Tag: mysteries

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

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

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 Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell – another stylish psychological thriller from an always-reliable author

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I often pick up a Lisa Jewell novel when I want a light, engrossing read. The Night She Disappeared is one of those books where the rich girl from a loveless family makes friends with the much loved poor girl with problems – and disaster ensues.

Tallulah lives in a village with her divorced mother and brother and is doing fine until an unplanned pregnancy has her reconsidering her options. She’s barely out of school so enrols at the nearest polytechnic, a bus ride away and organises her life around her baby. She didn’t plan on living with her boyfriend, Zach, but he is insistent he wants to get back together and she unbends and lets him move in with her at her Mum’s home. Mother, Kim is delighted as she sees in Zach someone who adores her daughter and will be a good father.

But Tallulah meets Scarlett at the bus stop – glamorous, dangerous looking Scarlett, who is at the same college, doing art to Tallulah’s social work course and the two become unlikely friends. Scarlett lives at Dark Place, a large house across the woods that has a dark history, but has had lavish amounts spent on it. As the weeks and months roll by, Tallulah compartmentalises her life between college, home life with her family and Zach, and secret meetings with Scarlett.

The story flips between Tallulah’s story and a year or so later when Sophie moves into the village with her partner Shaun. He’s the new head teacher at Maypole, a private school a mere woodland stroll from Dark Place, where Tallulah and Zach were at a party they night they disappeared. Sophie is an author of cosy mysteries, but here she’s suddenly aware of an unsolved mystery right on her doorstep.

When Sophie finds a sign saying “Dig here” and an arrow, she can’t help herself. What she finds soon draws her into Tallulah’s story, as well as meeting Kim working the bar at the local pub, a woman she wants to help. But in the background there’s her own relationship to consider. Shaun is obviously stressed. He has only chosen the job at Maypole to help fund the expensive schooling his ex-wife has insisted on for their daughters. And he and Sophie have never lived together before. They used to enjoy London so much too. Raking up what happened on the school’s doorstep isn’t going to help Shaun settle in to his new job.

Meanwhile Kim is battling away, trying to manage the baby as well as keeping alive her hope for Tallulah’s return. There are a bunch of minor characters who have a role in what happened and who could be suspects in the case. There’s a nice policeman who listens and does what he can. The story moves to an astonishing and gripping ending and I’d be amazed if you manage to put it all together before it’s all revealed. It might even give you goosebumps.

I am happy to say that The Night She Disappeared did its job; it’s a stylish, engaging, relaxing read. The main characters who tell their story are easy to empathise with, even if they do silly things or fail to stick up for themselves. And the plot is nicely measured out between them to keep you hooked. I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as others I’ve read by Jewell, but it’s still an easy four out of five stars from me.

Book Review: The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett – another twisty mystery that will have you hoodwinked

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I’m beginning to know what to expect every time I pick up a novel by Janice Hallett. First of all it will be told in an unusual format – often in emails and texts or transcriptions from recorded conversations. The other thing is that the story will have me totally hoodwinked. Normally, with mystery novels, I have a go at trying to solve the mystery from the clues presented, considering the characters and their motives, their histories. But for this novel, I didn’t bother trying, just went along for the ride.

The story begins with documents from a safe deposit box relating to the publication of a book. We follow Amanda Bailey, a journalist and writer of true-crime books, when she is commissioned to write a book on Alperton Angels. This was a cult lead by the self-titled Gabriel Angelis, now residing in prison for the murder of a waiter. Eighteen years ago, the cult ended in the deaths of several of its members, and the miraculous rescue of a baby, which the cult believed to be the Antichrist.

There is no doubt that Gabriel Angelis is an evil man, and that prison is the best place for him, in spite of his pleas that he did not kill anyone. But what he did do was lure vulnerable teenagers into his orbit, in this case Holly and Jonah, who survived the ritual bloodbath eighteen years ago, Holly saving the baby from sacrifice when the stars were apparently in alignment.

