Fragile – Sarah Hilary

Everything she touches breaks . . .

Nell Ballard is a runaway. A former foster child with a dark secret she is desperately trying to keep, all Nell wants is to find a place she can belong.

So when a job comes up at Starling Villas, home to the enigmatic Robin Wilder, she seizes the opportunity with both hands.

But her new lodgings may not be the safe haven that she was hoping for. Her employer lives by a set of rigid rules and she soon sees he is hiding secrets of his own.

But is Nell’s arrival at the Villas really the coincidence it seems? After all, she knows more than most how fragile people can be – and how easily they can be to break . . .

My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the opporunity to host this leg of the Fragile Blog Tour. I was very grateful to recieve a review copy through Netgalley.

I always enjoy reading Sarah Hilary, her Marnie Rome books are among the best police thrillers currently being published and she never shields her characters from the worst experiences. Readers can normally expect a comforting security when reading about recurring characters – the danger happens elsewhere, to other people, leaving our favourite cops free to sweep in and catch the killer or lock up the bad guys. Not so with Sarah Hilary’s books, she is one of the few authors where you do feel the gloves are off and every single person she creates can just as easily be destroyed. The gut-punch twists she works so well into her stories are what bring me back every single time.

Knowing that Fragile was a stand alone novel I started reading with one thought uppermost in my mind – anything could happen here!

Nell was a runaway, living on the streets of London with Joe and the pair of them doing what it took to survive. Then one night Joe vanishes leaving Nell alone. She knows where she saw him last and returns to the street to watch for him. She eventually spots Starling Villas – a tiny doorway in a busy street which leads to the house behind. This is where Joe was last seen, going into this house and Nell is going to find out what happened to him in there. Starling Villas is the main hub of activity for the events unfolding but the history Nell and Joe share are equally relevant to the current events so readers will revisit Nell’s past to understand how she comes to find herself knocking on the door of Starling Villas applying for a job she finds out about by chance.

Nell had been brought up in care. From a very young age she cleaned, cooked, scrubbed, mended and did whatever else was required to appease the woman who was acting as her guardian. On learning the mysterious and enigmatic Robin Wilder needed an assistant in Starling Villas Nell makes herself available as a housekeeper. Her responsibilities are meticulously laid out, her every waking moment appears to be planned and her new employer gives away very little, even to the point of virtually ignorning Nell’s existence. She want’s to investigate the house to look for signs of Joe but so carefully plotted are her responsibilites it is hard to see how this could happen.

The pair have a very strange, controlled existence in Starling Villas but that precision is about to be shattered as Wilder’s wife adds an infusion of chaos to the dynamic. Nell hates her from the outset but also knows that this woman is involved with Joe’s disappearance. Things are about to get intense and with Sarah Hilary pulling the strings there is just no telling where we will end up.

Fragile was a fabulous read. For large parts the story felt out of its time. Starling Villas and the seclusion it brought from the outside world, the role of cook and housekeeper for the young girl who also washes, mends and does the shopping for her master. It had an old-world feel but then a mobile telephone is mentioned and you are brought back to the reality of a modern world but with a strange relationship and cirsumstance within this unusual house and its quirky residents.

I fully understand why Fragile is described as modern gothic The writing is beautiful, the depiction of Starling Villas and Nell’s challenging world were vivid and detailed in my imagination. For large parts of the book I had no idea where events may lead but I was fully caught up in the story and I was there for every step of that journey. Highly recommended.

Fragile is published by Macmillan and is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08KQGC527/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 25

Decades: Compiling the Ulitmate Library with R.J. Barker

How quickly Friday comes around these days! It gives me enormous pleasure to bring another Decades Curator to Grab This Book. For those keeping track of the guests who enjoyed making their selections and those who cursed me – this is 100% a cursing week.

If you are new to Decades and have no idea what I am wittering on about then Welcome. In January I set myself the challenge of filling a new library with the very best books. We started with no books on the shelves and each week I invite a new guest to join me and add five of their favourite reads (the books which MUST be represented in any self-respecting library) to my Decades Library.

Why is it a Decades Library? Well guests have just two rules to follow…they can choose ANY five books but their selections must include just one book per decade over any five consecutive decades. Simple I thought. But there has been much cursing of those two rules.

My guest this week won the 2020 British Fantasy Society (BFS) Robert Holdstock award for Best Novel with his fourth novel The Bone Ships. This was after his debut trilogy (collectively known as The Wounded Kingdom) garnered rave reviews from readers and industry press.

Somewhat confusingly he lives somewhere South of here in “The North” in a home he is filling with taxidermy, “odd art” and lots of music. Having decided a music career was not to happen RJ Barker started writing the books we love.

It is a little known fact that RJ has an Evil Twin who writes crime thrillers (A Numbers Game recently released and available now). But we don’t talk about him here. Today it is all about R.J. Barker:

DECADES

CJ Cherryh. Gate of Ivrel (1976)

I’m starting with this cos this list is in date order but I didn’t start with this.

