Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Peter Laws

Imagine you are asked to assemble a brand new library. You have dozens of empty bookshelves waiting to be filled and you want to ensure the visitors to your library only have the very best books to choose from. The classics, the most popular, the much loved books but also the books which readers love – the story which made them want to write too, a childhood comfort read or the book which brings them most joy on the darkest days. Where do you start if you have to bring all those titles together in one place?

Well I decided to do just that – I imagined the Decades Library. But I knew I didn’t have the reading knowledge to fill the shelves with all those reading treasures so each week I invite a guest curator to join me here at Grab This Book and I ask them to nominate their recommended reading for my Library shelves.

When I ask my guest to nominate the books they feel should belong in the Ultimate Library (my Decades Library) I ask them to follow two simple rules:

1 – You Can Choose ANY Five Books

2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

Simple. Or so I thought – but I get grumbled at on a fairly regular basis.

No grumbles this week as Peter Laws grasped the challenge and hit me up with five brand new titles which I shall add to the Library shelves.

Peter Laws is an author, journalist and podcaster. He wrote the acclaimed non-fiction book ‘The Frighteners: Why We Love Monsters, Ghosts, Death and Gore’ (Icon Books, 2018). This is a globe-trotting explanation (and defence) of the human morbid streak.

He has also written the Matt Hunter series of scary crime fiction novels (Allison and Busby, 2017 – 2020). He is the writer and host of the popular, scary true stories podcast ‘Frightful’. He is the creator of ‘Creepy Cove Community Church’. A podcast which offers full and immersive church services broadcast from a mysterious haunted fishing town – where all horror movies actually happened. This inventive mix of comedy, horror, music and wellbeing support, has been described as ‘Stephen King meets Songs of Praise.’

Peter is an ordained church minister and has worked in various Churches, though he now focuses on writing and podcasting. He is a popular speaker at festivals and conferences, and he writes a monthly column in the print magazine, ‘The Fortean Times.’ He is also a featured ‘expert’ BBC show, Uncanny, with Danny Robins.

DECADES

1970s: 1978 – The Spiders by Richard Lewis

Whenever I read fiction, my genre of choice is usually horror – and in particular, pulpy horror novels from the 1970s and 1980s. Affectionately known as ‘Paperbacks from Hell’, these mass-produced shockers seemed throwaway at the time. Yet they have a wonderful mix of charm, nostalgia, edgy content and gross-out shock. As an example, I submit Spiders by Richard Lewis. It’s a skin crawling tale of a village attacked by millions of flesh eating spiders. His descriptions of people waking up at night (to find their carpets swamped with spiders) is terrifying, but the grim detail in the death scenes made me want to applaud and vomit, all at the same time. At a mere 153 pages long, Siders is a short, sharp, tightly written hit of really horrible horror. You should probably avoid it if you have arachnophobia. And if you haven’t got it, congratulations. You will by the last page.

1980s: 1987 – Strangers by Taichi Yamada

I stumbled across this book in my thirties, and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s about a recently divorced man call Hideo. He’s a successful TV scriptwriter but he has few friends and no family – his parents were killed in a hit and tun accident, when he was 12. He’s lonely, and it doesn’t help that he lives in a Tokyo office building with a very small number of apartments. It’s so deserted at night that he feels a compulsion to walk back to his childhood neighbourhood to feel connected. While there he’s astonished to meet a couple who look remarkably like his parents. They are ten years younger than he is, so it couldn’t possibly be them…could it? It’s a clever, beautiful, and really quite moving book, with a shivery thread of the supernatural throughout. I loved it.

1990s: 1998 – 99 – Uzumaki by Junji Ito

If Strangers was beautiful, this next book (a graphic novel from Japan) is it’s direct opposite. Sure, the artwork is amazing and rich, but this is absolutely rammed with bizarre, horrific and genuinely frightening images. It’s set in Kurozo-cho, a small foggy town where the locals a starting to be haunted. Not by a ghost or a demon…but by a pattern. They keep seeing spirals everywhere. In the clouds, in seashells, in whirlpools. This spiral madness spreads throughout the town with truly nightmarish results. I read this book last year. I’d dip in a bit just before drifting off to sleep. There were several times when I woke up in the deepest ditch of the night, and I questioned my life choices. Try it.