Eighteen years later, where is that baby now? That is going to be the main focus of Amanda’s book along with the whereabouts of Holly and Jonah and what they’ve made of their lives since. But a rival publishing company is also interested in the Angels, and have chosen Oliver Menzies to write another book on the case.

Oliver and Amanda were on the same journalism course twenty odd years ago, a course that Amanda left abruptly without qualifying. And when her publisher suggests that she and Oliver work together to begin with so that they can ensure their books cover different territory, Amanda is not a happy camper.

It’s not easy getting people to talk about what happened, but one thing that does come across is that Amanda is a consummate professional and slowly the facts slot into place. Oliver just bumbles along and the What’sApp banter between them adds plenty of entertainment. This is just as well as a book of emails and texts would soon pall if Hallett didn’t manage to make them lively. So too are the transcriptions typed up by Ellie Cooper for Amanda. Ellie is a kind of sounding board for Amanda’s discoveries and offers lots of good thoughts, plus her asides as she transcribes Amanda’s phone-recorded interviews are a hoot.

But it’s the plot that really has you hooked, packed with twists and turns, and beguiling little details that had the police stumped. What was the deal with that Mini Clubman that ran off the road and disappeared? And those weird newspaper adverts – what did they mean? Hallett really knows how to use red herrings. Towards the end of the book, you suddenly begin to realise what really happened, and start to join the dots and see connections. Suddenly the unbelieveable all begins to make perfect sense.

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels is another diverting read from Hallett but it works best if, as a reader, you enjoy puzzles. We only get to know characters as they reveal themselves in their emails and texts – we don’t even know where they live, or even a lot about what they look like. But perhaps Hallett deliberately impedes the reader’s empathy for them because of how untrustworthy many of them are.

I think Agatha Christie would approve of Hallett’s style. How many times have I read Poirot remind Hastings not to take too much at face value. How you can never be sure that a witness isn’t lying. And it’s the same here. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels is a modern take on the classic detective novel. I can only gaze on and admire its cleverness. But cleverness isn’t everything in a book and I like a bit more from my crime fiction; I like to feel something too. So its a three-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: The White Hare by Jane Johnson – a haunting country house mystery with a touch of magic

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We’re back in Cornwall for another novel set in the 1950s and I was in my happy place listening to this as an audiobook. I often hunt out these evocative country house stories.

The White Hare begins with a family of three arriving to take on a run-down country house with the aim of turning it into a guest-house. Somewhere comfortably-off urbanites might sojourn for a change of pace and some gentle pampering. This is Magda’s idea. In her fifties, Magda is an imperious, demanding and determined woman who won’t take no for an answer.

Her daughter, Mila, passively just does what her mother tells her, hoping to build a home for her and young Janey. But although she has strong feelings, she keeps them in check, because she owes her mother her salvation. A chance for a new start, having been duped by a bigamous husband and left with a five-year-old daughter. Remember, it’s the mid 1950s, when a woman’s reputation was everything.

The house is of course a mess, but in the barn they also discover an unwelcome guest. Jack, the interloper, says he hadn’t meant to trespass; he was just exploring the nearby countryside and would soon be on his way. But Janey has warmed to Jack, and when Jack reveals he can fix their car, and is handy with a hammer and nails, he becomes the women’s saviour when they face one crisis after another.

The locals don’t take kindly to strangers. It is said the house is haunted and when Mila mentions seeing a white hare on the road the day they arrived, all sorts of strange legends start to emerge. Then there’s Jack. He and Mila soon warm to each other, but Jack seems to be harbouring secrets. There’s also a creepy vicar, but fortunately for Mila, friendship and support are on hand from a local healer and her artist girlfriend.

The story follows Magda and Mila’s rocky relationship as they struggle to bring the house into a reasonable state of repair ahead of a lavish New Year’s Eve party Magda hopes will entice acceptance from the locals. The folklore of the area won’t leave Mila alone, and there are odd discoveries that hint at a tragedy involving the previous owners of the house.

