Book Review: The Patient by Jane Shemilt – a creepily suspenseful novel with two picturesque settings

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I felt sorry for Rachel from the first page of Jane Shemilt’s latest novel. Rachel’s a respected GP, and lives in the picturesque town of Salisbury with her teacher husband. But things are distant between them – a spark has died and life’s a bit dreary. And then there’s the daughter – Lizzie, who scarcely talks to Rachel, harbouring a grudge about the lack of quality time Rachel was able to give Lizzie growing up.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is Rachel has stepped over the line with a patient and now her world’s in chaos. She wasn’t even supposed to be working when a suicidal patient turned up at the medical centre. Rachel recently lost a patient to suicide, so gives Luc plenty of time, listening as he pours out his heart. When Rachel discovers Luc is a new neighbour, having renovated the old house she remembers belonging to a childhood friend, she also meets his glamorous American wife, Ophelia, and her charming brother and Ophelia’s little boy. The perfect family – or are they?

Luc has a everything, it seems, but he and Rachel are drawn to each other but, as we all know, doctors aren’t supposed to embark on relationships with their patients – especially vulnerable ones with a mental illness. We meet Rachel as she’s recollecting everything that happened in the months preceding – her lawyer has told her to write it all down while she’s in custody. As a reader we realise that Luc has gone off the rails, that a terrible crime has been committed and somehow Rachel’s involved.

The plot see-saws in time, back and forth, filling in the gaps – Rachel’s fear she’s being followed, her tricky relationship with a woman at work, an obsessive patient, her escape to a conference in France and her affair with Luc. It seems nobody’s on her side – apart from her dear neighbour Victoria, but she’s away on photo shoots a lot or off caring for a dying mother.

As the narrator, Rachel is the perfect character for a story like this. She’s intelligent, obviously, but very trusting, so the plot delivers plenty of surprises as facts rise to the surface. As a reader you are in the position of constantly yelling, look out behind you! And why is she so vague about whether or not she locked up her house? She really needs to be more careful. But she also seems to know her stuff as a doctor – you can tell Jane Shemilt’s own work as a GP inspired her story.

The setting is gorgeous. As well as Salisbury it takes you to the South of France, and the countryside around Arles, where Van Gogh painted his sunflowers. Luc’s mental illness is a kind of echo of Van Gogh’s. But inside of a prison cell is not so nice, particularly when you’re on the cusp of losing everything.

The Patient is a well put-together, nicely written addition to psychological thriller genre. There are plenty of surprises and the before and after timeframe maintains suspense nicely. I enjoyed the novel as an audiobook, read by Hilary McLean, who gave the character of Rachel just the right tone. It’s very easy to binge on psychological thrillers like these, they can be so compelling, particularly the good ones. The Patient is a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda – a twisty tale, nicely turned, with a determined young protagonist

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These psychological thrillers – or domestic noir, as they’re sometimes called – can become quite addictive. Megan Miranda’s novel The Last House Guest is a nicely-turned mystery full of suspense and that often used device of scenes from before woven in with those after. What starts out as a story of a young woman investigating the death of her best friend soon turns into a complex tale of family secrets, power and money.

Avery works for the Loman family who rent out summer cottages in the coastal town of Littleport, Maine. Every summer, the town is bursting at the seams with wealthy summer visitors, Avery doing the donkey work of managing these short-term tenancies, the Loman parents with other fish to fry back in Connecticut. At the end of the season, the younger Lomans – Sadie and Parker – organise a Plus-One party at one of the houses, until one year the party ends in disaster.

Nobody saw Sadie Loman at the last party, but somehow she has ended up lifeless in her party clothes at the bottom of a cliff. Avery doesn’t believe for a moment that Sadie killed herself, and Avery should know, they’d been best friends for years. The story flips back to fill in Avery’s story – the loss of her parents in a car crash, her wild teen years, and her rescue by the Lomans. And then there’s her friendship with Sadie and how it faltered not long before the party.

It was hard to simultaneously grieve and reconstruct your own alibi. It was tempting to accuse someone else just to give yourself some space. It would have been so easy. But none of us had done it, and I thought that was a testament to Sadie herself. Than none of us could imagine wanting her dead.

