Book #64 Deadly Partnership

Deadly Partnership: Murder, Blackmail and Voices from the Spirit World by Richard Gardner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Deadly Partnership is a classic thriller laced with black humour. It starts with a particularly gruesome event that occurred some 30 years ago and hangs, teasingly, in the background. Paul Jenkins, a widower, has enjoyed a successful career in finance and on his retirement plans to go a and live with his sister at the family home on the coast where Julie now lives alone.

Paul has great plans for the house. He can sell his domain in Chiselhurst and use some of the funds to renovate and extend Julie's house. His son Gary is a builder and is having difficulties with creditors. He needs a significant sum of money to keep them at bay and Paul sees him as the obvious choice to carry out the work required. Having paid his workforce what is owed his employees leave him in the lurch and Paul decides to adopt the mantle of Gary's 'labourer'. So far so good. They have been warned about a spate of burglaries locally and advised to keep all windows firmly closed, particularly at night. When a window is inadvertently left open the end result has extraordinary consequences. A disaster that has repercussions that lead to a series of events that spiral out of control.

Can a book be called delicious? This can. It has all the elements of sinister appeal, a dose of spiritualism, talking to the 'other side', as Julie enlists the help of a medium to try and come to terms with what is happening at her home. And there I must leave it, difficult to say more without spoiling the plot.

Hats off to Richard Gardner for a terrific read and my thanks for the PDF. Get yourself a copy. It is well worth it!

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Book #63 The Betrayals

The Betrayals by Fiona Neill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A family friendship betrayed with a deception to reverberate through the years. Rosie and Nick appear to be happily married with two children, Daisy and Max. Rosie’s best friend Lisa is married to Barney with children Ava and Rex. The two families share a week’s holiday on the Norfolk coast in the cottage where Rosie grew up. But tensions mount between Lisa and Barney, a failing journalist in the music industry, who dwells on past successes as he hits the bottle. And, that summer, Lisa had an affair with Nick.

The repercussions have a terrible affect on Daisy, whose fragile hold on reality begins to unravel. Her level of OCD is chronic with repetitive actions she believes are necessary to protect her mother. Max blames himself for all that happened that summer with his cruel deception…. There is a flavour of Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ here.

Recounted by four principal characters - Rosie, Nick, Daisy and Max this is an accomplished novel depicting a family in crisis. Four sides to a story, who to believe.

And then the letter from Lisa to Rosie, years later, that exposes dark secrets…

A family drama with much to recommend it although I did find the ending a little disappointing.

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Book #62 The Sussex Downs Murder

The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A real delight from the golden age of crime fiction. First published in 1936 and republished in 2014 as a British Library Crime Classic. John Bude was the pseudonym of Ernest Gilmore (1901-1957) who was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association. The wonderful art deco cover was enough to make me pick the book up in Waterstones.

The setting is pretty much my own locale - the Sussex Downs, featuring Bramber, Steyning, Washington, Findon, Cissbury Ring, Chanctonbury Ring and the police headquarters in Lewes.

A classic detective novel featuring Superintendent Meredith and his sidekick Hawkins, who use old-fashioned police work bereft of computers, tablets and mobile 'phones to investigate the disappearance of John Rother, a local farmer and owner of lime kilns (you might have to Google that!). His abandoned car is found and first thoughts are that he might have been kidnapped. But then human bones are found on Chalklands farmland where his brother William and wife also live. Is John's disappearance more sinister? Is it connected perhaps to his growing rather too friendly with his brother's wife? Meredith is a patient, careful detective and his methodical approach starts to disentangle the clues as suspicion shifts from one character to the next. He still finds time to enjoy his afternoon high tea though!

If you like Agatha Christie you will enjoy this elaborately constructed puzzle. It tested my wits and, no, I didn't guess the outcome!



