2021 was a busy year (PhD, teaching etc…) so I’ve not been able to spend as much time as I’d like reviewing books. Here are five of the books I’ve enjoyed over the past year, with just a quick summary or comment for each one, rather than a full review… Continue reading
Crime/Thriller
Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes – A Series of Mysteries by Laurie R. King
Last summer I was sheltering from the rain in one of the many second-hand bookshops in Hay-on-Wye, and my eye was caught by a book. That book turned out to be from a popular series of books charting the later years of Sherlock Holmes, and his partnership with a young woman named Mary Russell. The first of these, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice begins in 1915, when Sherlock is supposedly retired, focusing his incredible mind on the mysteries of beekeeping. It is told in the enigmatic voice of Mary Russell. Continue reading
Book Review: SNAP by Belinda Bauer
A Guest Review by Mary Le Bon
SNAP is a haunting but very satisfying crime novel. I found it hard to put down, despite the fact that I didn’t allow myself to read it at bedtime. It is the story of three young children, left in a car on the hard shoulder while their pregnant mother goes to phone for help, and what happens when she doesn’t return. She leaves her eleven-year-old son (Jack) in charge, and he takes this responsibility so seriously that he is still in charge three years later, struggling to provide food for his younger siblings and trying to keep the house looking neat and tidy on the outside so that no one will guess the chaos within. Continue reading
Book Review: A Simple Scale by David Llewellyn
A Simple Scale switches between three different time periods, weaving through the 1930s, the 1950s and into the twenty-first-century to produce something quite unsettling – a story of musical intrigue and sexual transgression, simmering beneath a veneer of secrecy and silence. Continue reading
Book Review: Captcha Thief by Rosie Claverton
I heard Rosie Claverton speaking about mental health in crime fiction at a recent literary festival, and was intrigued by her protagonist Amy Lane, who suffers from agoraphobia. I ended up reading Captcha Thief, which is actually the third book in this series, but it didn’t matter that I hadn’t read the first two – I was hooked from the very first page. Continue reading
Book Review: The Last Hours by Minette Walters
Crime fiction writer Minette Walters has branched out into the realms of historical fiction with her new novel The Last Hours. Set in the summer of 1348, it provides a fascinating glimpse into what life was like for the ordinary folk of Dorset when faced with the horror of the Black Death. Lady Anne of Develish decides to quarantine the demesne, bringing her serfs inside the walls to keep them safe from contamination. But the people soon become restless, as fear of starvation begins to counteract the fear of disease. Continue reading
Book Review: The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond
The Golden Orphans is a stunning thriller in every sense of the word. It is packed full of atmospheric description, set on the sun-bleached streets of Cyprus, where crime and corruption hide beneath a veneer of idyllic island life. The novel begins with a sense of unease, which builds slowly. We follow in the footsteps of a young artist who has travelled to Cyprus to attend the funeral of his mentor and friend, Francis Bentham, who spent the last years of his life painting for Mr Prostakov, a wealthy Russian.
Book Review: The Magpie Tree by Katherine Stansfield
The Magpie Tree begins where Falling Creatures left off, with Shilly (the narrator) and her new companion (Anna Drake) arriving at Jamaica Inn in 1844, looking for a new mystery to solve. There is a strange mix of historical realism and gothic horror, as the pair begin to investigate the disappearance of a young boy. But this is no ordinary detecting duo. Anna transforms herself into an array of different characters, unwilling to reveal her true identity, whilst Shilly sees things in the landscape around her which others do not, things which suggest a merging of past and present, reality and myth. Continue reading
Book Review: The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott
I heard Jake Arnott reading from his novel, The Fatal Tree, at the Hay Festival, and was intrigued by his use of slang words – a historical dialect of thieves and villains, taken directly from the “flash world” of Romeville in 18th century London. The book centres on the true story of infamous jail-breaker Jack Sheppard and his companion, the notorious Edgworth Bess (aka Elizabeth Lyon), but it is not a straightforward telling. Arnott’s narrator (William Archer) is a young hack writer, who gains his material directly from Edgworth Bess herself, as she awaits trial at Newgate Gaol. Continue reading
Book Review: Falling Creatures by Katherine Stansfield
Falling Creatures combines the genres of historical fiction, detective story and gothic ghost story in a rather unsettling way, producing a novel that is both haunting and full of suspense, though it is actually based on historical fact. The author, Katherine Stansfield, grew up on Bodmin Moor, where the novel is set, and the tragic murder of Charlotte Diamond is a familiar story to local residents. At the book launch, Stansfield explained that she has always wanted to write about this case, but it was only recently that she discovered a way into the story. Continue reading