I was absolutely shocked to find out this was Cherryh’s debut when I was looking into the book, as her tale of the interdimensional Sorcerer Morgaine and her companion the barbarian, Vanye, is incredibly accomplished and one of those books that has just stuck with me. The platonic male/female friendship is something I’ve carried through six books now and I put that at the feet of Cherryh. Not only that but also the way she wrote it, it’s not an easy book to approach, the text is very mannered and in her other books she matches text to subject which I love. It also goes places that were totally unexpected. At the time I’d read a lot of the things that are considered ‘classic’ and that owe a clear debt of allegiance to Tolkien but in Gate of Ivrel (and the sequels) Cherryh offered me something new that, for me, had far more depth and surprises in it and was doing it without a massive series.

TL/DR I owe C.J. Cherryh a drink.

IAN M. BANKS Consider Phlebas 1987

Well. The Culture. Few are the things that set my mind alight in the way Iain M Banks work did. In fact, my first professional level novel was turned down for being too Banksish. Which, you know, high compliment, I thought anyway. I’ve chosen Phlebas because it was the first but it could be any of them. And I always read Consider in tandem with Look to Windward as the two books talk to one another. I’m not going to go on at length about Bank’s SF, other people have done that and they have done it with far more depth than I can. But Banks’ work just fills me with joy, at his worlds, at his characters and at the real love of people it contains. It’s sad that I will never get to tell him what a profound influence his books were on me, but I am very happy that with them.

CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO Darker Jewels. 1993

You can, to be quite frank, keep Anne Rice. If you want to read about vampires that struggle with what it is to be human then Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Comte St Germain is where to go. This particular book is set in Russia in the court of Ivan the Terrible, it is dense and dark and as its heart is a creature we are taught to think of as a monster when he is anything but. St Germain is often the most human character within Yarbro’s books, his centuries of existence give him a perspective on the historical events surrounding him the other players lack. His learning and attempts to bring a sense of decency are ultimately doomed when he comes upon people who are fundamentally not decent. Is it magical creatures flying around murdering people and drinking blood? No. Is it darker and more horrific than any other vampire story you’ll come across? For my money, yes.

Dissolution C.J. Sansom 2004

There is so much of this book which I lifted for my own Wounded Kingdom books. That sense of melancholy, an overarching feeling that things are not going to go well for these people no matter what they do. Enter from stage left, Matthew Shardlake, hunchback lawyer in the court of King Henry VIII. I love Sansom’s work and it is that sense of melancholy within them that draws me in. There’s a real sense, as Shardlake becomes more and more entangled in the lethal politics of Henry’s court that the absolute best outcome Shardlake is ever going to be capable of is to simply get out alive and that he knows that. He is a small and unimportant person moving among vast and powerful men who would think nothing of crushing him. These are wonderful books and I adore them.

James Lee Burke Robicheaux. 2018

Now, I actually wanted to write about A Private Cathedral which, although written in 2019 was published in 2020 and fell foul of the rules. But It’s an amazing book where JLB sneaks an urban fantasy novel past the literary establishment as a crime novel. BUT, I can’t, so I will talk about an earlier book in the series, Robicheaux. This is a book I never want to read again. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It shows just what an outstanding writer JLB is, but my god it is grim. I’m glad I read it but I’m not going back. In fact, if you had told me that just as he started writing this the author was told he had a few months to live I would have believed you. It has that feel to it. All the way through I thought the author was going to end it with this book, that no one would survive. It is an exercise in tension that I hugely enjoyed upon reading, but have no wish to put myself through again.

A Private Cathedral is a stunner though.

Huge thanks to RJ for joining in with my Decades Challenge. He was extremely polite despite my astonishing ability to only contact him at the most inconvenient times and has brought some fabulous new recommendations to my Library. If you haven’t read any of RJ’s books yet then you can find them all here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/RJ-Barker/e/B005LVVCTQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

The Decades Library continues to grow and you can see all the previous selections here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

DECADES WILL RETURN

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June 24

Truth or Dare – M.J. Arlidge

DO YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME?

A crimewave sweeps through the city and no-one is safe. An arson at the docks. A carjacking gone wrong. A murder in a country park. What connects all these crimes without causes, which leave no clues?

Detective Inspector Helen Grace faces the rising tide of cases which threatens to drown the city. But each crime is just a piece of a puzzle which is falling into place.

And when it becomes clear just how twisted and ingenious this web of crime is, D.I. Grace will realise that it may be impossible to stop it . . .

My thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the Truth or Dare blog tour.

I received a review copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

Some bookbloggers are better than others at getting through their TBR. I am not one of those bloggers. My attempts to prioritise the books I recieved for review means the books I want to read from my personal collection get dusty. The best example I have of this is from when I explained this dilemma to Mark Billingham who signed my purchase of his latest book with “To Gordon, Read This One”

Why is that relevant here? Well I read the early Helen Grace books from MJ Arlidge and really enjoyed them. Then the blog took over and I wasn’t reading anything which wasn’t a review copy. I do still have a nice wee collection of unread books by MJ Arlidge to read once the blog is stood down. I kept buying them knowing I WILL read them but just haven’t yet.

So here we are at the Truth or Dare blog tour. I got to read this one! I can also category confirm that you don’t need to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy Truth or Dare, it most definitely can be read in isolation as any past events you need to know about are made known to the readers. I can also confirm that if you read Truth or Dare without reading the earlier books you would be adding those earlier books to your TBR – Truth or Dare was brilliant and will make you want to read more in this series.