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Book #61 Autumn

Autumn: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 by Ali Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This just did not resonate with me. I often find that books shortlisted for the Man Booker just leave me - cold. Autumn has been acclaimed by critics as the ‘first post-Brexit’ novel. Really? There are some vague references to a nation split by the referendum outcome but Autumn is far more than that. It recounts the relationship between Elizabeth, a junior lecturer, and her sometime mentor and neighbour Daniel, who is now a centenarian whose long life is slowly slipping away in an assisted care facility. There are levels of wit and humanity throughout the book that help with much of the tedium elsewhere. There are some laugh out loud moments when Elizabeth visits the Post Office to complete a Check and Send application for a new passport. The conversation between her and the PO clerk is hilarious. Offset by passages that bewildered: ”art like this examines and makes possible a reassessment of the outer appearances of things by transforming them into something other than themselves. An image of an image means the image can be seen with new objectivity, with liberation from the original” Blah, blah…

There is a lot of indifference in this story about daily lives; there is also a quiet heroism as Elisabeth visits Daniel to read to him. There is also much that bored the pants off me….

No more Man Bookers for a while at least.


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Book #60 Career Of Evil

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The third book in the Cormoran Strike series and by far the best. J.K.Rowling writing under her pen-name Robert Galbraith also says this is her best. The series is made even more immediate with the screening on BBC television of the first two books: The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm, although we will have to wait until 2018 to see Career Of Evil.

This is a masterclass in writing detective fiction. Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott work off each other so well. Robin has established herself as Strike’s equivalent when it comes to investigating misdemeanours, the day-to-day stuff in running a private detective agency. Strike has sent her on surveillance and counter-surveillance courses and Robin is fairly handy when it comes to self defence. Just as well…

A package arrives at the office in Denmark Street, addressed to Robin. It contains a woman’s severed leg and this is where the horror begins. Someone is out to ruin Strike’s career and reputation. There are persons in Strike’s past who he considers capable of such brutality and - there they are - listed in plain sight. More fiendish acts occur and Strike’s business is close to insolvency as clients turn away as his reputation is further damaged.

The time comes when Robin’s and Strike’s personal lives become intertwined. Will Robin marry Matthew? Will Strike stay with Elin? Will he manage to keep Robin out of harms way as it appears that the killer is targeting her?

Career Of Evil is a terrific read full of twists and turns and unexpected developments. And the ending leaves the reader balanced on a cliff edge. Where are we going from here? How much longer before #4 is published?!

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Book #59 The Chalk Man

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully crafted with a sinister edge. Five twelve year old youngsters on their rite of passage, doing what kids do, related through the eyes of Eddie. Innocent lives soon to be changed forever when a young girl is horribly injured and disfigured in a fairground accident. It is 1986... And then Eddie meets the Chalk Man, the kids create a secret method of communication using symbols in chalk. Find chalk arrows that point to dismembered parts of a murder victim - a girl - whose head is never found. There are times when the plot put me in mind of Stephen King's "The Body" (made into the movie 'Stand By Me') the innocence of the young tainted by events beyond their control.

2016 - Eddie is now 42, a teacher. Lives in the same city. His mates remain the same; still wonder the true identity of the murder victim from 30 years ago. And whatever happened to the head? Who committed the crime? Who do you believe? And then the denouement, the ending that turns everything on its head...

Brilliant!

My thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. The Chalk Man will be published in January 2018.

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Book #58 The Limehouse Golem

The Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With the film soon to be released I bought a copy of the book to read before seeing the film. An enjoyable gothic tale from Peter Ackroyd set in 1880 in London. A plot that includes real people mixed with fictional characters: stage name Dan Leno (real name George Wild Galvin) a leading English music hall comedian, George Gissing, an English novelist, teacher and tutor and Karl Marx, the philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary. Clever stuff. Add in Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, who marries John Cree, Aveline Mortimer, housemaid and Inspector John Kildare and a series of brutal killings as Kildare tries to track down a serial killer who becomes known as the Limehouse golem - and you have all the makings of a macabre tale centred on the glamour of the music hall and the slums of the East End, dank, dark and chilling.

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