TBRs – Page 23 – BooksPlease

The Wych Elm by Tana French

Published on February 21, 2019April 19, 2026 by Margaret3 Comments

The Wych Elm by Tana French is a long book and it starts very slowly, so it’s a book to savour rather than one to rush through. I was engrossed in this psychological thriller, a standalone book, as dark family secrets gradually came to light. It isn’t a page-turner and yet it is full of mystery and suspense about a family in crisis.

Toby Hennessy, the narrator, is twenty eight. He’s a good looking and charming young man from an affluent and supportive family who love him. He has had an easy start to life, everything had just seemed to fall into place for him. He works for an art gallery in the centre of Dublin, where he does the gallery’s PR and is thinking of getting a place together with his girl friend, Melissa. But then his luck and his life change dramatically when he is brutally attacked by burglars in his flat, leaving him in a terrible state, physically and psychologically damaged. The first mystery is to find out why he was burgled and so savagely beaten. The police investigation doesn’t get very far and Toby is left to solve it himself – for a while at least.

He then learns that his Uncle Hugo has terminal cancer and he and Melissa go to stay with him at the Hennessy family home, the Ivy House, to care for Hugo and to recuperate. Their large family – his parents, his aunts and uncles, and his cousins, Susanna and Leo – descend on Ivy House for lunch every Sunday and one Sunday afternoon Susanna’s young children discover a human skull in the hollow trunk of a wych elm, the biggest tree in the garden.

So there is a second mystery to be solved – and one that is slowly unravelled taking Toby back to his teenage years and he realises that there was so much going on in his friends’ and cousins’ lives that he had just not known about. It’s as though he was cocooned within his own comfortable bubble, totally unaware of the bullying and struggles that other people had to face. He really finds it hard to come to terms with this. Much of the rest of the book is made up of long conversations with his uncle and cousins and the police investigations.

The Wych Elm is an intense book, digging deeply into the nature of privilege, luck and empathy, with the dynamics of relationship, with memory and coming to terms with the past and with death. There were times when I wasn’t sure just how reliable Toby was as a narrator and then I wondered which of the other characters were telling the truth. The account of Hugo’s illness, the way he copes with it and his family’s reactions are completely convincing. This is a nuanced book, with several complex layers and when I wasn’t reading it I was still thinking about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My thanks to the publishers, Penguin UK, for my review copy via NetGalley.

Wych Elm Feb 2019 — A Wych Elm in our garden – you couldn’t hide a body in this tree!

First Chapter First Paragraph: An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill

Published on February 19, 2019 by Margaret12 Comments

Every Tuesday First Chapter, First Paragraph/Intros is hosted by Vicky of I’d Rather Be at the Beach sharing the first paragraph or two of a book she’s reading or plans to read soon.

This week I’m featuring An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill, one of the books I’m currently reading.

An Advancement of Learning (Dalziel & Pascoe, Book 2)

There had been a great deal of snow that December followed by hard frost. A few days before Christmas a thaw set in, temperatures rose steeply, the snow became slush. The sun greedily sucked up the moisture until it saturated the air and impinged on all the senses.

Blurb (Amazon)

All is not well at Holm Coultram College: lecturers having affairs with students, witches’ sabbaths, a body buried under a statue.