DI Helen Grace is under pressure. Southampton is slipping out of her control as violent deaths are increasing, the conviction rate is falling and the local press are out to get her – placing full blame at Helens door for the increasing crime in the city. Within her own team there are also fractions forming as her former lover and her second in command, DS Hudson, is actively undermining her. He is leaking stories to the press to discredit Helen and is splitting loyalty within her squad. Everything will need to come to a head and Helen is isolated and vulnerable.

The real challenge Helen faces is a spate of unconnected murders which have been taking place. The victims are killed in different ways, in different locations and at different times of the day. The police are nowhere and the press know it. Then a lucky break gives Helen a line of enquiry to pursue and it opens up a can of worms. With resources stretched and half her team pulling in the wrong direction the challenge for Helen is to make a seemingly random coincidence tie in to the information she holds.

Truth or Dare is one of the best police procedurals I have read this year. The painstaking investigation is brilliantly laid out for readers to follow and there are more than a few shocks along the way. I was totally in the dark and yet entirely satisfied with where the story took me.

It would be greedy to wish for every book to grab my attention in the way Truth or Dare managed. When a book gets its claws into you it’s a wonderful feeling. Loved it.

Truth or Dare is available in Hardback, digital and audiobook format from today and you can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08KXQBYWQ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 23

True Crime Story – Joseph Knox

‘What happens to those girls who go missing? What happens to the Zoe Nolans of the world?’

In the early hours of Saturday 17 December 2011, Zoe Nolan, a nineteen-year-old Manchester University student, walked out of a party taking place in the shared accommodation where she had been living for three months.

She was never seen again.

Seven years after her disappearance, struggling writer Evelyn Mitchell finds herself drawn into the mystery. Through interviews with Zoe’s closest friends and family, she begins piecing together what really happened in 2011. But where some versions of events overlap, aligning perfectly with one another, others stand in stark contrast, giving rise to troubling inconsistencies.

Shaken by revelations of Zoe’s secret life, and stalked by a figure from the shadows, Evelyn turns to crime writer Joseph Knox to help make sense of a case where everyone has something to hide.

Zoe Nolan may be missing presumed dead, but her story is only just beginning

My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to host this leg of the blog tour. I recieved a review copy from the publishers.

It’s nice to sit down to write a review of a book which you loved. I came in to True Crime Story blind so had no idea what to expect and what I found was a slick story told unconventionally through a series of interview snippets and email correspondence. Initially I wasn’t sure I would enjoy reading the short bursts of contributions from various characters, an edited conversation pieced together after the events in question. However, I quickly found my first hesitancy had been misguided and I found I was really enjoying spending time reading something which shook up the norm.

The story focuses around the disappearance of student Zoe Nolan. Last seen on Saturday December 17th 2011. She vanished from her halls of residence at Manchester University and events around this incident are recounted by a number of people who crossed paths with Zoe and the subsequent investigation into her disappearance. The key players in the story are Zoe’s twin sister Kim, her boyfriend, their flatmates and (subsequently) Zoe and Kim’s parents. Other people phase in and out of the interviews but everything his brought together by Evelyn who is writing a book on Zoe’s continued absence and is sharing her writing and a few other thoughts and problems with her friend Joseph Knox. Yes the same Joseph Knox – it’s a nice twist to the narrative.

Where to start but not do any spoilers? Tricky.

Readers get to understand the relationship Zoe and Kim had with their parents and then see how the twins were very much different people, with different interests and a very different destiny. When Zoe and Kim get to university they form friendships and get thrust into accommodation with strangers, they will all need to adapt to their new surroundings and the new faces around them. Needless to say things do not go smoothly and there are several flashpoint incidents and situations which gives the reader a glimpse into the characters of all the players in this game.

True Crime Story is an emotive story and nobody connected with Zoe Nolan is going to come out of this book unscathed. Joseph Knox captures the claustrophobia of a group living in close proximity and the fractious relationships that this can bring. He brings life to these characters and my investment in their individual stories was sealed very early into the book. The outstanding narrative style works perfectly and gives the young students an authenticity that you do believe you are indeed reading a True Crime Story.

True Crime Story is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08HGMDNP2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 20

20/20 – Carl Goodman

Can you see a killer before it’s too late?

On the first day of her new job, D.I. Eva Harris is called to the scene of a brutal murder at the heart of Surrey society. A shocking crime by a meticulous killer – who escaped with the victim’s eyes.

With the body drained of blood and no forensic evidence left at the scene, Harris’ efforts to find the killer becomes desperate. But as her investigation is complicated by corruption at the heart of the police, she doesn’t know who to trust on her own team.

As the pressure mounts, Eva realises the murder is even more horrific than it seems, and her own dreadful history threatens to be drawn out with it…

My thanks to Sarah Hardy at Book on the Bright Side Publicity for the opportunity to join the blog tour.

I received a review copy from the publisher through Netagalley.

DI Eva Harris is starting her new job. It’s the first day in her promoted role and before she can even get to her desk she is called out to a murder scene. A nasty murder scene and one which Eva’s background has not really prepared her for as she had spent much of her formative time in her career working with computers and cyber crime, dead bodies are not quite the same when they are pixels and binary constructs.

Eva more than holds her own and with her dependable sargeant by her side she navigates the crime scene, befriends the medical examiner and manages to find a significant clue which puts her face to face with the killer – a balaclava obscures their face and a fight ensues to make sure capture is avoided.

