Category: Fiction

Crime Fiction Alphabet: N is for …

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

 … Now You See Me by S J Bolton

I’ve enjoyed S J Bolton’s earlier books, but I hesitated several times before deciding to read Now You See Me, because it begins with such a brutal killing. I’d read the opening pages on Amazon using the ‘Click to Look Inside‘ feature and didn’t like it. I usually steer clear of books with such graphic descriptions of murder, but I knew that I liked S J Bolton’s writing and that others had given it good reviews, so eventually I read further on.

I’m glad I did because, despite the brutal murders, it is compelling reading, with a complex plot and convincing characters.

Summary from S J Bolton’s website:

Despite her life-long fascination with Jack the Ripper, young detective constable Lacey Flint has never worked a murder case or seen a corpse up close. Until now ‘¦

As she arrives at her car one evening, Lacey is horrified to find a woman slumped over the door. She has been brutally stabbed, and dies in Lacey’s arms.

Thrown headlong into her first murder hunt, Lacey will stop at nothing to find this savage killer. But her big case will also be the start of a very personal nightmare.

When Lacey receives a familiar letter, written in blood, pre-fixed Dear Boss, and hand delivered, it is clear that a Ripper copycat is at large. And one who is fixated on Lacey herself. Can this inexperienced detective outwit a killer whose infamous role model has never been found?

I don’t have a fascination with Jack the Ripper and began to be a bit  weary about the copycat nature of the killings, but then the scenario changed and it became clear that there was more to the killings than just copying the Ripper. It’s narrated by Lacey, a strong character, one who thinks for herself, is a loner, and is not content to merely follow police procedure. But I didn’t warm to her until near the end of the book. She knows more than she is letting on to her fellow police officers and I was very suspicious of her motives and conscious that she was not a reliable narrator.

S J Bolton is very skilled in leading the reader up the garden path, providing plenty of hints that could be significant or be dead ends. This book (like her others) is fast-paced, full of suspense and tension, with a chilling and dramatic ending.

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Corgi (26 April 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0552159816
  • ISBN-13: 978-0552159814
  • Source: My own copy
  • My Rating: 3.5/5

For more Crime Fiction Alphabet posts see Kerrie’s blog Mysteries in Paradise. The posts must be related to either the first letter of a book’s title, the first letter of an author’s first name, or the first letter of the author’s surname, or even maybe a crime fiction “topic”. But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

From the Archives

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Simon at Stuck in a Book has a series of posts in which he revisits his old reviews. I think it’s a good idea and thought I’d do something similar, because one of my reasons for writing this blog is to help me remember what I’ve read.

Like Simon I’ve been writing a blog since 2007 so I’m kicking off by looking back into my archives at Historical Fiction books – one from each year, with links to my posts, a short summary and a quotation from my review:

1) Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve – an adventure story, set in Britain in AD 500, telling the story of King Arthur.

From my review: ‘The picture Reeve paints is of a turbulent and harsh world, with Arthur as a war-leader in a land where opposing war-bands fight for supremacy.’

2) Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom – set in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and the first two years of the Second World War.

From my review: ‘an action packed thrilling war/spy story and also a moving love story and historical drama all rolled into this tense and gripping novel.’

3) The Company of Liars by Karen Maitland – Set in England in 1348 it tells the tale of a group of people fleeing across the country as the plague moves inland from the ports.

From my review: ‘As you would expect from the title the members of the group, a conjuror, a one-armed storyteller, a musician and his apprentice, a young couple on the run, a mid-wife and a strange child who can read the runes are all liars, with secrets that gradually exposed as they journey on. ‘

4) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – the story of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, and his political rise, set against the background of Henry VIII’s England.

From my post: ‘What I found most enjoyable was the way this book transported me back to that time, with Mantel’s descriptions of the pageantry, the people, the places and the beliefs and attitudes of the protagonists.’

5) Fair Exchange by Michèle Roberts – set in England and France in the late 1700s/early 1800s during the French Revolutionary period.

From my post: ‘there is a fair bit in this book about women’s rights and their place in society, and about the question of nurture versus nature in bringing up children.’

Over to you now – which great historical fiction books have you enjoyed?

Guilty Consciences: a Crime Writers’ Association Anthology

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

I’ve taken my time reading this collection of short stories Guilty Consciences: a Crime Writers’ Association Anthology, edited by Martin Edwards, who has also contributed one of the stories. I read them one or two at a time, which for me is the best way.

The contributors are Robert Barnard, Ann Cleeves, Bernie Crosthwaite, Judith Cutler, Carol Anne Davis, Martin Edwards, Jane Finnis, Peter James, Alanna Knight, Susan Moody, Sarah Rayne, Claire Seeber, L.C.Tyler, Dan Waddell and Yvonne Walus, and there is an introduction from the current Chair of the CWA, Peter James.