To make things even more creepy, Janey seems to have discovered a way of communicating with an otherworldly presence through her toy rabbit. The story builds to a dramatic ending where the real and unreal converge and the present reveals, and can finally bury, past wrongs. The characters of Magda, Mila and Janey are interestingly developed – there’s nothing like adversity to bring people together.

I loved the story – the perfect sort of audiobook, narrated brilliantly by Danielle Cohen – intriguing and full of mystery with a bit Cornish history thrown in. Listening to a book like this takes me back to those old fireside tales that begin with, ‘let me tell you a story’. If you like books by Katherine Webb and Kate Morton, you’re sure to enjoy The White Hare, a four star read from me.

Book Review: The It Girl by Ruth Ware – another suspenseful read from “the queen of just one more chapter”

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

Ruth Ware does it again with one of those books that ticks all the boxes for building suspense in the kind of thriller sometimes known as domestic noir. We’ve got a potential miscarriage of justice; a beautiful, dead girl and the people who loved and hated her; and the kind of plot that seesaws between ‘before’ and ‘after’, making you gallop through the pages. She caps this off with a vulnerable main character who can’t rest until she gets at the truth.

Nobody could be more vulnerable than Hannah. Ten years ago her best friend and college roommate, April, was strangled to death. Now working in a bookshop, April’s death had been so traumatic, Hannah dropped out of university. But it was Hannah’s testimony that helped convict the creepy college porter, John Neville.

Now Neville has died in prison, adamant to the end that he had nothing to do with April’s death and there’s a bunch of journalists eager to revisit the story. One in particular, Geraint Williams, has been dropping emails into Hannah’s in-box, with the endorsement of another college friend, Ryan.

There were other friends there at the time, all rocked by April’s death but all with reasons to resent her. April, a rich party girl, pulled terrible practical jokes on her friends. During their first week at their Oxford college April introduced Hannah to her old school mates, bringing her into their circle. Among them was Will, newly appointed as April’s boyfriend. Flip forward ten years and Will and Hannah are married, living in Edinburgh and expecting their first child. They have always agreed to ignore requests from the press for more interviews.

A complex cocktail of guilty feelings has Hannah rethinking her testimony and digging into what happened. Being pregnant and Will’s long days at work, plus her reluctance to upset her husband with her doubts see Hannah as a vulnerable woman on her own. This ramps up the tension nicely as Hannah explores several alternative scenarios, and memories of that first year at Oxford come crowding back to haunt her.

Ruth Ware has been described as the “queen of one more chapter” and she’s certainly a smart cookie when it comes to plotting. And while April’s the kind of girl with the world at her feet, several motives for her killing emerge through the book, and with that a bunch of suspects. But there are plenty of alibis too. How the facts eventually emerge will keep you guessing, while Hannah and her unborn child become closer to danger as at the real killer closes in.

The It Girl has been long-listed for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year – a lovely long list of mystery and suspense fiction that’s well worth checking out, especially if you like British crime fiction. I will be keen to see if The It Girl makes the shortlist, which is announced on 15 June. It’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Exiles by Jane Harper – Aaron Falk is back in an atmospheric new mystery

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I’ve read all of Jane Harper’s novels. It was possibly her first book, The Dry, that triggered a popular interest in Aussie Noir, giving Scandi Noir a run for its money. For me, it was Jane Harper that got me reading Australian mysteries and I imagine it was the same for many readers. There’s just something special about novels set in the outback.

Since The Dry we’ve had a second Aaron Falk novel – Force of Nature is soon to hit the big screen – and now, a long-awaited third. Exiles sees the Melbourne detective visiting friends in rural wine country for a christening. It’s a bitter-sweet time for Greg Raco’s family. While Aaron is going to be godfather to Raco’s baby boy, nobody can forget what happened at the same time a year ago. The Marralee Valley Annual Food and Wine Festival was on and it was here that Kim Gillespie disappeared, leaving her baby Zoe asleep in her pram.

