Category Archives: #fiction

A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle

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I love a locked room thriller, and the premise of this book, set on The Endeavour, an ocean-going liner sailing from Southampton to New York in the 1920s absolutely appealed to me. When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading from one deck to another, there’s pressure on ship’s officer Timothy Birch (an man with a Past) to declare it nothing more than a tragic accident.

Of course, it’s nothing of the kind and the irascible and frankly quite irritating Scotland Yard detective James Temple, who happens to be on board, insists on investigating further. The unwilling partnership forced upon Birch and Temple by the ship’s Captain makes for an entertaining read, interspersed with the mystery of a missing painting and further deadly events which unfold as the ship nears its destination.

Beautiful period detail, highly evocative descriptions of life on board and the intriguing relationship between our two sleuths kept me reading right to the end. 

This Charming Man by C.K. McDonnell

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This is the second book in The Stranger Times series and the moment I had read this one (courtesy of #netgalley, thank you very much), I had to go and buy the first one, so that’s a rare accolade.

The Stranger Times is a Manchester-based newspaper which reports on paranormal, strange and otherwise peculiar goings on around the world, edited by the intermittently malevolent Vincent Banecroft, a stupendously vile person with few saving graces who reminded me of nobody so much as Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron’s equally brilliant but entirely different Slough House series.

In this book, vampires (which everyone knows don’t exist) start popping up, there are plumbing / kidnap complications and a running gag based on a swear-by-numbers board that I’m severely tempted to adopt just for the fun of it.  It’s clever, funny, unexpected and keeps you turning the pages. And, like I say, I enjoyed it so much I had to read the first book in the series and can’t wait for the next one to appear. Brilliant.

The Woman in the Middle by Milly Johnson

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Isn’t one of the joys of reading that there is always a perfect book for how you’re feeling at any given time? Milly Johnson is an author whose books never fail to cheer when I am feeling low, because she writes about women whose lives aren’t perfect but who find a way to cope with whatever life throws at them.

The Woman in the Middle perfectly reflects what it’s like to be the glue in a family – the woman who looks after elderly parents, worries about their children, and keeps on trying to be the wife she thinks her husband wants. Somewhere underneath all that is the real Shay Bastable (our heroine), soldiering on, until a series of events, triggered by the arrival of a big orange skip on the estate where her mother lives, brings the whole edifice tumbling down around her ears.

Long-hidden secrets emerge, old friendships are renewed while others are re-assessed, and through it all, Shay’s warmth and humanity remain in place while she copes with everything that’s thrown at her. She’s just so real, someone I’d love to be friends with, and that’s the joy of this book – and all of Milly’s books – is that she really understands what makes women tick. Warm, witty and wise, this was a delight to read, thoroughly recommended for a day when you need to be reminded that love, in all its forms, wins. 

Nobody But Us by Laure Van Rensburg

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Handsome college professor Steven Harding and naïve young student Ellie Masterson drive from New York to a remote cabin for their first holiday together. Expectations are high for a romantic weekend, but what unfolds over those few days will totally blow your mind. Neither of them are who they say they are, and the dark truths underlying their twisted relationship are gradually exposed. 

I literally could not put this book down, and found myself holding my breath at certain moments.  Ellie and Steven were both compelling characters and one of the things I loved most about Nobody But Us was the way in which I got to understand how they had come to this dark place and what motivated their actions. It was such a compelling read.  And the atmosphere and sense of danger was ratcheted up by the setting – an ostensibly beautiful cabin in the remote wilderness, surrounded by trees, in the deepest of snowy winters – it totally heightened the almost-cinematic sense of jeopardy throughout. 

Timely, thought-provoking, deeply atmospheric, full of suspense – this has got to be one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve read for a very long time indeed. 

A Perfect Cornish Escape, by Phillipa Ashley

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I love Cornwall, don’t you? It’s so full of contrasts, wild rugged coastline, beautiful beaches with azure-blue seas which turn stormy grey in an instant when the rain lashes down. Stuck here at home, it’s one of the places I yearn for, and Philippa Ashley does such a fantastic job of conjuring it up for me, I could almost be there.  And at a time when reading is about the only way to escape real life, this couldn’t be a better book to take you away from it all.

This is a lovely, lilting story about a woman who has lived through loss and rebuilt her life, about the importance of female friendship, and the serendipity of new beginnings. Marina’s husband drowned seven years ago and the village of Porthmello has surrounded her with love ever since. Her friend Tiff Trescott (and if you ever listen to BBC Radio Cornwall, that name will ring a distant bell…) tips up fleeing the double-whammy of heartbreak and job loss, and together Marina and Tiff make their way through the summer months. This is a book full of laughter and sadness, about women finding new ways to live and love, but it’s also a love-letter to beautiful Cornwall.

Reading this book is like that shaft of sunshine cutting through the clouds on a miserable day, it puts a smile on your face and gives you a bit of hope for the future. Just what’s needed at the moment.

To Kill A Man, by Sam Bourne

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This is another in a series of thrillers featuring Maggie Costello, a fast-paced read which really gets under the skin of its protagonist.  Still set in the world of Washington politics, the book opens with the vividly-realised death of an intruder, killed by aspiring politician Natasha Winthrop during a break-in to her house. Nothing is quite what it seems though, and as the story unfolds, the reader is left guessing about Natasha’s motives. Maggie Costello becomes enmeshed in Natasha’s life as she tries to defend her against conspiracy theories and the machinations of her political rivals. 