It’s a terrific opening to the book and the grim manner in which the victim has been killed makes for a fascninating read. I always think there is always something more primal and disturbing whena victim’s eyes are attacked (or in this case, removed). Back at the police station Eva finally meets her team, she is shaken from the start to her day and the encounter with the killer but the reader cannot help but note that Eva seems to know quite a lot about her team before she even meets them. All soon becomes clear, however, as it emerges Eva has been placed into her new role to help identify a bent copper who operates out of her new station.

Carl Goodman is treating readers to a thriller which is focused on several angles. The police corruption, a cracking police investigative story, Eva’s own backstory is extremely enjoyable and her relationship with the officer who is controlling the corruption investigation is not one of mutual respect and there is a cold case from a few years previous which shares similar traits to the current murders. With many elements to focus on I was a very happy reader and found myself enjoying 20/20 immensly.

I found 20/20 to be an intelligent and engaging read, the motive behind the killer’s actions was perfectly in keeping with the story which I had been enjoying and I loved the progression of Eva’s investigation and the hurdles she had to overcome during the course of the book. Pacing and tone of 20/20 were spot on for me, there was always something which kept me reading and when the book came to a close I knew I wanted more books featuring DI Eva Harris – that’s a sure sign of a good book.

20/20 is published by Hera and is available in digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0936GWTHN/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 18

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Fiona Erskine

Yesterday I reviewed Phosphate Rocks by Fiona Erskine. It is mid June 2021 and Phosphate Rocks is easily the best book I have read so far this year. If you haven’t heard me raving about how much I enjoyed it then I would urge you to read this post then read my review (I shall pop a link at the bottom of the page).

Today Fiona is back and taking on my Decades challenge. Each week I invite a guest to join me and I ask them to help me assemble a Library of the very best books. Each guest has just two rules to follow:

1- Choose ANY five books
2 – You may only choose one book per decade over five consecutive decades.

My aim is, with the assistance of my guests, to get the very best selection of books into a Library which began with zero titles on the shelves. The literary quest began six months ago and on a weekly basis I get feedback from guests (past, present and future) who curse me for imposing those two rules on their selections and the flexing of the rules has been varied and impressive. You are in for a treat today as the most impressive flexing of the rules is about to be revealed…it’s a good job I loved Phosphate Rocks or there may have been a need for a VAR ruling – you will see what I mean 😉

DECADES

I’m Fiona Erskine and I started writing after a skiing accident gave me some unexpected time off from my day job as a professional engineer.

My first novel, The Chemical Detective, introduces explosives expert Dr Jaq Silver, blowing things up to keep people safe as she tracks a criminal gang from the ski-slopes of the Slovenian Alps to the ruins of Chernobyl. My second novel. The Chemical Reaction, opens with Jaq in trouble on a yacht in the Black Sea. When she blows it up to rescue her crewmate, she has to find a way to pay the owner back. Taking a risky job in China, she finds herself fighting for her life the shadow of the infamous Banqiao Dam. My thrillers have been shortlisted for The Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award and The Staunch Prize and I’ve signed a deal with Point Blank to produce at least 2 more in the Jaq Silver series.

My latest book Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects is a fictionalised account of my very first graduate job. A body is discovered in the ruins of a defunct fertiliser factory, encased in phosphate rock. The police work with retired shift foreman, John Gibson, to try and identify the deceased from the ten objects found with the mummified corpse.

I’m thrilled to have been invited to contribute to Decades. It’s a totally engaging idea, and one I have had some fun with. As well as some pain.

1950 – 1990

1958 Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene – Cuba

1966 The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott – India

1975 The Periodic Table by Primo Levi – Italy and a German concentration camp

1981 Moonraker by F. Tennyson Jesse – Haiti and the Carribean

1994 Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson – Canada to Japan to Russia

1950

I’ve always loved reading, especially on trains, and my first choice has to be Graham Greene. His books were the perfect length for a journey between Edinburgh (where I was born and went to school) and Cambridge (where I went to university) with a chapter left over for bedtime. Greene was the first author I trusted enough to buy a book based on the writer rather than on the subject matter. I loved the distinctive covers, white with big black letters plus an orange penguin. The books were deceptively slim, but always packed a punch. Aged 17 (and described by a great-aunt as an illiterate alcoholic), I wouldn’t normally have chosen stories about vacuum cleaner salesmen, defrocked priests or lepers but over the next four years I devoured every novel Graham Greene had written. And grew up.

For this (fiendish…shakes first and curses) challenge, Graham Greene also brings the huge advantage that I could have chosen almost any one of his novels written between 1929 and 1990.

Our Man in Havana (1958) by Graham Greene.

Our Man in Havana is the story of a salesman in Cuba who tries to make a bit of money on the side as a spy. There’s a gulf of understanding between those in headquarters and those in the field which James Wormold exploits to his advantage, fabricating information, sketching his own vacuum cleaner nozzles at giant scale as proof of a military installation in the mountains. Credulous M16 take it all at face value and send reinforcements. But lies have a habit of coming back to bite their creator. I must just add that the hapless spy genre is alive and kicking as demonstrated by my favourite book of 2021 so far – Starlings of Bucharest by Sarah Armstrong.