Kim’s older daughter from her long-term relationship with Charlie Raco, Greg Raco’s winemaker brother, is desperate for answers. Now seventeen, she’s running a campaign, aided by Charlie and her good friend Joel, handing out flyers and canvassing potential eyewitnesses. Aaron, with all his detective smarts, somehow gets roped in.

And there’s another cold case – the hit-and-run death of Joel’s father at the Reservoir, a spot adjacent to the festival grounds, and it’s the Reservoir where Kim’s shoe was found. Is this a coincidence or are the two cases linked? Aaron has the added complication of meeting up with Gemma again, Joel’s mother – someone he’d met through Raco, and who he can’t quite forget.

Even in the gloom Falk could see it stretching out, vast and open in its centre, then twisting and curving to fill the turns and gullies that formed the banks. It was big. Bigger than he remembered. The opposite bank was just visible across the swathe of water, but he couldn’t see the westernmost edge, or the dam that lay somewhere to the east. The festival grounds felt far behind them, but Falk could hear a distant low thrum of music and crowd noise undercutting the stillness.

Emotions are high in this story with two teenagers having lost parents and not having any answers. Aaron’s a bit of a softy and is sympathetic. The story also hearkens back to the events from the school days of Kim and the Racos. Like the current batch of kids from the local high school, the opening night of the wine and food festival was when there was a big party in the woods near the Reservoir, something local cop, Sergeant Dwyer would love to shut down.

There’s a lot going on in each of the characters’ lives, and we slowly get a picture of a community, of complicated loyalties among old friends, old grudges and a fair bit more besides. We haven’t got a dry, scarily hot landscape. But the stunning countryside surrounding the grim spectre of the Reservoir and all its secrets makes for another atmospheric setting.

Add some superb writing, and a twist in the story I didn’t see coming and I’m happy to say that Jane Harper has done it again. Exiles is another cracking read and is satisfying on several levels. I’ve also got a feeling we might see Aaron Falk again – I hope so; he’s a complex and interesting detective. Exiles gets four and a half out of five from me.

Book Review: The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh – a new promising new detective series in a moody North Wales setting

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I saw Clare Mackintosh’s name connected with fellow suspense/mystery author Lisa Jewell, and being a fan of Jewell, decided she should be worth a shot. Like Jewell, Mackintosh has written a bunch of twisty mysteries, but The Last Party is the first in a series featuring Welsh detective Ffion Morgan. I like being in at the start of a promising crime series, and was soon glad I’d picked this up.

The mystery starts with the discovery of a dead body by swimmers braving a New Year’s dip. We’re in the remote village of Cwm Coed on the shore of a lake which borders England. Across the water is a luxury resort called The Shore, built by a couple of investors as holiday homes for the wealthy. These incomers don’t support the village shops, they zip around the lake on jet skies and are just generally obnoxious. So it isn’t surprising that the corpse turns out to be one of the investors, a Rhys Lloyd.

With a name like that you’d assume the victim’s Welsh. And he is – a local made good in the sense he’s become a successful star of stage and screen, and knows how to turn on the charm. His mother still owns the hardware store in the village, and it was his father’s land that he and his partner Jonny Charlton have turned into The Shore. Their New Year’s Eve party was supposed to bring everybody together and appease the villagers, but it all ends in murder. The story soon throws up a fair few suspects – it turns out Rhys is struggling to pay off creditors and his charm hides a darker persona.

DC Ffion Morgan is on the spot – she’s local, still living with her mother and sister in Cwm Coed, but for all that she’s something of a lone ranger. She drives an old Triumph at tearaway speeds over the winding rural roads and has a burning secret. She’s also shocked to discover that her one-night stand from the night before is the English cop assigned to assist on the case.

DC Leo Bradey is an intelligent and promising police officer from Cheshire, with a whole lot of baggage. His ex-wife is going out of her way to exclude Leo from being a parent to their young son, whom he adores, and his boss makes him the butt of all his tasteless jokes. Working with Ffion doesn’t get off to a great start either, but they slowly form a team. They soon discover that hardly anybody doesn’t have a motive for killing Rhys Lloyd.