Book Review: The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer
I loved the main character in this book. Ruby is different. She has a bright red birthmark around her left eye, and she can see things that other people can’t, like Shadow (the boy who mysteriously appears out of nowhere) and the Wasp Lady (who swoops at her as she walks up the stairs). At the age of 13 she is delighted to discover that she was adopted as a baby, and decides to track down her real parents, who will surely come to rescue her from Mick (who likes to use his fists) and Barbara (who lets him). Continue reading
Book Review: The Unforgotten by Laura Powell
The plot of The Unforgotten twists and turns, keeping the reader gripped until the very end. I read it in two days, and I would certainly recommend that if you’re going to start reading it, you clear your diary first. It begins in 1956 with a series of horrific murders in the small Cornish seaside village of St Steele. Betty Broadbent, aged fifteen, has left school and now helps her eccentric mother to run a boarding house. She is shocked and scared by the murders, but feels sorry for Mr Forbes, the local butcher, whom everyone suspects. Continue reading
Book Review: The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker
The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair is a very difficult book to put down. But the plot twists about so much that you need some breathing space every now and then to process all of its complexities. The narrative follows the story of Marcus Goldman, a young writer whose debut novel caused a sensation, and who is now suffering from writer’s block. Under pressure from his publisher, he eventually seeks the help of his old friend (and famous writer) Harry Quebert, staying with him for a while in the small seaside village of Somerset. Soon afterwards, the body of Nola Kellergan, a fifteen-year-old girl who disappeared over thirty years ago, is unearthed from Harry’s back garden. Continue reading
Book Review – Masque by Bethany W Pope
Why would someone take a well-known story, which has been re-invented many times over, and attempt to re-invent it again? Masque is based on The Phantom of The Opera, the French novel by Gaston Leroux, published in 1911. Since then it has been re-told in various films and novels, and on stage. I wouldn’t have considered reading this book, but I attended the regular ‘First Thursday’ event run by Seren Books, and heard Bethany Pope reading from it. I was entranced, hearing the story from the point of view of each character in turn, and wondering whether it would be the same as the original. These words are printed on the front of the book: ‘This is not the story you think you know…’ Continue reading
Book Review: The Unravelling by Thorne Moore
The cover of this book, and the words ‘Children can be very, very cruel’, immediately drew me in, hooked into finding out what horrendous thing could possibly have happened to the protagonist (Karen Rothwell) as a child – something so traumatic that she has forgotten it, until now. At first Karen seems strange, in the way she remembers, the way she interacts with her colleagues and other unusual behaviour, but gradually you realise that something which happened years ago has had a profound and devastating effect on every aspect of her life. Continue reading
Book Review: I Saw A Man by Owen Sheers
I Saw A Man begins with the moment when Michael Turner (writer and recently widowed) walks into his neighbours’ house (Josh and Samantha and their two daughters – a family he has grown close to, since moving back to London). Sheers cleverly takes us back in time to see how Michael began his career as a writer, how he met his late wife (Caroline), how he coped after her death (hit by an American drone bomb whilst working as a TV news reporter) and the back story of his neighbours, Josh and Samantha. Continue reading
Book Review: The Girl In The Red Coat by Kate Hamer
The Girl In The Red Coat follows the story of an eight year old girl (Carmel) who goes missing whilst attending a storytelling festival. It begins from her mother’s perspective, as she reflects back on the years of growing up, how Carmel was always different to other children, drifting, unattached. I began reading this book whilst attending the Hay Festival, and found myself more aware than ever of how easy it could be for a parent to lose their child in such a busy place. Continue reading
Book Review: Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
‘Snowdrops’ is a Moscow slang term for the dead bodies which end up buried under snow, revealing themselves as it eventually begins to melt in the spring. The book is written as a confession from Nick, an English lawyer who has spent some years living in Moscow, to his fiancée. It is also a justification, an explanation of what happened and an attempt to understand why. He is brutally honest and, from the beginning, you sense that something went badly wrong, but it isn’t until near the end that all is revealed. Continue reading