Book #25 Eighteen Below

Eighteen Below by Stefan Ahnhem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scandinavian noir at its best, dark, complex, compelling, full of twists and turns and a breathtaking final third as Astrid Tuvesson, Fabian Risk and a team of detectives hunt for a serial killer (or is it killers?) involved in an identity theft plot with frightening levels of violence. A second thread sees horrendous videos posted on YouTube by a group of "happy slappers" in which Fisk's own son Theodor is implicated. This is book #3 in the Fabian Risk series, something I was unaware of when accepting this ebook from the publishers, Head of Zeus. A pity as there are clearly events in Risk's past that impact on his present demeanour. Nevertheless, Eighteen Below can be read as a standalone. It's a lengthy read - but well worth the time.

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Book #24 Come a Little Closer

Come a Little Closer by Karen Perry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A plot of few characters. Anton, Mark, Leah, Jake, Hilary and Greg. And not one of them to root for. I thoroughly enjoyed Karen Perry's Your Closest Friend. I cannot say the same for Come a Little Closer. It was far too slow for me.

Anton is released from prison where he has been incarcerated for nineteen years, for murdering his wife. He returns to the family home to find that his son Mark has found new tenants for the basement flat - Leah and Jake. Jake has a seven-year-old son, Matthew, who lives with his mother, Jenna. It's a tangled mess. Anton has always claimed that he did not murder Charlotte. Hilary and Greg are teachers who had occupied the apartment all those years ago, waiting for their house over the road to have renovations completed. Hilary it seems, was obsessed with Anton...

So, if Anton didn't - who did? With so few possible culprits I had it figured out all too soon, which made completing the book a chore; although the final fifteen minutes had some redeeming qualities of suspense. It just did not grip me...

My thanks to Penguin UK-Michael Joseph and NetGalley for my ARC.

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Book #23 Beneath the Surface

Beneath the Surface by Fiona Neill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My thanks to Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and NetGalley for my ARC of Beneath the Surface. Three stars for some laugh out loud moments (were they intentional I wonder) but otherwise I was not enthused with the Vermuydens - a dysfunctional family without many if any redeeming qualities. Apart perhaps from 10-year-old daughter Mia. (She puts me so much in mind of Karen from the TV series Outnumbered). Parents Patrick and Grace, whose marriage was boringly monotone, and elder daughter Lilly, a high achiever at school until the day she has a seizure in Mr. Galveston's class:

'"They say to try chest compressions" Freya shouts back. Mr Galveston breaks into the chorus of 'Staying Alive' by the Bee Gees...!' Visions of Vinnie Jones... There are several more very humorous moments in the book - just as well because there was little else to entertain me. Small things concerned me, like - Mia keeping an eel in a bucket, an eel that has no doubt made the journey from the Sargasso Sea only to be marooned in a muddy backwater in Cambridgeshire - where Mia finds it. This was not a rescue - it was unnecessary and cruel and bothered me the more I read about it.

I could drone on about un-achieving Patrick and paranoid Grace - but I won't. I am beginning to feel over-generous with three stars.....

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