2000s: 2009 – Shatnerquake by Jeff Burke

I figured there was space for a totally insane and ridiculous self-published book from Jeff Burk. Simply because I thought it was a blast. ‘Shatnerquake’ takes place at Shatnercon: the world’s biggest convention for William Shatner fans. Shatner is there in attendance, but he deeply wishes he wasn’t. That’s because a ‘reality bomb’ gets detonated and it somehow brings every character that Shatner has ever played, to life! Their mission: to hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner. I’m a big William Shatner fan and I do not make any apology for that. So I found the idea of a homicidal Captain Kirk and murderous TJ Hooker trying to kill their creator, to be irresistible. A glance at the opening quote ought to tell you that this book is not officially endorsed by the Shat: ‘How do I stay so healthy and boyishly handsome? It’s simple. I drink the blood of young runaways’. – William Shatner.

2010s – 2011: Falling Upward by Fr. Richard Rohr

Finally I offer a non-fiction book with a concept that really touched me. Father Richard Rohr is an intelligent, open-hearted and engaging Franciscan monk, who makes the case that our lives are split into two halves. The first half feels more simplistic, where our opinions and ideas are often clear and in black and white. Yet the second half of life can become confusing or contradictory, where ideas we thought were solid are challenged and where we see a catalogue of our own failures and mistakes building. This loss of foundation and confidence can seem like a disorientating loss, but Rohr persuasively argues that it is an essential gain – a fall, upward. Being a Christian myself, I found Rohr’s open minded faith to be invigorating, and it’s an important reminder that what can feel like spiritual confusion, might actually be spiritual maturity.

Sometimes I share a new selection of recommendations and I am frantically trying to remember if any of the five have featured recently. As I put together Peter’s selections I was quite confident none of his selections have featured in the 21 months of Decades. There have been very few non-fiction selections, fewer graphic novels and horror (beyond Mr King) is scarce too. Shockingly this is also the first mention of William Shatner. Some real variety to get your teeth into – thanks Peter!

DECADES WILL RETURN

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August 15

The Woman in the Library – Sulari Gentill

Hannah Tigone, bestselling Australian crime author, is crafting a new novel that begins in the Boston Public Library: four strangers; Winifred, Cain, Marigold and Whit are sitting at the same table when a bloodcurdling scream breaks the silence. A woman has been murdered. They are all suspects, and, as it turns out, each character has their own secrets and motivations – and one of them is a murderer.

While crafting this new thriller, Hannah shares each chapter with her biggest fan and aspirational novelist, Leo. But Leo seems to know a lot about violence, motive, and how exactly to kill someone. Perhaps he is not all that he seems…

The Woman in the Library is an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship – and shows that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.

I received a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley

A book from the “what I read on my summer holiday” collection. I was fascinated by the blurb of this story, four strangers in a Library when a murder takes place – one of the four is a murderer but if the four were sitting at a table then how can one of their number be a killer?

Well it isn’t Sulari Gentill who will tell this story it is Hannah Tigone (Okay it IS Sulari but let’s give Hannah her place too). Hannah is writing about Winifred, Marigold, Cain and Whit – four strangers who are in a Boston Library. They are sitting at a table togegther when a scream is heard – the four are forged in a new friendship and Hannah will write her novel about these new friends and the steps they will take to discover more about each other and, more importantly, about who may have killed a woman in the library.

As Hannah writes she gives her readers a background into each of these four players in her story. They all have secrets, they all have a reason to keep them secret and Hannah is going to spin out the tale and deliver a whip-smart whodunnit. But between the chapters about the friendly four and their strengthening bonds Sulari Gentill is also telling her readers about Hannah’s life away from the story she is crafting. Hannah is getting feedback from Leo – he is reading her early chapter drafts as each chapter is completed and providing his own observations and feedback. Leo is a bit of an enigma and does seem to enjoy a bit of mansplaining but he also has thoughts and opinions of friendships, secrets and he seems remarkably well informed about murder too.

All very mysterious and very nicely put together. At approximately 270 pages in length I found The Woman in the Library a sharp and well exectuted murder tale (no puns intended here). Hannah’s story gives a satisfying murder tale with a seemingly impossible pool of suspects and Sulari’s story about Hannah is darker and more perplexing – reading to see how that plot unfolded was very much the reason I zipped through The Woman in the Library in just two enjoyable sittings.

I enjoyed the very different approach to the story telling here and this is a book I’d recommend readers look out for when it hits the shelves next month.

The Woman in the Library is published in hardback in the UK on 15 September 2022 and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-woman-in-the-library/sulari-gentill/9781761151545

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June 5

The Game – Scott Kershaw

Across the globe, five strangers receive a horrifying message from an unknown number.

THE PERSON YOU LOVE MOST IS IN DANGER.

To save them, each must play The Game – a sinister unknown entity that has a single rule: there can only be one winner.

IF YOU LOSE, YOUR LOVED ONE WILL DIE.

But what is The Game – and why have they been chosen?

There’s only one thing each of them knows for sure: they’ll do anything to win…

WELCOME TO THE GAME. YOU’VE JUST STARTED PLAYING.