Odd things start to happen – electricity gong out, a break-in at one of the cottages. Another renter complaining that someone had lit some candles in their cottage while they were out. When Avery finds Sadie’s phone, shortly before a special remembrance ceremony for Sadie, Avery starts to piece together the events leading up to her death.

There’s a lot for Avery to worry about. If there’s a killer out there, she is surely in danger and she has no one she can trust. And her falling out with Sadie just before her death means she can’t go to the police without implicating herself. And the police are still sniffing around, Detective Ben Collins always hovering hoping to catch a word.

The story builds to a thrilling ending as more secrets are revealed, more is revealed from witnesses, more lies uncovered. There is enough of a twist at the end to keep the reader guessing, and tempers boil over in a final showdown with the killer. The before and after plotting is a little beguiling at times, but it works in that it reminds you what it’s like to be remembering things in bits or piecing together events as you find out more information.

I found the beginning of the book reminded me a little of Wuthering Heights, which I know seems a little crazy. Avery reminded me of Heathcliffe, a young person given a new chance, a cuckoo in the nest of the wealthy family. Her memories of Sadie veer into being obsessive, she also has a wildness about her, a temper that has got her into trouble in her youth. But then she’s had a rough time of it, losing her family so young. Her situation placing her not quite part of the wealthy Loman clan, but not well-regarded by the townsfolk makes her a maverick character and as such she’s alone and vulnerable. But as a reader, you can never quite know how much you can trust her version of events.

I’ll be happy to pick up another Megan Miranda novel when I feel like another dose of suspense – she does it well. The writing is smart, the characterisation interesting and the story never lets up. The Last House Guest is a four star read from me.

Book Review: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward – a struggling family, a desperate girl and a hurricane

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It’s so easy to go for a book that’s a nice relaxing read and totally forget the wider world. But this time I took up Salvage the Bones with the idea that this might be a fairly gritty read and, well, yes it was. But it is just so instantly immersing and the storytelling so engaging that once I’d picked it up, I really didn’t have much say in the matter.

The story follows a poor African-American family living in Mississippi in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. This family has such a lot to deal with. Told from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Esch, we’re soon in her world – a house on the outskirts of town which she shares with older brothers Skeetah and Randall, a much younger brother, Junior, and their alcohol-dependent father.

Daddy is very hurricane-aware and weather warnings impel him to get his house in order – the bottled water and extra supplies, gathering the timber to board up the windows, but his children have other things on their minds. Randall has hopes of going to basketball camp – he’s got potential, and if he can perform well at an upcoming game, he can earn some sponsorship. Skeetah is more entrepreneurial; his pit bull is due to give birth to puppies and China being such a good fighter, he thinks he can sell the pups for a good price.

Junior has been cared for since day one by his older siblings and is a bit of a loose cannon, though very much loved. And that’s the thing. There is such a lot of love in this family between the siblings, but without a lot of parental guidance things pretty soon go haywire. And no one is more desperate than Esch – in love with one of her brother’s friends who is blatantly using her, and pregnant. But Esch is also a reader, dipping into a book of mythology from school, especially drawn to the story of Jason and empathising with the ill-used princess Medea.

After Mama died, Daddy said, What are you crying for? Stop crying. Crying ain’t going to change anything. We never stopped crying. We just did it quieter. We hid it. I learned how to cry so that almost no tears leaked out of my eyes, so that I swallowed the hot salty water of them and felt them running down my throat. This was the only thing that we could do. I swallow and squint through the tears, and I run.

The plot is really compelling as the siblings resort to all kinds of escapades to help fulfil their ambitions, or to just get by. It’s a very different world, there’s danger and lawlessness, and the story doesn’t shy away from the violence inherent in these kids’ lives, and of their acceptance of it as a kind of normal. But there’s also camaraderie and loyalty, a tight-knit community that sticks together. Plenty to keep a story going as it is, but on top of everything else, there’s a hurricane coming.

The story builds up to a dramatic climax – the weather event we are expecting makes its presence felt and it’s truly life and death. Earlier in the year, in my neck of the woods, we also experienced a cyclone (that’s what we call hurricanes here), and as I was reading this was well aware of the kinds of situations that people can find themselves in if they don’t get out in time, or if things get a lot worse than predicted.

