Book Review: Death of a Stranger by John Pilkington – an entertaining historical mystery and the start of a promising new series

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John Pilkington is an old hand when it comes to historical mysteries, with a number of series under his belt, among them the Thomas the Falconer series. Death of a Stranger takes us back to Elizabethan England in the first book featuring Matthew Cutler, a constable in the parish of Spitalfields. It’s 1594, when the murder of an Italian perfumer causes a need for answers, as well as anxiety among the other “strangers” or immigrants of the parish.

When a further threat against a French button maker occurs, the obvious conclusion is that someone is targeting the local “strangers”, either for being possible Papists or other reasons of their own. Matthew is fed assorted leads, a stonemason with a bitter nature since the loss of his daughter to the plague; a former acting friend of Matthew’s who had had a dispute with the perfumer. They’re all dead ends, but rather than dropping the matter as his employer, Alderman Skinner requests, Matthew determines to find justice for the dead man. Could someone be planting false clues?

What Matthew doesn’t yet know is how far his search for the truth will take him into the world of the movers and shakers of Elizabethan society, the perfumer having made house calls to favoured customers, some of them bored wives of powerful men. So there’s a lot to set the story going in interesting directions. Matthew hits wall after wall before he can convince his superiors that the case is worth pursuing.

As an investigator, Matthew is an interesting character. To begin with he’s educated, having fallen out with his magistrate father, and dropped out of his Cambridge studies after a year to become an actor. He lost his wife to the plague not long ago, and has two daughters in his care, his wife’s aunt living with them as housekeeper. He has come to the role of constable at the request of his gunmaker father-in-law.

As the story progresses, Matthew’s education and acting talent come in handy for questioning people of high public standing, an idea brought to him by Margaret Fisher, a comfortably off widow, friend and potential love interest. At first Matthew’s not convinced it’s a good idea – he’s used to being able to gain confessions from miscreants with the threat of the law and its grim punishments, but it’s a different story with the upper classes. I can imagine there will be plenty of potential for Matthew to don the clothes of Margaret’s late husband and the role of Sir Amos Gallett again in future books.

John Pilkington obviously knows his Elizabethan era well, for while Death of a Stranger is an entertaining story on its own, the period details make the story come alive. It was interesting to see a little of how humbler folk lived – so many historical novels concentrate on those at court – but I liked reading about the work of the gunsmith, the night watchman or the people at the local tavern, which doubles as a venue for the inquest.

Death of a Stranger is an enjoyable historical mystery, with John Pilkington writing in a style that sounds Elizabethan enough to add colour without being difficult for the modern reader. And Matthew Cutler is an engaging enough character for me to want to find out what he does next. I’ll certainly be on the look-out for the next book in the series. This first instalment is a four star read from me.

I read Death of a Stranger courtesy of Netgalley and Boldwood Books. The book is due for release on 14 November.

Book Review: Back When We Were Grown-Ups by Anne Tyler – revisiting an old favourite

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

While there are so many terrific new books out there to tempt and distract, I like to come back to old favourites now and then. A favourite author for me is Anne Tyler. Back When We Were Grown-Ups was first published in 2001 but has a kind of timeless quality which I find very appealing. It follows Rebecca who wonders how life would have been different if she hadn’t been swept off her feet by Joe Davitch all those years ago; if she’d finished college and gone on to marry her childhood sweetheart instead.

At barely twenty, Rebecca had met Joe at a party venue his family ran called the Open Arms, a large terrace house with high ceilings in a slightly rundown part of Baltimore. An odd coincidence makes her laugh, and Joe is drawn towards her apparently cheerful nature. But all the while, Rebecca had always seen herself as a fairly serious girl, intent on finishing her history degree.

Not only does she marry Joe instead, but she also takes on his three daughters, has one of her own and, when Joe dies in a car crash six years into their marriage, she runs the Open Arms as well. This doesn’t even include the elderly folk she looks after, first Joe’s mother, then Poppy, his uncle. The Open Arms needs constant repairs, and as the decades pass, there are grandchildren to babysit too.

She’s fifty-three when we meet her at the start of the book, organising a family barbecue and trying to make everyone happy. Which isn’t always easy – the Davitches are a prickly, discontented bunch at times, particularly the girls, who are prone to squabbling or disapproving of their sisters’ choices. Circumstances trigger Rebecca into wondering what happened to the boy she dumped for Joe, and she decides to look him up.

