Number 85- the Christmas Killer - Alex Pine

 

I started this book on Christmas day, whilst staying at my sister's house in a tiny village in deepest darkest Cumbria.

appropriately enough, this is a Christmas themed murder mystery set in a tiny village in deepest darkest Cumbria.

The basic story- a London copper, James Walker,  after being threatened by a local crime lord he sent down who has just been released early, moves to the village his wife grew up in in the depths of the Cumbrian countryside. They've barely settled in when he receives a parcel delivered to his front door with  a message threatening that 12 people are going to die, one for each of the days of Christmas, and they'll all deserve it.

He treats it like a hoax until people start dying. 

It's a promising set up for a story and the whole thing is a nice little unchallenging ripping yarn.

I call it unchallenging because I spotted the killer within a page of his first appearance. I didn't think any of the red herrings were convincing enough to dissuade me for even a second from my guess at the killer's identity. 

The writing is basic and occasionally quite repetitive.  He must have quoted the initial threatening message at least a dozen times in the opening chapters. Information is frequently restated in consecutive chapters in case the reader has forgotten what was written on the page before last.

Slight spoilers ahead. 

As a detective story goes, I have to say I wouldn't want this guy investigating any crimes I reported. He doesn't seem to do that much detective work and pretty much solves it by accident at the end by walking ion on the killer as they're tooling up for that night's kill. As a police procedural it seems unconvincing.  Surely this would be a situation that called for a curfew as soon as they realised it was a genuine spree killer in the village. But they're more concerned with trying not to panic people than actually doing something to keep them safe.

There are some dangling plot threads concerning the London villain they fled from, and I'm guessing he'll appear in one of the three sequels. From a quick google search, it seems that this village will be visited by serial killers over the festive period at least three more times. That could stretch credulity more than slightly.  A village of 700 people with 4 separate Christmas themed killers in 4 years? 

It's all lightweight enough that I was happy to suspend the disbelief this time around and I quite enjoyed it, even though it's far from the best thing I've read this year. I might even splash out on book two to see if his detective skills have improved. 

If you just want an easy read and a fun story and you don't want any kind of challenge, there's no reason not to read this.  You'll have fun with it. Not every book needs to be a stone cold classic.  this is the literary equivalent of a big mac compared to an expensive steak at a quality restaurant. It does the job well enough even though it's not the greatest thing you've ever had.

Number 76- Wrecker - Carl Hiaasen

 

I seem to have inadvertently stumbled into a theme of writers not using their usual writing style. First the Mieville graphic novel, then the Thomson going all Cormac on us… and now this. Carl Hiaasen writing in the present tense.

This is one of his young adult books- you can always tell from the one-word titles. All his novels for the more mature reader (that sounds less dodgy than adult novels) have two-word titles.

Wrecker – aka Valdez Jones VIII- is a troubled teen living in Florida. He calls himself Wrecker because the original Valdez Jones used to dive down to shipwrecks for salvage in the last but one century. His dad is a waster who walked out on the family to try to start a music career. He doesn’t get on with his stepfather for several reasons so he lives with his older sister, an eco-warrior campaigning against large cruise ships being allowed back into the bay. For extra money he cleans iguana droppings from a grave in a nearby cemetery. For relaxation he goes out fishing in his skiff.

It's while he’s out on the skiff that he runs into a motorboat stranded on a sandbank. The occupants are not the type of people you want to get involved with, but this chance meeting is he start of a whole new set of troubles for young Wrecker. He soon finds himself increasingly entangled in the smuggler’s nasty business. Can he find a way to extricate himself with all his limbs and his potential future intact?

Set during the pandemic, and with a very strong pro vaccination stance taken by most of the protagonists, and a sub-plot about the historical lynching of a local man, this book has actually been banned from several school libraries in Florida, and Hiaasen found several of his scheduled publicity stops on his book tour cancelled.

Personally I thought it was a fun romp like all his books and the fact that it's wound up the stupid people is a bonus.

The characters are as well drawn as ever.  Wrecker and his family and potential girlfriend are a good set of protagonists.  The villains are suitably villainous If the ending isn't entirely convincing for me, that's because it's YA and slightly simplified so I can live with that too.

It's a lightweight read (unless you're the type that gets angry when people point out that Covid is a nasty illness) but I wasn't over-convinced by the writing style.

As previously mentioned it's in present tense.  Normally this doesn't bother me, but in this book it doesn't quite work. As with all his books, he tells more than 50% of it in flashback. The flashbacks are in traditional past tense, and when it suddenly switches back to present tense for the current sections of the story, it grates. Not enough to make me stop reading or anything, just enough to pull me out of the story every time it happened. This means it's a less satisfying read than most of his books.