I raced through this book, particularly the final chapters, engrossed in Esch’s world, but also dazzled by the writing. Jesmyn Ward won a National Book Award for this novel, a prize she’s won again for Sing, Unburied, Sing, and she’s brilliant, confronting, but also immensely readable. I’ll be putting Ward on my must-read list and give this book five stars out of five.

Book Review: The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams – a war-at-home story set among Oxford’s printing presses

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Pip William’s first novel, the inordinately successful The Dictionary of Lost Words was always going to be a tough act to follow. But when The Bookbinder of Jericho came my way I was soon swept up in Peggy’s story – the work she does at the Oxford’s Clarendon Press in the bindery’s folding room with other women. It’s a segregated working environment, the women collating the pages from the printing room, folding them ready for stitching and binding, a man’s job. Just as it’s men who are always the machine operators and compositors, mechanics and readers.

Oxford itself is also segregated along class lines. Peggy and twin sister Maude live on a canal boat, still missing their mother who died several years before. The are ‘town’, the ordinary working folk who live outside the walls that separate the academic inhabitants of Oxford – or ‘gown’. But we’re on the brink of World War I, and things are set to change.

Peggy can’t help trying to read the books they are folding; she’s smart and yearns for a higher education. Her mother was also a reader, and their canal boat is crammed with books and parts of books that didn’t made the grade, But her sister needs her, or so she thinks, and Peggy sticks by her side. Maude is a little fey, her fingers always busy folding even in her spare time, her conversation a parroting of the phrases of others. The arrival of Belgian refugees, and in particularly Lotte, a grief-stricken woman who joins them at the folding bench, shakes up Peggy’s relationship with her sister, challenging her excuses for avoiding change.

I’d been walking past Somerville all my life, imagining what it was like for the women on the other side of the wall. Now, here I was, a little bit of Jericho littering an Oxford quad. I remembered when I first thought of being one of them – I’d been listening when I shouldn’t have been. She’d be well suited to the Oxford High School, my teacher had said. I know that, Ma had replied, but she won’t leave Maude. My teacher persisted. I think she’s bright enough for college. Ma sighed, It’s not always enough, though, is it? I’d thought of the income I could start earning at the Press, the difference it would make. I’d stopped listening

Other characters breeze through the book and rock Peggy’s world. There’s Gwen, the upper class girl she meets when the two volunteer to read to wounded soldiers. Gwen is ‘gown’, but finds Peggy’s world fascinating. Peggy can’t be sure if her friendship’s genuine or is she just a pet project? Then there’s Bastiaan, the badly scarred Belgian soldier Peggy is drawn to during her hospital visits. He would definitely be ‘gown’ if he were at home, studying architecture, but war has a levelling effect and the two meet as equals.

Tilda is the girls’ mother’s great friend, a flamboyant actress who becomes a VAD at the front, her letters revealing the horrific realities of life in the field hospital at Etaples. There’s Rosie in the canal boat ‘next door’, whose son Jack marches off to war with so many of the boys from the Press. We also momentarily meet Vera Brittain (Testament of Youth) when Peggy attends a function for the refugees at Somerville – the women’s college Peggy eyes with longing.

As Peggy’s views of things are challenged by her new acquaintances, the war grinds on, news of horrific battles and casualty lists filtering back to Oxford. The book is divided into parts which roughly equate to a year in the war, and a book from the presses. In the background there’s another battle going on – the battle for women’s rights, the suffrage movement on hold for the duration. This enlivens the conversations Peggy has with Gwen, but it’s hard for Peggy not to feel bitter. The vote for women when it comes will only be for women over thirty and landowning ones at that – the vote by no means universal.

As the plot goes, The Bookbinder of Jericho isn’t exactly riveting reading. Like Peggy’s life, all the action seems to be happening to someone else, somewhere else. Peggy seems to be in a kind of holding pen, waiting. As a reader I found myself waiting too. What makes the book interesting is the world Pip Williams has created. The little enclave in the printing presses of Oxford is well researched and described in detail. Lovingly so. Then there’s Peggy and Maude’s canal boat and life on the water. Everything tucked into corners to make the most of the space. The frugality of their world – apart from paper, which is everywhere.