Detective Superintendent Dalziel, despite his cynical view of academics, doesn’t feel murder fits in here – let alone a rash of killings. But when he and DS Pascoe are sent to investigate a disinterred corpse at Holm Coultram College, that’s exactly what they find…

~~~

This is the second Dalziel and Pascoe book. I’ve read some of the later books in the series and am now going back to the early ones that I haven’t yet read. I first came across Dalziel and Pascoe via the TV adaptations and I think I remember watching the TV version of this one several years ago. Maybe it’s because I saw the TV versions before I read the books that I enjoy both so much – Warren Clark as Dalziel was so right in the role.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons

Published on February 10, 2019October 6, 2025 by Margaret10 Comments

The Colour of Murder (British Library Crime Classics)

This edition of The Colour of Murder, published in association with the British Library, has an introduction by Martin Edwards. It was first published in 1957 by Collins. It won the prize for the best crime novel of that year awarded by the Crime Writers’ Association. I came fresh to this novel, knowing little about the plot and nothing at all about its author, Julian Symons*, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

The Colour of Murder is a cleverly written, very readable mystery, with a focus on the psychological aspects of crime. It reflects the society and racial attitudes of its time. Written in two parts – the first is a statement to a psychiatrist, Dr Max Andreadis, written in the first person, from John Wilkins, accused of a murder on the beach at Brighton. The second part, which is written in the third person, describes John’s subsequent trial.

John is an unreliable narrator and not a very attractive character. He works in the Complaints Department in large Oxford store, a job with responsibility, but poor pay and suffers from blackouts after which he declares he can’t remember what he did. Are they brought on by his drinking, or not? He has an over-possessive mother and a dull and dutiful wife May, who doesn’t get on with his mother. When he meets Sheila in the local library he finds her beautiful and irresistible. He becomes infatuated with her, but May insists she loves him and won’t countenance a divorce. Sheila is not attracted to him but she leads him on and John believes she returns his love. So when she announces she is engaged to Bill he is devastated. At the end of the first part of the book I was left wondering who he had killed – was it May or Sheila, or Bill? That mystery is quickly cleared up in the second part with John’s trial- but I’m not revealing it now either – that would spoil the story.

By the end of the book I still wasn’t clear about the murder. Was John the murderer, was he insane or was he responsible for his actions? Or was he innocent and if so who was the murderer? What really happened? This is a book that kept me guessing right to the very end. The characters are well drawn, although maybe veering into stereotypes in John’s mother and uncle. The account of the trial is excellent, with the introduction of additional and credible witnesses giving their accounts of John’s character and actions.

*Symons’s full name was Julian Gustave Symons, born in 1912. He was a poet, biographer (including biographies of Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle) and a criminologist as well as a novelist and critic. He was a post-war President of the Detection Club from 1976 to 1985, and wrote several crime fiction and detective novels, short stories and in Bloody Murder (US title Mortal Consequences) a history of the detective story. In 1982 he was named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America – an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He died in 1994.

My thanks to the publishers, Poisoned Pen Press, for my review copy via NetGalley.

Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge on my TBR list since December 2018
Calendar of Crime Challenge for May – the author’s birth month.

The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull

Published on February 3, 2019 by Margaret8 Comments

Poisoned Pen Press|4 September 2018 |227 pages|e-book |Review copy|5* This edition, published in association with the British Library, has an introduction by Martin Edwards. It was first published in 1934 by Hamish Hamilton. It was Richard Hull’s first novel. His real name was Richard Henry Sampson (1896 – 1973) and up until 1934 he had worked as a chartered accountant. With the success of The Murder of My Aunt he devoted himself to writing. The Murder of My Aunt is one of the best of the classic crime fiction novels from the Golden Age that I’ve read. On the face of it has a straightforward plot as Edward Powell, the narrator for most of the book, plots to murder his Aunt Mildred. They live in a house called Brynmawr on the outskirts of the Welsh town of Llwll. Mildred is his guardian, his parents having died in mysterious circumstances when Edward was very young. He detests living in Lwll and he also detests his aunt. It’s a contest of wills as Mildred finds Edward a great trial, she sees all his faults – he is selfish, self-centred, vain and lazy and foppishly effeminate – and she constantly nags him to change his ways, or she will ‘have to take action’. Edward, though decides that he will take action, thinking his life would be so much better without Mildred and he sets out to find a way to arrange her death so that no suspicion will fall on him. He makes copious notes of various methods and the steps he plans to take and that’s more difficult than he expected as his attempts keep failing. But it’s the writing that lifts this book from the ordinary to an original and funny murder mystery and, whilst not laugh-out-loud funny, I thought it was brilliant. It’s witty and ironic from the start as Edward pontificates on the pronunciation of the word ‘Lwll’. Neither Edward nor Mildred come across as caricatures, but as real people, both of them with their own faults. Edward is just so insufferably awful that I felt on Mildred’s side in their battle of wits, even though she shows him up in front of the whole village – and after all she had brought him up. Once I started to read The Murder of My Aunt I was captivated and I had to read it quickly, anxious to find out if Edward did manage to kill his aunt. It makes very entertaining reading and I loved the ending, which took me by surprise and I thought was so clever – definitely a 5* read for me! Now I’m looking forward to reading more of Richard Hull’s books and have Excellent Intentions lined up to read soon. My thanks to the publishers, Poisoned Pen Press, for my review copy via NetGalley. This is qualifies for the Mount TBR Challenge and for the Calendar of Crime Challenge for March in the category of a book in which money/fortune/inheritance has a major role.