The Last Party is a much better than average murder mystery. Clare Mackintosh is a former police officer herself so the story has a ring of authenticity. However, there’s a lot more than police work here. Family dynamics, old scores and the effects of burying damaging secrets all add to a character-driven, atmospheric read, the evocative setting adding a ton of interest.

As well as the dangers of the lake, there’s snow to contend with and the story builds to a life-and-death climax that has you on the edge of your seat. This is helped by a plot that switches back and forwards in time and between characters, mostly Leo and Ffion but also the key players and suspects. I was fair racing through the chapters to see what happened next. And then there are the twists.

For a diverting crime read, The Last Party doesn’t put a foot wrong and introduces a fabulous pair of detectives I’ll be happy to meet again. I’ll happily give it four stars. A Game of Lies, the next Ffion Morgan mystery, is due to be released later this year.

Book Review: Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith – back to Italy with a gorgeous evocation of place and atmosphere

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Well, yes I know this book is about a lot more than its setting. There’s a man’s lingering grief for his late wife. A family of elderly women and a secret they never got to grips with from World War II. There’s some parent-child dynamics and a potential love affair. And all of it comes together in a captivating story that maybe takes a little while to get going, but once you get in, has you nicely hooked.

But when I look back on this book in months and maybe even years to come, I know it will be the setting that I’ll think about first. Valetto is Dominic Smith’s invented town in Umbria, which sits on a pedestal of volcanic rock. Much of the old town has fallen down into surrounding valleys, a 1971 earthquake urging many of its inhabitants to relocate. It has become a kind turreted and terracotta island, connected to the surrounding landscape by a footbridge.

Hugh is an American historian who specialises in the study of abandoned towns – there’s hundreds of them dotted around Italy and what better place to begin than Valetto, the childhood home of his mother and where even today his grandmother and three aunts still live. The Serafino women, all widows, are a big chunk of the population which has dwindled to just 10. In a few weeks it is to be his grandmother’s 100th birthday and a party has been planned.

A spanner in the works is the woman who has taken possession of Hugh’s cottage on the Serafino property, supposedly given to her mother for services rendered when Hugh’s grandfather, Aldo, was a resistance fighter during the war. Elissa Tomassi is adamant that the cottage is legally hers, just as Hugh’s aunts are convinced she’s a squatter with no legal tenure. Hugh is sure there can be a way to keep everyone happy and is caught in the middle. But he has to get to the bottom of what happened during the war and discovers not one but two family mysteries to solve.

The past will take Hugh back to Elissa’s home town in the north of Italy to find out what Aldo did in the closing years of the war. He’ll also discover a link between his mother and the Elissa’s that is a trickier memory to unlock and will reveal a crime that has been swept under the carpet. The story builds to a powerful and moving conclusion that has you glued to the final chapters as past deeds are dealt with.

What could be done with the wreckage of the past? As a historian I’d always believed that studying the past could reveal hidden meanings and patterns, that motifs lurked in the underbrush, but now I saw the neap tide of history washing up flotsam on an empty beach.

I enjoyed Return to Valetto enormously, not only for the setting which seems to be a big part of every scene. The late autumn mist across the valley that comes and goes and adds even more mystery. The large old villa that is the Serafino home with its cavernous rooms and crumbling frescoes. There’s the old family restaurant established by his grandmother, where you can see abandoned place settings and dusty menus from a night in 1971. (Oh, did I forget to mention this books is also a hymn to Italian regional cuisine?)

And the characters are a joy. The three aunts, each with their own peculiar ways and at times difficult interactions with each other. I have a particular fondness for books about aunts, going back to P G Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster stories, and here Iris, Rose and Violet are brilliant. The grandmother with her iron determination to host an unforgettable birthday celebration with an ever-growing guest list and a despairing cook. Both Hugh and Elissa have daughters that make an appearance, so it’s an inter-generational tale as well.