So The Bookbinder of Jericho gets top marks for characterisation and world building, for bringing history to life. But I did find myself rushing through it to get to ‘the good bits’ rather than savouring it. There’s still a lot to like and even more to think about so I’ll probably read this author again. This novel’s gets three and a half out of five stars from me.

Book Review: A Million Things by Emily Spurr – a resilient young heroine struggling with loss

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I was drawn to this book by its compelling storyline – a young girl all alone, trying to pretend nothing is wrong after her mother disappears. Well, that’s how it seemed to start with. The book’s told from the point of view of ten-year-old Rae – but it’s not your standard first-person narrative voice. Often Rae is talking to a ‘you’ – the mother who isn’t there.

It would be easy to assume that the mother is missing because she hasn’t come home. But Rae’s mother has been mentally ill for quite some time. No wonder Rae knows about the routine of managing meals and getting herself to school, of walking Splinter, the dog. Rae has had to be the grown-up a lot of the time. Only this time Rae’s mother has ended her life in the backyard shed. With no one else to turn to, Rae must manage as best she can on her own.

Rae decides to keep going on her own. She becomes adept at keeping up appearances. She gets herself off to school, takes care of the house, and feeds the dog. There’s no time for grief. If only that nosy old lady next door wasn’t always on her front verandah watching. But Lettie has secrets of her own, things she doesn’t want anybody knowing about. It’s only when Rae hears her calling for help one day that the two discover that they need each other.

Each time you’d go, noises muffled and sharpened and silence got loud. I’d stand still, trying not to breathe, waiting for the door to open and for you to come back through it. The silence you left after you grabbed the keys from the bowl on the table and slammed out the door would stand like a person beside me. The bang made me jump every time. Even though I knew it was coming. Knew from the second your eyes lost focus and tightened and you stopped seeing me and saw only this thing ruining your life.

Things become more complicated by the arrival of new people along the street, Oscar who is the same age as Rae, just wants to make friends, but when he parrots critical comments of his mother about Lettie, Rae finds herself sticking up for her neighbour. She doesn’t want social services nosing around.

It is heartbreaking the lengths Rae will go to pretend everything is normal, alleviated in some part by her growing friendship with Lettie. We slowly get pieces of Lettie’s story, her family tragedy. The tension builds as all the plates Rae tries to keep spinning descend one by one and a dramatic event brings help from an unexpected quarter.

This is one of those books that has you holding your breath – you are so much in Rae’s impossible world. The friendly banter between Rae and Lettie lightens things a little, but the old woman’s situation is horrendous as well. You feel how easy it is for life to get on top of you and the book becomes a sensitive portrait of the effects of mental illness, but of resilience as well. The reluctance to let someone else into your life when you need help; of not wanting anything to change. Of holding onto the grief that ensnares you, that keeps the missing loved one there as a constant presence.

A Million Things was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Prize and won the BookBrowse Best Debut Novel 2021. Emily Spurr is certainly a writer to watch. A Million Things gets four stars from me.

Book Review: No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby – a light and humorous adventure

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This novel was a breath of fresh air, a lively read that was a welcome pick-me-up without challenging the brain cells too much. Part rom-com, part mystery with a little comedy of manners thrown in, No Life for a Lady follows Violet Hamilton who lives with her father in the English seaside town of Hastings.

We’re in the final years of the 19th century, and at 28, Violet should be happily married off by now, according to her respectable banker dad. But Violet is determined never to marry, her parents own marriage having been somewhat less than blissful. So much so that a decade ago, Violet’s beautiful mother Lily disappeared. She’d just popped out to visit friends one evening and never returned.

Lily’s disappearance might have been an accidental drowning as she was last seen on the pier. Had she fallen into the sea and been washed away? That certainly seems to be a possible theory and the one Mr Hamilton propounds to Violet, all the better for her to put her mother behind her and move on with her life. But Violet feels she would know if her mother had died, and thinks she could be out there somewhere, maybe even needing help.

When Violet decides to hire a detective, she sets in motion a chain of unforeseen events that spell disaster on one hand, but also push Violet to becoming a sleuth herself. Frank Knight is the only detective in town and eagerly takes on her case. But Violet is unimpressed with his lack of professionalism, and his assumptions about Lily seem set to defame her rather than save her.