I recieved a review copy of The Game from the publishers through Netgalley.

A debut thriller from Scott Kershaw which sees five strangers facing a race against time. Each of the five is playing The Game to save one of their loved ones, each is aware the price of failure will mean the one they love will die. But what is The Game and how will they determine the winner?

That is a terrific hook for me – a thriller which introduces five characters and immediately throws them into the worst situation of their lives. It gives that instant gratifying feeling of grabbing the reader’s attention from the outset then taking them on a breakneck journey into chaos. The “players” in the game come from around the world but are required to converge in the UK by a specificed time. For the players in the US and on mainland Europe this will present something of a challenge but with the stakes so high they simply can’t even consider failure.

The action begins in America where a young child goes missing from the appartment through the night. His mother had been looking after him but the boy seems to have slipped out while she was distracted. It is only when she starts receiving text messages which make it clear where her son actually is that the reality of her predicament kicks in. Her son is gone and if she tells anyone then the people that have taken him will kill him.

While readers come to terms with this situation another drama is unfolding. A man who has been at a hockey match with his friend finds that friend is now in danger if he does not play The Game. A young mother who is struggling to keep her life under any form of control, her husband doesn’t look at her any longer, her young children are constantly demanding and even the family dog seems to be making her life challenging. Then The Game lands and her understanding of challenging will really take on meaning.

That’s just three of the players in the game but there are more and each knows that there can be only one winner – so what could happen when they all converge on a single point to see how the game is going to unfold? Well to tell would spoil the enjoyment of reading The Game but this is an intense ride and even when Scott Kershaw takes us away from the five players there are other plots (another Game?) to add depth and muddy the waters too.

Reading The Game was lots of fun with some moments which also caused me upset or an anxiousness for the predicament of the characters. I really enjoyed how the story resolved the threads and found I was still thinking about some of the characters a week or so after I had finished reading. All too often I put down a book, move on and don’t give it a second thought – this means The Game managed to cut-through my “goldfish memory” and that’s always a good endorsement. Well worth watching out for this one.

The Game is published by Harper Collins on 12 May 2022 and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-game/scott-kershaw/9780008530877

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September 21

Strangers – Paul Finch

Unknown, alone, and fearing for your life.

As PC Lucy Clayburn is about to find out, going undercover is the most dangerous work there is.

But, on the trail of a prolific female serial killer, there’s no other option – and these murders are as brutal as they come.

Lucy must step into the line of fire – a stranger in a criminal underworld that butchers anyone who crosses the line.

And, unknown to Lucy, she’s already treading it…

My thanks to Helena at Avon Books for my review copy and the opportunity to be the first leg on the Strangers blog tour

I suspect that one observation shall crop up quite frequently when Strangers is reviewed…No Heck. But what is it that makes Heck so good? Well it’s Paul Finch of course! So when I heard that Lucy Clayburn would be the lead character in Strangers I was actually really pleased. New characters means new opportunities, new adventures and a blank canvas for an author to take a very different approach – one that would not work for the characters we may already associate with that author.

As it turns out that is exactly what we get as Lucy Clayburn is going undercover on the streets to pose as a working girl. No matter how good Heck may be I just cannot see him pulling off that role!

The good news (not that it comes as a surprise) is that PC Lucy Clayburn is a fabulous character. There are so many spoilers to avoid but I can say she has a dubious reputation in her role which has put a blight on her career to date. Lucy has a wonderfully “punky” attitude which I immediately warmed to and when she is driven to do the best in her role and prove her worth to her colleagues she is a force to be reckoned with.

As we have come to expect from Paul Finch’s books the streets are full of some really nasty bad guys and in Strangers I am delighted that this theme continued. A female serial killer is murdering and mutilating men and the police have very little to work on. Lucy is recruited to join a team of undercover officers who will pose as prostitutes in a bid to win the confidence of other street girls who may give some clues towards the possible identity of the killer.

But for Lucy a different opportunity arises when she is given some information which could bring the police closer to closing down the activities of some of the worst members of the North West’s criminal underworld. Lucy is desperate to redeem herself in the eyes of her bosses and agrees to put herself right into the heart of the gangster operations.

What she finds, and the consequences of her actions, make for a 5 star thrill-fest. One of those stories which you just do not want to end and one where you feel that no characters are absolutely guaranteed to still be alive come the last page. The best kind of story!

Paul Finch writes books I want to read. If you like crime fiction of the highest calibre then look no further.

Strangers is published by Avon and is available now in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strangers-Paul-Finch/dp/0007551312/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474496962&sr=1-1&keywords=strangers+paul+finch

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