I can’t help feeling Dominic Smith had a wonderful time researching and writing this book as his love for history, particularly social history, as well as all things Italian shines through. This is the second novel by this author I have read and recall that Bright and Distant Shores was one of my top reads for the year it came out. I’ve heard lots of good things about The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos as well. Return to Valetto gets the full five stars from me.

By the way, the fictional town of Valetto is inspired by Civita di Bagnoregio in Lazio – in case you want to visit, either in person or via the Internet.

Book Review: The Bookseller of Inverness by S G MacLean – a stunning Scottish thriller of intrigue and revenge

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It’s hard for me not to feel a lump in my throat when reading a book that describes so vividly the events around the Jacobite uprisings that aimed to put a Stuart back on the throne. The butchery and barbarism of the government forces at the Battle of Culloden, the subsequent hunting down of Jacobites through Scotland and the harsh penalties enacted on those that were captured, including the ‘traitor’s death’, are hard to read about without feeling, well, rather cross.

With The Bookseller of Inverness, S G Maclean brings this history to life. It’s a murder mystery set in the Highland city of Inverness, the bookseller of the title, Iain MacGillivray, a veteran of Culloden who has somehow survived, though scarred both physically and mentally. He’s a brooding man of thirty-four, silent and dour as he runs his shop and lending library, coming to life a little at dances where he’s a popular fiddler.

Iain’s world is turned upside down and he is hauled out of his melancholy when several events happen in rapid succession. A stranger is found murdered in his bookshop – he’d previously been fossicking for a book he was desperate to find. And we have the return to Scotland of Iain’s father, Hector, who if found by the authorities will surely face death for his connection to Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender.

On his desk lay a dirk like the one he had once habitually carried, before the bearing of arms or the wearing of tartan had been forbidden to Highlanders. Tied to the hilt of his knife, though, was a white silk rosette. Iain’s heart began to quicken. It was the white cockade, as worn in his own blue bonnet and in that of practically every other soldier of the prince’s army in the ’45. The white cockade, the most recognisable of all the Jacobite symbols, on the hilt of the knife that had been used to cut the throat of the man sitting dead in his locked bookshop.

Hector tells Iain about The Book of Forbidden Names, which has coded messages revealing traitors to the Jacobite cause. These are not just people who have sided with the government, but those who have ratted on the prince’s followers leading to their capture. Both sides would give their eye teeth for this book, including the victim found in Iain’s shop. Iain thinks he knows where another copy of the book might be, and soon more bodies turn up. It seems there is a killer out there with revenge in mind.

The novel is a brilliant murder mystery/thriller, but it is also an evocative imagining of Inverness in the 1750s, and boasts a wonderful cast of characters. There are the Grandes Dames, the elderly women who gather in Iain’s grandmother’s parlour who add a lighter tone to the story with their gossip; Mairi Farquharson, Iain’s grandmother rules the roost and is fearless in her standing up to English soldiers; Donald Mòr, Iain’s oddball bookbinder, is a master craftsman but spends most of the weekend either drunk or in the cells; the mysterious Ishbel MacLeod, the confectioner and her adopted son Tormod who hangs out with Donald.

Iain’s father Hector is a marvellous invention, a risk-taker and flirt, who in his sixties shows no signs of slowing down. Iain has a difficult time reining him in. There are some nasty English soldiers garrisoned at the town to collect rents and supposedly manage any Jacobite stirrings, but there are good army officers too.

MacLean has done loads of research and adds a lengthy bibliography at the end of the book. Here she explains also about the divisions within the Scots, those for or against the Jacobite cause, those who changed sides and those clans who were divided. Like all good historical fiction, her novel makes you want to read more about what really happened.

The background to the novel may sound a little grim, but The Bookseller of Inverness is a rollicking adventure laced with dry Scottish humour. There’s a bit of romance and the storyline has plenty of interesting twists. Iain is a bit of a hot-headed blunderer, not your Poirot kind of sleuth, and gets himself into some odd corners, but with people like his crazy bookbinder, Donald Mòr, at hand, he manages to get away with it. Underneath his terse manner lies a fierce loyalty to his family.