The disappointments of the decade had been compounded by the realisation it was almost impossible for a lady to take up a respectable profession. I had been set on the idea, but now my attic was filled with the skeletons of half-finished hats, faded botanical specimens and, most tragic of all, dusty portraits of a few worthy occupants of the town. This last career had ended abruptly when I persuaded the wife of the town mayor to pose for a portrait. I had faithfully included all three of her chins, upon which she told me she had only sat for me out of sympathy, forbade me to continue as an artist and left, chins wobbling in fury.

Violet finds an old newspaper which leads her to Benjamin Blackthorn, a reluctant detective who has given up the trade in favour of selling furniture in the old, slightly seedy part of town. While he is the opposite of Knight in every way, Benjamin refuses to take on her case, but Violet wears him down enough to allow her to help with one or two cases that require a woman’s touch. Violet is more enthusiastic than subtle at the outset, which leads to some hilarious confrontations.

Dolby’s manuscript for the book was the runner-up in the Comedy Women in Print awards, and there are plenty of fun scenes, the writing’s witty, but there’s plenty to think about too. There are issues around the constraints placed on women in the era, of class and the lack of choice when it comes to making a living: marriage, servitude or prostitution seem to be the main options for women. Add to that the resigned tedium of being stuck in an unhappy marriage; the ignominy of divorce.

Packed with an assortment of quaint and humorous characters, the story builds to a dramatic conclusion involving surprising revelations and a fair amount of danger. For a young lady of her time, Violet has to step outside the norm of proper behaviour but finds allies in surprising places. The ending leaves us with possibilities for a sequel, perhaps more cases for Violet to solve. I shall certainly be keen to read more of Violet’s adventures. No Life for a Lady gets four out of five stars from me.

Delving into the Classics – the Return of the Spin

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Just when I’ve been revisiting the life of Katherine Mansfield the Classics Club are rolling out another Spin Challenge. This is the perfect challenge if you feel like a change from reading the latest thing everyone’s talking about. Or if you want to escape into another era or ease into a writing style that has a slower more considered pace. Or maybe you just want to ditch the quandary of what to read next. I can probably say yes to all of that.

So I’ll be reading a book from the following list that corresponds to a number chosen by the Classics Club.

1 Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930)
2 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945)
3 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (1938)
4 The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (1957)
5 The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing (1950)
6 A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute (1950)
7 The Garden Party and other stories by Katherine Mansfield (1922)
8 A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell (1951)
9 The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Buchan (1938)
10 Vittoria Cottage by D E Stevenson (1949)
11 Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (1928)
12 Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence (1913)
13 The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1855
14 Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1953)
15 To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
16  A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (1951)
17 Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann (1939)
18 The River by Rumer Golden (1946)
19 The End of the Affair by Graham Green (1951)
20 Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)

Book Review: Katherine Mansfield’s Europe: Station to Station by Redmer Yska – a gorgeous book that brings KM’s travels to life

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I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but being a bit of a Katherine Mansfield fan was drawn to this book. Before reading a sentence however, it was the pictures that won me over. This is such a beautiful piece of publishing. There are multiple double-page spreads showing the places that KM journeyed to in search of better health. Even before her illness, she’d always been a happy traveller, hopping on a train and popping over to Europe. What London-based New Zealander isn’t?

Katherine Mansfield’s Europe describes those journeys, beginning at the end where KM died at Avon, a short journey from Paris. 2023 marks 100 years since her death and there have been a few new books about KM, the Bloomsbury Group author from New Zealand who mesmerised so many with her stories. Yska then takes us around Europe following in her footsteps, visiting the places where she stayed, the parks and gardens, and the memorials. Along with Yska’s own impressions, which are sensitive and insightful, are snippets from KM’s own writing, helping the reader to see things through her own eyes.

The book takes us back to Germany, inspiration for the story collection In a German Pension, where KM was whisked off in a hurry by her mother when discovered pregnant by a man not her husband. There is also Paris during WWI and a flat belonging to a lover. But much of the book is KM’s search for kinder climates and better health as tuberculosis set in. So we have Menton and the Côte d’Azur, San Remo and Ospedaletti as well as the clearer air of alpine Switzerland, and Paris again where she endured an experimental new treatment.