Min Foo turned to Rebecca. “I was thinking about your dream,” she said.
“My dream,” Rebecca echoed. In the flurry of lunch, she had started to forget her dream. Now it came back to her, but with the boy more distant now, more of an other. “What about it?” she asked Min Foo.
“If you dreamed you had a son, not daughters, and if the son was blond, not dark …” Min Foo was shepherding the children toward the front of the house, so that Rebecca had to follow her. “Well, it seems to me,” she said, “that you were dreaming how things would be if you’d chosen a different fork in the road. You know what I mean? If you’d decided on some different kind of life than you have now.”
This struck Rebecca as so apt, and so immediately obvious where it hadn’t been before, that she stopped short. Oh, her girls could surprise her so, every now and then!

This really is a novel of characters – the four daughters all with their own set of problems are constantly in and out of the Open Arms, also the Davitch home which Rebecca still shares with Poppy, now approaching his 100th birthday. We’ve got the girls’ partners and offspring, as well as Zeb, Rebecca’s goofy brother-in-law, a hospital doctor who’s never married.

They’re all interesting and entertaining, but I particularly loved Poppy with his memories and enjoyment of food, his discourse on what it’s like to be so old and so on. And Peter, who at eleven is a new arrival into the family via his father’s marriage to one of the girls. He sticks out for being pale compared to the dark haired Davitches as well as shy and nerdy. Tyler captures beautifully the bickering dialogue of sisters, the way conversations waft in and out between characters, between topics as people pounce on ideas or lose the thread of what they were saying, with all the humour that results.

The story takes its time as Rebecca rethinks her life and tries to reconnect with her old flame, now a divorced physics professor, and ponders her choices. Was Joe ever in love with her, or was she just useful when he needed help? Some readers may find the pace a little slow as the scenes, often party scenes, pile one on top of the other. A baby is born, there’s a wedding and Poppy has his birthday bash, meals are served and tradespeople called in.

But without being an out and out comedy, I found myself chuckling my way through them all. I once came across a comment Tyler made about the fiction of Barbara Pym in which she stated: “she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life”. The same could be said of this novel, the way Tyler captures all the muddles, missteps and misconceptions. I loved it, finding it well-worth a reread, both relaxing and hugely entertaining – a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse – a gripping mystery-thriller set in the Swiss Alps

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I like a good thriller set in an environment which hampers the investigation. There are plenty set in Scotland, but The Sanatorium might be the first I’ve read set in the Swiss Alps.

It’s January, so winter is well established, when Elin and her boyfriend, Will, arrive at a swanky hotel that was a former sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. They are there to help her brother celebrate his engagement to Laure, who works at the hotel, but before the other invitees arrive, the weather worsens, with avalanche warnings threatening the only road out.

Which is one problem. When Laure goes missing Elin starts digging. She’s a cop on extended leave after losing her mother to cancer and a particularly horrific case that left her traumatised. Elin’s also worried about her brother Isaac and has a score to settle. He was there when their young brother died, and because of their constant rivalry, of Isaac’s endless need to prove himself, Elin has often wondered if Isaac was being honest in his account of what happened all those years ago. So there’s that.

When weather conditions deteriorate to such an extent, the call goes out to evacuate the hotel, a body is found in the pool. Now that the last bus out has gone, the police can’t get in, so Elin is asked by the hotel owner, Lucas, to help. Despite her ongoing anxiety – she has panic attacks and flashbacks – Elin has to step up. She has been ignoring her boss’s frequent emails asking when she’s coming back to work, and trying not to think about Will’s wanting to make their relationship more permanent. So she’s got a lot going on in her personal life, too.

But the reader knows this is going to be Elin’s chance to prove her worth, without the support of her team, with a killer somewhere in the hotel, a missing woman and a dead body. The weather batters and threatens and the remaining guests and staff are unsettled. There’s also the mystery hovering in the background of what happened to Daniel, the hotel’s architect, who disappeared a couple of years before.