But it's pissed off the people who deserve to be pissed off. That earns it more points in my eyes.

Not available in the UK yet, unless you order it from the States. Well worth seeking out.

Number 41 - Last Breath - Karin Slaughter

My new theme for the next several books (apart from book 42) is short fiction. So here's a novella from the appropriately named Karin Slaughter.

Her Sarah Linton and Will Trent series are both excellent and haven't dipped in quality so far (and I'm 10 books in) which is remarkable. Some series go downhill fast after 5 books (looking at you Ms Cornwell) but Karin Slaughter is never less than a damned good read.

This short little volume continues that trend.

When lawyer Charlotte (Charlie) Quinn is approached by a teenager seeking emancipation from her guardians, she readily takes the case.  Like the girl, Charlie suffered a violent bereavement as a child and now she feels duty bound to help the helpless cases.

The girl, the ridiculously named Florabama, is in much more trouble than Charlie could have expected.

Despite the brevity, this is a twisty and turny little story and Charlie is a likeable and believable protagonist with a good set of supporting characters to drive the plot forward.

The worst thing about this book is the girl's name, Florabama. It's a good thing she's referred to as Flora for most of the story.

It goes into some dark places by the end, and that's always a positive. It's a good read, if not as good as her last novella I read, Martin Misunderstood. A good way to while away a lazy afternoon.

Number 38 - Room - Emma Donoghue

 

I could make this review just the one word - "WOW!" but I think that would be unsatisfactory.

I'm very late to the party on this and it has been in my TBR for a couple of years at least. Now I've read it, I wish I'd done it a long time ago.

Some books you read, and some you experience.  This is an experience. 

Jack is 5. He lives in Room with Ma. Old Nick comes in at night and makes squeaks on Bed with Ma. Sometimes he brings Sundaytreats.  Nothing else exists for Jack. Outside is a fantasy he sees on TV. 

We're thrown right in at the deep end in this book. The whole story is narrated from Jack's totally unique point of view. 

This book is has leapt straight into my top ten all time reads. I genuinely cannot remember the last time a book had the emotional impact on me that this book had.

I was wiping tears from my eyes for nearly a third of the book at least. I could feel young Jack's confusion as he learnt the truth about his existence. When I read the escape attempt, I had to take an extra half an hour for my lunch to get through it and then recover emotionally enough to go back to my desk. 

This book is genius on every level. Jack's voice is convincing with the grammar errors scattered through it. There's always enough information for us to fill in the gaps between what is happening and what he thinks is happening. His innocence makes the book truly heartbreaking.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Number 37 - Oxblood - Tom Benn

 This month's book group read is this family sage set in the mean streets of Manchester. It follows the wives and children of a family of crime lords in Wythenshawe from the 50s to the 80s.

When the story opens, it's 1984. the husbands are dead in a car crash a few years earlier. The daughter (Jan) is 14 and completely out of control evidenced very strongly by the fact that she's recently had a baby of her own and spends three quarters of her segments in the book giving sexual favours to any man or boy who so much as glances at her. The oldest son (Kelly) has just been released from Strangeways after doing time for a drugs offense.

Their mother, Carol, is still mourning her lost lover who was beaten to death by her husband and father-in-law 14 years ago when they were released from prison themselves for another violent crime.

The grandmother, Nedra, wife to the ex-head of the syndicate now looks after the local children to make ends meet but still thinks her family rule the area.

The style of writing is brutal and frequently deliberately vague.  There are pages I had to read three times to try to work out what was going on.

There are occasional flashes of brilliance in the writing, but overall I didn't get on at with this book.

I read primarily for pleasure.  This is not a book to read for pleasure.  It's too miserablist and bleak. That's not necessarily an issue as long as there's enough to admire about the writing, or the characters are compelling enough to drag you through the book regardless, or the storyline is strong enough to drag you. Money by Martin Amis was a great example of all three of those. 

This isn't.

Amis gave us an astounding display of literary ventriloquism and presented us with an unlikable but compelling character who a savvy reader would see was being played for a fool, and this reader at least found the tightening grip of the trap Amis's patsy was caught in to be compelling in much the same way as watching a car crash in slow motion. 

Benn gives us writing stylised to the point of obfuscation. I didn't find much to admire in it for the most part, although, as mentioned there were some flashes of greatness. The characters were all equally unlikable and the plot, such as there is, was kitchen sink drama with some underage shenanigans. I had no emotional connection to any of them, and creepily, the only man in the book presented with any degree of sympathy was the 30 year old teacher who took 14 year old Jan for a dirty weekend in the lakes.