Like the others in this series, To Kill A Man is rooted in current political issues, in this case focused on the #MeToo movement, highlighting the reality of the abuse many women face in the workplace alongside a well-drawn plot with a big twist at the end. At times I found this quite a challenging read, asking myself was it appropriate for a man to be writing so powerfully about sexual harassment, rape and assault, but I was glad to see a range of acknowledgements from the author at the end, reflecting his meticulous research and clearly stating that episodes of sexual harassment and assault, whilst fictionalised, were based on victims accounts.  Highly recommended.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

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This novel was published yesterday, and I had high hopes, because I had loved Lucy Foley’s first book, The Hunting Party. If anything, The Guest List is even better. Set on a remote island over the course of a rather upmarket wedding party, The Guest List is a Poirot-like country house mystery where everyone’s a suspect and the real culprit is unexpectedly unmasked right at the very end.

What’s so clever about this is the way the author unravels the backstory for each of the main players so gently throughout the course of the book. You’re kept guessing with every turn of the page, anticipating some twists but definitely not others. I was absolutely riveted the whole way through, and – like The Hunting Party – the setting itself, the wild weather and astonishing scenery, becomes another of the characters alongside the different protagonists.

I could hardly believe it when I reached the end of the book, I wanted to go on reading it and follow the characters on beyond what happened on the Island.It’s dark, twisty, hugely suspenseful and the very definition of a modern murder mystery. Totally loved it and don’t want to say more about the plot because I don’t want to spoil it! Enjoy…

Can’t wait to see what she writes next.

The Lying Room by Nicci French

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I’ve long been a fan of Nicci French’s Frieda Klein series, one I go back to again and again, so I was really excited to read this stand-alone novel. I’m happy to report it absolutely did not disappoint. The heroine, Neve, is fascinatingly flawed and there were times when I wanted to shake her, but that’s a good thing, right? Means you’re totally ‘in’ the book, and that the characters and situation are both compelling and believable.

I won’t spoil the plot, with all its myriad twists and turns, but it begins when Neve, everyone’s best friend, discovers the body of a man she’s been seeing and decides to remove every trace that she’s ever been in his flat. Except that, this being a thriller, she’ll miss something crucial, which will come back and bite her at some inopportune moment. Well, she does, and it does, except that it’s early on and becomes a classic piece of misdirection. This book is like a masterclass on how to write a suspenseful thriller, because by the end of it you’ve changed your mind ten times about who the murderer really is and you’re still surprised how it turns out.

What Nicci French does so well is ratcheting up the tension with each new secret that’s revealed. There’s an incredible feeling of claustrophobia that grows throughout the novel until you can hardly breathe for wondering when the next blow will fall and whether Neve will survive it. I almost missed my stop on the tube at one point. And it makes a fantastic distraction from all the bilge that’s going on in the news at the moment. Definitely worth a read.

The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett

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Oh, how I loved this book, loved it! I’ve never read any Ann Patchett before, but based on this novel, I’m going to work my way through her other novels.  The plot, in summary, is about Danny and his older sister Maeve and their enduring relationship through the loss of their mother, the machinations of their stepmother and the death of their father, all interwoven with imagery and memories related to the house where they grew up. It becomes a totem for everything that they’ve lost, and the wheel turns full circle through this complex, absorbing novel.

I don’t recall reading very many books about sibling relationships and this book reflects the ups and downs of being a sibling with depth and warmth. The push-me, pull-you nature of sibling relationships, the irritations and unspoken connections that come from growing up together through difficult times are very well drawn. Her descriptions are vivid and engaging and I was totally engaged by the twists and turns of the plot, through train journeys and snatched moments on the tube, to the point that I sat reading it one night instead of turning on the telly. It had real heart, The Dutch House, and I would thoroughly recommend it. One for a rainy autumn afternoon in front of the fire.

Now You See Them by Elly Griffith

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Elly Griffith is best known for her Ruth Galloway series, but I have a great fondness for her books about Max Mephisto (a famous magician – and also a movie star by the time this book opens) and Detective Inspector (now Superintendent) Edgar Stephens. Set in Brighton in the 1950s, the series opened with The Zig-Zag Girl, and her latest, Now You See Them, moves forward ten years or so to the time of mods and rockers.

Much has happened in between Now You See Them and the previous novel, to the point where you don’t necessarily have to be familiar with the earlier books in the series. It’s almost, but not quite, a reboot. One of Griffiths’ great strengths is her ability to write an ensemble cast of characters, so that you care about each and every one of them. Indeed, each face personal and life choices as well as becoming involved in the disappearance of three young women. It was great to see modern dilemmas, such as Emma (Edgar Stephens’ wife and a former detective herself) becoming dissatisfied with her role as a housewife, portrayed with sensitivity, whilst the mystery itself was absorbing enough to drive the story along.

The descriptions of Brighton are vivid, and the interweaving of historical details of the period work well. I’ve learned a lot about smugglers tunnels that I never knew, and I felt the story ended with a setup for a future spin-off that would work well. Her books are so cinematic in the way they’re written I find it extraordinary that none appear to have been optioned for broadcast.

Elly Griffith is one of those few authors I would pre-order books by in advance of publication, so it was a real treat to have been able to read an early copy via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.