And then there’s the hotel itself. An austere architectural monstrosity, ground-breaking to some, like Will, who being an architect, is impressed. But Elin finds it unnerving. So much glass, and windows that don’t let you ignore the weather outside. But it’s the building’s former purpose that is really chilling. Laure shows Elin a storeroom before she disappears, which still houses some grim-looking equipment. Even the artwork that graces the hotel walls is a stark reminder that many people came here with incurable illnesses.

Bending, she gathers the fallen papers into a pile. She realises it’s not only papers but photographs. The image on top is haunting – a row of women sitting outside on the verandah. They’re thin, sickly looking, their eyes turned to the camera. Looking right into hers.
Patients, Elin thinks, shivering at this tangible intrusion of the hotel’s past into its present,, suddenly acutely aware of how little separates her from what came before.
All at once she feels a tightening in her throat. One breath is not following the other as it should, instead hiding, elusive, impossible to grasp. Her chest is heaving, her lungs feel like they’re filled with something liquid.
Don’t panic. Don’t let it take over. Not here. Not in front of Laure.
Laure looks at her closely. ‘Is something wrong?’
Elin fumbles in her pocket, clamping her hand around her inhaler. ‘I’m fine.’

So there’s an awful lot here to build tension, inside the hotel and out, with Elin’s inner struggles and the case to worry about. I started this novel as an audiobook which is really well-performed by Gemma Whelan, who has to do French and German accents and pulls off the characterisation with aplomb. But it was such an engrossing story, I wanted to get my hands on a physical copy as well. I galloped through it all and found it overall a pretty good escapist read – four stars – with the promise of two more mysteries in the Elin Warner series to look forward to.

Book Review: Totally Fine by Nick Spalding – an entertaining comedy of manners with a touch of philosophy amid the humour

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The main character in Nick Spalding’s new novel is Charlie King, who could be a really annoying person if he was in your life, if he wasn’t so well meaning. Obviously his girlfriend Annie sees this in him, as do his long-time buddies, Leo and Jack, but really, life with a Charlie King around would be exhausting.

Charlie makes his living planning events, all kinds of parties and marketing do’s for the middle classes. And he’s really good at it. The story begins with the birthday party he’s planned at a bowling alley for Annie’s young nephew, with a Jurassic Park theme, actors in costumes and fake dinosaurs, the works. A panic attack hits Charlie, triggered by an annoying song by the Black Eyed Peas – the same song that was on the radio when he had that car accident a while ago – something he’d never told Annie about. In fact he’s rather blotted it from his mind.

Doing his best to put the incident at the birthday party behind him, He gets back to work. But something isn’t right and he makes a big mistake at a gender-reveal party, which sees his business suddenly going south. Charlie decides the time out this offers is the perfect opportunity to confront his issues. But when he realises that his best mates Leo and Jack are also suffering from anxiety, Charlie decides they can all fix their problems together. Because that’s what Charlie does – fixes things up and makes everything perfect. If he can do that with events, he can do that with personal problems, right?

I have Zenith Games at 10.30 a.m. to talk about the event they’d like to hold for the launch of their first PC adventure. Then at 2 p.m., I’m back over to Howling at the Moon to go through the finer points of their first gig back together for sixteen years. And then I have to fit in poor Elaine and the poodles at some point, as well. The pet expo, which is only three weeks away now, has told her she needs to reduce her floor size by ten square metres, which is going to be problematic, to say the least. Those poodles enjoy their space.
My brain is buzzing with a whole series of disparate jobs that I wish I could manage over the course of the next few weeks … but here I am in the perfect storm of them all needing to be sorted out today.
And then there’s little Teddy’s birthday party!

The story follows Charlie’s harrying his friends into different therapeutic options, from magic mushrooms, to navel-gazing in the wilderness. This creates plenty of amusing and visually interesting scenes. Throughout everything, he ignores Annie’s advice to consult a doctor, or his friend’s growing resentment. He seems unable to see what’s under his nose or understand his own problem. Why is he so afraid to see a doctor?

Totally Fine is an entertaining look at some of society’s ills – the pressure to perform, the endless distractions demanding our attention, the need to seem strong to the ones we love when inside we need help. Nothing really new but maybe ramped up here for the digital age. This is shown through one man’s problems, and as a professional tasked with providing his clients with the perfect social media opportunities, Charlie is the perfect protagonist for this. Perfectly imperfect, that is.

