Number 40- Don't Let Him In- Lisa Jewell

 

My first Lisa Jewell book, and probably not my last.

This is 400 pages but I steamed through it in 2 days. It's pretty much the definition of a pageturner. The short chapters mean you look to see how long the next one is and think 'oh sod it, one more chapter'- several times.

It's the story of a man who inveigles his way into women's lives, marries them, steals their money and runs off to join another family. 

I was reminded very much of the old film the Stepfather with Terry O'Quinn as a similar character- although when he got bored of his families, he didn't just run off with their money. He ended things much more finally.

This book did slightly lack that level of drama, but it was still a compelling and very very quick and easy read.

After all the build up, I did think the final showdown when all the plot lines converged was more than a little bit anti-climactic. But I can't deny that the journey to that ending was so much fun, it's not as much of a complaint as it might otherwise have been.

All in all, 7 out of 10. It takes talent to make the reader hate a character as much as I hated he of many names who was at the centre of all the storylines. I will definitely be reading more of hers.  This was practically a cheat read.

Number 39- Royal City Volume 1: Next of Kin- Jeff Lemire

 

And this was the second of the pair of Jeff Lemire graphic novels. Volume 1 of his Royal City saga.

A struggling writer returns to his roots in the eponymous city after his father suffers a stroke.

To say the family is dysfunctional would be a vast understatement. His little brother Tommy drowned several years earlier as a child, and his siblings and his mother are all haunted by a different version of Tommy.

We are thrown into the internal politics of the family and the city itself.  His family run the manufacturing plant which is the heart of the town's wealth, but they're struggling badly.

I was starting to feel real emotions for this cast of characters, and then the book finished. The characters are well drawn and utterly believable, even the ghost.

This is all illustrated by Lemire as well as scripted. His artwork is distinctive. I tend to find it quite ugly until I settle into the story, at which point it weirdly makes sense and starts looking strangely pretty. 

Again, I need to order part 2 of this sooner rather than later. This is Lemire at the height of his creativity.

Number 38- Black Hammer- Secret Origins- Jeff Lemire/Dean Ormston

 

It occurred to me that I've not read many graphic novels this year, so i thought I'd fix that with a pair of Jeff Lemire offerings.

This is Lemire's non-DC take on the superhero genre.

A group of Golden Age superhero types are stuck in a small town that they can't escape for reasons not yet disclosed. They've been there for 10 years, since they and Black Hammer defeated the AntiGod and saved Spiral City. They vanished from their own universe at the moment of victory and are assumed dead.

This is absolutely vintage Lemire. It's got great characters, a mind-bending premise (especially Colonel Weird's storyline) and an emotional heart the size of Texas. 

The artwork by Dean Ormston is top notch. I need to get volume 2 of this ASAP given the cliffhanger ending.

Number 37- Hampton Heights- Dan Kois

 

This is a strange little book. I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.  That cover is not particularly enticing.  But I must have thought so on the day.

Kevin is a newspaper distributor.  He decides to take a bunch of his paperboys to the Milwaukee suburb of Hampton Heights to try to sell some subscriptions. This is not his wisest decision. Hampton Heights is no ordinary neighborhood, and the boys find themselves facing werewolves, witches and trolls as they wander the streets.

This is more of a short story collection than a straight novel. Kevin has his story, and the three pairs of boys he sends off around the streets each have their own segments, which only really merge into one story in the closing pages.

I wasn't finding much to love about the book in the first two stories.  There wasn't anything to hate either, it just wasn't pushing any of my buttons. Then the Mark and Ryan story started.  This was a radical departure from what had come before, with a sleek fairy tale feel to the narration which was just brilliantly handled.

That segment saved this book for me. Dan Kois can really write when he wants to.

Kevin stars in the first story, meeting a mysterious woman in a bar and falling for her otherworldly charms. The weirdly named Sigmone (I assume pronounced Simon) and Joel meet up with warring gangs of werewolves. Ryan and Mark encounter a pair of witches who have a story to tell them. Al and Nishu run foul of a mischievous troll with an appetite for memories. then they all go to Burger King for the final short segment that ties the narrative together.

