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The Secret Player – Anonymous

Secret Player available in paperback 14 Aug 14

In the vein of Hotel Babylon and Confessions of a GP, The Secret Player will fascinate footballs fans with its wealth of insider knowledge and willingness to talk, albeit anonymously, about the inner workings of the game. Based on the hugely popular ‘The Player’ columns in FourFourTwo magazine, the book gives a warts-and-all insight into the daily life of professional footballers. Month by month, it chronicles the oscillating rhythms of the season, from the trudge of pre-season to the ‘squeaky-bum time’ of promotion and relegation. The player himself has played at all levels of English football – from Premier League to a season of non-League – and represented England.

Keeping the football theme going to celebrate the start of the new season….

Thanks to Bookbridgr and Headline for my review copy of The Secret Player.

If you have read any of the Babylon books then you will probably have a pretty good idea as to what to expect from The Secret Player. We get to hear first hand what it is like to grace the football pitches around the country with the Premiership elite. The fear of FA Cup 3^rd round when you face the minnows out to perform a ‘giant killing’ and the tension that creeps in as relegation looms.

While no names are ever mentioned we learn about the dressing room ego battles, the rivalry on and off the pitch, the excesses of wealth and how players cope with it (or not). There are pranks, girls, drinking sessions, girls, fights, girls, indiscretions and even some girls. It seems that the scandals that leak into the papers are just the tip of the iceberg.

This book is a must read for the football fans. The Secret Player clearly has seen more than his share of eye opening situations and shares them all with the reader with an element of ‘posted without comment’. He makes no pretence that he is angelic and confesses to his share of covering injury, pranking team mates, drinking on tour – all part of the culture.

As noted in the introduction the original Secret Player articles appeared in the monthly football magazine FourFourTwo. Perfect target audience and I feel that the monthly spacing out of the articles would enhance the telling. I read The Secret Player over two sittings in a 48 hour period and found it was a little repetitive (in so far as there are only so many ways to outline opulence, excess, drunken hijinks and conflicts in a team without getting a sense of déjà vu).

The best way to enjoy this book is to pace yourself and take time to work your way through the story. The book is divided into months (as the season unfolds) and putting the book down at the end of a month may help slow down your reading so that you ultimately enjoy it longer.

For football fans and for those that like the gossip this is a cracker. For those that enjoy the Beautiful Game and don’t believe that modern footballers set a good example – best leave this one alone, it will only confirm your suspicions.

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August 8

Station 11 – Emily St. John Mandel

Before I started writing this post I jumped onto Twitter to check I had copied down the author’s name correctly. My search pulled nothing but fabulous reviews for Station 11. It is easy to see why, the book looks amazing with a striking cover and a monochrome meets shocking pink colour scheme. It will cry out to you from the shelf.

The premise is an instant draw too (and worryingly topical). The people of Earth have fallen foul of a virus that has wiped out the majority of humankind. The survivors are now living in a world devoid of all the comforts we take for granted and with the breakdown of society everyone fears for their life in a lawless wilderness. For those with a knowledge of video games I kept picturing Bethesda’s Fallout 3 as I read through Station 11.

Emily St. John Mandel created a post apocalypse world that I wanted to read about. She uses a travelling theatre company as the main focus in her post virus world. The troop travels back and forward over a familiar route, they find safety in numbers, have rules to keep them safe and are welcomed in towns and settlements as they bring the only entertainment that some see from year to year. The descriptive narrative is exquisite and the reader gets a real sense of how tough the survivors are finding life. I particularly enjoyed the scenes where older characters would recall events and items from before the Event and try to explain forgotten things to a younger generation.

The central character to the novel is an actor. During the course of Station 11 we learn of his rise from anonymity to stardom then we see him start to fade. The book opens with his death (on stage) which occurs just before the virus begins its deadly journey around the globe. The characters in Station 11 weave in and out of the story but many have crossed paths with the actor in some way and their subsequent interactions are engaging plotlines.

And here is my problem with Station 11. The key character dies before the virus wipes out almost everyone on Earth. Therefore a significant part of the book is set pre-apocalypse and does not feature the amazing ravaged world that Emily St. John Mandel creates.

So plus points: Beautiful book, great premise, the sections after the virus are compelling. The Museum of Civilisation.