Did it accurately portray time and place? That's a matter of opinion, but I personally didn't find it particularly convincing. The writing was too off-putting in its weird syntax which is nothing like I've heard in 30 years of living in Manchester myself.

I scored this 5/10 at the book group meeting last night and I think I might have been generous.

5 pages of glowing reviews before you start the book aren't always correct.

Number 36 - Brouhaha - Ardal O'Hanlon

 

Another Irish writer, this time it's that genial chap from Father Ted and My Hero. From the cover though, you can see that this isn't going to be a genial little read.

This is a crime thriller set in small town Ireland near the border in the early noughties. 

Dove Connolly is dead, apparent suicide via shotgun in the face. His best friend, Philip Starkey has returned to the town of Tullyanna to investigate how this ties in with the disappearance of his girlfriend Sandra thirteen years previously.

This kickstarts a chain of events involving strange comic books, local ex gangsters now current political candidates, more murders and lots of border politics.

It's all a bit of a curates egg. There are parts of this book that sparkle off the page.  You can almost hear Ardal reading it out and it's great. It's witty and almost compulsive.

However, and this becomes more pervasive the further in you get, there are bits that are really a bit of a slog. Lots of info-dumping and not much in the way of entertaining story.

In the final chapters, we don't even witness the final reveal of the truth first hand.  The heroes are told second hand by the policeman who took the confessions. It feels like a bit of a cheat to me to do it that way. 

The fact that some of the revelations about the missing girl come completely from left field with no foreshadowing in the slightest is less than satisfying. There's no hint whatsoever even in any of the character's flashbacks about her (they all grew up together and were in varying relationships with the missing girl) or even in her diary that one of the lead characters has read several times. A good twist has to have some basis in what has come before, not just "oh, she'd been doing these outrageous things all along and none of you boyfriends or best friends or even her diary had any idea about it".

So all in all a mixed bag and ultimately a bit disappointing. Some great writing, and some that needs work.

Number 34 - There was a Crooked Man - Cat Hogan

 A nice little segue from one theme to the next here. There's a cat on the cover, and she's an Irish writer.  Irish writers are this month's theme.

I'd never heard of Cat Hogan before but this was cheap in the sale section of Waterstones and sounded interesting.

Scott Carluccio Randall is a real piece of work. He's a drug dealer and people trafficker living in Marrakesh as the book opens. He victimises his closest associate Fran just for fun.  

Back home in the Irish village they both left on short notice after a violent incident, Jen, a victim of Scott's violence in that incident, lives in terror of his return.

Her friends, family and therapist all think she's paranoid, but she knows he will return to complete the job he left unfinished last time, and both she and her 10 year old son will be his victims.

This is a tautly written thriller with engaging characters that we can empathise with. 

This read well as a standalone novel with many hints as to the violence in the past.  However, I discovered when I looked at the "by the same author adverts at the end of the book, "They All Fall Down", as namechecked on the top of the cover, is actually book one and this is a sequel.

Ah well.  One more for the shopping list.

Highly recommended.  The plot moves at a good pace. Scott is a proper villain and his insanity shines through his pages. Jen's paranoia seems perfectly reasonable in response. 

I wonder if my opinion of this will change once I've read the first book.

Number 33- The Last House on Needless Street -

A very delayed write up on the last book in my 'cats on the cover' theme. I've been away with no internet connection so it would have been difficult. The copy I wanted had a cat on the cover, the copy I actually received was the one in the picture, so I'll have to make do with the letters preceding "riona" in her name to make the connection.

After the difficult read that was the Bulgakov, I really needed something light and easy and this fits perfectly in that category.

I've heard a lot of things about this.  It seems to be a real marmite book (for non-UK residents, Marmite is a spread that people put on toast that you either love it or hate it, no in between. I think it tastes like a yeast infection would, so you can make your mind up which side of the fence I'm  on in that debate.) 

Ted lives in a run down house at  the end of Needless street. He shares the house with his daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia. A new neighbour moves into the empty house next door who could blow their world apart, which may not be a bad thing.

The book is narrated in alternating chapters between each of the four characters (yes, the cat narrates her own sequences).

It becomes very obvious, very quickly that all is not as it seems in Needless Street. Catriona Ward takes her time to drip feed us any explanations about the odd events and disturbing behaviour of our protagonists. The atmosphere she creates is creepy and suspenseful and the reader is constantly guessing (in my case mostly wrongly) what is actually going on. I can't say any more about the story without risking major spoilers.

I raced through this book in one day. I don't think it lives up to the quote in the reviews that span the first 6 pages about it taking the crown from Shirley Jackson's Hill House, but it is an extremely dark and brooding horror novel. It brilliantly takes some hoary old horror tropes and turns them on their head in a most surprising fashion.