This is never scary. It's almost a YA novel and I would hesitate to call it a horror novel, despite all the tropes in play. It's more of an urban fantasy crossed with a coming of age story. I had fun with it, and the last half is very good indeed.

If you're looking for something a bit out of left field, give this a try.

Number 36- (Don't) Call Mum- Matt Wesolowski

 

Another cheat read from last weekend. It's another of the novella's in Wild Hunt Books' Northern Weird Project. I think I only have one more till I've read the full set, and very good they've all been so far.

This is set almost entirely on a train. Our protagonist Leo is trying to get home to the remote town of Malacstone. An obnoxious man boards the train thinking he's headed for London, but he couldn't be more wrong.

When the train starts breaking down in the middle of nowhere, they can hear noises from outside. There are local legends surrounding the next stop, if they ever make it.  Could there be truth to the stories of the mysterious Underwood?

This short novel manages to build an incredible atmosphere, as well as making us well and truly loathe the man who initially thinks he's headed south.

It's a masterpiece of how to create convincing characters with minimal brushstrokes. I raced through this book in a couple of hours and loved every page.  

Highly recommended.

For reference, the other Northern Weird Project books are This House isn't Haunted But We Are (Stephen Howard), The Off Season (Jodie Robins), Good Boy (Neil McRobert), Turbine 34 (Katherine Clements), all of which I have reviewed in the past 12 months or so, and The Retreat (Gemma Fairclough) which is close to the top of my TBR. It's an excellent selection of short novels.

Number 35- A Short Stay in Hell- Stephen L Peck

Another cheat read- trying to get my numbers up before the halfway point in the year ( I finished this on Saturday just gone- 5 days ago)

The title tells you in an ultra-sarcastic way what this book is about. When Soren Johanssen dies, he assumes he's going to heaven since he's been a good Mormon boy all his life and followed all the rules.

However, in a waiting room hosted by a genial demon, we find out that Mormonism isn't actually the one true faith, and therefore he's going to hell to repent. I won't reveal which faith it is that gets the free pass to heaven, you will need to read the book to find that out for yourself.

He finds himself in an almost infinite library and tasked with finding the book that describes his life. If he can find that book, he can move on. That's easier said than done though.

It appears that mystical, infinite (almost) libraries are almost becoming a subgenre of their own. And it's one I approve of.

This is a much better example of the genre than The Midnight Library was. The humour works and the whole treatment of the theme is much better. I think Mark Lawrence's Library trilogy might still hold the edge for me though.

I really liked the characters in this. The scope of the task they face becomes horrifically clear very quickly. The fact that Peck manages to make a hell of eternal tedium into such an intriguing and more than vaguely disturbing story is nothing short of miraculous. It's difficult to say if the Hell of other people is better or worse than the Hell of Loneliness that Soren also endures.

The Hell in this is based on a short story by Borges  this is openly admitted to in the book by the demon who decides which Hell to send our poor protagonist.

The world Peck builds is truly Hellish.  Far worse and more imaginative than any lakes of fire and brimstone.

I know this is a book that is going to stick with me.  It's also a dead easy read and very short- just over 100 pages, but more satisfying than a lot of novels four times that length.

Highly recommended.

Number 34- Turbine 34- Katherine Clements

 

Another entry in the numbers theme so quickly...

The year is 2050 something. The world is baking.  On the West Yorkshire moors, an environmental scientist is trying to determine the impact of a controversial wind farm on the local peat bogs. She camps up by Turbine 34. However, there is something else on the moors, something that knows her, something that shouldn't be there.

This is a nice quick read that builds its atmosphere with great efficiency. The images and visions she experiences are at times genuinely unnerving.

The acknowledgements highlight the strong environmental message that runs through the story about the importance of the peat bogs as habitats for the wildlife, and flood defence etc. The book manages to carry these messages without overloading the story.

However, I do think the ending was fluffed quite badly. The twist to the tale really doesn't work for me.  It's a shame because I was really enjoying it up until that point.

Your mileage may vary.  This was a damned good trip, even though the destination was a bit of a letdown.

Number 33- 33 Place Brugmann- Alice Austin

 

This book was specifically chosen for the number in the title, and it sounded interesting. The next part of my occasional numbered books theme for the year.