It’s a light, fun read, if you don’t mind a bit of schoolboy humour from time to time. It’s touch and go whether everything will turn out “totally fine” for Charlie and his friends, but you can bet there will be lessons learned. I read this after some darker novels, and it was a relaxing read that was just right. Nick Spalding is the author of around 20 books, mostly humorous fiction about modern life with his new book, Totally Fine, just released this week. I read it courtesy of Netgalley, and it’s a three-star read from me.

Book Review: Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan – a taut and atmospheric psychological drama

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I’d heard so many good things about Christine Mangan’s books and now I probably want to read them all. Palace of the Drowned is set in 1966, and follows author Frances Croy (Frankie) who has had a difficult year. Once fêted for her work, her last book received a terrible review and, perhaps foolishly, she took it to heart. Fuelled by alcohol, Frankie behaved badly, and events spiralled out of control. In an effort to put it all behind her and have a good rest, she follows her best friend Jack’s advice and heads to Venice where Jack’s family own half a palazzo.

It’s late spring, Venice is cool but devoid of tourists, which is a blessing. But there are odd sounds in the palazzo – Frankie feels she is being watched, and the housekeeper is unfriendly to the point of hostility. As someone who has had a recent spell in ‘hospital’, Frankie’s easily unnerved. Venice is full of things that are hard to pin down – the watery light, the way it’s so easy to get lost in the labyrinthine alleyways, and Frankie not being a traveller by nature, becomes rattled, struggling to communicate.

Frankie is already fragile when a young woman, Gilly, accosts her, claiming to have met her before and then insists on meeting up for coffee and for drinks. Gilly is a huge fan of Frankie’s work and just won’t leave Frankie alone. She’s both annoying but also oddly charming. The story follows Frankie’s attempts to write again, her increasing unease, as well as Jack and her husband Leonard’s arrival. The couple are cautious around Frankie, walking on eggshells around her while Gilly gets more brazen.

Frankie had been surprised to discover just how much being a novelist suited her. She had always been serious, even as a child, and there was something about the solitude, about the discipline that the work entailed – to make oneself sit, alone for hours on end, even on those days when your mind seemed to scream in protest – that she found reassuring. And so she hadn’t minded when the second novel didn’t flow as easily as the first, viewing it as a challenge instead of a problem. When the third proved more difficult still, she had wavered only slightly, pushing ahead, telling herself that all writers went through it, but then, after the reviews for her fourth novel, she wondered whether she was still right, whether pushing ahead with words that refused to come was the correct way to go about things. Perhaps she should have ignored her own advice, the advice of others around her as well, and waited. Waited for that same feeling the first novel had elicited from her – that urgent need to write, to put pen to paper, as if she might burn up and disintegrate into dust if she didn’t get it all down fast enough.

Tension builds, coming to a head with a terrible weather event. The flood of 4 November caused a huge amount of damage to Venice and Christine Mangan uses this as a high point in the drama of the plot. There is so much water, not just in Venice, but also later in London where there’s not surprisingly a lot of rain. On the topic of liquids, the characters seem to drink a lot too, meals avoided, or have baths. Nothing seems solid.

The characters are brilliantly rendered. Harold, her friendly but pushy publisher, the pesky Gilly, and Frankie herself, who would probably have been fine if she hadn’t seen so much as an air raid warden during the war, or lost her parents suddenly to a pointless accident. People around her are both supportive, but also lose patience with her, much like I felt as a reader. You want so much to like Frankie, but she’s so much her own worst enemy – although sometimes it seems there’s a bit of competition for that honour. Who can she really trust? And people are so fickle towards creatives, aren’t they? Loving them one day, descrying them the next.

This is such a well-put-together novel, unsettling and intense. The audio-book version is excellently read by Emily Pennanant-Rea. Even the cover of Palace of the Drowned is evocative and perfect. There are, so far, two more novels by Christine Mangan – Tangerine and The Continental Affair – both now on my to-read list. The Palace of the Drowned is a four-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: Shadows of Winter Robins by Louise Wolhuter – a tense, dark, twisty story full of family secrets

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Shadows of Winter Robins is psychological suspense with a big emphasis on the psychological. Our main character, Winter Robins, is in therapy for something she did that was at best misjudged, at worst a chargeable offence. The therapist encourages Winter to dig deep, and soon we’re transported to a council house in Harrogate, 1994, and Winter’s childhood. There’s a twin brother Four (he’s the fourth in his line to take the name Lewis), and loving parents, Nancy and Lew. But when Nancy dies, Lew falls apart, and though she tries, Gran is just too old to manage.

