January 16

The Trials of Marjorie Crowe – C.S. Robertson

How do you solve a murder when everyone thinks you’re guilty?

Marjorie Crowe lives in Kilgoyne, Scotland. The locals put her age at somewhere between 55 and 70. They think she’s divorced or a lifelong spinster; that she used to be a librarian, a pharmacist, or a witch. They think she’s lonely, or ill, or maybe just plain rude. For the most part, they leave her be.

But one day, everything changes.

Local teenager Charlie McKee is found hanging in the woods, and Marjorie is the first one to see his body. When what she saw turns out to be impossible, the police have their doubts. And when another young person goes missing, the tide of suspicion turns on her.

Is Marjorie the monster, or the victim? And how far will she go to fight for her name?

 

I received a review copy from the publishers, Hodder & Soughton, through Netgalley

 

Here it is. The high-bar to which all other books will need to aspire to match through 2024. When I tell you I started my reading this year with a stone cold banger of a book it’s no exaggeration. The Trials of Marjorie Crowe will introduce you to one of the most memorable lead characters you’re likely to encounter for many months to come and her story will live with you just as long. I adored this book.

Marjorie Crowe is a witch. Not the halloween-esk, pointy hat, bubbling cauldron type of witch but a woman who’s learnt from her predecessors which plants and flowers can have medicinal benefits, the roots which will help make a lotion or the oils which could make a salve. She lives in an old cottage in a quiet village in central Scotland. Naturally the other villagers, particularly the teenagers, consider Marjorie a figure they can ridicule and easily dismiss but Marjorie doesn’t care too much about wagging tongues, those that came before her faced bigger dangers than being mocked by their neighbours (wirriet and burnt) and she goes on with her day and follows her routine – like clockwork.

Each day Marjorie takes the same walk around the village of Kilgoyne, she treads the same paths, turns the same corners and passes directly through the local pub (not stopping). Every. Single. Day. It drives the publican crazy and it further adds to the rididule Marjorie exposes herself to but Marjorie is a creature of habit. One day, however, something is going to happen during Marjorie’s walk which will shake her to her core. Deep in the woods Marjorie finds a local teenager, Charlie McKee, hanging in a clearing. Marjorie heads home – stunned and incommunicative – she doesn’t raise the alarm and it is only when Charlie’s body is discovered several hours later that people start to question why Marjorie didn’t tell anyone of what she saw until it was far, far too late.

The villagers of Kilgoyne will shun and turn on their peculiar neighbour. But for the reader there’s a small amount of clarification dripped into the story by C.S. Robertson. When Marjorie speaks with the police about what she saw when she found Charlie it seems there were two impossibilities – one is that someone else had seen Charlie, alive and well, an hour later than Majrorie saw his body. The second impossibility was who was beside Charlie in the woods when she saw his hanged body.

As I read I was sure Marjorie was always truthful about what she had seen. This is a woman of utter conviction and she knew she was right. Until the point came when Marjorie herself began to doubt what she’d seen. How could she be mistaken? What of the unexplained coincidence of markings appearing on a tree which mirrored an identical mark that appeared when another teenager vanished from the village around two decades earlier? More mysteries and more dangers, small villages are always a haven for secrets and C.S. Robertson makes sure Kilgoyne is packed with unanswered questions.

Events in Kilgoyne escalate as another teenager disappears and Marjorie finds herself under increasing pressure and scrutiny. She’s done nothing wrong (that she sees) but the court of public opinion is very much against her – the real trial of Marjorie Crowe appears to be a trial over social media, in the streets by her home and in the heads and hearts of her neighbours. Will Marjorie be strong enough to withstand the pressure of all the negative attention and what happens when emboldened mobs decide they can take matters into their own hands.

There is so much to this story that I simply cannot do it justice in such a short space. This is a book crying out to be your next pick at your local bookgroup, it needs discussed (only with people who know what happens) and the impact it had on me will last for quite some time. Stellar reading – grab this book!

 

 

The Trials of Marjorie Crowe releases on 18 January 2024 in hardback, digital and audiobook format.  You can get your copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-trials-of-marjorie-crowe/c-s-robertson/9781529367690

 

 

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January 15

The Last Line – Stephen Ronson

May 1940.

With Nazi forces sweeping across France, invasion seems imminent. The English Channel has never felt so narrow.

In rural Sussex, war veteran John Cook has been tasked with preparing the resistance effort, should the worst happen.