But…I wanted more of the survivors and less of the actor. It was not the book I was expecting and I just could not get past that – I grudged the pre-virus sections as the post viral world was more interesting to me. I can see why there is such love for this book but it was not for me.

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August 8

Scotland ’74 A World Cup Story – Richard Gordon

With the new season less than 48 hours away it is time for a little football chat….

I am a football fan although as a follower of Motherwell Football Club this will probably leave some doubting my initial statement.

As a boy my father would take me to matches at Fir Park Stadium where we would watch my team try their very best and sometimes even win. This was in the 1980’s and Motherwell were not the force they are today (last season’s league table shows that Motherwell finished in 2^nd place in the Scottish Premier League – not too shabby).

Christmas 1983 saw my family uproot from our Lanarkshire home and relocate over 100 miles North in dreary Inverness. I say ‘dreary’ as in 1983 Inverness was not the thriving metropolis it is today. We had one cinema (with 2 screens), a John Menzies and everyone talked funny – except to them I sounded funny. What a blast.

The good news was that Inverness had three football teams. The bad news, none of them were any good and they all played in the Highland League (whatever that was). Deprived of ‘real’ football I turned to my radio. Radio Scotland 810 MW – my link to civilisation and to the excitement of the Scottish Premier League. Football on the radio is infinitely better than it is on television, the skill of the commentators in building up the excitement and describing a visual experience that you cannot see is one I could only dream of emulating. On TV a defender make a 20 yard pass to advance the ball towards the centre spot and the commentator will not say a word, on radio the same pass can sound worthy of Pele at his best.

30 years on I am still a Motherwell fan, I can see Airdrie’s stadium from my window and I have a new season ticket for Albion Rovers (because they are doing amazing things and I want to support their initiative). Yet I will always choose football on the radio over the TV or attending a match.

So what does any of that have to do with Scotland going to the 1974 World Cup in West Germany? It’s right at the top of the page – Richard Gordon. To me, he is the voice of Scottish Football and as I read his magnificent recounting of one of Scotland’s many attempts to conquer the footballing world I can almost hear his voice narrating every line and it made it just that little bit more special.

To turn to the actual book (which is why you are here) it is wonderfully constructed bringing together source documents from the time, player interviews describing the events both on and off the pitch (and there were some fun off the pitch events) and the social history of what it was like to be a footballer and a fan in the early 1970’s. All the material is crafted together in a very readable, almost conversational, manner and makes compelling reading.

Although I had not actually been born when the ‘74 World Cup took place I found that this did not impact upon my enjoyment of the book. The detail the author catches is staggering as we are taken through the qualification matches, the building of the team, the characters, the peripheral players and the managerial changes that took place. Names I knew well and those I did not know at all became part of a very important journey and I got to live it out through the reading of this book.

For those not in the know Scotland had to play Brazil, Yugoslavia (remember them?) and Zaire. We returned home from Germany unbeaten yet we didn’t win the cup, history proves this is a very Scottish way of doing things.

For Scotland fans this book is required reading. Football fans from further afield can enjoy re-living and sharing in the hopes and dreams of a small (but proud) country.

If football is not your thing and you have made it this far down the page – thank you! I should have some Doctor Who stuff coming soon, perhaps that will be more to your liking?

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August 7

Someone Else’s Skin – Sarah Hilary

Called to a woman’s refuge to take a routine witness statement, DI Marnie Rome instead walks in on an attempted murder.

Trying to uncover the truth from layers of secrets, Marnie finds herself confronting her own demons.

Because she, of all people, knows that it can be those closest to us we should fear the most . . .

Thank you to Headline and Bookbridgr for providing a copy for review.

Someone Else’s Skin is a debut novel – I couldn’t tell. There was never a feeling that the author, Sarah Hilary, was finding her feet or that she had a great idea for a story but just could not quite make the elements come together. This is a slick, stylish thriller which tackles the disturbing reality of domestic violence with unflinching and often graphic detail.

Principle character Detective Inspector Marnie Rome is well established and I found her feisty and determined attitude suited the tone of the story well. She has her share of demons to conquer and, knowing there are sequels planned, I hope that these are visited in more detail in subsequent books.

The supporting cast were equally well developed and you find that you really will care what happens to the characters as the story unfolds. I sometimes find that too many peripheral characters can detract from a story and I lose track on how plot threads interweave. Not so here. A tightly worked tale where everyone has a part to play in getting the story to its dramatic conclusion.