It would be terrific to think we might join Iain again for another mystery and some more Scottish history, but this book seems to be a stand-alone novel. And the ending leaves things nicely tied up too. But we can live in hope. I enjoyed it so much I’m giving it five stars, and can’t wait to read some more from S G MacLean.

Book Review: Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson – a story from flapper era set in London’s seedy Soho

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I find it so easy to slip into a Kate Atkinson novel, whatever the storyline, because the writing is just so smart. In Shrines of Gaiety, the main focus of the story is the goings-on of a family of nightclub owners in 1920s London, overseen by the matriarch, Nellie Coker. A Scottish woman widowed young and with a family to support, she’s done a few dodgy things to make her fortune, intent not only on supporting her children, but advancing them in society.

We meet Nellie as she’s leaving after a short stint in Holloway, the London prison for women. One of her nightclubs had been raided and liquor found being sold on the premises. Usually she gets a tip-off from a policeman – Inspector Maddox from Bow Street police station – but not this time. Is Maddox still loyal? There’s someone else sniffing around – a gangland boss who’s keen to get his hands on a set of nightclubs and settle an old score.

Observing Nellie leaving Holloway is Chief Inspector Frobisher, the detective tasked with cleaning up Soho’s nightlife and the rot that has set in at Bow Street. With him is Gwendolen, a librarian from York who is on the hunt for two young girls who have run away to London to go on the stage. London has a habit of swallowing up young women and a few have been turning up dead, fished out of the Thames.

Gwendolen is an interesting character as she has the fortitude of someone who has nursed during the recent war, but post-war life has been a little tame, living in genteel poverty with her listless mother. When her mother dies, she discovers an inheritance which gives her the freedom to travel to London, where she can explore a new life. The missing girls set her off on a mission. Both Frobisher and Nellie Coker offer Gwendolen interesting opportunities.

As well as following Frobisher’s policing, and Gwendolen’s snooping, we meet the younger Cokers: eldest son Niven, who is battle hardened from the war, unflappable and smart. His sister Edith is Nellie’s natural successor, practical, though not as pretty as her sisters. But something has unhinged Edith lately. With their Cambridge education, Betty and Shirley are primed to marry into the aristocracy, though they also lend a hand with the clubs. Younger son Ramsay is rather effete and an easy victim of anyone trying to get at Nellie, but nevertheless has literary aspirations. Young Kitty at eleven suffers from neglect and is largely uneducated while no-one notices that she’s also in danger.

‘Give Mr Frazzini a box of chocolates, will you?’ Nellie said to Betty.

Nellie sold the boxes for fifteen shillings each but bought them wholesale from somewhere in the north for a shilling a box, all prettied up with ribbons (a penny each) by soldiers disabled in the war. The dance hostesses made a great fuss of persuading their partners to buy the boxes for them and then, after a few chocolates had been eaten, the boxes made their way back to the storeroom they’d come from and were refilled, ribbons adjusted, and sent out to be sold again.

The narrative bounces around all of them, as well as Freda and Florence, the two missing girls, creating a giddy plot that will keep you on your toes. I’ve heard this book described as Dickensian, and I suppose it is with its varied cast of characters, and the way the criminal element rubs shoulders with the law, the sudden reversals of fortune – there’s even a gang of women pickpockets. The story paints a picture of the mad excesses of the 1920s, the jazz and the flappers, the endless partying as everyone tries to forget the recent war.

I enjoyed this book enormously because the writing is lively and amusing and you really can’t guess what will happen next. The situation looks dire for the stray women caught up in the seamy side of Soho, but even those with money can lose everything on the turn of a card. Help and goodness are in short supply but come from unexpected quarters. I chuckled my way through the book at some points; nervous for particular characters at others. At the end of the book, Atkinson gives potted histories of what happens next to all the major players, which may please or annoy some readers I confess to being a little annoyed but it’s still a four out of five stars read from me.