I haven’t been too keen on short stories in the past but I enjoyed this collection and think it’s one of the best I’ve read. As Peter James writes in his introduction:

I believe the short story is long overdue for a renaissance, and the ideal literary form for our increasingly busy, time-poor modern lives. What better for a quick read between tube station stops, or using your e-reader to turn a tedious airport security queue into fifteen minutes of surprises and delight?

Or as I found the ideal length to read at breakfast.

As the title suggests the stories all reveal various aspects of a guilty conscience. I find it hard to write about short stories without giving away the plot, so here are just a few notes on some. There are many I could pick out but these particularly stand out in my memory, now that I’ve read the book:

  • Hector’s Other Woman by Ann Cleeves – an intriguing insight into Vera Stanhope’s past and her motivation for joining the police, as Vera recollects her visit to Holy Island with her father whilst she was in the middle of her A-level year.
  • Squeaky by Martin Edwards – about a couple who both have something to hide and how their marriage began to fall apart when Squeaky came into their lives.
  • Deck the Hall with Poison Ivy by Susan Moody – a cautionary story about Christmas and a family’s arrangements.
  • The Train by Dan Waddell – as a husband anxiously waits for the return of his estranged wife he remembers their lives together and vows it will be different this time.

All the contributions were written specially for this collection with the exception of The Visitor by H R F Keating, who died in 2011, a story that had previously been included in a Penguin India collection, featuring Inspector Ghote. Ghote’s visitor is consumed with guilt about something that he had done in the past – but had he?

An excellent collection.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: M is for …

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

… M R Hall

Biography summarised from M R Hall’s website:

Matthew Hall was born in London in 1967, he was educated at Hereford Cathedral School and Worcester College, Oxford,where he graduated in law. He lives and works in the Wye valley in South Wales. He spends much of his spare time looking after his sixteen acres of woodland and working for the conservation of the countryside.

After working as a barrister, mostly in the field of criminal law he then went on to become a screen writer and producer, including writing episodes of such dramas as  Kavanagh QC starring John Thaw and Dalziel and Pascoe. His first season of writing the Channel 5 series, Wing And A Prayer earned him a BAFTA nomination in the best series category.

Novels:

I’ve read his debut novel, The Coroner, which was published in 2009 and was nominated for the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger in the best novel category. In this book Jenny Cooper, a newly appointed Coroner, divorced, and recovering from a nervous breakdown gets involved in investigating the deaths of several teenagers at local detention centres. Has her predecessor neglected some crucial information in this area? As Jenny digs deeper, she encounters a solid wall of bureaucratic resistance. But Jenny just won’t give in until she gets to the truth.

The second novel in the Jenny Cooper series, The Disappeared, was published in the USA by Simon and Schuster on December 1st 2009 and in the UK by Pan Macmillan in January 2010. I’ve yet to read this book in which Jenny investigates the disappearance of a British student, Nazim Jamal. She is beginning to settle into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley. But as the inquest gets under way, a code of silence is imposed on the inquest and events begin to spiral out of all control, pushing Jenny to breaking point.

I thoroughly enjoyed the third novel in the same series, The Redeemed, which was published in April 2011 in the UK and May 2011 in the USA. With an accusation of murder hanging over Jenny’s head her lone quest for justice takes her to the heart of the fight between good and evil, sex and the supernatural, and on a dark inner journey to confront ghosts that have haunted her for a lifetime.

The fourth in the series, The Flight was published in the UK on 2 February 2012. I’ve recently read this one and have to say that I don’t think it’s as good as the other two I’ve read.

Flight 189 has plunged into the Severn Estuary, an area outside Jenny Cooper’s jurisdiction, but she is handling the cases of a sailor, washed up on her side of the river and that of a 10 year old girl, who was a passenger on the flight. Jenny is never one to back away from handling sensitive issues and when the authorities want her cases to be dealt with by Sir James Kendall, a recently retired High Court judge,the coroner for the inquest into the crash, she resists and insists she carries out her own investigations. Each time they try to halt her inquest she finds ways of carrying on.

My problem with this book wasn’t Jenny’s role.  I like the way Jenny perseveres, her sympathies for the bereaved parents, her own fragile psychological make-up and how she deals with her problems with her father. These elements are in the other books too, but in The Flight I thought they were overwhelmed by all the technical details of the aircraft and how it came to crash. I prefer the smaller scale inquests, rather than this ‘disaster film’ genre – but, I think, it would make a good disaster film.