Someone Else’s Skin drew me in. Domestic violence is not an easy subject matter and at times I found the accounts of how the characters had suffered quite harrowing to read. However, Sarah Hilary handled these encounters superbly. Violence is never glorified and always seemed to be recounted in such a way as you can almost hear a voice of contempt (usually that of DI Rome) as the actions of the perpetrator are detailed.

I finished Someone Else’s Skin earlier today and posted an update on Twitter which captured my feelings as I closed the book:

‘When the book you are reading turns everything

you believed onto its head and totally floors you.

THAT.’

I stand by that sentiment. I was enjoying this book (despite my qualms re the subject matter) when suddenly the plot was twisted. I didn’t see it coming and it escalated the book from ‘good’ to ‘great’. I love when that happens.

Someone Else’s Skin is available now on Kindle and will be available in paperback by the end of August. I urge you to Grab This Book, it’s a belter.

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August 1

This is the Water – Yannick Murphy

This is a novel about a woman. About a mother. About a marriage.

About a murder.

In the brightly lit public pool the killer swims and watches. Amongst the mothers cheering on their swim team daughters is Annie. Watching her two girls race, she’s thinking of other things. Her husband’s emotional distance. Her lost brother. The man she’s drawn to.

Then she learns a terrible secret. Now her everyday cares and concerns seem meaningless. Annie knows she has to act. Above all, she must protect her children.

Review copy kindly provided by Bookbridgr and Headline Review

This is the Water is going to split the crowd. It has a very unusual narrative style that I suspect will put a lot of potential readers off the book. If I open my copy at a random page we find:

“You’re wrong,” you say. Chris swallows hard. You can hear the swallow. You are afraid the tears will start coming down again.

Chapters frequently begin along the lines of “This is the Water”, “This is Mandy”, “This is the Killer.” I suspect that many readers will find the writing style a distraction which is a real shame as Yannick Murphy has penned a beautiful story which is dripping with detail and emotion.

The story is centred around a swim team as the (mostly) girls train for competition. We see their lessons, share the excitement when they beat their best times and feel the disappointment when they miss their targets. In the background a Killer is watching the swimmers, he has selected a victim and is waiting for the right time to pounce. Once he does we see how the loss of one of their numbers shakes up the various characters and brings some closer together.

The book takes an almost abstract narrative which I found took a little bit of getting used to; but stick with it as the rewards are there. As a reader you are afforded a view into the minds of the key characters– their hopes and dreams, neurosis and fears. Conversations can almost seem redundant at times but you don’t miss them as the author does an amazing job of building a world around you and letting you know, for example, that the spiteful lady is coming into view and we really are not meant to like her.

By the time I had reached the last third of the book I was engaging with the characters to such a degree that I found that I was getting frustrated or annoyed with what they were doing – it is not often I lose myself to a story to this extent.

As always there will be no spoilers in my review, but if you fancy a murder tale that is exquisitely told then This is the Water should make your shortlist.

As an afterthought: on finishing This is the Water I had a quick look at some other reviews and found my suspicions were right – some readers hated the writing style. I stuck with it and am glad that I did, beautiful prose, excellent characterisation and some good plot twists which threw me at the end.

Even if you don’t enjoy the story I am pretty sure that Yannick Murphy has provided so much detail that you will be a better swimmer once you have finished the book.

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July 27

Sacrifice – Paul Finch

Innocent people are dying. Who will be next? Find out in the second Detective Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg from #1 ebook bestseller Paul Finch.

A vicious serial killer is holding the country to ransom, publicly – and gruesomely – murdering his victims.

When a man is burnt alive on a bonfire, it seems like a tragic Guy Fawkes Night accident. But with the discovery of a young couple on Valentine’s Day – each with an arrow through the heart – something more sinister becomes clear. A ‘calendar killer’ is on the loose.

Detective Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is up against it. With a rising body count and the public’s eyes on him, Heck must find the killer before he executes more victims.

Because this killer has a plan. And nothing will stop him completing it.

A couple of months ago I read Stalkers by Paul Finch. It was my introduction to Detective Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg and I loved it. My full review was posted back in June if you want to see how I enthused.

As there were only three Heckenburg books available I tried to pace myself and not just rip through them all in a week. Sadly my self-restraint lasted just a couple of weeks and I turned to the second book Sacrifice.