Set in the second world war, this follows the inhabitants of the eponymous Belgian house in their various experiences of wartime Europe. The Jewish family from the first floor flee to the UK. Other inhabitants join the army or the resistance. Others are more sympathetic with the invaders.

This is all very nicely written, but it's such a slow burn I struggled to get involved with any of the characters or their dramas. The second half of the book is definitely much more interesting, especially when the residents start running foul of a traitor.

Each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, including two chapters told posthumously, which allows for a first person narration of the character's death. That was an interesting twist.

However, this falls foul of the old trap of all the characters talking with the same narrative voice. Older characters will not talk in the same way as younger characters. The old colonel will not have the same voice as a Russian immigrant Jewish girl. But in this book, they all sound the same. It robs the book of a lot of its potential.

I can understand why people would like this. The prose is undeniably good, even if it should be varied and isn't. The story, when it gets going, is good. The slow unravelling of plot points is actually very nicely handled where a passing comment from one character can take a whole new meaning later on. However, I just didn't get on well with this book.

Lots of potential, but for me it fell well short.

Number 32- Make Room! Make Room!- Harry Harrison

 

When this was chosen for a book group, I was very excited. I'd not read a Harry Harrison since a few of the Stainless Steel Rat books several decades ago.  Plus, when I looked for it on google, I discovered that this was the basis for the film Soylent Green.

As a result, I went into this book expecting a light hearted science fiction adventure with a dark twist in the tail.

That is not what you get from this book in the slightest. This is a grim dystopian novel set in a massively overcrowded future version of New York.  The far distant future in question here being 1999.

Andy Rush is a New York detective. When he's asked to solve the murder of a local criminal with high up connections, he finds himself caught in a whole heap of trouble- although he does has the benefit of a fresh love life in the shape of the victim's ex-mistress.

The world building in this book is brilliant.  It all feels so grimy and horrible that you find yourself wanting to take a shower after some sequences. 

The story seems to take second place to the world-building as there's not really that much happening in relation to the case. In a city this crowded, with 50s style technology that isn't up to even supplying water to the whole population, detective work won't go far. 

In alternating chapters we follow Andy and the killer as they live their lives over several months leading to the dawn of the new century. It's not a cat and mouse situation, literally just their lives in different parts of the city. That's not to say it's not interesting.  The writing is top notch. The world Harrison creates is a character in its own right and the novel is never even close to boring.

As predictive dystopias go, it missed the mark by a huge distance, thank goodness.  It failed to take into account that technology would improve. This is a nightmare vision of a world that could have been. It doesn't have the famous twist from the film, and I think I only recall one or two events from the book being used in the film although it's been a long long time). 

If there are any flaws, I would say that the repeated lectures from Andy's flatmate about reproductive control near the end of the book seem to come from nowhere, and the second time he rants on the subject could almost be a cut and paste from his rant 5 pages or so earlier as it covered all the same points again, just with the character talking to someone else. 

Despite being entirely different to what I expected- a bleak dystopian warning about overpopulation- rather than a light and fluffy adventure with a twist- I still really enjoyed this. And just check out that gorgeous cover art. They don't make them like that any more.

Number 31- At Risk- Stella Rimington

 

As you can see from that cover quote, this is the debut novel by Stella Rimington, the former head of M15. Stunning is a matter of debate.

Liz Carlyle is an intelligence officer in MI5. When a report says that an attack is about to be carried out by an "Invisible" operative, an ethnic native terrorist who therefore can pass through borders unchecked and access our institutions freely, the stage is set for a race against time.

This was published in 2003 (therefore probably written in 2001/2, in the wake of 9/11, which probably explains the complete lack of any balance in the narrative about Muslims. There are three in the story, the non-evil one is sidelined very early on and forgotten about, and the other two are sociopaths dead set on killing innocents. There could have been the use of the word extremist, but I don't recall it in the book. that would at least have served to tell us that these characters are at the fringe of their group and not representative of the faith. 

Anyhoo... rant over.

It's a slow burn of a story, with little action for the first two hundred pages or so. When one of the killers commits a murder in self defense after paying to be smuggled in, our plucky Liz is on the case, sleuthing around and finding clues to the exact nature of the treat to the country.