1960

The Jewel in the Crown (1966) by Paul Scott

I recently listened to an audio version of the Raq Quartet series, and it reminded me how much I adored these books first time round. One of my Edinburgh primary school teachers, Mrs Harris, had lived in India in Raj times and told us extraordinary stories, which flooded back as I read these books. I have chosen the first in the series, The Jewel in the Crown. Set in the 1940’s it tells the story of Hari Kumar, returning to northern India after an education at an English public school. He is rejected by both the English rulers and his fellow Indians. When Daphne, an awkward English girl, tries to help Hari, things do not end well. It’s wonderfully perceptive exploration of racism, of control of the many by the few, a theme that recurs in Abir Mukerjee’s recent (and wonderfully nuanced) Wyndham & Banerjee novels which I wholeheartedly recommend.

1970

The Periodic Table (1975) by Primo Levi

If I had to choose a single book that changed my life, then it would be The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. While I was still a student, I spent a summer in Sri Lanka with a group of volunteers. The stated mission was to build a road to connect two villages in the mountains near Kandy. It soon became clear that our real job was to provide entertainment for a group of young people who had been persuaded onto a work experience program to keep villagers away from the big bad cities. The socio-technical project was impossible: the terrain impenetrable, the tools (pickaxes and udeles – a sort of crude right angled shovel) blunt and heavy and the cities exciting. We did a lot of singing and dancing instead, teaching each other our languages with stories and jokes – although everyone found the big white people hilarious even without a punchline. We also shared books which led to my discovery of Primo Levi.

The Periodic Table is a series of interconnected stories, each based on a chemical element. Primo Levi was an Italian industrial chemist who was sent to a German concentration camp during the second world war. His memoir If This Is a Man is a ferociously powerful book about what it means to be human. Levi narrowly survived Auschwitz by working in IG Farben’s synthetic rubber chemistry lab and the stories in The Periodic Table cover his work as an industrial chemist, before during and after the war. In the story Vanadium, Levi identifies one of his German supervisors from Auchwitz after the war by the mistakes he makes in correspondence about some faulty chemicals. Levi writes beautifully about the practical realities of science in a way that is accessible to all. This book is the inspiration for all my writing.

1980

Virago modern classics were a complete revelation for me during my university days. I devoured the green spined books as fast as they arrived.

Moonraker (1981) by F. Tennyson Jesse

I particularly loved Moonraker, a swashbuckling pirate adventure story with a great twist (no spoilers here) and the sideswipe that illuminates the tragic fate of ex-slave and Haitian freedom fighter Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse was a fascinating character, a war-correspondent, criminologist, and playwright. Born in 1888, she suffered from rickets as a child and became briefly addicted to morphine after an accident led to the amputation of part of her hand.

I could have chosen The Lacquer Lady or A Pin to see the Peepshow by the same author, or any number of other wonderful Virago published books by other writers, but Moonraker is my stand-out thrilling favourite.

(I confess to cheating slightly here, as Moonraker was first launched in 1927, but it only came to wide attention when Virago republished it in 1981. If you disqualify this one, I’ll be forced to shuffle the others around and name Ian Fleming’s inferior Moonraker (1955) first, as a way to sneak this neglected story into the spotlight.)

1990

Last but not least, the ultimate thriller.

Kolmysky Heights (1994) by Lionel Davidson

I love the long slow build-up of Kolmysky Heights. Linguist Johnny Porter initially rejects the coded challenge and then takes most of the book to reach the Siberian wastes in order to penetrate the mysterious research centre. No sooner in, than he has to get out. Nobody has ever escaped before, but Johnny is an engineer – right up my street!

I could have chosen one of Davidson’s other novels, The Rose of Tibet and Smiths Gazelle are particularly good, but Kolmysky Heights is the stand-out tecno-thriller with the perfect hero.

Looking back at my five choices, I realise two things.

The first is that I have always been a traveller. When I can’t get on a train myself, I travel though books.

The second thing is that I have inadvertently chosen 4 out of 5 books by white men whereas my current reading is much more diverse. I did a check step to see what female authors I had missed. I could have included beloved authors of exquisite prose (Alice Munro, Arundhati Roy), children’s adventure writers (Jan Mark, Joan Aiken), regency romance (Georgette Heyer), science fiction supremo (Ursula Le Guin) or any number of accomplished writers of crime and police procedurals.

But the books that influenced me, that spurred my own writing on, were the science mysteries and adventure thrillers that I read as a young adult. And at that time, most of the books published were written by white men.

Publishing has changed and is much the better for it.

The Chemical Detective and The Chemical Reaction are published by Point Blank, paperback £8.99

Phosphate Rocks is published by Sandstone Press, paperback 8.99.

My thanks again to Fiona for these terrific selections. When I first saw Moonraker I did automatically assume the travelling adventures were heading to space but it wasn’t to be (this time). I promised a link to my Phosphate Rocks review: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5371

You can visit The Decades Library here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

Every book my guests have nominated are shown in The Library and you can see all the curators at the end of the list.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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June 17

Phosphate Rocks – Fiona Erskine

As the old chemical works in Leith are demolished a long deceased body encrusted in phosphate rock is discovered. Seated at a card table he has ten objects laid out in front of him. Whose body is it? How did he die and what is the significance of the objects?

I received a review copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

It doesn’t matter what you may think this book is about. If you read the brief, teasing blurb above that’s only going to scratch the surface of the story in Phosphate Rocks.