People are being murdered – in particularly nasty ways – and on days which coincide with festivals and holidays (Christmas Day, Valentines, May Day). Pressure mounts on the police and even the more obscure festival days are dreaded.

While Stalkers was very much about Heckenburg, I got a feeling from Sacrifice that there was a real Police team in place within Sacrifice and the dynamic between the members of the squad really added to the story. I have a fondness for the squad that Stuart MacBride created in his Logan McRae novels and I found myself comparing Heckenburg’s team with that of McRae’s – both with formidable women in charge!

Sacrifice was everything I wanted as it entertained, shocked and thrilled in equal measures (and I was genuinely surprised where the story wound up when the net started to close in on the culprit).

I cannot recommend Sacrifice enough: it is a great read and sadly I reached the end long before I wanted the story to end.

Now I am trying my best not to read the third book The Killing Club too soon (I want to have something to look forward to).

As an afterthought it is worth mentioning that when I finished Sacrifice I then felt compelled to read Batman: The Long Halloween. One of my favourite Batman stories which played out in the comics over a 12 month run and features most of the high profile Batman villains (let down only by a rather weak Joker plot line). If you read The Long Halloween you will see why Sacrifice brought it back to mind.

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July 27

The String Diaries – Stephen Lloyd Jones

He has a face you love. A voice you trust. To survive you must kill him.

The rules of survival are handed from mother to daughter. Inherited, like the curse that has stalked Hannah and her family across centuries.

He changes his appearance at will, speaks with a stolen voice and hides behind the face of a beloved, waiting to strike.

Generation after generation, he has destroyed them. And all they could do was to run.

Until now.

Now, it is time for Hannah to turn and fight.

Review copy kindly provided by Bookbridgr from Headline.

Hannah lives her life in constant fear. She has a stalker and has to maintain a constant vigilance to ensure he cannot find her. To help her evade her pursuer she has a very special collection of books, diaries and journals, which were handed down from her mother and grandmother. They recount stories of their experiences and warn of the evil that stalks them. This is necessary as they were all running from is the same man Jakab– he does not age, he can change his physical appearance to exactly mirror another and he will let no one get in his way.

In his debut novel Stephen Lloyd Jones has crafted a tense thriller which will keep you turning pages well into the night. The story jumps from a modern day setting back into 18^th century Hungary where Hannah’s nemesis Jakab is introduced. We learn of his coming of age, how he develops his ‘talent’ of assuming another’s identity and the corrupting power that this gives him. Back to the present time and we find out a little more of Hannah and her family history – always with the constant threat of the ‘Bad Man’.

Pacing within the story is extremely well handled, Lloyd Jones progresses the present day pursuit throughout the story but introduces several cliff-hanger moments at which point he takes us back in time to develop the back-story and flesh out the character of his monster.

Despite the obvious corruption of Jakab and the callous nature he shows, the author also conveys the sense of loss that Jabab has experienced and you get an understanding into what motivates his murderous spree through the years.

A teaser chapter from a second novel at the end of The String Diaries confirms that there will be more to follow from Stephen Lloyd Jones – on the evidence of the first book the next story will be a welcome addition to my library.

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July 25

Competition – Top Secret Twenty One

The dead ends are turning into dead bodies.

Stephanie Plum is getting desperate. She’s running out of leads in the search for Jimmy Poletti, who was caught selling more than cars out of his New Jersey dealership. Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find the criminal wheeler and dealer.

Stephanie’s No. 1 temptation, Ranger, is also struggling. There’s a killer in town with a personal vendetta against him. If Ranger wants to survive, he’ll need Stephanie’s help – and to reveal a piece of his mysterious past.

Death threats, highly trained assassins and highly untrained assassins are all in a day’s work for bounty hunter Stephanie Plum!

Competition time – I have been running a competition on Twitter to giveaway a copy of Top Secret Twenty One. However, I want people to come and see my blog pages too so I will give away a second copy of Janet Evanovich’s new Stephanie Plum novel here on my blog. To register your entry all you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me who you would trust most with your Top Secret. Personally, I have a 4 year old who cannot keep a secret for more than 10 seconds so it would be anyone bar him!

I will select a winner on the evening of Sunday 27th July. Sadly this if for UK readers only I am afraid – Good Luck!