An easy  8/10 and her other books are next on my shopping list. Count me in the "love it" group on this debate.

Number 24 - Bitters - Kaaron Warren

First things first - check out that gorgeous cover.  I read this as a preview file from Cemetery Dance but I'm definitely going to buy a hard copy for the cover alone.

Luckily, the story inside is just as good, and just as mind-blowing, as that cover.

The Man towers above the local area, at least 90 foot high. It's head is tilted back and the mouth is open. A staircase winds around the legs and torso and leads up to the mouth. Whenever a person dies and is declared pure, their body is carried up by a man who has known no other work and deposited into the Man.

At his feet, more specialist workers tap the residue from all these bodies and provide the Bitters of the title, a preventative medicine that keeps the town healthy and illness free. This book gives a whole new meaning to Toe-tapping...

One of the carriers has noticed a recent increase in dead girls who've suffered violent deaths to be fed to The Man. Will his conscience override his duty to the Man? 

This is high concept storytelling at its best. Warren's style is compelling and an easy read despite the sense of What-the-hell that permeates the first half of the book where we have learn what exactly the set up of this town is. She does an amazing job of building this surreal world and all its attendant quirks, whilst still moving the narrative at a cracking pace. And this is just a novella.  She doesn't have much time to build this world.  That it feels so complete and real is a masterclass in writing.

My only negative about this book is where we're told the girl on the bus is travelling without her parents, despite her mother being on the bus with her. That just needs one paragraph excising to fix the error and this book is almost perfect.

This is the second book I've read by Kaaron Warren (the first was Slights) and they're both easy 9 out of 10s.  I really need to track down anything else she's written.

This is available through Cemetery Dance website Bitters, by Kaaron Warren: Cemetery Dance Publications

Number 20 the Turn of the Key - Ruth Ware

 

Next "new" author is Ruth Ware. I've only read one previously and therefore she counts.  Which is lucky since this is this month's book group read and still fits the theme nicely.

Rowan leaves her job as a nursery nurse in London to be a live in nanny for a family in the wilderness of Scotland. The mother and father are architects and the house, despite looking from the front like a traditional old house, is packed full of gadgets and cameras, and most things are fully automated.

It seems like a grand new start for Rowan, beautiful house, LOTS of money for the job, a friendly boss... shame the kids seem to hate her.

We know things aren't going to go well for Rowan since the book is written in the form of a letter she's trying to write from prison to a lawyer to explain how one of the three children wound up dead.

This is a real page-turner. and I zoomed through the 350 pages in just a few days.  

I assume the title is a deliberate spin on the Turn of the Screw - especially since the set up is a very modern update on the plot of that book = previous nannies leave suddenly, creepy/disobedient kids, ghostly happenings etc. Turn of the Screw is a missing link in my literary history, although I have seen at least three film versions, so I don't feel I can comment much more on any similarities/parallels there with any accuracy.

There are twists and turns galore and some very clever reveals towards the end, none of which are cheats since they've been hidden in plain sight throughout the book. In fact I thought one of those clues to the reveal was an inconsistency in the plot till I realised it was just very cleverly phrased to hide the true meaning.  It's a very well plotted book.

The solution to the mystery wasn't a massive surprise.  With a cast list so small the suspect list is not big enough for a complex mystery, but Ware keeps us switching between the suspects quite effectively throughout. It's thoroughly entertaining and never flagged for even a page.  It was compelling reading (as one of the nice reviewers on the front cover also points out) and hard to put down (as one of the others does).

There are a couple of minor niggle points. Potential spoilers so stop reading now if you feel you need to, just know this is an easy 7.5 out of 10 and well worth the couple of hours it'll take to read. 

Niggle 1 -With all the cameras in the rooms, why are there none in the corridors or on the landings?  Just one in the hallways would have saved Rowan from her fate

Niggle 2 - The last couple of pages tied things up maybe too neatly for my taste. I might have preferred a touch more ambiguity,

Niggle 3 - how did the girls find the secret den since the only way in was that particular route which Rowan seemed to think was impossible to get to?

Number 73 - Billy Summers - Stephen King

 

No it's not horror.  Get over it.

Yes King is still a horror writer, even if he does branch out.

OK, mini rant nearly over with.  I hate when people complain that King has written something other than a flat out horror novel or that he's not a horror writer any more.

He can write what he wants to.  He doesn't owe any readers anything. As long as he keeps up his regular standards, that's all we should expect.

This is a crime novel  An assassin for hire on his "one last job" that goes horribly wrong. King even mentions very early on how the "one last job" is practically a sub-genre of its own. And his contribution to the sub genre is vintage King.