It all plays out rather sedately, which is probably more realistic than an all action shoot-em-up type thriller, but it doesn't make for a compulsive read until about 100 pages from the end. Liz does a lot of ringing around and asking people to find information for her, or receiving a fresh message from one of her sources rather than actively finding out for herself. The section with the passenger manifest would have been better if she'd done it herself instead of trusting subordinates to check it for her for example.

The prose is unremarkable, but not actively bad.  The book is never less than readable.  I don't personally think it ever reached the heights of "stunning" as stated on the cover. It's worth reading. Given who she is, it's probably a better insight into how these things actually work. It's a shame that it does highlight why these types of books do embellish detail.

6/10 if I'm feeling generous.

Number 30- Pictures of You- Josh Malerman

 

Another ARC- this one of my most anticipated book of the year. I've been hugely lucky to be sent a copy of this and many many thanks indeed.

And check out my beautiful bookmark I'm using at the moment.

As usual from Josh Malerman, this is nothing like anything else he's written.

Emily and Jack are a young couple a few months into their relationship.  After a sublime night out in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, Emily wakes up in strange bed, in a strange room, with a strange woman watching her through a picture frame. She is going to be the subject of this woman's art whether she wants to be or not.

The blurb calls this a Hitchcockian thriller and I cant think of a more appropriate description. This perfectly captures that atmosphere, with the steady build of tension on every new revelation.  The multiple storylines revolving around each other, and the well placed shocks are a masterpiece of suspense writing.

Not only does this work brilliantly well as a tense thriller, it's also a meditation on the nature of art itself. What is art and why do we need it in our lives? How far can an artist go to produce the perfect work?

I think we can probably agree that the antagonist is taking things a sight too far.

If I was forced to pick any fault with this, one of the parallel storylines does seem to be noticeably longer than the other by the point at which they intersect, but that's a minor issue. I was hooked from the first chapter and fairly raced through this book.

I mentioned in my review of Watching Evil Dead that there were shades of Bradbury in his prose in that book.  Those shades are here as well, fleshed out in more vivid colour.  If Bradbury and Hitchcock got together to write a mystery thriller about art induced insanity, the result wouldn't be much different from this.

I love how Josh writes such different material every time.  It really does make him one of the most exciting writers in the horror field today. This one feels old fashioned but completely modern at the same time. 

Number 29- Bad Things Happen Here- Mark Morris

 

As you can see from the picture , this is a review copy of the new Mark Morris novel, due out some time next month. 

Mark Morris is one of those writers who deserves to be a household name. His novels are consistently excellent and there are a lot of them.

This one is no exception.

A familiar set-up, 6 students meet with an evil force.  Bad things happen, they separate. Years later, the evil returns and starts trying to pick them off.  Can they team up and defeat the evil forces before it's too late?

The set up may be familiar but the execution is far from generic. The story jumps between the five survivors of their student days (this isn't a spoiler, it's on the back cover) as their lives are slowly torn apart by a mysterious force.

They don't instantly work out what's going on and get in touch which is the usual in this set up. Morris is a much better writer than that. The lucky ones doubt their own sanity as cracks appear in their very well drawn day to day existences. The others start to crack themselves. Their reactions to the events surrounding them seem real and grounded and completely believable. 

Morris is definitely channeling his inner Ramsey Campbell in this novel and creates some truly nightmarish sequences. This is one of the most atmospheric books I've read in a long while. It's a great example of how horror doesn't need to be blood soaked and violent.  The psychological impact is far greater than endless descriptions of gore would have been.

This is out next month and I recommend it to anyone who like character based, creepy as hell horror. 

Number 28- Polaris- Timothy Brown

Another cheat read- this time from the reliable stable that is PS Publishing.

I've never heard of Timothy Brown and I think this book was sent as part of one of their cut price bundles I ordered a while back. Science fiction isn't my genre of choice but then I find books like this and I realise it's not all Cowboys and Indians in space.

IN 2074. an old man sets out on a road trip through Death Valley in his highly advanced computerised car, complete with a robot drone "Fetch Unit" that does anything the car needs to do that would need hands- including processing food for the old man in the front seat to eat. 

