Number 76- The Society of Blood- Mark Morris

 

I left it far too long to pick up book two in this trilogy, because I could not remember what was going on or who most of the characters were at the start of this one.

Luckily there are some good recaps built in so I caught up fairly rapidly. It would have been nice to have a "previously" chapter at the start of the book though.

At the end of the previous book, Alex Locke was trapped in Victorian London without the magical Obsidian Heart and therefore no way to get home to the 21st century. He has a pair of capable assistants set there with him by a future version of himself and is struggling to care for a girl he rescued from a mad doctor at the end of the first book.

Can he retrieve the heart and return to modern Britain to rescue his captured daughter?

Morris manages to create a fantastic atmosphere through his writing.  the description of the London Smogs was so detailed I cold almost taste it.  

Alex is a good narrator, never making any horror novel choices, opting for the sensible choices uless circumstances dictated otherwise.

I thought there was a little bit of an issue with pacing.  There is an awful lot of contemplation on the nature of paradoxes and what might happen to his future if he changes the past etc. There were times when I wanted him to make a decision without a half a page of what-ifs. That's a minor point though and in general the book kept me wanting to know the answers. 

The final scene of the book definitely left me wanting to read the next book sooner rather than later. He didn't fall foul of the trap of just stopping randomly either.  Several book 2s of trilogies don't bother to close any storylines and just stop. The ending of this was damned good indeed and a fitting cap to the rest of the book.

Highly recommended, but you will definitely need to read the first book first.  This is not a jump in at any point story.

Number 75- The Final Girl Support Group- Grady Hendrix

 

Now this is an absolute blast from start to finish.

Lynette Turkington is a survivor. She's a Final Girl. She survived a serial killer - twice- in her youth. Now, a couple of decades later, her life is ruled by terror that it could happen again. 

Along with 5 other Final Girls, she's part of a support group of similar survivors. When the original Final Girl dies in violent circumstances, and all their lives are targeted, it seems like Lynette's fears are being realised.

This is a fantastic piece of writing.  Hendrix manages to simultaneously satirize the whole slasher genre whilst giving us a genuinely exciting and twisty turny slasher of his own.

There are a lot of Easter eggs for fans of the slasher genre.  All of the women in the support group are named after the actresses who played the Final Girls in the specific franchises that are referenced. 

It would be brilliant to see a movie of this book with the various actresses playing "themselves" so to speak.

There are red herrings and distractions galore. I'm normally good at spotting reveals well in advance but Grady got me with this one on a few occasions. 

I blazed through this book in two days although a two hour coach trip to Leeds followed by the return leg later in the day did give me a clear 4 hours uninterrupted reading time over the weekend. This is an insanely easy read, and even without knowing the films he's mocking/homageing, it will still be an exciting roller coaster of an adventure.

An easy contender for my book of the year.

Number 74- Before Your memory fades- Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 

Book three in this series gives us four more stories set in a café where you can travel in time to see your loved ones with very strict limits.

They can't leave the chair they're sat in, so they can only meet people who have visited the café. Nothing they do will change their present day. And they must leave before their coffee gets cold.

This time around, they're in a different café with the same type of ghost and time travel. I'm not really sure why they switched the location to Tokyo because the central cast are the same, watching over the premises for the owner while she's away, and every story beat is pretty much exactly as per the eight stories we've seen in the previous volumes. 

In the last volume, we discovered that travel is possible in both directions and the one thing that happens differently in this one is that, in at least one of the stories, there is a visitor from the past as well as the new supporting cast travelling backwards.

All the morals to the stories and life lessons learned seem to be much of a muchness.

It's all very nice and genteel and the translation is pleasant on the brain. Just, three volumes in, it's feeling a little bit samey. That won't stop me reading volume 4 when I'm in the mood for something totally unchallenging next year.

Number 71- Wolf- Mo Hayder

 

This is sadly the last of the Jack Caffery novels because of the death of Mo Hayder. And I know I've managed to do these write ups slightly out of order.

A family is taken hostage in their isolated home on the outskirts of a small village. One of the family manages to attach a cry for help on the collar of their pet dog and release it, but the message is compromised and the address details are lost.

Jack Caffery, through entirely unconvincing means, is given the dog and tasked with finding the source of the message. Can he track down the ownership of the dog and rescue the family before anyone dies? Will he be able to rid himself of his own personal demons?  This is a Mo Hayder novel so the answer to that last one is "probably not" even before the book starts.

Thankfully Flea Marley doesn't feature at all in this book past a brief mention early on. 

This is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some truly disturbing sequences. She manages to build serious levels of tension. However, Caffery takes the crown from Flea Marley as the least convincing cop in crime fiction in this book. The supernatural overtones with the Walking Man character spoil the narrative for me. The book is otherwise based in a very gritty reality and they really don't fit in.

Some of Mo Hayder's books have relied very heavily on coincidence and character stupidity for the plots to work.  I thought for a good third of this that she was doing it again, but she pulled off a quite shocking reveal that suddenly upped the stakes quite intensely.

This isn't up there with Birdman and The Treatment for me, but it is nonetheless a brutal and effective thriller even with the flaws.  Now I've finished this book, I can finally get around to watching the TV adaptation.

Numbers 72/73- Face in the Crowd/The Longest December- King & O'Nan/Chizmar

 

A bit of a cheat with 2 books in one but I need to get the numbers up before the end of the year.

Whilst watching the baseball, Dean Evers spots the face of an old acquaintance in the crowd.  The problem is, he knows that they have been dead for decades. This keeps happening and things get stranger.

This is a fairly slight story with a predictable ending but it's a fun and very quick read.  Dean is a nice old codger to spend an hour or so with. As per usual with King, he feels like an old friend by the end of the story.

It's never particularly scary, but it's a nice weird tale.

Bob and Katy Howard are your typical all American couple. They trundle through life with no real worries.  They're best friends with their next door neighbour.  He's even godson to their son. When the neighbour's face is all over the news as a serial killer, their lives change overnight.

This is a cracking little story that manages to ratchet up the tension effortlessly.  Told in first person from Bob's POV, we're treated to a very real feeling of what this type of news would feel like.

The guilt by association that the other neighbours throw at the family is almost palpable.  Chizmar keeps his cards close to his chest initially about whether James actually committed the crimes he's accused of, adding a whole next level of paranoia into the escalating tension.

This was my favourite of the two stories here by quite a distance. The fact that it's so grounded nd feels so plausible gives it the edge. It's a disturbing story expanded from a previously published novella (that I've never read before) called The Long December.

This double volume was a really good buy and well worth seeking out.

Number 70- A Man Called Ove- Fredrik Backman

 

Whoops, I'm playing catch up again

This is a knockabout comedy about a grumpy old man trying to die but the universe keeps stopping him.

Ove is an elderly curmudgeon who's decided that he's had enough. Un/fortunately for him, all his efforts are thwarted by fate, or his neighbours needing help and he is slowly but surely dragged back into a life worth living.

The opening chapters are a masterclass in the steady reveal of information. There are some lovely misdirections and reveals that grabbed my interest very effectively.

The translation on this is a little ropey in places but nothing unforgivable. Ove is an engaging character and the use of chapter titles starting "A Man Called Ove" or "A man who was Ove" to denote flashback chapters is a lovely touch.

The supporting cast is not as well drawn and does include a couple of broad stereotypes but Ove is our focus and by the end of the book, I realised I was quite emotionally attached to the old sod. 

I didn't find it laugh out loud funny very often but I did have a big smile on my face for most of it- and was suitably moved by the emotional bits.

This is the first book I've read by Backman and I would certainly not be averse to reading any of his other works.