Billy Summers only kills bad people. he's known for his ability to blend in, get the job done and escape into the shadows. He wants to retire but the offer of $2m is too much to resist so he takes the infamous one last job. 

Once on the job, waiting in his temporary assumed identity, he suspects that something is not quite right on this one. After the hit, things turn bad quickly and he finds himself evading justice and his ex employers and seeking vengeance on a very bad man indeed. 

This is a book of two halves.  The first half leading up to the hit, and the second half is the fallout. He finds himself teamed up with an unexpected companion and the second half is part buddy movie (with a difference) along with the revenge story.

As per usual, King takes his sweet time in telling the story. He builds the characters and their relationships intricately and convincingly.  By the end of the book we know nearly all there is to know about the eponymous Billy. There are emotional highs and lows throughout and we (this reader for definite) really want him to succeed with his shot at redemption.

Despite the genre, this is unmistakably Stephen King, and (as previously mentioned) vintage King at that. The plot unfurls at a leisurely pace and picks up momentum as it goes.  It's a challenge to put the book down for any reason in the last 150 pages.

There's a nice couple of Easter Eggs for the constant readers, with some non-too-subtle references to other King novels.

If you like King's writing, you'll like this. I like him.  I have 70 of his books on my shelves. and this ranks in with the best of them.

Number 68 - Lucky - Alice Sebold

I try to read at least one biography a year to shake things up a little. I realised I was nearly in December and hadn't read one yet so I grabbed this one off my shelves where it's been sat for many many moons.

When Alice Sebold was a student, she was viciously attacked in a local park. The attack formed the basis of The Lovely Bones. However, while she was writing that book, she realised she needed to put the true story out there as well and she stopped her work on The Lovely Bones to write this.

I have to say that this was a very difficult read. Not because of the prose, the language used is clear and concise, with no flourishes.  It couldn't be easier to read on that level. Indeed, it's a compulsive read on that level.

What makes it difficult is the subject matter. As previously mentioned, this is about a violent sexual attack and its aftermath.

The attack is described in vivid detail with nothing left to the imagination. She keeps the writing cool and dispassionate. This makes the horror of what happened to her so much more acute.

The rest of the book deals with the aftermath, including family and friend reactions (none of which are good enough or can be), the trial and conviction of the rapist, and a seeringly honest description of her life with PTSD even after her allegedly successful outcome of the story.

It's a long time since a book put me through the emotional threshing machine quite as much as this one did. Her description of the trial made me physically angry and the cross examination she was given regarding her identifying her attacker - particularly since they had samples of his hair in evidence which proved it was him almost beyond doubt. At the end of the trial chapters I had to put the book down and cry.

Thankfully, there is a thread of hope running through the book, or this would have been a truly unbearable read. As it is, this is emotionally tough, but compulsive and one of the most heartfelt biographies I've had the "pleasure" of reading.

I can't recommend this book too highly. It doesn't come across as a misery memoir.  It's far too well written for that. There's nothing sensationalised about any of the details of her life. It's a book that will stay with me for a long time.

Number 55 - Roth-Steyr - Simon Bestwick

 

I needed something to wash the bad taste of the Douglas warner book out of my mouth, so a quick cheat read from the ever-reliable Mr. Simon Bestwick was in order.

It follows the story of Valerie Varden, a pathology lab worker in a hospital in Manchester with a secret past.  When a pair of bodies, murdered with an unusual gun, show up on her slab, she has to confront the dark secrets she's hiding from her girlfriend, whilst facing off against dangerous enemies from her much longer past than anyone knows about.

Things take a turn for the weird in this book on about page 5 when it's revealed that she pre=dates the first world war. Indeed, she was an Austrian countess in the first part of her life.

There follows a winding tale of revolutions and revolutionaries and eternal soldiers (till you kill them).

I have to say, I didn't enjoy this one as much as his other books. Whilst the central story is excellent, and the modern-day sequences are tense and exciting, there are parts of the backstory that feel like so much info-dump about the politics of WWI era Austria which didn't feel completely necessary to the storyline.  This info-dump slowed the mid-section of the story down quite considerably for me. It's clear that he finds the politics of 1910s/20s Europe to be endlessly fascinating, but it felt a bit like a history lecture for a few pages rather than a tense thriller. 

Other than that, the book is actually great success.  The trip into cosmic horror close to the end is one of Simon's most effective horror sequences. Val is a mostly intriguing narrator, a complex and sympathetically drawn protagonist, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to her, which says something. 

Apparently there is a sequel in the works, and I will happily be reading that too. 

This book can be ordered from Black Shuck Books - order it direct so Bezos doesn't get a share of your hard-earned cash.