Lew writes to Nancy’s family in Western Australia and an uncle they’ve never met arrives to bring Winter and Four home with him. Although the children quickly enjoy time with their uncle, who has the nickname Dog, it’s a heart-breaking wrench, but the possibility of an idyllic childhood is obvious. Grandfather Harry is a successful artist and lives with their grandmother on the coast, off the beaten track. So there’s the beach to enjoy and fresh air and good food. Such a change from England. There’s also the housekeeper’s boy, Gabe, the same age as Winter, who is friendly too.

But there’s a darkness to Harry – he has a temper and is domineering, and rarely kind to the children, or his wife. His housekeeper is obviously more than a housekeeper and so there’s tension, while Dog is always in and out of trouble. Terrible things happen here, and the freedom the children enjoy is tempered by a loss of innocence.

Nancy won’t be coming home.
And there it is: that pip of a moment. That instant. That fraction of a second. That weightless stillness at the very top of a ball’s bounce, between its going up and falling down.
Four and I held hands, suspended somewhere between the life we’d led as Nancy’s children and the one we were destined to live thereafter. Vi was on her feet, with both hands over her face, and the magazine drifting somewhere in the space where she’d been sitting. The cricket ball froze in its flight towards the bat, and the world hung still around us for a breath held, before it fell apart, with the crack of cork on willow, a howl from the aunty who was not, and the complete disintegration of our father.

The story follows Winter’s time at the beach house, before being sent to live with an aunt to attend school. These scenes weave in and out with the sessions two decades or so later with her therapist, as well as the discovery of what really happened at the beach house. Why did Dog have to leave in such a hurry? And why did the police arrive soon after? There’s an abundance of secrets and twists before you turn the last page and some shocking revelations, going back to the time Robins’s mother escaped to Europe with her best friend, Jan.

Louise Wolhuter has written a chilling but also gripping story that keeps you guessing until the end. There seem to be endless secrets that turn what we know on its head, again and again. It’s well written, too, with evocative prose, complex characterisation and an emotional pull. Underpinning the story is the notion of nature versus nurture, as Robin can’t help but worry about the kind of family she has been brought to live with, a family that can be cruel and morally dubious. The possibility of violence never seems far away.

Shadows of Winter Robins is a very clever thriller, but you might need a more cheerful read afterwards, as it left me with a chill down my spine. Even so I’ll be interested to see what the author comes up next. This one’s a four-star-read from me.

Book Review: The Night of the Scourge by Lars Mytting – the stunning conclusion to an epic trilogy

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I was worried that I would have forgotten too much about the previous books in Mytting’s Sister Bells trilogy by the time the third book arrived. Should I have reread the previous two (The Bell in the Lake and The Reindeer Hunters) before setting out on the ominously titled The Night of the Scourge? In the end, it didn’t seem to matter, although I did think I would happily sit down and read them all again one day, one after the other, for this is one of those series that could become a firm favourite..

The setting of the trilogy is for the most part the tiny Norwegian settlement of Butangen, beginning with the first book in 1880 or so, when Kai Schweigaard arrives as a young pastor. He has to battle suspicion from the locals and a determination to remember the old ways, including pagan ideas and myths. This is particularly so for the magic accorded the Sister Bells, the two bells in the tower of the old stave church he takes over. There is the story of the Hekne weave, an almost magical tapestry completed by conjoined twins three hundred years before, while Kai feels himself drawn towards Astrid Hekne, their descendant.

The second book follows the next generation, with another set of Hekne twins, and a world war. The Night of the Scourge brings us up to the 1930s and another war and a new generation of Heknes, the family who still farm the same land nearby, and are prominent in their community with their dairy and general store. Running through all three books is the character of Kai Schweigaard, still the priest, and still grappling with his faith, his connection to the Heknes and the magic of the bells. There’s also his own guilt over losing the old stave church, which was removed to Dresden in book one.