As I read the book I tweeted a few times that I had no idea how I was going to review it. That hasn’t changed, I am not sure how to succinctly articulate the utter pleasure I experienced reading Phosphate Rocks. Or the anguish, the horror, the fascination or the fun. This book had it all and, when it was done, I wasn’t. I wanted more. I wanted to keep reading about these remarkable overlooked heroes of their craft.

So what’s it about?

Well there’s a dead body in an old chemical plant in Leith (Edinburgh). The site is no longer active but before everything closed down it seems, somehow, a huge shroud of phosphate rock encased a work hut. Inside that hut was a dead body sat at a table. Laid out on the table in front of the corpse were ten objects which the police hope John Gibson, former shift manager at the site, can use to identify the deceased.

Sitting in a police station, years after his plant had closed down, John identifies each of the ten objects and tells Detective Inspector Rose Irvine the story behind each item. With each passing object the reader gets to know more about the men that worked the site, the work they undertook and how chemicals and materials from around the world would pass under the nose of these Edinburgh workers.

Also filling in the reader with background information is author, Fiona Erskine, who gives each object a quirky and fascinating science lesson. You learn about chemicals, reactions, inventions and discoveries. Reading this book taught me how chemicals move around the world, how they need carefully stored and cared for and how it’s the plant workers that know best how to keep a busy chemical site ticking over – not the managers, chemists or owners. It may not sound like slipping chemistry learning into a crime story could be fun or engaging but it is utterly absorbing (though Fiona will likely correct me on what absorption actually is).

The stories behind each of the objects are wonderful. Although this book is a work of fiction I am 100% convinced that many (if not all) of the stories are entirely anecdotal and based on actual events from the site. Why tie a long string around the neck of a whisky bottle? Who had the best dressed Barbie Doll in Scotland? Why should you not hit a pipe with a hammer and…is that an author cameo we see before us? If many events in the book are indeed based on actual events it may go a long way towards explaining why the book is so engaging. Nothing feels forced, overdone or over-exaggerated. The guys (and in the main it is guys) working on the site all feel utterly real and entirely plausible. I defy you not to warm to them.

The true hero of the piece is John Gibson. He is taken on a journey back through his working life and the stories he tells DI Irvine bring back memories of old colleagues – some more fondly remembered than others. John and DI Irvine are a charming pairing through the story too their conversations, some of which take place away from the police station when Irvine tracks him down to his favourite restaurant, are a cautious but intricate dance. Neither party is willing to overshare but both appear to crave more knowledge about the other.

Phosphate Rocks is a crime story. There is a dead body, there are clues to help the investigators determine his identity and there is a man helping police with their enquries at the police station. But Phosphate Rocks is so much more. It is a story of a life (John Gibson), of many lives, of a plant that no longer dominates its corner of Leith and of the men who for years kept that plant ticking over. Clever men, inventive men, hard men and men with secrets. But I felt Phosphate Rocks is also a love story. I read of a time now gone which is much missed, a love of science and method and process and of low paid staff performing dangerous and skilled work. An affection of the cameraderie, the respect for John Gibson and the responsibility he held for the staff on his shift. It’s funny then it’s tragic and I want you all to read this story too.

Phosphate Rocks, currently my book of the year. It will take something incredible to top this one.

Phosphate Rocks is published by Sandstone Press and is available from today in paperback and digital format. You can get your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08TR21QGZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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June 14

Falling – T.J. Newman

You just boarded a flight to New York.

There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.

What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped.

For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.

The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.

Enjoy the flight.

I received a review copy from the publisher. My thanks to Anne Cater from Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to host this leg of the tour.

Starting this review with a trip to dictionary.com –

RELENTLESS

adjective

not easing or slackening; maintaining speed, vigor, etc.:a relentless barrage of bad news.

Dead Ground – M. W. Craven

Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved and isolated croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Poe is confused – he hunts serial killers and this appears to be a straightforward murder-by-pimp – but his attendance was requested personally, by the kind of people who prefer to remain in the shadows.

As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions: despite being heavily vetted for a high-profile job, why does nothing in the victim’s background check out? Why was a small ornament left at the murder scene – and why did someone on the investigation team steal it? And what is the connection to a flawlessly executed bank heist three years earlier, a heist where nothing was taken . . .

I received a review copy from the publisher.

There are certain books which I always look forward to reading. Characters I have loved returning for another challenge, authors who I know always write top quality books or (the best combo) authors who write top quality books and bring back recurring characters. That third combination brings me nicely to Dead Ground.

The Poe and Bradshaw thrillers by M.W. Craven are a high point in the release schedules for me as Craven hits the perfect balance between dark and gritty but also scores with many laugh-out-loud moments too.

The joy in reading the Poe/Bradshaw books are the two lead characters. I do a disservice to the brilliantly twisted crime stories which the they have to investigate (more on this in a moment) but the dynamic between Washington Poe, the dogged determination and relentless pursuit of getting to the truth with his rules-be-damned attitude and Tilly Bradshaw, genius, socially awkward and absolutely guaranteed to voice exactly what is in her head at any given time. Their partnership is genius and ruthlessly effective. I could read about them nipping to the chippy and know it would bring a smile.

In Dead Ground the pair are facing a whole new challenge as they are called to support the security forces who normally work in the background, keeping secrets and are very used to ensuring they hold all the aces. Poe is very much not that kind of team player and readers know there will be conflict as Poe will not accept people withholding information in a murder investigation.

