Unless you are also hiding from a ruthless man with a grudge, in which case remote beauty has its own kind of danger. In the last couple of weeks, two locals have vanished. Their bodies are found, but the Pied Piper is still at large.

Marlborough Man is a gripping story about the hunter and the hunted and about what happens when evil takes hold in a small town.

Ngaio Marsh Award 2018
Alan Carter’s Marlborough Man (Fremantle Press) has won the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel.
The novel, about an ex-undercover agent from England trying to distance himself from his dangerous past and settle into a quieter life as a local cop in the Marlborough Sound, was chosen from a shortlist of six, with judges calling it a ‘terrific, full-throated crime thriller that puts the freshest of spins on the cop-with-a-past trope’.

My Take

This novel has a chequered history for me. I began reading it on my kindle, then found an audio version which I decided to listen to with my fellow traveller on our weekend journeys. At the end of today I had just an hour left to listen to and so decided to read the final chapters on my kindle.

For some reason I didn't at first really take to Jerome Pride's Geordie narration, but as it proceeded the story took over. By the end I really just wanted to know how the story came together.

Nick Chester is a cop from Sunderland (UK) who was part of an undercover operation to bring down one of the local underworld bosses. He has been sent to New Zealand as part of a protection programme, and for the first half of the novel is waiting for the thugs to catchup with him.  When they finally arrive though, and that element of the plot is solved, the local elements of child abductions takes over.

The New Zealand setting and excellent writing gives him the 2018 Ngaio Marsh award.
Also shortlisted for the 2018 Ned Kelly Award.

Good reading.
It reminded me that I really need to read more Alan Carter.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read
4.7, PRIME CUT
4.7, GETTING WARMER

Review: THE SHADOW HOUR, Kate Riordan

• This edition published by Michael Joseph 2016
• ISBN 978-0-7181-7929-8
• 504 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Two generations of women, and one house that holds the terrible secrets of their pasts.

Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother's footsteps as a governess. But when she meets the house's inhabitants, people who she had only previously heard of in stories, the cracks in her grandmother's tale begin to show. Secrets appear to live in the house's very walls and everybody is resolutely protecting their own.

Why has she been sent here? Why did her grandmother leave after just one summer? And as the past collides with the present, can Grace unravel these secrets and discover who her grandmother, and who she, really is?

My Take

This novel is mystery rather crime fiction. although crimes are committed.

My first reaction was that its structure was rather too similar to THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH which I read just recently. But that actually probably doesn't matter- the novelist has hit on a winning formula - two plot strands work their way towards each other, one forwards from 1878 and one backwards from 1922.

In 1922 Fenix House is no longer the grand house with many servants that it had been in 1878. All the stories that Grace's grandmother Harriet tells her about the house come from the earlier time and so she finds the house very different to what she expects.

Grace understands that her grandmother has sent her to the house with a purpose, although she is to stand on her own two feet, and not to reveal that her grandmother was also once the governess.

A good read for those who like slightly gothic novels with a touch of mystery.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read
4.5, THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

Review: LAST WORDS, Michael Koryta

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 1348 KB
• Print Length: 449 pages
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (August 27, 2015)
• Publication Date: August 27, 2015
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00T39BL98

Synopsis (Amazon)

Private investigator Mark Novak is still mourning the death of his wife, and it's affecting his work. With his future on the line, Mark is sent to check out a case in the Midwest town of Garrison, home to a famous but perilous cave system. A girl has died in the caves, and the man who brought her out is still believed by many to be her killer. He begs Novak to uncover what really happened.

But Garrison is the kind of place where cold cases stay cold. Mark tries to delve into the town's secrets, but in the end, he will have to match his wits against the man who knows the caverns better than anyone. A man who seems to have lost his mind. A man who seems to know Mark Novak all too well.

My take

On the day that Mark Novak's wife Lauren was killed they parted harshly, she investigating something that he didn't think was her responsibility. He finds it hard to forget how they parted and at his investigative work for the company Innocence Inc (which does pro bono legal work challenging death row and freeing the wrongly convicted) Mark makes poor decisions, such that the board questions his commitment. As they discuss his future Mark is sent to Garrison to investigate a death in the caves. The main setting is a largely unexplored cave system in Southern Indiana. Ostensibly Mark is sent there to redeem himself.

However he feels very little interest in the case as he feels that there is really no case for Innocence Inc. to pick up.

However there are some very strange characters in this novel, and despite himself Mark becomes involved.

This was a novel that it took me a while to get into, perhaps because I didn't really like the character of Mark himself, and partly because there are some really dark passages in the novel.

At the end of the novel, there is so obviously an opening for a sequel.

My rating:  4.3

About the author

Michael Koryta (pronounced Ko-ree-ta) is the New York Times-bestselling author of 11 suspense novels. His work has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, Daniel Woodrell, Ron Rash, and Scott Smith among many others, and has been translated into more than 20 languages. His books have won or been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Edgar® Award, Shamus Award, Barry Award, Quill Award, International Thriller Writers Award, and the Golden Dagger. They’ve been selected as “best books of the year” by publications as diverse as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com, O the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, People, Reader’s Digest, iBooks, and Kirkus Reviews.LAST WORDS is the beginning of a new series.