Number 32 - State of Terror - Hillary Clinton & Louise Penny

 

This review will contain some spoilers.

I'll start with the positives.  It was a fast read. The story has the potential to be interesting. I also found a really interesting bookmark in it left by the previous owner.

That's that bit over and done with.

The back cover proclaims this to be the most authentic political thriller I'll ever read. I'm sorry but if Dr Seuss wrote one it would feel more genuine than this. The last Carl Hiaasen felt a lot more realistic than this - and it was well written - which gives it a huge advantage over this farrago of a novel.

This is by far the worst written book I've read in years.  The prose can charitably be described as clunky. if I wasn't feeling charitable, I'd go for frenetic, irritating and just plain bad.

The writers seem to think that action sequences are best done with ever shorter sequences featuring different characters finishing by cutting away from what the final character sees without telling the reader what that was.  

At some point in the next chapter, one of the other characters will talk about what happened. 

The lead character Ellen is the newly appointed secretary of State for the USA, appointed despite being a huge political rival to the newly incumbent president. We might as well call her Mary Sue as she is the most obvious self insert by Mrs Clinton. She's almost impossibly astute, fluent in a dozen languages, and utterly flawless in personality.  Despite her perfection and intelligence though, she fails to recognise the villain of the piece when he's stood right next to her and talking to her, even though she once spent two years making a documentary about him...

That's just one plot hole out of many in this badly edited, badly written attempt at literature. When I say badly edited, you can't give a better example than when we get this direct quote from the book  (Pages 360 &361 in my copy)

"The second wave took off, the helicopters filled with precious cargo. The sons and daughters of parents who would be terrified to know what their country was asking of their children. The young men and women clutched M-14 rifles and stared across the aisle at each other.

The young men and women clutched M-14 rifles and stared across the aisle at each other."

Apart from the repetition of an entire sentence, this section shows just one of the thousands of sentence fragments to be found in the book.

Constant use of incomplete sentences for no reason.

Sentences without verbs. Scattered all through the book.  At least 5 to a page. In action sequences, probably twenty per page. And no payout at the end of it. Because of cutaways. 

It becomes very wearing, very quickly. There are several deaths in the book. But all off screen with a cutaway immediately before it happens.

If it was better written I could forgive some of the flaws. If it hadn't promised "the most authentic - and gripping - political thriller I've ever read" on the back cover, I might be willing to accept the scene where she blackmails the Russian leader by photoshopping him into child porn and threatening to release it to the world unless he tells her where the bad guy is hiding, or where she follows the US version of the SAS on a raid into the villain's house, or where she seems to be able to travel halfway around the world in a couple of hours, or any of the other places where it's slightly less realistic than the Tiger who Came to Tea.

But it isn't. 

This is a dreadful book on nearly every level. It's the closest I've come in a long time to not finishing.  The only reason I did was because it's this month's book group read. I forced myself to finish it, and I'm sorry that I did.

The last two pages are the most cliched pile of nonsense in the book.  It's all over, the threats gone... Or is it? Mwa ha ha ha ha.

Don't waste your time with this book. My copy will be going to mulch down somewhere for compost.  I don't see any justification for inflicting this on anyone else. I have no one I hate that much.

Number 26 - Simon Says - Frattino & Lee

 

I hope Blogger.com doesn't have automated algorithms that will object to that picture.

This is apparently based on Simon Wiesenthal, a Nazi hunter after the second World War. Here he's depicted as a "Nazi-hunting 007" to quote the Forbes review on the back cover.

It's a graphic novel drawn almost entirely in black and white.  The only colour used is red. the artwork is very good throughout but not exceptional. The use of colour is the only standout in the art department here.

The story follows Simon as he initially works with the Americans to hunt down assorted officers of the 3rd Reich still at large in Germany.  When the unit is closed down he becomes a vigilante and discovers a group of high ranking officers assuming more power again. It's up to him and his partner Bruno to stop the rise of the 4th Reich.

The story is exciting, filled with tension and action set pieces.  I'm not sure how much of a liberty they've taken with the "inspired by" heading. Some of it seems as unlikely as the action sequences you find in an actual 007 flick. If you're going to say that it's based on reality, maybe it should feel more realistic.

There are no notes from the author at the end to answer any of my questions about the veracity of any of the events or characters in the book, which is slightly annoying.

It finishes on a bit of a cliffhanger and as far as I can see there's not a volume 2 out yet. That's slightly more annoying. 

A good way to kill an hour or so.  If vol 2 pops up anywhere, I will be certain to buy it.

Number 22 - Killer's Choice - Ed McBain

 

An accidental reread for me.  half way through i suddenly realised I'd read it a few years ago.  On checking my Facebook "books read in" albums i read it in 2017 and at the time was my first Ed McBain novel.