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July 23

Ed McBain – 87th Precinct: The Heckler

I had been online looking for something to read and I found that the last 87th Precinct novel (Fiddlers) was available for bloggers/reviewers to request. The book was actually published 9 years ago so I was surprised to see it offered for review, however, as a long-standing fan of Ed McBain and the boys of the 87th Precinct I had to submit a request.

Sadly it was not to be – my request for a review copy was declined. As it was one of the few books in the series I had still to read I was a tad disappointed. Still it whetted the appetite for a return to the fictional world of Isola. Turn to my Kindle and there I find a plethora of 87th Precinct stories all waiting to be read.

Over the course of a 5 year period in my late teens/early twenties I think I managed to pick up about 90% of Ed McBain’s books. Almost all the books I owned were second hand copies as I could never quite bring myself to pay £5 or £6 for a book I would read in one night. This remains true today, I am rebuilding my McBain collection on my Kindle but will only buy the books when they go into the sale (fortunately this seems to be quite a regular occurrence).

With over a dozen titles downloaded to my Kindle it was just a matter of selecting one I fancied. The Heckler won the day. One reason it beat off the other challengers was because I could not remember how the story panned out, but more importantly it was because it featured The Deaf Man – arch nemesis to Steve Carella and the other 87th Precinct cops.

The Deaf Man was a master criminal and a recurring character in McBain’s books – there are over 50 novels of the 87th Precinct and I seemed to recall the Deaf Man popping up quite often. However, a quick check of Wikipedia suggests he only actually features in 6 books (with name-checks in others). Clearly I built up the memory more than the reality!

No matter, The Heckler brought me everything I wanted. The squad-room dynamic was there, characters I had long forgotten were welcomed back into my imagination and the actual story was good fun with lots of Sherlock Holmes references thrown in for good measure.

My reading pile grows ever larger but there will always be time to step back and squeeze in one of Ed McBain’s books. The Heckler is 54 years old and it shows its age in places, however, at heart it remains a good story told by one of the masters of his craft.

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July 21

Digital Circumstances – BRM Stewart

‘Martin McGregor left school in Glasgow with nothing but a talent for working with computers. He built up a successful business, installing hardware and software for companies and individuals. He was settled in a loving relationship.

But Martin’s company steals theirs and their clients’ data, all of it: account details, credit card numbers, identities – and sells them on to international cyber-criminals.

Martin never meant this to happen: it was all from circumstances all through his life, starting with a gangster’s money which gave him what he thought was his first lucky break.

Now he is trying to get clear, but his attempts attract the attentions of police and gangsters from three countries, and some people die. His partner knows something is going on, and she once told him never to lie to her.

And in New York, FBI agent Mark Grosvenor is on his trail’.

I downloaded Digital Circumstances to my Kindle on the recommendation of my Sister-in-Law. She and I share quite similar tastes in books and if she is praising a story I will tend to pay attention…except for Dan Brown books, there will always be something on top of the TBR pile before another Dan Brown novel.

So working only on a recommendation and the five paragraph blurb from the book description I launched into Digital Circumstances, the first novel by BRM Stewart. Loved it! Loved it! Loved It!

The central character (Martin McGregor) is a tech-head and as his story develops you also see the evolution of computers and how they evolved into our lives – a nice touch here and I suspect that McGregor is around the same age as I am given the computers he owned at the outset of the book! More worrying was the ease with which the gangsters, who also feature heavily in the story, quickly adapted to the technological developments and profited from our lack of understanding.

I found McGregor’s character was really well developed and I wanted him to come through the tale unscathed. There are some ‘Thrillers’ I can finish and not even remember the central character’s name much less care what happens to them during the course of a book. The supporting characters were well realised and as they came and went from McGregor’s life there were times I felt genuine regret for what had happened to them or anger towards how they were behaving.

Another bonus was that Digital Circumstances is mainly set in Glasgow, a city I studied in and where I got my first job. I always feel that when I am reading about a place I know well it becomes much easier to become engaged in a story. As the story also features Portugal, America and Eastern Europe there was a real feeling of the scale to the book: it highlighted the extent of the reach of the criminal underworld and the even longer reach of the authorities chasing them down.

The story played out well and kept me gripped, one of the books that I did not want to end. A cracking debut novel and I was delighted to hear Mr Stewart is writing his next book. I strongly recommend that you grab a copy of Digital Circumstances.

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