Yska is very interesting on KM’s problematic relationships, firstly with her mother, then her husband, John Middleton Murray, and Ida, the devoted friend who put her own life on hold to act as both companion and nurse. We know KM can’t have been easy to get along with and TB isn’t kind on anyone. There are a few interesting revelations that might shock or surprise – Yska chats to many people as he goes and there always seems to be something new about KM to consider. And it seems everywhere she stayed, KM left behind a following of people determined to remember her fondly, in spite of the caustic observations that pop up in some of her stories.

Katherine Mansfield’s Europe is a lovely book, beautifully illustrated with old photographs, postcards and maps. as well as modern-day views of the places Yska visited. It’s a fascinating dive into the life of an intriguing woman, and a different era – the pre-war ebullience; the horrific war and the restraint that followed. It’s a nice book to have on hand when you revisit the stories – which I did as I read – or even just to flip through for the pictures. It’s an easy five out of five stars from me.

Book Review: The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott – a superbly atmospheric psychological thriller

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I was drawn to this novel by by the setting. Not only the rural Scottish village but the creepy old house, a large manse that dates back centuries and a history including blood-thirsty reprisals during the Jacobite rebellion. It’s bound to be haunted, and yes the opening sentence of Chapter One is ‘The Manse is watching me.’

The narrator of the story is Aisla Calder who has taken a break from her high-powered job based in London as a television news producer, following the death of her mother. She’s been left an old house in her mother’s will, but she is unable to sell it because the Manse is co-owned by Martin Calder, her father, who walked out on his family when Aisla was a child. He hasn’t been seen since and nobody knows if he is dead or alive. Also missing is the packet of diamonds he was carrying for the company he worked for. It’s all very suspicious.

Each chapter begins with an imaginary account of where he might have got to, while Aisla sets in motion the legal proceedings to prove that he’s dead. After living in the Manse a short time, she’s somewhat reluctant to stay. Thank goodness her sister Carrie has agreed to come to keep her company while she sorts things out. Carrie is a bright young actress in a play a commuter train’s ride away in Edinburgh, but there is a strain between them. Carrie can’t quite forgive Aisla for not being around as she grew up, not coming to see her on stage.

It’s bad enough having to deal with all the family stuff, the loss of a mother who was a terrific artist, but not at all loving, of an unsupportive relationship with a top TV news reporter, and having to negotiate the tricky waters of living with her sister. But there’s creepy stuff happening at the Manse too. Her neighbour, friendly Jamie drops in unannounced to explain about his weird sister, Fiona, who has a fascination with the place. It’s best she has her locks changed.

I want to feel that I am me, created from pure air, my genes unsullied by ancestry. I want to feel that my thoughts and reactions and decisions are mine and mine alone. But being here, in Scotland, in the Manse of all places, has me feeling the weight of my DNA, of the history and memories and behavioural patterns it carries. Of the impact it has had, or might yet have, on what I think of as me.

Aisla finds in the attic some old photos from before Aisla was born showing Jamie’s parents and her own – obviously friends. But what are those aerial maps all about? And then there are hostile locals to deal with – openly abusive old Morag – and nasty things left on the doorstep. The house doesn’t seem to like Aisla much either – the heating turns itself off, the smoke alarm goes in the middle of the night and the bathroom door keeps banging. Aisla was sure she’d closed the window.

An intelligent woman in her thirties, Aisla should be able to deal with a lot of this stuff rationally. But she’s always so tired and the emotional events of recent weeks have taken a toll. This all adds to the tension as things get more and more worrisome. She’s made friends with other locals, the handsome Ben who’s a bit of a player among them, and talks to Jamie’s father who was the policeman who investigated Martin Calder’s disappearance. If only Carrie hadn’t become so chummy with weird Fiona. It’s as if there’s no one she can really trust and as a reader you can’t help wondering which if them is plotting against Aisla. Elliott instills a nice undercurrent of menace.

It all builds to a dramatic, nail-biting showdown with the malefactor, the house creating an eerie backdrop, to say nothing of the Scottish weather. The Missing Years is a satisfying story, a brilliant psychological thriller, a breezy, engaging read that’s also nicely written. It’s sure to please fans of Ruth Ware and Clare Mackintosh. I’m keen to read more by Lexie Elliott – it’s hard to resist a title like How to Kill Your Best Friend. This novel gets four out of five stars from me.