It's very much a product of its time. If someone tried to publish this today there would be a storm about the casual sexism displayed by pretty much everyone including the women.

However, that aside, this is a damned good police procedural. It's the 4th in the 87th precinct series, but they all work as standalone novels so no prior knowledge is necessary.

I would love to see an ongoing tv series made of these books, set in the same time as the books. They could do three or four of the books per series and they'd take years to get to the end of the source material.

This one follows the investigation into the death of a young woman, Annie Booth, shot to death at her job in a liquor store. It wasn't a robbery since the cash was all still in the register.

Every person who knew Annie seems to describe a different person.  But which of them had the motive means and opportunity to gun her down?

There's also a subplot with another killer being chased down. McBain managed to squeeze a lot of story, and description, into the scant 150 pages of this book.  It's not perfect, but it's solid and good enough that I now pick up the 87th Precinct novels any time I see them going cheap.

In summary, some dated attitudes but a good read.

Number 102 - I am the Tiger - John Ajvide Lindqvist

 

This is part three of a triptych of books by John Lindqvist.  I'm not sure I'd call it a trilogy as such.  The first two books (I Am Behind You, and I Always find You) are only linked tangentially and whilst this book does tie them together much more tightly, the links between the previous too books are still too tenuous.

The first book was set on a caravan park where a number of vans suddenly found themselves in a strange landscape with an unending green field and a sunless sky.  

Book 2 was set in the real world and followed a young John Limdqvist as he moved to the city for the first time, trying to make his living as a magician and found himself embroiled in a supernatural cult, a strange alien slime that transports people to a heavenly new world,  and a plot to kill a prominent Swedish politician - a real event from Swedish history (the Swedish equivalent of JFK - to this day no one knows the true identity of the killer)

This book follows a washed up crime reporter who starts investigating a new crime lord on the block the mysterious X who is smuggling in huge amounts of the purest cocaine whilst simultaneously persuading existing crime lords to commit suicide.  We also follow his nephew, a teenager who's been selling his ADHD medicine since he was 13 and who is offered the chance to get in on the ground floor selling ridiculously cheap and pure cocaine...

For the first 150 pages or so, this reads like a crime thriller, with very few hints of the supernatural (other than subtle hints as to the cause of the spate of suicides). Even when the supernatural becomes evident, the focus is still very much on the human cost of the crime in progress and the dual viewpoints on the cocaine ring, the rising star in the organisation and his uncle investigating.

The story rattles along at a cracking pace for the most part.  There is one sub-plot regarding Tommy's living arrangements that slows things down in the middle section, but not enough to be a real issue. There are also hints about Tommy's dog being in some way special that never amount to anything. Thinking about it now, it's a little bit irritating how much time he spent on a plot thread as strange as that that went nowhere.

Like Gary McMahon's excellent Concrete Grove, this book builds up a convincing picture of a run down estate and a local boss who is much more than he seems.  There are probably more thematic similarities to Concrete Grove in this book than there are to the first two parts of his own trilogy. However this book isn't quite as scary or freaky as Concrete Grove.  It's far more grounded in reality and doesn't play the supernatural up as much as it could have done. 

The ending was unexpected to say the least, despite the fact that, in hindsight, the clues have all been laid out clearly.  Lindqvist certainly earns a few extra points for that. 

You need to read the first two books to appreciate this one properly.  Some detail could be confusing otherwise. It ties the previous two books in fairly cleverly, but I may need to reread the series again to see how accurate the links are. I'm not sure if the link to book 1 is forced or if my memory is faulty. I won't mind, they're all really good books, at least as good as an average Stephen King. 

There are Easter eggs for his other novels too. Little Star is referenced at one point for definite and some of the background events seem familiar too.

Overall, this is a damned good read, but not perfect.  It could have lost a subplot or two on the way and possibly been that much tighter a narrative but it's never less than very readable indeed and some of the set pieces are genuinely frightening. When he does play up the supernatural, the novel takes off and I think I maybe wanted more of that than Tommy's domestic life. It still kept me enthralled all the way through and delivered some great shocks.  It's done what it's supposed to and then some.

Number 97 - Joyland - Stephen King

 

I suddenly realised when I looked at my list for the year that I hadn't read any Stephen King yet in 2021. 

So to make up for that grievous omission, I picked up this one that's been gathering dust for  a couple of years.  

As you can guess from the fact that the publisher is Hard Case Crime, this isn't a horror novel.  There's no terrifying presences stalking the cast.  There is a small amount of supernatural but it's on the side of our narrator.