The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea

Published on January 31, 2019February 11, 2019 by Margaret6 Comments

The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea, set in Iceland in 1686, has a dark atmosphere, saturated in sadness, fear and superstition, a story of suspicion, love and violence. The story takes places over just a few months from August to December. It begins in November 1686 as a body surfaces from the ice-crusted sea, a body that had been weighted down with stones. But the land in Iceland is never still and the stones had been dislodged, pushing the body upwards and breaking the ice above. And then the story steps back a few months to August 1686 as Rósa is sent to the remote village of Stykkishólmur to join her new husband, Jón Eiríksson, a rich fisherman, farmer and merchant, and the chieftain. In other words a powerful man. He and Rosa had met when he had been travelling south and although his wife, Anna, had only been dead for two months he had proposed to Rosa. She accepted him, not because she loved him but to save her mother from starvation. Jon gives her a small glass figurine, shaped in the perfect form of a woman, hands clasped and her gaze meekly lowered, as a wedding present. He said it reminded him of her. And a few months later accompanied by Petur, his apprentice, she travels to Stykkishólmur. Petur is reputed to be one of the huldufolk – one of the ‘hidden people’ or elves, who take people and feast on their souls. (Icelandic works are used throughout the book and there is a short glossary at the end of the book, which I didn’t find until I finished the book.) He warns her not to ask questions about Anna, not to him or the villagers and especially not to Jon. As they near the village Rosa becomes suspicious and fearful, especially as strangers they meet warn her that Jon may look honest but underneath he is a devil. Her fears only increase as she finds she is isolated in a croft apart from the other villagers, who shun her with the exception of one woman, Katrin, who offers to help her. Jon forbids her to enter the locked room in the loft or the outbuildings, which of course rouses her curiosity. He expects her to obey him and occupy herself in the croft – to be subservient, like the glass woman. So, Rosa obediently went through her daily tasks. There was an old belief that reading and writing could be a form of witchcraft and Rosa’s mother, who knows Rosa is too wilful to be a wife, had warned her that Jon would set fire to her feet if she wrote a single word. So Rosa, who loves the Sagas, hid her writing from Jon. Then, hearing strange noises in the loft, she is irresistibly drawn to investigate and the tension rises, slowly mounting to violence as the book progresses. I had high hopes that I would love The Glass Woman, but my hopes dwindled as I read on. I thought it was too long, too drawn out and slow, especially in the first half of the book. The structure of the story let it down for me and there are parts of the story I thought were a bit too predictable. The action takes place over just a few months – from August to December – and the narrative switches backwards and forwards over these months, between Rosa in the third person and Jon in the first person which I found rather disjointed and awkward having to work out what happened when. The pace did pick up towards the end of the book, though, as the violence reaches its climax. I liked the setting in Iceland and the historical context. Caroline Lea explains in her author’s note at the end of the book that as she immersed herself in Jon and Rosa’s world she found the landscape itself was becoming a character. I can see what she means – the landscape does play a large part in the story and I liked her descriptions of its changing nature as earthquakes engulf whole hills, the land falling away or rising up. She was also fascinated by the Sagas with their references to the supernatural and that comes across strongly too. The questions, however kept my interest – what had happened to Anna, what is in the locked room, and why does Jon want to keep Rosa away from the village? And what about the body that emerges from ice – how does that fit into the story? Overall, then I did enjoy this book. My thanks to the publishers, Penguin UK Michael Joseph, for my review copy via NetGalley. This is my first book for the What’s In a Name? challenge – a book with the word ‘woman’ in the title, for the When Are You Reading? challenge, the Calendar of Crime challenge and the Mount TBR challenge too.

Top Ten Tuesday: The Ten Most Recent Additions to My To-Read List

Published on January 29, 2019 by Margaret12 Comments

top-ten-tuesday-new

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

This week’s topic is The Ten Most Recent Additions to My To-Read List. These are in no particular order, except for the first three which are books to be released later this year. I’m looking forward to reading each one of them!

The Silence of the Girls The Bear Pit: The Seeker 4 This Poison Will Remain

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, out in paperback in June 2019, a retelling of the Trojan War.

The Bear Pit by S G MacLean, the 4th Damian Seeker novel, out in July 2019, set in the 17th century England under the rule of Cromwell, the Lord Protector.

This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas out in paperback in August 2019, a Commissaire Adamsberg mystery investigating the death of three men, all killed by the venom of the recluse spider.

Transcription The Wych Elm Dear Mrs Bird The Sealwoman's Gift

Transcription by Kate Atkinson – a standalone novel set in London in the world of espionage in the 1940s and 50s.

The Wych Elm by Tana French, a standalone psychological thriller.

Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce, historical fiction set in London in 1941.

The Seal Woman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson, set in 1627 as pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers.

Templars The Song of Achilles Blood & Sugar

The Templars by Dan Jones, non fiction about the Knights Templars and the Crusades

The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, more historical fiction about the Trojan War and its heroes.

Blood and Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, historical crime fiction set in June, 1781 about the slave trade.