What seem like inconsistencies in the story early on, quickly become important clues into what is happening.

This is a beautifully written and surprising little novella. You can almost feel the heat of the desert baking off the pages.

There's tragedy and comedy, and some hugely surprising plot turns. To say much more would be pointless as I think this is a book you need to go into pretty much blind.

If you can get hold of a copy, I highly recommend it.

Number 27- Blood On Snow- Jo Nesbo

         

A quick cheat read, and my first Jo Nesbo book.

Olav is a contract killer for a local crime lord- your classic killer with a conscience. He's contracted to kill his boss's wife because she's having an affair. However, he goes against those orders when he falls for her himself, and soon finds himself on the run with her, trying to survive the attentions of his now ex-boss and protect his new lover.

Although it sounds a bit cliched (and admittedly it is), this is an exciting and twist filled little thriller.

I really liked the characters, who rose above the stereotypes.  Nesbo's prose style (Neil Smith the translator's prose style) is classy and easily readable.

I'm normally good at seeing plot twists, but missed them in this book, which has to be a compliment.  The misdirection was performed admirably.

It packs a lot of action into its 180 pages. I am looking forward to my first full length Nesbo novel.

Number 26- We Are Always Tender With Our Dead- Eric LaRocca

 

Last year I read his short collection Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and dropped hints to all friends and family to buy me LaRocca books for Christmas, and they did.  this is one of them.

Eric gives good title on most of his books, and this is no exception. This is part one of a new trilogy set in the town of Burnt Sparrow.

Even by the standards of horror towns, Burnt Sparrow is a strange place. It's layered with strange rituals and traditions, not many of which are explained, they just add to the feeling of desperate unease that soaks through the pages of this book.

Rupert Cromwell has lived all 17 years of his life in Burnt Sparrow. When a tragedy strikes in the town leaving dozens of corpses in the streets, Rupert's father takes on the job of taking care of the bodies, and he drags Rupert along for the gruesome task as well.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators are captured and the town elders are persuaded into a cruel and unusual method of punishment.

The supernatural elements in the story are as unexplained as the traditions of the town. There are no easy explanations to be found here.  We need to take this on trust and it's a journey I'm all in for continuing.

There is some very shocking content in this book, but none of it ever feels unnecessary. This might be his best book that I've read so far and I can't wait for the next installment. 

With 30 pages to go I had no idea where he was going to go to find an ending, and I have to say there is no way I would possibly have guessed at it. It's an almost perfect ending to a volume 1 of a trilogy.  It closes off enough plotlines to feel like the end of the book, and leaves enough open that I need to know NOW what happens next.

This was a concentrated exercise in strangeness, unpleasantness and atmosphere. It's certainly a book that has lingered since I finished it last week and I think it's going to stick in my head for some time more.

Number 25- Feeding Time- Adam Biles

 

My first exposure to Adam Biles was the rather brilliant Beasts of England, a modern day version/update/sequel of/to George Orwell's Animal Farm. That is still one of my favourite books of the past several years.

This is his debut novel- also available from Galley Beggar Press. It's definitely one of the Press's first releases too, considering how short the list of names of the GBP buddies is at the end of the book.

I've been meaning to read this since I read Beasts of England. Indeed I bought it immediately after finishing that book. Has it been worth the wait?

This one is set more in the real world and is about a revolution in an absolutely horrific old folks home.

Dot is a new resident. She's just about given up on living since her husband contracted dementia and she could no longer look after him. Ruggles is convinced he's a wartime hero from the Boy's Own Adventure books he reads constantly. The other residents are in varying stages of waiting for death. The entire staff are either incompetent, insane, sadistic, or all three. 

This is not a nice place and, as you might have guessed, and, if it was real, would be closed in a week. That's probably one of the biggest issues with this book. despite being set in the real world, the setting is unrealistically grim. There's a line in there about it being somehow exempt from inspection to cover that, but it doesn't really hold water.

This was my choice this month for my book group, and it did not go down well in the slightest, with only me and one other finishing it. The fact that I'm the youngest in that group by at least a decade may have something to do with it considering the subject matter.