Devin Jones is a college student whose girlfriend has just ditched him. he's working a summer job at the Joyland of the title.  This is the early 70s and Joyland is a small theme park on the North Carolina coast. He hears about a murder that happened on the ghost train ride a few years earlier. It's rumoured that the ghost of the girl who was murdered appears to staff and occasional visitors to the ride. 

Devin also meets the second love of his life whilst moping about the first. Other characters include the carnie psychic, a dying young boy, some lifelong friends and more carnie staff.

King takes his time with the storytelling.  People who accuse him of bloat in his writing will likely hate this book. I've noticed that most of what people call bloat is his character and world building.  This book is a character piece, a coming of age story with a slight murder mystery thrown in for good measure. By the end of the book he's built this insular world of Joyland so beautifully it's almost a surprise to realise you didn't work there yourself at some point.

The murder mystery isn't particularly mysterious.  The cast is relatively small and the choices are limited. But that's not the point of this book. This is about the characters.  If the chapter where young Mike visits Joyland doesn't fill your heart with a bittersweet joy, you don't have feelings. I was grinning and trying not to cry simultaneously at the evocation of the boy's experience at the park.

This may well be my favourite non-horror King book. Devin is a totally believable and relatable narrator, recounting his youth and how he got over his first true love ending rather cruelly. We feel for him and sympathise with his darkest moments and we're happy as Howie the Hound when he scores his victories.

My next King book will be a horror, but this is proof that King can write pretty much anything he sets his mind to. 

Number 68 - Poppet - Mo Hayder

 

Mo Hayder sadly died on 27th July this year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2020. 

The first of her books was The Treatment, one of the most disturbing thrillers I've ever read. The treatment is the second Caffery book so I bought the first book in the series (Birdman) very quickly.  That turned out to be equally disturbing with one revelation in particular that made me put the book down and go for a walk to get the image out of my head.

Since then I've collected each of her books as they were released,  I'm slightly behind in reading them and decided to pick up on the Jack Caffrey series where I left off when I heard the sad news.

While she's never reached the sheer disturbing heights of those two books since, she is still a guaranteed source of dark and gritty crime drama that hovers on the edge of true horror fiction.

This one is no exception.  A hysteria is spreading in an insane asylum about a dwarf that sits on the chests of the inmates and smothers them.

AJ is one of the chief nurses at the institute and is naturally concerned about the patients, especially when a spate of power cuts lead to an increase in the sightings, and a number of the patients self harming and worse. He contacts Jack Caffery for help  and the ensuing investigation forces both men to stand up to their internal demons.

For some reason the narration has turned to present tense, compared to the standard past tense of the previous 5 books in the series.  this lends the story a sense of immediacy and urgency. The story is gruesome and filled with unpredictable twists and turns.  The chapters are short and choppy, keeping the pace moving at a hectic rate. 

Luckily, Flea Marley is kept to the sub-plot in this book.  In the previous Caffery book I'd started to find her incredibly annoying. She basically went against all rules throughout and get herself into eminently avoidable danger as a result. Sidelining her from the main story in this one was a very good decision on Hayder's part.

This is an excellent addition to the Caffery series. It's best to read them in sequence since there is a strong continuity in place. However they do all also work well as standalones.

Once I've finished Wolf and hanging Hill I'll have read all the books she wrote as Mo Hayder.  She has a new book out posthumously next year - The Book of sand -  under the name Theo Clare.  It will certainly be on my to buy list.

Number 63 - The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths - Harry Bingham

 

Harry Bingham  knows how to give good title. This is the third book in a series.  The first two are called Talking with the Dead and Love Story With Murders.  The series is narrated in first person by a detective in rural South wales called Fiona Griffiths.

That makes this a more than slightly ominous title for book three. However the strange death is more figurative than literal. Fiona has to go undercover to solve a serious fraud case which seems to have branched out into murder. She's not well known for her emotional stability at the best of times and finds her new undercover identity supplanting her own.

This is one series that seems to improve as it goes on.  The first was very good, but turned a bit silly near the end.  It was well enough written though that I had no hesitation in picking up book 2.  Admittedly, even if I had doubts, that title, Love Story with Murders, would have persuaded me. Book 2 either managed to hold back on the silliness or incorporate it more naturally into the narrative.  

Book 3 is the best of the series so far.  despite being nearly 450 pages, the p[lot zips by at a cracking pace and it feels like half that length.  

There still is a level of silliness in this, some of what she does would almost certainly have blown her cover (or just plain had her killed), but it's convincing enough while you're reading that it's easily forgivable. Apart from anything else, it's too entertaining to nitpick. 

I have book 4 on my shelves and will be reading that in the not too distant future.