With the rise of Nazism, there is new interest in Aryan connections between Norway and Germany, and their joint mythology. So much so that when the Germans invade Norway, the remaining Sister Bell is requisitioned to join its pair in Dresden. Kai sees an opportunity to step up and redeem himself. And throughout the story he can’t forget the prediction he has seen in the Hekne Weave that seems to predict his own death.

The novel describes the hardships the Butangen people face under the occupation, as well as schisms in the community – those siding with the Germans as well as those secretly doing what they can to resist and undermine the occupiers. The story switches between characters, but mostly it’s about Kai and Astrid, the young granddaughter of the Astrid that Kai fell in love with, a young woman of courage and intelligence. She’s not the sort to take the occupation lying down and gets herself involved in dangerous situations, which keep you on the edge of your seat.

Astrid was calmer now. She looked around her. Everything in here seemed so rough. Rusty suspensions, worn bell rope, dull bronze.
A gust of wind disturbed a pyramid of snow and caught her attention. On the other side of the belfry, on a crossbeam, something glinted at her.
She went over to it and blew the dust off it.
A ring. It must be gold. Heavy and wide. So that an observer should really notice it. Smooth. Without a single scratch, as though it had been crafted that morning.
She lifted it up to the shafts of light and saw an inscription inside.
1881. Eternally yours, Kai.
Had Kai been married? No, the ring looked unused. Had he come up here? Stood here alone and set it carefully aside?
She held it tentatively over her finger. Let it slide over her nail, past her knuckle.
It was then that the church bell began to ring.

Not that this is a pacy read. It evolves gently, filling in more details, including ones about the original Hekne twins and another time of persecution, with the witch hunts of the 1600s. The seasons change, there’s lots of snow, and a ton of atmosphere. Kai is a contemplative man in his eighties, so time spent with him is more about parish matters, politics and trying to handle the occupiers in a way that keeps everyone, and the remaining bell, safe. Still, we are conscious that we are heading towards his end, however that may turn out.

There is so much to get lost in, including shifts of setting to Germany and Scotland, as well as interesting details about technology and historical events. You can tell Mytting has done a ton of research, and that he also has an interest in the making of guns, particularly hunting rifles, something that pops up in his earlier book, The Sixteen Trees of the Somme. Everything comes together brilliantly, a hefty 520 pages that never flags for a moment. I loved, as I knew I would, and already miss the characters I’ve got to know and care for. I do hope Mytting has more books in the pipeline – everything I’ve read by him so far has been a treat. This book’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: We Solve Murders by Richard Osman – a very funny crime caper and first of a series

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I came somewhat late to The Thursday Murder Club party, only picking the book up when a movie starring Helen Mirren and other big names was in the wind. It was such a fun read, I was keen to get my hands on the first of Richard Osman’s new series:, We Solve Murders. And I’m glad I did.

The story begins with Amy Wheeler, a private security officer – a body guard no less. Her current job is looking after world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio at her home on a remote island off the South Carolina coast. It should be a cinch, lots of relaxing by the pool and better than decent meals served by an ex-Navy Seal turned chef. But someone wants to kill Amy, and before you know it, she’s on the run with Rosie, who has her own plane, which comes in handy.

Next thing, the scene switches to the more hum-drum world of Amy’s father-in-law, Steve – an ex-copper turned private investigator. Living in a quiet English village in the New Forest, where ponies wander the streets as if they own the place, which they kind of do, his cases are no more tricky than missing pets and minor misdemeanours. He has mates at the pub and never misses Quiz Night, but still desperately misses Debbie, his late wife.

Amy and Steve are good pals, Amy on the phone to her father-in-law most days with her encouraging banter. So when she needs help, Steve’s the person she turns to. There follows a very complicated plot, involving money laundering, social media influencers trying to hit the big time, and the growing reality that Amy can’t trust anyone – except Rosie and Steve, that is.

The three make an odd team – Amy thrives on adrenaline and has passed her employer Jeff’s psychopath test with flying colours – Jeff’s criteria when hiring security staff. Rosie is all glamour, seemingly ageless, drinks everyone under the table and has an eye for the men. She’s quite keen on Steve, but he’s still devoted to Debbie and the quiet life. He also hates planes in spite being inveigled into joining an investigation that will take them to Dubai, via St Lucia and Ireland.