I don’t want to spoil too much (or indeed, any) of the story so I choose my words carefully here. Poe is tasked with finding who killed an influential figure involved with an upcoming top security meeting. If you have read The Curator (Book 3 on the series) there is a returning character to shake up the dynamic and bring a new edge to the investigation. There are also some brilliant interchanges between Poe, Tilly and the spies who are desperate for discretion but know Poe won’t play their game.

Dead Ground is easily one of the best new releases out at the moment. Reading this was an absolute joy and it falls into the “don’t want this to end” category. If you have yet to discover this series for yourself then I envy you the four wonderful novels which await – not to mention the short stories that will demand your attention too. It’s an easy five star score for Dead Ground.

Dead Ground is published by Constable and is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Ground-Washington-Poe-Craven/dp/1472131975/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1623359635&sr=1-2

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June 11

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Jonathan Whitelaw

In January I began a quest to curate the Ultimate Library. I had no idea which books should be included and I knew the only way to get the very best books represented in my Library was to ask booklovers which books they would include. We started with nothing. Nada. Zero Books. Each week I ask my guests to nominate ANY five books which they would like to see added to the Library shelves.

Six months on I think we have one non-fiction title (no Haynes manuals), two books which are children’s stories, we have a vampire, a Belgian Detective embarking on his first investigation at Styles, a book about a shark, a Fight Club and many, many more.

When choosing their five books my guests are slightly restricted in their selections. I don’t ask for their five favourite books as that way leads to chaos. I insist that my guests can only select one book per decade and they must choose from five consecutive decades. My new favourite reaction to my insisting on the consecutive decades was a simple message which read “you monster”. The identity of that guest remains a mystery for the moment but perhaps when I share his selections a few weeks from now I shall remind him of that interchange.

Today, however, my guest was politeness personified and I am therefore delighted to hand you over to Jonathan Whitelaw.

DECADES

Hello everyone, I’m Jonathan Whitelaw and I’m an author, award-winning journalist and broadcaster. When I’m not blowing my own trumpet with all of those inflated titles, I write the HellCorp series about The Devil solving crimes, along with the Parkers Sisters books – cozy mysteries following the adventures of three Glaswegian siblings. From the dark to the light you might say.

My latest novel is Banking on Murder – the first of the Parkers books. It sees Martha, Helen and Geri – three sister PIs from Glasgow tackle their biggest crime yet – the murder of a high-flying banker. Taken out of their comfort zones and thrown firmly to the financial lions, the Parkers are up to their necks in trouble from the off as they try to protect a grieving widow from ending up in the slammer.

I’m absolutely delighted to be taking part in Decades. As much as everyone moans that they can’t pick their favourite film/TV/show/book etc, we all secretly love it. And it’s a brilliant chance to revist good times gone by and look forward to even more special memories in the future. Without further ado, I present you my choices. Be gentle.

1960s – Dune by Frank Herbert

What a decade! The old adage that if you remember the sixties then you weren’t there. Which is certainly true for me as I wasn’t born for another twenty years. But in terms of cultural legacy and impact, there’s a strong argument to be made that we’re STILL feeling the effects of this particular decade so long on.

And that’s certainly true for the literary scene. There are thousands of possibilities I could have chosen from this decade. The later James Bond novels, John la Carre coming into his own, everything Arthur C Clarke touching turning to gold – and that’s just in the spy and sci-fi genres. I could literally go on forever.

That said, I’m going to pick one and that’s Frank Herbert’s Dune. I was gifted a Dune omnibus for Christmas when I was about 15 and that was me hooked. I can’t get enough of this series, this world, this universe that Herbert created. There’s always been something deeply fascinating about the construction of Dune’s cosmos that’s always triggered that innate, cerebral part of my reading brain that just wants more and more and more.

As a child of the 1990s, what makes all of Dune even MORE incredible is that it pre-dates Star Wars by a considerable margin. Released in 1965 – right slap, bang in the middle of the swinging sixties, it has all the hallmarks of a space opera that we all take for granted now. Ancient mysterious races, intergalactic politics, cosmic forces at play, the lot. It was and arguably still remains ahead of its time.

I also love that it’s one of the most quoted books as being ‘unfilmable’. There have been a few attempts at bringing it to the screen, each with its own merit. And another massive all-star cast blockbuster on its way later this year. I don’t like the ‘unfilmable’ tag as I don’t believe that with the right motivation and tact, you can translate any great bit of literature to another medium. But it’s a testimony to Herbert’s vision, forthrightness and general delivery that his masterpiece remains one of the hardest challenges even to this day.

1970s – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Ah, the 1970s – the decade that style forgot. Brown carpets, brown walls, brown curtains… just brown. It’s the sobering aftermath of the liberated 1960s and my god did the world feel a comedown and a half.

Step into the fray Hunter Stockton Thompson – a man seemingly built to cause chaos and mayhem wherever he went. As a full-time journalist, I can’t help but feel my teeth itch and imagine the stress and strain he must have put his editor under. I can tell you right now that HST wouldn’t cut it in the modern newsroom. Search engine optimisation, social media stats and paid for posts just wouldn’t fly with this man.

But that’s okay. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is about as mental and bloody-minded as the whole 70s decade could get. Sent to cover a race for Sports Illustrated, only he could file copy that became “a savage journey into the heart of the American dream.”