If you’re nervous about flying, (which I’m not, although I did feel glad I’m not booked on a flight soon as I was reading it) it is definitely a scary book, even though M R Hall in his Author’s Note at the end of the book says this about the safety of flying:

Next time you fly – or perhaps you are in a plane right now? – remember that a short drive through town remains statistically far more dangerous than your flight by a factor of many thousands to one. The most perilous parts of your journey are the ones to and from the airport. I am reliably informed that you are precisely eighty-seven times more likely to choke on the ice cube in your gin and tonic than to perish in a crash. So sit back and enjoy the movie – the numbers say it’ll never happen to you.

Mmm – do I really find that comforting?

A Crime Fiction Alphabet post for the letter M. For more posts see Kerrie’s blog Mysteries in Paradise.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Toni Morrison is the author of ten novels, from The Bluest Eye(1970) to A Mercy (2008). She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She lives in New York.

I recently read A Mercy. I found it a difficult book, both to understand and to appreciate. In fact once I’d read it I went back to the beginning and read it again, almost straight away and then found myself turning back to the first page again.The narration moves between the characters and at times I wasn’t sure whose voice I was reading and had to backtrack several times. Even on the second reading, I was not sure, even though the characters have different ways of talking.

From the back cover:

On the day that Jacob, an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, agrees to accept a slave in lieu of payment of a debt from a plantation owner, little Florens’ life changes. With her intelligence and passion for wearing the cast-off shoes of her mistress Florens has never blended into the background and now at the age of eight she is taken from her family to begin a new life. She ends up part of Jacob’s household, along with his wife Rebekka, Lina their Native American servant and the strange and melancholy Sorrow who was rescued from a shipwreck. Together these women face the trials of their harsh environment as Jacob attempts to carve out a place for himself in the brutal landscape of the north of America in the seventeenth century.

It’s definitely character-based, and the plot is hard to follow (at least I thought so), although on the second reading it was much clearer. It begins with a confession:

Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark – weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more – but I will never unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth.

and it was only at the end that I could understand the beginning.The writing is lovely, the mood is melancholy and touching.The setting is America in the 1680s – 1690. It’s a land still largely unknown territory that regularly changed hands, a land where you couldn’t be sure who was friend or foe. The themes of this novel are slavery, racism and religion, with a mighty emphasis on motherhood and the position of women in that time and place.

A Mercy is not my favourite Toni Morrison book and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read any of her other books, but it is thought provoking and moving. I prefer Song of Solomon and Beloved.

  • Source: my own copy
  • Rating: 3/5

Crime Fiction Alphabet: L is for …

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

… Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie. This was first published in the UK in 1933 and later the same year in the USA as Thirteen for Dinner. It’s the eighth book featuring Hercule Poirot, narrated by Captain Hastings. Agatha Christie had written it in the autumn of 1931 at her house in Ninevah, whilst with her husband, Max Malloran on his expedition in the Middle East sponsored by the British Museum.

Lord Edgware Dies is set far from Ninevah, in London’s West End. Poirot is having supper at the Savoy with Hastings after they had been to the theatre to see the celebrated American impressionist, Carlotta Adams. At the next table is Jane Wilkinson, Lady Edgware, also a celebrated actress, who Carlotta had impersonated during her show. Jane implores Poirot to help her to ‘get rid of her husband’ – to convince him to agree to a divorce. Poirot agrees to go and see Lord Edgware. Much to Poirot’s surprise, Lord Edgware readily agrees to a divorce, but as Poirot and Hastings leave the house, Hastings is surprised to see an astonishing change in Lord Edgware’s face:

That suave smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage. (page 33 0f my copy)

The next morning Lord Edgware was found dead, stabbed in the back of the neck. Jane was seen at the house the night before, but there are witnesses who can testify that she was at a dinner party with twelve other guests.  Could Jane have been in two places at once and killed him? She had boasted to her friends that if Poirot couldn’t help her that she would

‘have to call a taxi to go round and bump him off myself. (page 17)

Or was it Carlotta Adams impersonating Jane?

It’s not a simple mystery and there is a second murder which complicates matters. Poirot is at his best, relying on his knowledge of psychology, the ‘employment of the little grey cells‘, which gives him such mental pleasure. There are small personal touches such as this where Poirot compares his moustache to that of Hastings in this conversation between the two of them:

‘You have made a hit, Poirot. The fair Lady Edgware can hardly take her eyes off you.’

‘Doubtless she had been informed of my identity’, said Poirot, trying to look modest and failing.

‘I think it is the famous moustaches’, I said. ‘She is carried away by their beauty.’

Poirot caressed them surreptitiously.

‘It is true that they are unique,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, my friend, the ‘tooth-brush’ as you call it, that you wear – it is a horror – an atrocity – a wilful stunting of the bounties of nature. Abandon it, my friend, I pray of you.’ (pages 12-13)

Yet again, another baffling case solved by Hercule Poirot – a very entertaining book.

The Crime Fiction Alphabet 2012 is a meme hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.