Review: THE SHAPE OF LIES, Rachel Abbott

• format Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 2499 KB
• Print Length: 339 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Black Dot Publishing Ltd (February 12, 2019)
• Publication Date: February 12, 2019
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
•  ASIN: B07MJBP898
• #8 in the DCI Tom Douglas series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Yesterday, Scott was dead. Today, he’s back.
And Anna doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Scott was Anna’s boyfriend. She loved him, but he ruined her life. When he died, she should have been free, but today Scott is on the radio, threatening to spill her secrets.

Anna is a mother, a wife, and head teacher of a primary school.
And she’s a good liar.

She made one mistake, and now she is having to pay for it. Scott is the only person who knows the truth about her past, but how can he be alive?

Soon, DCI Tom Douglas is going to knock on her door looking for answers. But Anna is already running scared: from the man she loved; the man she watched die; the man who has come back to life.

She has one week to find him. One week to stop him.

My Take

In most of the earlier titles in this series I have had a lot of empathy for the main character.
And that was the way things started with this novel.

Anna's husband Domenic hasn't worked for 18 months, since he was kneecapped in a mugging. Since then he has been the stay-at-home dad, she the principal at  nearby public school. She is driving to school when she tunes into a chat show, where a participant reveals that he plans to reveal all about a former affair. His name is Scott and he calls his former girlfriend Spike, and she thinks she recognises herself. The problem is that Scott is dead. And her husband Domenic knows nothing about what she and Scott did.

I'm afraid the more I got to know about Anna's past, the less I liked her.

The other problem I had with this novel is that, for the main plot to work, there had to be rather too many other plot lines, and too many changes in the main characters.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
4.8, ONLY THE INNOCENT #1
4.9, THE BACK ROAD #2
4.6, SLEEP TIGHT #3
4.5, STRANGER CHILD #4
4.6, COME A LITTLE CLOSER #7
4.6, THE SIXTH WINDOW #6
4.5, KILL ME AGAIN #5

Review: DISAPPEARED, Anthony J. Quinn

• this edition published by Head of Zeus UK in 2015
• ISBN 9781781858998
• 252 pages

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

In Northern Ireland's darkest corner, the Troubles have never ended

Though bombs no longer rock Belfast, for some the fight goes on. Retired Special Branch agent David Hughes disappears after looking into the previously closed case of Oliver Jordan, who went missing at the hands of the IRA decades ago. Soon after, a former spy is found bludgeoned to death, the day after placing his own obituary in the newspaper. Beneath Northern Ireland's modern calm, ancient jealousies threaten to rend the country asunder once more.

A Catholic detective in a Protestant nation, Celcius Daly knows too well the agonies of sectarian strife. To solve this string of murders, he must reach decades into the past, confronting a painful history that Ireland would prefer to forget.

My Take

To be honest, for most of the time I found this novel hard going. I empathised with David Hughes who has Alzheimer's and is extremely frustrated because his memory is rather like a patchwork quilt with large holes. I understood young Dermot Jordan's desire to know where his father is buried, and perhaps even to clear his name.

But I struggled to remember which side was which, and who had done what.

Someone who has a better understanding of The Troubles would obviously enjoy the book far more. Thank you Anthony Quinn for trying to educate me!

My rating: 3.6

I've read
4.6, CURTAIN CALL
4.3, THE LISTENERS

Review: A KILLING NIGHT, Jonathon King

• this edition published in 2005 by Orion
• #4 in the Max Freeman series
• ISBN 0-75286-936-1
• 289 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Max Freeman is at a crossroads. No longer content to live solely in his remote shack in the Everglades, he is looking to move beyond his self-imposed isolation. So when his onetime girlfriend, Detective Sherry Richards, asks for his help as a private investigator in nailing an ex-cop she suspects of killing several young women in South Florida, Max is ready to help her see justice done.

But there's a problem. Sherry's suspect is a former police officer from Philadelphia who served with Max; a brother-in-blue who once saved Max's life. Matters are made worse when Max's own aggressive investigation leads him to believe that Sherry's crusade to protect these women is about to roll over a possibly innocent man.

Caught between his loyalty to Sherry and his debt to his fellow ex-cop, Max's search for the truth will take him back to the streets of Philadelphia, where he will dig into his fellow officer's troubled past . . . only to come face-to-face with his own. And while Max continues his quest, a controlling, cunning killer inexorably closes in on what could be his next victim. . . . 

My take

Three female bartenders in South Florida have gone missing and the finger of suspicion points at Colin O'Shea, a childhood friend of Max Freeman's, also a former cop that he worked with in Philadelphia. But Colin swears he is innocent and Max believes him.

So Max finds himself trying to work out if there is a serial killer on the loose, and at the same time he is trying to prove that it isn't Colin.

Max is also working for Billy Manchester, a black attorney that he also grew up with in Philadelphia. Billy is working on a case of cruise liner employees who are being threatened by stand over thugs,

I found the story a bit slow in the beginning. The author seemed to need to fill me in on some details that I already knew even though I have only read #1 in the series. This story has many strands and both Max and the serial killer speak in the first person, which initially takes a bit of careful reading,

My rating: 4.4

4.4, THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT