The Woman In Suite 11 by Ruth Ware - Review

I read The Woman in Cabin 10 in late 2018, absolutely years ago now! Then at Stockport Noir in January she was talking about this, a sequel to that book, so I ordered it. I didn't love it, and having read my review for the first book, I can see why! I think maybe Ruth Ware just isn't for me, and that's okay. She was absolutely lovely when I met her, which is the important thing!

So, Laura is living her best life in New York, married to her dishy husband Judah and bringing up their two children. She's still a journalist but not a travel writer. It is a decade on from what happened in the first book. But then she gets an invitation to the opening of a luxury hotel in Switzerland and wants to go to try and revive her career. The hotel is owned by the Leidmann Group, whose head is Marcus Leidmann. It is widely believed that he will give up the position to his son, Pieter. 

Lo arrives in Switzerland and is reunited with three people from the cruise ship ten years earlier, which seems weird but they're all still working so maybe it's not that weird? Then Lo gets an invitation to Suite 11. She goes, and finds Carrie, who was the woman in Cabin 10 all those years ago and who has been on the run ever since due to her involvement in that case.

She tells Lo that she is Marcus' mistress and that she is trapped. He is abusive towards her and knows that she isn't who she says she is and is blackmailing her to stay. She wants Lo's help - Laura has two passports and Carrie wants to borrow one to get them both to England. Lo is really unsure but eventually agrees to help, feeling guilty about what happened ten years ago. 

It's a risky plan but they do both make it through and end up deep in the Sussex countryside in a fancy hotel. They have plans to leave - Laura is going to see her mum - but these plans are derailed when Marcus and Pieter turn up at the hotel. Lo and Carrie think that they are tracking Lo to see if Carrie turns up, so they try to hide her. But it all goes a bit wrong when Marcus is found drowned in his bath. 

I thought the story was compelling but the book lost its way a bit and it was just too long. It needed some editing I think. I can only give it three out of five. 

My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney - Review

I saw Alice Feeney talk about this book at Stockport Noir back in January and I really liked the sound of it so I requested it at the library. It finally came in - it was in high demand - and I read it at the beginning of May. 

The very beginning of the book is good. Eden Fox and her husband Harrison have recently moved to the seaside - I imagined it to be like Dorset or Devon but I'm not sure if it's specified - and are living in a gorgeous weird old house called Spyglass. Eden is about to have an exhibition of her art in the town they have moved to, and she goes for a run to run off some nerves. When she gets back to the house, her key won't go in the lock. She knocks, and Harrison answers with a woman who looks eerily like Eden next to him. He says that's his wife and he doesn't know Eden at all. She is obviously extremely confused and the police are called, but she can't prove that SHE is Eden Fox and this woman is an interloper. 

Then there's Birdy's point of view. She has been told she is dying and she is pretty alone in the world after the death of her only relative, her mother. But then a long lost grandmother dies and she inherits Spyglass. She doesn't think she's ever been, but when she gets there she realises that she has, that she spent time there when she was a child. She is sorting through her grandmother's mail when she finds a card outlined in black. It's from a company that says it can predict exactly the day when you will die. As Birdy is dying she gets in touch with them. 

It turns out that Harrison, Eden's husband, is the owner of the company that can predict your death, and also that  Birdy is a police officer who then starts investigating what's going on with Spyglass. 

The book just lot its way for me. There's loads of plot holes and ridiculous things happening and so many coincidences that it really stretched the bounds of possibility for me. I'm not the only one - the internet is full of people complaining about this book. I wouldn't reach for anything else by Alice Feeney because this just didn't impress me that much. I'm giving it three out of five. 

 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths - Review

 

So you know I'm a huge fan of Elly Griffiths and have read everything she's written for adults, and a couple of her books for children, but when I first heard of this book I wasn't thrilled about it. It involves time travel and I was like ....sure. So I didn't buy it. But then when I was at Stockport Noir in January Elly was there and the way she talked about this book was enough to pique my interest. So I bought a copy of it for Elly to sign. Then when I mentioned it to my mum and to my friend Sarah, who both also really like Elly, they both said that it's really good and I should give it a go. Sarah said that you just accept the time travel premise and how it's done, and that the book carries you along with it. 

So I picked it up in March and I have to say my mum and Sarah were right - I really liked it and the story is good enough to forget my misgivings about time travel. I will definitely read the second and more in the series! 

The protagonist is Ali, she's in her forties and has a son called Finn who is about twenty five. She had him pretty young and was married to his father (Declan? Duncan? One of those) but they have divorced and don't particularly get on. Ali's job is for the police, ostensibly in 'cold cases', but in actuality, a scientist in the department has cracked time travel. Ali has been back in time just once, when she and a colleague went to the 1960s to witness a crime to bring back to the present day for relatives to get closure. There's just six people in the department and it's obviously on a need to know basis. 

Finn works for a Tory MP called Isaac Templeton. Ali is disappointed if he believes in Tory politics, which I thought was very funny, but she appreciates that he has a good job and is learning his way in politics, etc. Then Isaac gets in touch with Ali's department and she has to go see him. 

He explains that his great grandfather, Cain Templeton, was a bit of a wrong 'un, that he might have belonged to this group called The Collectors - and rumour has it that to join the group, you had to kill a woman. There are details in his diary of a murder in a house he kept, and Isaac wants to be sure that Cain didn't kill this woman so Ali has to go back in time to see. Cain certainly did collect some weird things, like people's brains and so on, so it seems like he really might have murdered this woman. I liked the similarities here to Jack the Ripper and to other groups like The Collectors. 

Ali is helped in her transformation into a Victorian lady by several people, including the scientist in the department, whose name I've forgotten but I liked her a lot too. The time travel goes well and Ali arrives in the 1860s and goes to Cain Templeton's house. It isn't where he lives - he's posh so he has a manor house in Sussex or something - but he keeps the house for artists he's patronising and other waifs and strays. Ali sees the murdered girl and isn't sure who has murdered her, so does some enquiries. She is supposed to return home at the same time the next day, when the 'portal' will be open again, but when she gets there, it doesn't work. 

She's stuck. She rents a room in Cain's house and starts trying to unravel what has happened there. She poses as a widowed lady and tries to get herself back home. Victorian London is not a fun place to be...

Meanwhile Finn is in legal trouble back in the present day but with his mum 'away' for work he's having trouble too. 

I liked Ali a lot and can't wait to read more about her. I liked Finn too. The set up was just good, and it was a good story for the first in a series. I'm giving it four out of five. 

Stockport Noir Crime Festival

On the 31st of January I headed over to Stockport to go to a crime fiction festival. I saw it advertised absolutely forever ago and bought myself a ticket. I would have been better if Lee had been there with me to carry books and so on, but I didn't want to spend the money on two tickets, so I sucked it up and went by myself. I took my things in a backpack, which did help. I took my lunch and drinks and snacks etc with me too so that I didn't have to leave the venue. I set off really early which meant I did get a space in the car park. Such is life with a disability! 

Even though I was there early I still had to queue a bit to get in. It was fun though, everyone was just really excited to be there. Once I got in I picked up a lanyard and a goodie bag. Inside was a proof copy of a book that I haven't even heard of, so I'll look forward to reading that! 

There was tea and coffee and then everyone went in to the main hall for the first panel. The first panel was debut authors and I think they all did brilliantly. Immediately after each panel were signing lines. I have to say that these could have been better organised. Plus when I've been to other lit festivals, I - as someone who uses a walking stick - have been pressed to go to the front of the lines so that I didn't have to queue. That didn't happen here so I ended up in some pain, which was a shame. After the second panel I even asked one of the organisers if I could go to the front of the queue, and while he did help me he did it with some bad grace which made me feel even worse. If I could give feedback on this to the authors I absolutely would, but I haven't seen how to do that (yet?). It left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. 

The panels were all great though. The moderators asked some really amazing questions and everything was funny and insightful. I really liked the sound of a LOT of the books, so I bought four from the bookstall that was in the venue. I do think their prices were very high, but I had some Christmas money to use so that's okay. 

I ate my lunch in the break out room, which was also where the signings were, so it made space a bit squeezed. I would prefer if they could do that differently next year too! I got talking to a woman I was sitting next to in the main hall, so that was nice. 

The final panel of the afternoon had Elly Griffiths on it. I have read most of her books and have met her twice before, but I hadn't bought any of her new series which features time travel, mostly because it sounds a bit weird. But it sounded interesting so I did buy it so that I could get her to sign it. I wore my Bruce Sprinsteen t shirt especially for her as she's a big fan (which is why Ruth Galloway is also a fan!) so we talked about him and how much we love him, haha. 

I didn't stick around too long after the last panel, and managed to get home in good time so that I could rest for a bit. I had ended up carrying a lot of books and other stuff, by myself, which I'm proud of, but I was tired! 

My freebie tote bag

All the panels, these are backwards in time but not to worry! 

Proof I was with Elly! 

And here's what I came home with! Bad Deeds was the book I got for free. The top right is a chapter sampler but Rebecca was really interesting and her book sounds really good so I got her to sign this sampler for me and will probably buy it when it's out. Everything else just sounded really interesting so I bought them and got them signed!

The Cut Throat Trial by The Secret Barrister writing as S J Fleet - Review

 

I was intrigued to read this book because I know the Secret Barrister from social media and thought their first book would be good. However it really didn't live up to the hype and I wouldn't try hard to read anything else by the same author. It needed a much better edit and it was confusing in parts. I also thought there were far too many points of view which I do kind of understand as a narrative device, because it's a criminal case, but it's annoying to read.

So early in the hours of New Year's Day 2024, the body of a 70 something year old man is found on the streets. He has been stabbed by an illegal knife - a zombie knife - and two youths were arrested at the scene and one was found really close by at the same time too. The three young lads are all saying that the other ones did it. There are text conversations between two of them where they talk about bashing a random person until they're dead. The prosecution has a lot of evidence - blood all over the accused, the knife, and text messages saying this was the kind of thing they might be in to. The prosecutor, Aliyah, has a lot to prove - she fucked up an earlier case and needs to repair her reputation. 

Parts of the novel are from her point of view. Parts are from the points of view of two of the accused lads. They both have had difficult lives and it wouldn't be hard to believe that they are cold killers. There's also the point of view of one of their defence lawyers, because she also has a personal interest in the case.

I really struggled with this book as I said, and can only give it three out of five. 

The Protest by Rob Rinder - Review

As you know from previous reviews I'm sure, I've read all of Rob Rinder's books and I actually quite rate them as far as books written by celebrities go. I've been waiting for this for months and it finally came through on my hold at the library. I guess a lot of others wanted to read it too! 

We're back with barrister Adam Green. He's got two cases to sort out. In the first one, a protestor called Lexi is arrested on the charge of murder. She's a protestor, a little bit like one from Just Stop Oil, and she throws paint or something at this world famous artist, Max something, who is at a very fancy exhibition of his work. But there's cyanide in the paint and Max dies. Lexi is immediately arrested because everyone saw her do it, but she is insistent that she didn't mean to kill him. She was protesting, yes, but nothing more. Adam believes her, so he and the solicitor he is working under must investigate her claims. Adam doesn't like Lexy and she doesn't endear herself to the reader, either, but he wants justice for her. At the root of it Adam is a fundamentally decent  fellow who wants the best for his clients. 

Meanwhile, he is defending a soldier over the death of a fellow soldier in the last days of a conflict, something like conflict in Iraq or something like that. In this, Adam is defending in barracks not in a court, and I think the jury is made up of soldiers too. As I remember, it was easy to feel sorry for all sides here, and it was interesting to see Adam in a different setting.

As with previous books, there wasn't a lot of Adam's personal life shown. There seemed to be fewer phone calls with his mother. I would like more of a look at his personal life in the future - and maybe a significant other for him! - and I will of course I'll read the next one when it's out. I'm giving this three and a half out of five. It did drag a bit for me - I think there was a bit in the middle that was a bit woolley - but overall I enjoyed it. 

Shake Hands Forever by Ruth Rendell - Review

I haven't read much by Ruth Rendell before, but I know my mum really rates her. I haven't read any of the Inspector Wexford novels before but this one had ended up in my posession and I found it when we unpacked the books. It's an original from 1976, it's very battered and worn and I love it. It's only a small book so when Lee and I went to Greece I took it with us as it didn't weigh very much. I ended up really liking it and asked my mum if she had any more for me to borrow, and she found one. Maybe I'll save that for Christmas, love a murder mystery at Christmas! I'll also have to keep an eye out for these in charity shops and so on. 

So, Robert Hathall picks up his cold, disapproving mother from the station and takes her home for the weekend. He is married to his second wife, Angela, who is a little younger than him. When they get to the house though, they find Angela strangled to death in the bedroom. The house has been cleaned meticulously, except for a handprint near the body. There's a distinctive scar on the handprint and they reckon it belonged to a woman (not sure how they knew this but the answer is probably well, it was the 1970s). There are a number of suspects for the murder, including Robert himself, and his ex wife. 

Robert seems a bit unpeturbed by the death of his wife and doesn't cooperate with Wexford as he's investigating. He left his first wife for Angela and owed her a lot of money, which has meant he and Angela have had to downsize. He is estranged from his daughter. Robert has an alibi though and so does his ex. 

Eventually Wexford is warned off the investigation and it is declared closed. But he can't stop thinking about it and knows there was something odd about the case. He annoys his seniors by keeping on thinking about it, and eventually he does get to the bottom of it. I loved the mystery and thought it was really good! I also really liked looking at a crime novel from before forensics were so advanced. It felt like proper old fashioned policing! I'm giving this four out of five. It was perfect to read lying round the pool in Greece! 

The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves - Review

 

I picked this up off my shelves recently. I had forgotten I had this Vera Stanhope but, so was happy to see it when I unpacked my books. I bought my mum the first eight books in the series and she has made her way through them and enjoyed them, and I've been in an out of them. So I picked this up, anyway, at the beginning of October. I'm still way behind in blogging so I'm writing this in the middle of November. I've forgotten some of the ins and outs of it, sorry. I am hoping to get caught up eventually but, man, life keeps happening. 

Anyway, Vera has made friends with her closest neighbours to her isolated farm. They invite her over and feed her and stuff. Joanna is one half of the couple and she goes to this writing retreat on this island off the Northumberland coast (how many islands ARE there off the Northumberland coast??) and one of the writers is found murdered. Joanna is found holding a knife over the body, so it really looks like she is guilty of murder.

Vera knows that really she should hand the case over to someone else, but she just doesn't believe that Joanna is capable of murder. All of the people at the retreat are suspects, but when it seems like one of the writers has written a scene exactly like the murder scene, it gets more and more complicated.

As always, I liked the mystery, but I only gave the book three out of five and now I can't remember exactly why. I guess it just didn't do it for me that much. 

Joffe Books Murder Mystery Short Stories Vol 1 by Various Authors - Review

A few months ago I signed up for the Joffe Books newsletter, which sends daily emails detailing books from them that are either free or low cost. A lot of them are right up my street - they are crime novels but there are so many subgenres within that. I would recommend it if you like crime fiction at all! 

I think I got this short story collection for free and I picked it up when I needed something quick and easy to read. My favourite of the stories was by Greta Mulrooney, because it was creepy and weird, but I enjoyed all of them. It is a few weeks since I read it though so I don't remember them all perfectly, but I am so behind on blogging and I really just want to get caught up. So in all I'm giving this four out of five. Sorry for the extremely short review! I will read some others of this collection though for sure. 

The Otley Murders by J R Ellis - Review

You know I have read everything by J R Ellis and really rated his earlier books about DCI Oldroyd and his team, based in Harrogate. I know that part of the world and I've always really liked reading about places I recognise. My mum has read all this series too although I don't know yet what she thought of this one. It came out at the end of July and I picked it up because I can't resist! 

But I had a lot of problems with it. I'm not sure that the story was thought out properly, and it just kind of annoyed me. Then there were the kids named within - who were called Jonathan, Mary, Tom, Jane and Anne! Come on, find me a classroom in 2025 which includes those five children, I guarantee you cannot. Kids don't have names like that! Come on. It's not hard to name some kids. 

I also didn't think the ending really paid off. It felt a bit like Ellis had seen a topic that he wanted to address but hadn't really done enough research and didn't make sure enough justice happened. That annoyed me too. Really, I might be done with this series now, but then I feel bad because my mum will want to talk to me about them!

Anyway, the plot. A man called Adam Blake escapes from prison in a planned escape. He is a serial killer and when he was found guilty he threatened Oldroyd so now that he has escaped Oldroyd and his family all have to have protection so he can't get to them. Andy goes off to help look into the escape and where Adam is now, and has to investigate both prison warders and friends that Blake had on the inside. 

Meanwhile, Oldroyd and Steph are investigating a bizarre murder in Otley. In the new Arts Centre, which used to have some prison cells in it, a body is found. He wasn't killed there, so his body has been put there on purpose. It becomes obvious that some of the elders of the town know about historical things but they are still keeping it to themselves to stop any blame. It was this element that I just didn't feel worked properly. I enjoyed what Oldroyd and Steph did, for sure, but. But. 

In all I can only give this three out of five. 

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves - Review

After the last book I read, which I didn't much like, I wanted something easy to read. So I turned to Ann Cleeves, because I find the Vera Stanhope books easy to read. I hadn't heard of this one before but I saw it when we were on holiday and liked the premise, so I bought it on Kindle. 

A group of old friends is meeting on Holy Island. They are all sixty odd but they met fifty years ago in drama class and went on a residential course to the island, and they have had a reunion every five years since. At the first one, five years after the original trip, two of the people got into an argument and one of them drove off and was drowned on the road back to the mainland when the tide came in. This time, when everyone is getting on a bit, one of the men is found dead. It's been staged to look like a suicide, but Vera doesn't agree. And she's right - so there has to be a murder investigation. Vera and Joe and Holly have to spend a lot of time on the island to solve the crime. 

The group these days are: Louise and Ken, a couple. Ken is suffering from dementia. Lou is younger than the others and is the sister of Isabel, the girl who drowned forty five years ago. Philip is a vicar now, and seems to have found peace in his old age. Annie works in a local deli with her friend Jax. Rick is celebrity journalist but he has been 'cancelled' recently due to allegations of misconduct. He says that he is writing a book, thinly veiled as what happened to Isabel. He also says that fifty years ago he had sex with their teacher, Judy Marshall, who was newly out of college when she taught them. He is the one found dead and it turns out that quite a lot of people would have a motive to kill him. 

He has an ex wife, who also knows the group. Annie's ex husband is involved, too, and his new partner turns out to be Vera's boss, which complicates matters quite a bit. There is a whole cast of characters but it was easy to keep them straight which I appreciated. I liked the mystery behind the whole thing. I felt a lot of sympathy for a lot of the characters. 

In all I'm giving this four out of five, I appreciated the easy read. 

Fire on the Fells by Cath Staincliffe - Review

It's the second book starring Leo Donovan and Shan Young! I read and reviewed the first one back in October last year, and when I saw the second in the series I had to request it immediately on Netgalley. Thank you very much to Joffe Books for granting me access to it. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This book is now out. 

The book starts not too long after the close of the first one. Leo's son, Luke, is awaiting sentencing for his part in a series of racist crimes, which Leo found out about and was instrumental in Luke getting caught. Luke is sentenced to twelve months in prison and Luke and Ange feel awful. 

Shan had a miscarriage in the last book and since then her relationship with her girlfriend Erin have turned difficult. Shan doesn't want to talk about it so she's pushing Erin away. Things end up going really south between them which I felt was handled well throughout the book. 

Anyway, a young man is found murdered up on the moors. He is mixed race, and only about eighteen. He has been shot with a shotgun and has a distinctive tattoo. Ange knows him - his name is Tyler and he has been working on some eco protest things with her up on the moors. He is from Lancaster, and his parents are devastated by his death. Some suspicion falls on his ex girlfriend, who has gone a bit AWOL, but Leo and Shan are mostly concentrating on the nearby estate. It runs grouse shooting on the moors, with rich people paying a ridiculous amount to stay at the house and join in. There are several guests, one of whom was seen leaving the area near the time of the murder. There are several members of staff, many of whom live on site, and who have messy interpersonal lives. Leo and Shan have to try to unpack everything and find who has shot Tyler. 

I loved the climax of the book, where there is in fact a fire, when everything just seems awful. This is a really good detective book, with plenty of twists and turns, but the knowledge that Leo and Shan will sort everything out in the end. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Party by Elizabeth Day - Review

I picked this book up in a charity shop not that long ago. I haven't read anything by Elizabeth Day before but I have the book Magpie by her as well, which I will have to read soonish. I was intrigued by this so bought it for a couple of quid. 

I had seen this book sort of touted as a cross between The Talented Mr Ripley and Brideshead Revisited, which I would completely agree with, but I also think it's got a touch of Saltburn in it too. I also read a couple of more negative reviews on Goodreads left by people I know or follow, and I have to say I didn't disagree with them. One of them said she was kind of sick of this kind of narrative, which I do get. However I don't think I've read too much of this type of story - and I loved Saltburn - so it worked for me. But some critcisms were valid. 

There are kind of three strands to the book, which are all about the same people and which are all concentrated on the events of one particular night. In one strand, Martin Gilmour is being interviewed at the police station about the events of the night of his friend Ben's fortieth birthday, some weeks previous. He is interviewed by a woman with beige hair and a man in a grey suit. He is determined to not give them anything, but of course, he has underestimated what exactly they know and he has to work out how much to tell them. 

In the second strand, there is his wife Lucy's notebook. She is in therapy with a man called Keith, and we get to see her side of their marriage. Martin is not really in love with her, and is cold towards her. There are a lot of hints that he is actually gay. And in love with Ben. She is somewhat downtrodden by life and by him. She seems to think she doesn't deserve anything better, in a way. Something happened at Ben's birthday but Lucy's part in it doesn't get revealed until late on in the book, which I actually think worked very well. I liked Lucy but she is used as the only person with any morals in the entire book, which is kind of annoying. 

The third strand of the book is Martin's retelling of his entire life. He was born in to a lower middle class family and his dad died just before he was born, leaving him to be brought up by his cold, distant mother, Sylvia. He is very clever, but doesn't fit in at school. Eventually he gets a scholarship to Burtonbury, a public school in Derbyshire (I think). He arrives, and he obviously doesn't fit in, because he's not posh enough, and he doesn't speak like they do, and he doesn't understand how to act like them. He doesn't make friends, but he meets Ben, a popular and good looking lad. He becomes obsessed with him and plots how to become his friend. After that, the other boys sort of tolerate Martin, although they still don't actually like him. Martin describes Ben as his "best friend".

For Ben's birthday, Martin and Lucy head to Ben and his wife Serena's new massive mansion house, a former priory. They are a bit put out to have not been invited to stay at the house, and are instead stuck in the local Premier Inn or whatever. They head over early. Ben is his usual, cheerful, charming self. He shows them round the new house and he says he wants to speak to Martin about a business deal later. Serena is her usual self too - she's beautiful, but cold, and she clearly thinks Martin and Lucy are beneath her. The couple have four children. Martin and Lucy have no children which Martin is glad about but Lucy is sad about. Lucy can't stand Serena so she is determined to just get drunk at the party.

The party happens. The Prime Minister (meant to be David Cameron, I'm sure) turns up. Martin's old bully, somebody Jarvis, turns up too. He went to Cambridge alongside Ben and Martin, and there are so many secrets coming out. 

There were a few things that I thought were anachronistic, given that Martin and Ben were supposed to be in school in the early 90s and then at university just after that. I also thought that it was maybe a tad predictable in terms of the story. All the characters are unlikeable but I don't think that's necessarily a reason to not like the book? I don't have to like people to find the stories compelling. It wasn't perfect but I did enjoy reading it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

Stay Buried by Kate Webb - Review

I had seen a few people read this book and I was intrigued by it, so when I had a book voucher I got it and picked it up not too long later. I really enjoyed it and have got two more in the same series on Kindle as they were cheap. I'm looking forward to them! 

This is another cold case book, like the Karen Pirie books, and it turns out I really like that kind of detective fiction, so if it works for me, then that's fine. I have struggled with books a bit recently so have been trying to read anything that is easy to read and keeps me enraptured, which this one definitely did. I am going to pass it on to my mum because I think she will like it too. 

The main detective is Matt Lockyer. He has been moved to a cold case crime review unit within Wiltshire police because of mistakes made on a previous case which included his best friend, Kevin. He is a bit of a pariah in the station because of this, but he affects like he doesn't really care. He has a constable working with him, Gemma Broad. She is youngish and enthusiastic and they get on well together. Matt grew up on a farm where his parents still live. He lost his brother when he was young, and it continues to have a massive effect on Matt and his parents. 

Matt gets a phone call from a woman called Hedy Lambert, who has served fourteen years in prison for murder. She wants to tell him that Harry Ferris has returned. This opens up her case again, and Matt obviously goes looking into it. He and Hedy had a bit of a thing, a connection between the two of them. When she was arrested, she refused to speak to anyone except him. He kind of believed she was innocent, but all the evidence pointed to her, and she went down. But maybe he was right back then, and maybe he can now make amends. 

So what happened was this: Professor Roland Ferris owned a huge house which he lived in with his wife and son. She took her own life when Harry was a teenager, and he left the home not too long after, saying he would never speak to his father again. He then reappeared aged about thirty. At that time, Hedy was working as the housekeeper in Roland's house. "Harry" slept in the barn, and was found dead there one morning. By Hedy, who then ended up covered in his blood. The knife that was used was one that Hedy used often, and it had been left on the drainer overnight. The only fingerprints found on it were hers. But it turned out the man in question wasn't Harry. He was a Traveller by the name of Mickey Brown. But now the real Harry HAS come back, and it turns out he wasn't that far away all along. His cousin knew where he was, and his aunt, Roland's sister, never thought Mickey was him. Roland is now dying so Matt is racing against the clock really to go back to the beginning - who wanted Harry dead? Who might have wanted Mickey dead? Who was in or had access to the house that night? And so on.

It's a twisty turny story with lots of red herrings and dead ends. I did work out who had done it before the end but that actually made me enjoy it more because I wanted to see how Matt and Gem got there. It's a really good book and I'm glad I got it. I'm giving it five out of five. 

How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin - Review

 

I was invited to read the second in this series because I read and reviewed How To Solve Your Own Murder previously. So thank you very much to Quercus Books for the chance to read and review this one. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

We're back in Castle Knoll for this book, a few months after the events of the first book. Annie is getting used to living in the huge manor by herself, but she hasn't really put her stamp on the place yet. She's living a nice enough life, Archie is living in his family's farmhouse on her land and is doing a good trade in restoring old bangers. Her friend Jenny is coming to stay, and she's still in touch with Detective Crane from the police station. 

She's out for a walk one morning when she bumps into Peony Lane. She is the woman who gave Great Aunt Frances her fortune all those years ago, telling her that she would be murdered. She tells Annie that she has a fortune for her, but Annie refuses it. Annie carries on to visit Archie, where she finds a dagger stuck in the waterwheel near his house. It has something to do with the crash that took the lives of Olivia, Edmund and Harry, three of the toffs that lived in the manor house. Frances was married to Edmund's brother Ford, who brought up his nephew after the deaths. 

Annie takes it back to the house. Jenny has arrived so they go to eat lunch in the solarium and then they find Peony's body. She has been stabbed and the dagger that Annie found is stuck in her back. They obviously have to phone the police. Crane turns up and so does his new boss, Tobias Marks. It looks like Annie is a suspect, but of course, there's more to it. 

There's also the dual narrative of Frances' diary from the late 60s, about the aftermath of the crash and about what happened then. Annie has to piece everything together and solve the murder, but in that she uncovers a lot of stuff about the past and the crash. 

I generally liked the book and was happy to be back with Annie and the inhabitants of Castle Knoll. I felt like there should be some of this stuff which had come out in the first one, but I'll allow the artistic licence. I also thought it was again just a bit complicated with a couple too many characters. I am looking forward to another instalment in this series. I like Annie and I think there'll be more to do with her family and past. 

I'm giving this four out of five. 

Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves - Review

As I have said previously, I bought the first eight Vera Stanhope books for my mum for Christmas because I thought she would like them. She has read the first two and lent them to me. This is the second one and I got round to it towards the end of March. 

I generally love Ann Cleeves but I felt this one meandered and lost its way a bit. I didn't guess who did it and I thought the murderer just didn't make much sense in the context of the book. 

So the book. Firstly, a woman called Jeanie Long has taken her own life in prison. She was serving a long stretch for the murder ten years ago of her boyfriend Keith's fifteen year old daughter, Abigail. She has always maintained her innocence so she wasn't eligible for parole and now she has died by suicide. Her daed, Michael, had previously spoken to the parole board and said he wouldn't support her if she was out on parole. He is a bit of a traumatised person and I felt for him. 

Because of Jeanie's suicide Vera is sent in to look at the case again, to see if the original investigating team, including a woman called Caroline Fletcher and a man called Dan Greenwood, made mistakes or indeed just put all their suspicions on Jeanie and made a case out of it. The original case took place in East Yorkshire, around Hull somewhere, in a place on the coast, a flat boring type of place. Ten years ago, Emma was Abigail's best friend. And she found her body. 

Emma's family had moved fairly recently from York. Her dad is a parole officer who found god and moved the family to Elvet. She met Abigail and the two girls were close, but there was some animosity betweeen them. Emma found Abigail strangled to death in a ditch. She is now married to James and they have a small baby, Matthew. James is a boat pilot in Hull and works irregular hours. Emma has feelings for Dan, who is now a potter whose pottery is over the road from Emma's house. 

Emma's life is a little bit dull and regimented. On Sundays she dutifully goes to church with James and her parents. She looks after the baby. She tries not to think about Abigail. But Vera is asking questions because of Jeanie's death. Then a second death occurs which is too close to the original investigation. Vera obviously sticks her oar in there, as she does. Emma is in danger but from whom exactly? 

I liked probably the first two thirds of the book and felt like they ran well, but I felt it lost its way and I just really didn't believe the ending. It's a shame because I wanted it to be better. In all I'm giving this three out of five. 

Found by Erin Kinsley - Review

I got this book in a sale that I bought seventeen books in but which only cost me £63! So I got some bargains. And I am hoping to make my way through this pile pretty soon. Let's see! I picked this up in the middle of January. I found it an odd book and I looked on Goodreads to see what criticisms people had. And while I basically enjoyed the story, I did think that some of the criticisms I read were totally valid. I'll get to that. 

So Evan is eleven years old and he goes missing one day after school. He has been at sports practice with his best mate, Stewie, and the lads were two of the last people in school. They walked out, went into the corner shop, and said goodbye at the bus stop. Evan wasn't seen again. DI Naylor - who is a likeable detective, I would read more books about her - and her colleagues tried their hardest to find him, but the trail was pretty cold. His parents, Claire and Matthew, are obviously devastated, as are his paternal grandparents, Joe and Doris (I think that's their names...) who live in Yorkshire. Claire and Matthew's marriage starts to fall apart; she is drinking too much. DI Naylor and co have to start looking at other cases. 

Then, months later, a man stops at a petrol station somewhere near Pontefract for petrol, and he realises there are sounds coming from the boot of a car. He confronts the driver and his passenger, and they take off. Police come and in the boot of the car they find Evan. 

He is alive, alright, but obviously traumatised. When he is returned to his parents, he is basically mute. He can't speak to the police about what he went through so they're a bit stuck on trying to catch the people who took him. Evan ends up staying with his grandparents a lot, and begins to come back to himself. 

The police get some breaks and end up on a massive chase looking for huge swathes of paedophiles. I quite like how it unravelled and how an ex colleague of Naylor's does some investigating for her. I also liked that the book was about the emotions of being a victim of a crime as well as the actualities of it. I liked Naylor and would read a series about her. 

However, I did see that people have compared this book to those by Cara Hunter and somehow I just can't agree, it's not as compelling as those at all. I also read that some people were let down by the outcome when the identities of the perpetrators aren't given much space and I do sort of get that, but I also think that they're kind of irrelevant to the rest of the story. The point is about the family and the victim. 

I'm giving this four out of five though, although it is really more of a 3.5. But I did like Erin Kinsley and I've got some more books of hers from the library to read soon. 

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood - Review

This book was on my wish list, although I can't remember why, but one of my Secret Santas sent me it for Christmas and I was pleased to get it and be reminded that I wanted to read it! I picked it up at the beginning of January which I realise is a common refrain at the moment because I am desperately trying to read all my Christmas books. It's a noble effort - let's see if I manage it this year when I never normally do. 

So this book has two time periods, now and twenty five years ago. Twenty five years ago there are two eleven year old girls. One of them, Bel, is from a well to do family, being brought up in luxury by her mum and stepdad. She has a little sister. They have horses, etc, all of that. The other girl, Jade, is from a rough family. Her dad owns a pig farm. She has several siblings, some of whom are petty criminals. The two girls do not know each other, but on one hot summer day they meet up while bored and by the end of the day they are charged with the murder of a little girl, Chloe. She ends up left with them and over the course of flashbacks dotted throughout the book we read what happened to her. 

In the now period, the two girls are both rehabilitated and released from prison. They are each thirty six years old and obviously do not know where the other is or what happened to her. Kirsty is a journalist living in London. She has two children, Sophie and Luke. Her husband is currently unemployed so that is putting a strain on the relationship while Kirsty is trying to keep the family afloat. Kirsty is doing really well in life but obviously she keeps her secret from everyone in her life. 

Meanwhile Amber lives in Kent. She is a cleaner at a funfair. It's a dull job but she's manager and she's good at it and takes pride in her work. She lives with Vic, who works on the amusements at the fair. He's very good looking and a bit of a flash boy; all the girls fancy him and Amber isn't really sure why he's with her. Their house is well cared for and loved. Amber's colleague, Jackie, moves in with the two of them because she's basically being stalked by her ex, who is creepy. But Amber starts to distrust Jackie. 

Then Amber finds a dead body in the house of mirrors at the funfair, which is currently out of bounds. Police make connections with the murders of some young women previously, and begin to think they have a serial strangler on their hands. Kirsty, in her job as a journalist, ends up travelling to Kent to report on the story. She meets Amber and recognises her, making her tumble back twenty five years to that fateful day. But then someone else clearly knows who both women are, and their lives are in danger. 

To begin with it's not clear which girl is which, which I found interesting and intriguing. I am interested in ideas around justice and rehabilitation so I found that part interesting too. Both girls were let down by their caretakers and their childhoods, and it is obvious that Chloe's death wasn't premeditated in any way. Both women are strong survivors and it's hard to not root for the both of them. 

I did find there was a lot of fatphobia when describing some characters, which I found unnecessary and unnecessarily cruel. It seemed like lazy writing. I also think there were a few inconsistencies in the plot which should have been caught. One of them was that Chloe was six at the beginning but then four? It annoyed me. 

But overall I did like the book and am giving it four out of five. It is very intriguing and kept me reading. 

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid - Review

As you may remember, my mother and I are making our way through the Karen Pirie series of books. I've been buying them on eBay for not a lot of money and reading them when I fancy them and passing them on to my mum. This is the third one in the series; we've now read the first, second, and fourth. There's a massive thing that has happened in the fourth book so I knew it was coming in this book and it was really sad and shocking, but it's not a main focus of the book, which I was glad about. I do wish I had read them in order but..... it doesn't really matter. 

Karen is called to a skeleton found in a remote part on a building in Edinburgh that is about to be demolished. Tests show that the man was killed by a bullet, and that he died approximately eight years ago. Tests on his teeth show that he had work done in Eastern Europe, so Karen starts looking in that direction for someone missing for eight years. Maggie is a professor in Oxford who spent time in Dubrovnik when there was a war going on there in the early 90s; she started to see a man called Dimitrar who was a general in the Croatian army. After the war the two moved back to Oxford, where she lectures in geopolitics. He went missing eight years ago (in the early noughties). Maggie always thought that he went back to an unknown first family in Croatia. Her friend Tessa, though, thinks that he has gone on a vigilante killing spree across Europe. 

Because, there is a tribunal occurring in The Hague for people who committed war crimes in the Balkans, but for a few people, before they could be brought to justice, they were killed by an unknown assailant. The tribunal is winding up, but there's a new boss who wants to make his presence felt and go out in a blaze of glory. So he puts the wind up two men, Macanespie and Proctor, and urges them to find the leak from within their own office or he will fire them both and they'll both have terrible ends to their careers. The two men are lawyers, and they are both kind of sailing along in life, but they get galvanised by this challenge and they end up on the same path as Karen. 

Maggie is also starting to write her memoirs from the time. As I was only young when this war was happening, I don't know too much about it so I was really having to think back and research what had happened there then. I found it really interesting though, and it informed me a lot about this period in history. I liked the book, although I found Maggie's memoir parts absolutely dreary and could cheerfully have lived without them. I liked that Karen had to go all over the place - much to the chagrin of her boss - and I liked what she discovered. I'm giving this four out of five. 

Making A Killing by Cara Hunter - Review

As you may know, I really like Cara Hunter's books, especially the DI Adam Fawley series. In fact I've read all of them, and periodically I check Netgalley to see if another book has been put there. For ages there hasn't been any, sadly. But then I got an email from HarperCollins offering me the chance to read this brand new book in the series. I was so pleased and of course said yes immediately, and then picked this up just a couple of weeks later. 

I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

When I read the premise for this book I couldn't believe what I was reading! Way back in the first book, reviewed here on this blog, Daisy Mason went missing. She was eight years old and her body was never found, but her mother Sharon is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of her daughter. The next few books took place over only a couple of years. We were last in Oxford with Adam in 2018, when his new baby daughter Lily was only a few months old. I did wonder at that time what Cara would do to jump forward in time, as that book was written in 2022. Well, wonder no more. 

It's 2024. Adam's team has been disbanded; he is working in counter terrorism or something. Quinn is in uniform high up somewhere. Erica Somer is working with young victims in the court system. But the gang is getting back together, because... 

There are new cops around too, in Gloucestershire. They include Triona Bradley, who I really liked - I would like to see more from her in future for sure. A dog walker (it's always the dog walkers) finds a body in a shallow grave near an old oak tree that has a gruesome history to do with witchcraft. The police don't know who the woman who has been killed is, but the duct tape that has been used to tie her up contains a hair. And that hair belongs to Daisy Mason. 

She is therefore still alive, and would be now sixteen. Adam is called to Gloucestershire to head up reopening the case and going back over everything that the team thought they knew back in 2016. (Cara acknowledges herself that this would never have been allowed to happen, but let's go with it for the sake of storytelling). Quinn and Everett are back. They have to find out where Daisy has been and of course, they have to tell Sharon that she's innocent - as she's always protested - and release her from prison. 

Meanwhile Bradley and co are on with finding out who the body in the grave is, as well as trying to find out how she is related to Daisy and Daisy's case. I liked the story but found Daisy a little bit OTT in some ways. I did have to suspend my belief a few times, but I found it compelling. I did also think there were just a couple too many characters which made it sometimes hard to keep track of who was who. But in all I liked the book and am giving it four out of five.