‘Cat, ginger, unapproachable. Haughty even, the little bugger. Mason’s Lane. Contact attempted but rebuffed. 3.58 a.m.’
Steve puts his Dictaphone back in his pocket. He hears the sound of the ginger cat inexpertly scaling a back fence. It was not often he saw an unfamiliar cat on his walk. It was almost certainly nothing, but almost everything was almost certainly nothing, wasn’t it? And yet some things did eventually turn out to be something. He once caught an armed robber because of a Twix wrapper in a blast furnace. One rarely knows the significance of things at the time, and it doesn’t cost a penny piece to note things down.

While there is a well-plotted mystery to keep you turning the pages and keep you guessing, for me the book was more about the characters and how they bounce off each other. Steve in particular has a stream of consciousness that is very funny, his ex-copper-like observations on a Cictaphone for seemingly ordinary things, his way of summing people up. But Steve, like pretty much everyone here, if full of surprises, even at times surprising himself.

This isn’t probably the book for you if you like to analyse every clue and figure it all out yourself through logic and deduction. But do pick it up if you’d like a lively, fun read to while away a wet weekend. There’s plenty of excitement – shootings, fights, helicopter, jet and jet-boat rides, and killers – plenty of those too. I imagine this would make another terrific movie or TV series – it’s full of visually interesting and unpredictable scenes, interesting characters and great dialogue. I loved it and will be keen for the next in the series. We Solve Murders is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore – a stunning thriller about family secrets and lost children in the wilderness

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I found myself unable to put down this mystery-thriller set at a summer camp in the Adirondacks during the 1970s. The God of the Woods begins when thirteen-year-old Barbara goes missing towards the end of camp. Barbara’s parents, fragile Alice and autocratic Peter, are part of the wealthy Van Laar dynasty who own the camp and pay the staff who run it. They thought camp would be a good idea for Barbara as she’s been showing concerning behaviour at school and dresses like a punk.

Fourteen years before, the Van Laar’s son Bear also went missing, thought murdered by a local man who seemed to have a strange obsession with the boy. His grief stricken parents idolised Bear, who was by all accounts a popular and cheerful boy, his death something Alice could never get over. Unfortunately the suspect was never tried in court as he died suddenly – the case closed, leaving questions unanswered.

When a search is organised to find Barbara, young state trooper Judyta Luptack is determined to do her darnedest not just at finding Barbara, but in also discovering what happened to Bear, whose body has never been recovered. She suspects the Van Laars are hiding something. There’s also the recent escape of a serial killer from prison, who had been in the area when Bear disappeared. Could he have taken Barbara too?

Eight campers. Nine beds. She counts and counts again.
At last, when she can no longer defer it, she lets one name bob to the surface of her mind: Barbara.
The empty bed is Barbara’s.
She closes her eyes. She imagines herself returning, for the rest of her life, to this place and this moment: a lonely time traveler, a ghost, haunting the cabin called Balsam, willing a body to appear where there is none. Willing the girl herself, Barbara, to walk through the door. To say she has been in the washroom, to say she forgot the rule about taking the flashlight, to apologise disarmingly, as she has done before.
But Louise knows that Barbara won’t do any of these things. She senses, for reasons she can’t quite articulate, the Barbara is gone.
Of all the campers, Louise thinks. Of all the campers to go missing.

The story dips back and forth through time, to when Alice first met Peter Van Laar, and her struggles to be seen as a person worthy of more than producing a Van Laar heir. The story is told from various perspectives, including Louise, one of the young staff running the camp who is hiding a secret. There’s also Tracy, the awkward girl who became Barabara’s friend, sent to camp following her parents’ divorce.

The story, weaving its way through these characters’ lives, and the suddenly changing timeline takes a bit of getting used to. I found myself having to really concentrate to keep up. But the sudden revelations, the cliff-hanger chapter endings and the issues each character carries with them, to say nothing of fears for the young Van Laars, keeps you on the edge of your seat as you read.

Class, power and money seem to be at the centre of things with the Van Laars and their wealthy friends, their alcohol-fuelled parties and casual disregard for the locals, their determination to keep their good name – all of which makes them unlikable. Although you can’t but help feel sorry for Alice. Other families have problems too – Judyta’s conservative Polish family are reluctant to let her live away from home, which means a long commute every day. Louise is worried about her alcoholic mother and her inability to properly care for her twelve year old brother. There’s also TJ, who has taken on the burden of running the camp, trying to fill her highly-regarded father’s shoes.