Things get very gruesome in places, and there are a few extremely graphic sexual scenes. The writing is excellent throughout. but the story is not a pleasant one and doesn't offer much hope at any point. Ruggles's sections are written in the style of the old style Boy's Own Adventures and don't always reference the real world story, leaving the reader to infer what's actually happening. In short, this is a book that requires effort to read and understand, and you need the constitution of a concrete elephant to digest some of the detail.

I enjoyed it throughout, but even for me this is a one and done. I graded it 7/10 at the book group, and I think that's fair.  Everyone else there scored it 2 or 3.  Whoops.

Number 24- A Matter of Death and Life- Andrey Kurkov

 

Another cheat read to get the numbers up, and more proof that short books can be just as satisfying as epic volumes spanning thousands of pages.

The second book in a row starting with a suicidal man deciding to end it all.  This time, however, our narrator decides to go for something dramatic, and to ensure people remember him.  He hires a hit-man to murder him.

Unfortunately, he soon decides that he actually wants to live. This leaves him with a predicament since the contract killer is on his trail.

This didn't take any of the narrative paths I thought it would from the plot description, and I loved it for feeling so original despite being over 30 years old.

George Bird's translation from the Russian reads very nicely. There's a lovely sense of black humour running through the narrative along with some real tension in places.

This is my second Kurkov novel and I will be buying more. I noticed in the By the Same Author bit that there is a sequel to Death And The Penguin, and that is now high up on my to be bought list.

 

Number 23- Coup De Grace - Sofia Ajram

 

A cheat read to catch up after taking 2 weeks to read Catch 22. 

This was my first Ajram book and probably wont be my last.

Vick is a depressed man who has decided to end it all by drowning himself.  However, when he gets off the metro train, he finds he's not in the station he expected but a cavernous labyrinthine station with no exits.

I really loved this book and tore trough it in one day.  I felt for poor Vick and his increasingly strange predicament. 

The prose definitely reminded me of Eric LaRocca and Wretch that I read earlier this year. However, there is a truly original switch up in narrative style with about 40 pages to go that caught me completely by surprise and raised this book to another level completely.

The sequence in the elevator is one of the weirdest things I've read this year so far. 

I recommend this unreservedly.

Number 22- Catch 22- Joseph Heller

 

Continuing my occasional theme of matching the number to the book, here we are with one of the most famous books ever written.

Not many books introduce entire new phrases to the language, but this one obviously did.

Yossarian is a cowardly bombardier in WWII, and the book basically follows his misadventures over the course of a year as he tries to avoid flying any more missions.

It's packed full of odd characters and violence. 

It's frequently laugh out loud funny, but I struggled to get through it. It felt like I was being shouted at the whole time I was reading it and I could rarely manage long sessions reading it without feeling mentally drained.  Despite that I was actually enjoying it almost the whole time.

It's very much a product of its time.  The humour is occasionally extremely rapey and there's not a single sympathetic character in the book except for possibly Major Major Major Major who does the sensible thing and avoids contact with everyone as much as possible.

I'm glad I read it, but I do think it's a one and done, and I'm not really tempted to read the sequel.

Number 21- Reality Check- Dave McReery

 

The self publishing world is a bit of a crap shoot.  For every Adam Nevill with his beautifully produced carefully packaged work, you get 100 books like this which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole and refuse to post a cover like that on this page.

This one here falls somewhere in the middle.

It's clearly been edited nicely, it looks generic but work has clearly gone into it.

Some years after World War Three decimated the planet and all countries decided to work together, Ryan is a sim racer, he takes part in remote motorcycle races via virtual links. He's recruited by the military when a threat from beyond the stars is identified.  Can he tame his reckless nature to become a valuable tool in the fight against the alien invaders?

Of course he can.

This is decently written, but is as generic as that cover. Take a bit of Enders Game, a bit of Starship Troopers, a bit of Star wars, a bit of Trek and stir it all together and you'd get something like this.

It's not a bad book by any stretch.  It just doesn't do anything special with the very familiar ingredients.

Dave (the writer) is a nice guy though. This was his first novel and it's an achievement to put out something this readable. The rest of the book group I read this with were all won over by it, whether or not they were sci-fi fans.