But even as the foreign threat looms, it’s rumours of a missing child that are troubling Cook. A twelve-year-old girl was evacuated from London and never seen again, and she’s just the tip of the iceberg – countless evacuees haven’t made it to their host families.

As Cook investigates, he uncovers a dark conspiracy that reaches to the highest ranks of society. He will do whatever it takes to make the culprits pay. There are some lines you just don’t cross.

THE LAST LINE is a blistering action thriller combined with a smart noir mystery, played out expertly against the taut backdrop of the British home front.

 

 

I received a review copy of The Last Line from the publishers.

 

It has been far, far too long since I last opened the laptop to share my thoughts on a book. Time to dust off the cobwebs and get back to doing what I love the most – sharing the booklove and helping readers to find those books I think they really should be reading.  Despite the lack of reviews I have still been reading my way through some wonderful stories and I have some catching up to do – where better to start than with Stephen Ronson’s excellect The Last Line?

This book made its way into my list of Ten Favourite Reads of 2023 – it’s an extremely readable and highly enjoyable historical adventure thriller. The wartime setting gives it a constant foreboding tension as the characters live with the constant threat of German invasion as the enemy troops sweep through France, just across the English Channel from where the events in The Last Line unfold.

The hero of the piece is John Cook. He’s a war vetran who’d seen more than his fair share of action on the front lines in Europe and now he’s home in Sussex and watching the incoming threat of a German army on the march. Unfortunately for Cook there’s more than just the potential threat of a German invasion for him to worry about. The Last Line opens with a dramatic confrontation between two pilots, a Spitfire pilot and a Messerschmitt pilot – the whole event witnessed by Cook. The reason he has such a good view of the confrontation is due to the fact both planes are grounded and the pilots are out of their cockpits.

From the opening exchanges we get a measure of Cook – the confrontation he witnesses, his reaction to the conversation he overhears and how he deals with the subsequent reprecussions help readers define what type of character John Cook will be. It puts us in a good place as it won’t be long before Cook is going to become caught up in a particularly deadly sequence of events and as I reader I enjoyed knowing this was a character I could root for.

What I did enjoy was the clever way Stephen Ronson sets up the mystery at the heart of his story, there’s a big incident very early on – Cook is implicated and the police will come calling. Under a cloud of suspicion and mistrust John Cook will continue with the tasks he set out to do and will face down anyone that may try to stop that. However it is not just the police that will come calling on Cook, as a former soldier he’s not fully off the radar of the army either. With an enemy on their doorstep and a real demand for skilled and trustworthy operatives, the army will seek out anyone they feel could be considered an asset and do whatever is required to acquire that asset. Cook is going to be facing a number of challenges.

There’s one puzzle which will just not go away – a missing evacuee who’s left London but seemingly not arrived in the safety of Sussex. Enquiries into what may have happened to the schoolgirl yield no results and Cook doesn’t even seem able to find many who actually care enough to help him. But as he keeps digging he finds that it isn’t just one girl that’s missing – there are multiple children leaving the city but vanishing before they can be placed with new families. Cook will make his way to Brighton to continue his investigations into the missing children – what he uncovers is a disturbing and vast network of lies and abuse of power.

It’s not all about John Cook doing this solo – he does have a few allies he can rely upon, most notably is Lady Margaret – local landowner and woman of considerable influence. She has her own agenda and is more than happy to enlist Cook’s assistance…when their paths cross there’s more than just a spark of attraction and their friendship and possible relationship is another fun development in the story.

I’ve skirted around a lot of the elements of the story which really made The Last Line shine for me. I really want you to read this book and I really don’t want to drop too many spoilers or flag up key elements of the plot. Suffice to say this book was an absolute gem for me last year. I liked Cook and Lady Margaret and would love to read more of their story, the wartime setting and threat of German attack gave the story a strange claustrophobia which really should not have been a factor in the Sussex fields. There was one scene which actually had me shouting “NO” at a decision Cook took at one of the most tense moments in the story.

If I finally cut to the chase…

I loved this story, it cut through the busy chaos that was the end of 2023, it held my attention when many other books just didn’t even get a second glance and, when I had finished reading, I immediately wanted more with these characters.  Did I mention it was one of my favourite reads last year? Make it one of your favourite reads this year.

 

The Last Line is published by Hodder and Stoughton and is currently available in hardback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-last-line/stephen-ronson/9781399721233

 

 

 

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