It’s not an easy read. And yes, even I admit that it’s dated beyond all recognition. But isn’t that the point? Fear and Loathing is a literary time capsule and look into a world that was very much trying to come up with its own identity. It’s hailed as the defining work of so called ‘Gonzo’ journalism which, for more reasons than I can care to remember, are now a long-distant memory.

That’s why I like it. I try to read it at least once every couple of years and have done since I was in my early 20s. The book itself is overrated, pumped up and given plaudits by people who mostly haven’t read it. It’s been taken over by stoner and undergraduate stoner culture who like to treat it as their bible on how to live a rock and roll lifestyle… without actually having to live said rock and roll lifestyle.

I treat myself to these little re-reads to remind myself of what it must have been like back then. But I don’t take it too seriously. That, I think, was HST’s point.

1980s – Money by Martin Amis

It seems only appropriate for the decade that made braces popular, Filofax a thing and introduced us all to the horrors of mobile phones that my choice features money in the title. Semi-autobiographical, the sheer rudeness of Amis’ style and confrontational of his characters are what stick in my mind.

I was introduced to the book around 2010 when there was a BBC adaptation for TV starring Nick Frost. I enjoyed the series but I prefer the book (if I had a £1 coin for every time I’ve said that…).

It’s loud. It’s garish. It’s in your face. It’s ugly. It’s boozy. It’s angry. And above all else, it rings true to the world it was unleashed into. For my money (pun intended) there are no better cutting satirists than Amis. And while I’m not a massive fan of ALL of his work (not that he gives a toss of course) – this one really stands out for me.

And I can’t talk about Money without mentioning the fact the central character is called John Self. Every time it comes up in the book it feels like a weighty sledgehammer of tongue-in-cheek irony that never gets old. This is a book that is bored itself to sleep by only being a book. And Amis fills every page, every sentence even, with that charged venom that can only make you want to be a better writer.

1990s – Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

I think this was my toughest choice. When it comes to picking books for this list, I tried to immediately think of something that sums up their decade of publication perfectly. And it was a toss-up between this and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. In the end I’ve gone for Fever Pitch, mostly because there are still parts of Trainspotting I can’t decipher – despite living on the border of the New Town and Leith for over three years!

Released in the same year as the start of the new Premier League, I genuinely can’t think of another writer who could capture the site, sounds, smells and soul of the decade that has, more than any other, shaped the way we do things now.

His characterisation of a die-hard football fan almost created the prototype of how the sport would go on to look over the next 20+ years. Gone is the tattooed casual, in its place a normal human being who absolutely loves the game and everything that goes around with it. More importantly, it’s the way Hornby uses the footie as a mechanism to tell what is ultimately a story about hope and growing up.

This is another of my go-too reads if I’m looking for a pick-me-up or a bit of nostalgia. Again I didn’t read it for the first time until my 20s and by that point the world had moved on from Hornby’s early 1990s utopia. But as a child who grew up while all of this unfolded around his ever growing ears – it’s always a lovely jaunt down memory lane to pick it up and re-enjoy.

2000s – The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I think I can hear your scoffing from here. But I beg of you, before I’m carted away by the taste police, just hear me out. There IS a logic to this, I promise.

Released in 2003, this is the first novel I can ever remember being what you would call a blockbuster. It was EVERYWHERE. From reviews to TV interviews, scandal and sacrilege seemed to court this novel wherever it went – which was quite literally every corner of this blue and green marble we call a planet. If it wasn’t being condemned for its topic it was being blasted for its style.

Now, no matter what you think of Mr Brown or this novel, you have to agree that it’s a pretty hard gig to achieve both notoriety AND sell a bazillion copies at the same time. Any publicity is good publicity – as a certain former President used to like to remind us. It’s to that end that I hold The Da Vinci Code dear.

It’s also one of the first books I read as a late schoolboy that I genuinely enjoyed for the first time in what felt like forever. Compulsory reading lists, endless essays and forensic analysis for exams etc meant that I spent about five years of my teenage life reading for necessity instead of fun. And for a boy who had grown up reading non-stop for escapism and adventure, that was a pretty hard pill to swallow.

I am, if nothing else, a contrarian. I bought my copy from Borders in Glasgow city centre. I took it to the counter, a smug satisfaction oozing out of my school uniform as I handed over the crumpled tenner for this book that EVERYONE hated. I was going to read it, damn it, and I didn’t care what you all thought of me. Oh to be 17 again.

To my surprise, and bitter disappointment, I loved it. There’s a very good argument to be made that The Da Vinci Code set me off on what’s been an unbroken path of non-stop reading since that moment. And if I hadn’t gotten all the way through it back then, I fear my career as an author, if not life in general, might have been VERY different.

There’s something to be said for genre fiction and big, blundering thrillers like this. Sometimes, just sometimes, they go a long way to opening doors that might, for one reason or another, have closed forever.

My thanks to Jonathan for these thumping suggestions. I never fail to be surprised by the books which are suggested for inclusion but if you had told me six months ago that The Da Vinci Code made the cut before Shogun, Wild Swans or anything by Jackie Collins I would have been stunned. I also had a moment of wistful nostalgia – Borders in Glasgow was one of my favourite bookshops and I miss it deeply.

If you want to see all the books which have been added to the Library you can visit here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

DECADES WILL RETURN

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