The God of the Woods is very much a literary thriller – it is so well put together, its characters all so interesting and complex, the natural wilderness setting, so peaceful one minute, full of danger the next, an evocative backdrop. The 1970s era gives us a glimpse of changing attitudes, but there’s still the paternalist misogyny lingering in the police force and wider society. It all gives you a lot to think about as you whip through the pages to find out what has really happened. It’s a brilliant mystery and a four and a half-star read from me.

Book Review: The Predicament by William Boyd – a return to the complicated world of a reluctant spy

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

This is the second novel of a planned trilogy which began with Gabriel’s Moon – the story of travel writer Gabriel Dax whose little trips abroad researching locations to write about have become conveniently put to use by MI6. We’re in 1960s Britain, so there’s the Cold War going on, JFK’s the president of America, and as always, there’s a difficult political problem somewhere in the world for MI6 to poke its nose into.

Gabriel has never wanted to be a spy. He’s a successful writer, publishing popular books that earn him a respectable living. When we catch up with him at the start of The Predicament, his MI5 handler, Faith Green, who Gabriel’s a little bit in love with, has got him acting as a double agent, meeting up with a Russian counterpart and accepting bribes in return for information. He’s not happy about this, but the money has helped him buy a country cottage where he can forget about the shadier side of his life and pretend he’s just a writer.

With another couple of chapters in his Rivers book to write, Gabriel is sent off to Guatemala to interview a presidential hopeful in a country plagued by unrest. He’s posing as a writer again, so again it’s convenient for MI6, but nothing quite goes to plan and Gabriel can’t help feeling he’s not being fed enough information. This doesn’t stop him from making acute observations, particularly about potential CIA involvement.

The Guatemala sojourn is interesting in that it describes the way political interests of American businesses and the Mafia hold sway. You also get the benefit of Gabriel’s expertise as a travel writer in the descriptions of the setting. But before long he’s off again, to West Berlin this time, where JFK is about to make his famous “Berliner” speech and an assassination plot has been hinted at. So we really are in the thick of the period, of history being made, with Gabriel a bit-part player.

‘Their job is to look for traitors in the British security services – MI6, MI5, the Foreign Office, the army, the navy, etcetera – looking for double agents,’ he said. ‘They call them “termites”.’
‘Termites?’
“Just a slang word. A word they use among themselves.’
‘Termites. I must remember this.’
Gabriel suddenly realized that, in fact, Varvara Suvorina, and indeed the KGB, probably knew everything about the Institute. ‘Termites’ was the only piece of information that intrigued her. So why, he asked himself, had he been set this redundant task? Was it indeed some kind of test, as Faith had suggested? If he had lied or claimed not to know much about the Institute would they begin to suspect him?

Through all this, Gabriel is emerging as quite a good spy even if he is reluctant to get his hands dirty. He’s observant, can think on his feet, and thanks to Faith Green and her cohorts at “the Institute”, has learned not to take everything at face value. He’s even getting quite good at self-defence. But Gabriel is also self-aware and constantly examining his feelings, not only about the spy business, but also about himself as a man. When it comes to women, he can’t help feel that he should be looking elsewhere, but Faith Green seems to have him on a string.

Pulling off the second book in a trilogy can be tricky, but William Boyd has made The Predicament work at least as well as Gabriel’s Moon, with plenty of tension, some exciting action scenes, and Boyd’s wonderfully crafted prose to enjoy. There are some amusing more worldly characters who contrast nicely with Gabriel’s sensitive writerly persona – such as Ulsterman Sergeant Major Begg who teaches him self-defence and his old lock-picking mate Tyrone who does the odd “no questions asked” job for Gabriel from time to time.

As, Gabriel gets so much better at being a competent agent, you can only wonder if this will be his lot in life. We’ll have to wait until Book 3 to find out. I have a feeling Boyd will ramp things up even more and bring out some excellent twists. I can’t wait. The Predicament is a four-star read from me.

The Predicament is due for publication on 4 September – I read an advance copy courtesy of Netgalley.