Book Review: The War Pianist by Mandy Robotham – wartime danger across the airwaves

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This is one of those wartime novels featuring a heroine who is just an ordinary girl toughing it out against Hitler. She probably never wanted to get involved in the Resistance or working as a spy for SOE, but something has triggered her desire to get involved. There will be a couple of military aircraft from the era on the front cover, discretely in a corner so you know it’s a war story. A ton of books like this have been written lately, and they can be a fun read, but how do you tell which are the good ones?

I’d really enjoyed the audiobook version of The Resistance Girl by Mandy Robotham, which took me to the war in Norway. It had engaging characters, a really nasty malefactor, a bit of romance, plenty of suspenseful dodging of the enemy, and the promise of a happy ending. But I learned a lot about the war in Norway and how it affected people, the heroic ways they fought back. The story didn’t shy away from some of the horrific events of the war but describes them off-stage so nothing’s ever too harrowing for the reader.

And it’s much the same here with The War Pianist. Marnie works at the BBC in London helping to prepare radio scripts for airing. Her parents have decamped to Scotland and apart from cousin Susie who is wondering about leaving London too, her only family is Gilbert, her adored grandfather, still running his tailoring business near Trafalgar Square. But after a bombing raid by the Luftwaffe, Marnie is horrified to discover the shop has been levelled and her grandfather is dead.

Reeling with grief, Marnie goes back to the shop one day in search of a memento of her beloved relative only to find hidden away in a basement cupboard, a radio set for transmitting. Gilbert was a man with a secret, and Marnie worries that he might have been a spy. As she carries the radio away with her she is brought to a halt by an ARP warden who turns out to be someone else keeping a secret. Willem is a Dutch Resistance fighter in London to help shore up support from Britain on the behest of Queen Wilhelmina.

Willem persuades Marnie to take over from Gilbert, sending coded messages to Corrie, Willem’s fellow Resistance fighter in Amsterdam. Marnie knows all about radios from her work at the BBC, and she and her grandfather used to play games in Morse Code when she was young. So Marnie, fired up with rage against Hitler because of the Blitz and her grief, is the perfect recruit to step into Gilbert’s shoes. But she has to be careful, as there are reports of fifth columnists supporting the enemy at large, who are watching and listening. Who can she trust?

When the inevitable sirens stir the BBC’s populace into the basement that evening, something in her – she doesn’t know what – is drawn in the opposite direction, up onto the roof of Broadcasting House. Climbing out into a sky already glowing orange and a wind warmed by fiery destruction, she stands aghast. It’s as if Hitler has taken a match to a box of fireworks and simply sprinkled the contents across London – the red tracer fire of ack-ack guns meeting mandarin sparks from a fresh explosion, tiny pockets of green-blue glow like fireflies amid the rubble as the gas mains are hit below. A rainbow of destruction that’s both vivid and grotesque.

The story weaves Marnie’s story in with Corrie’s in Amsterdam, where things are a lot more desperate under the Nazi Occupation. It’s only 1940 and the resistance is in its early stages while reprisals and food shortages are the order of the day. There are reports of devastation in other cities like Rotterdam and fear is widespread. But Corrie continues with her radio, messages kept as brief as possible to avoid her site of transmission being pinpointed by the enemy.

The story takes Marnie across to Amsterdam where the plot ramps up a lot. Here the evil Nazi officer, Lothar Selig, is keen to make his mark – he also turns up in The Resistance Girl – when one of the Willem’s team disappears. There’s an emotional connection, so this gives the story a bit more punch. Marnie is also torn emotionally, but will do anything to help and her radio skills become crucial. The story builds to a taut ending and it’s a satisfying read, without ever being too grim centre stage.

I confess I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as The Resistance Girl, although it’s still a pacy read and interesting for the most part. The romantic element seemed a bit forced, maybe because the character of Willem is not particularly well developed. I might give Robotham another go, or if I’m in the mood for a good wartime story, I’ll head back to Pam Jenoff or Kate Quinn, who are pretty solid in this genre. The War Pianist gets three out of four stars from me.