Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with Chris Curran

Imagine you had a brand new library but you didn’t have any books yet. Rows and rows of empty shelves all demanding books to fill them. But which books? This was the question I first asked back in January 2021. If you could assemble a new library of nothing but the very best books where would you start?

I knew I could not answer that question alone so each week I invite a booklover (authors, publishers, journalists or bloggers) to add new books to my Ultimate Library. I call it my Decades Library for reasons I shall soon explain.

Each week my guest is asked to nominate five books which I will then add to my Decades Library. There are just two rules which govern their choices but it can apparently cause a bit of head scratching…

1 – You Can Choose ANY Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

This is why my collection is called the Decades Library.

This week I am thrilled to be able to pass the Decades curator hat to Chris Curran. Chris has selected five brand new reading recommendations for the Decades Library and I know you’re going to love them as much as I do.

Chris Curran’s sixth psychological suspense novel, When the Lights Go Out, publishes on December 2^nd. Chris also writes as Abbie Frost and her latest under that name is The Guesthouse. Her books have been praised in the media as: truly gripping (Sunday Express), dark, claustrophobic and full of suspense (The Courier) addictive and fun (Daily Mail), addictive (The Sun), chilling (Waitrose Magazine) thrilling (Sublime Horror)

Best selling author, Alex Lake, describes The Guesthouse as a: full of suspense…gripping mystery. And Edgar Award winner Alex Marwood calls When the Lights Go Out: wonderfully mystifying and claustrophobic; and sad and thoughtful to boot.

Chris also writes short stories and has twice been shortlisted for the CWA Margery Allingham award.

Find out more about Chris/Abbie and all her writing:

on Twitter: @FrostyAbbie

Instagram: Chris Curran (@chriscurranwriter) • Instagram photos and videos

Website: https://chriscurranauthor.com/

DECADES

1950s

Tom’s Midnight Garden – Philippa Pearce

I had to start with the 1950s in order to mention this one because it could well be my favourite book of all, surpassing even Rebecca which I adore. I taught young children and when people discovered that I also wrote stories, they always assumed these were for children. The truth is that, while I love children’s books, I have never tried to write one because the best of them are just so good! And the best are definitely not only for children.

I’ve read Tom’s Midnight Garden many times and it never fails to enthral me and to leave me thinking, smiling and crying all at the same time. As I grow older the tears flow more easily and I find more and more things in the story that speak to me. Like all great children’s books, it is both simple and profound. In a tale of two lonely children, playing together in a garden, Pearce manages to illuminate some of the great mysteries of life and living. She capitalises the word Time throughout the book, as well as Past, Present and Future because at its heart the story is about the passage of time. About childhood and aging, love and loss and how time alters us completely and yet leaves us the same.

Tom Long is forced to spend the summer with an aunt and uncle he barely knows in a flat, that, although part of a once grand house, has no garden. Banished from home because his brother is ill with measles, Tom is distraught at the loss of his playmate and of all the adventures they had planned together for the school holidays. But when the clock down in the entrance hall strikes thirteen one night he discovers a door to the wonderful midnight garden. Here he meets another lonely child, an orphan called Hatty. They spend nights exploring the garden and its surroundings as Time behaves as mysteriously as the appearing and disappearing garden.

Tom gradually comes to believe that Hatty must be a ghost, but is surprised to find that to her it’s he who is the phantom. They discover the truth during a resolution that is poignant perfection.

1960s

The Ivy Tree – Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart had huge success in the ‘50s and ‘60s, with her sparkling thrillers, but seems to have been forgotten by many readers today. I could choose any of her novels as a favourite, and her first, Madam Will You Talk? encapsulates everything I love about her books. But that was written in the 1950s so I’ve gone for The Ivy Tree from 1961. The books are often called romantic thrillers, but I think this is misleading. Whilst they all contain at least a hint of romance, along with beautiful settings, what matters is the adventure. And it’s always the heroine who pushes the story onward, not in pursuit of a man, but in her determination to solve the mystery. She faces the dangers independently, relying on her own courage and ingenuity.

The Ivy Tree is darker than many of its predecessors and, instead of the exotic locations (for the time) that Stewart often used, it’s set in the Northumberland countryside, which was deeply familiar to Stewart. The book is in the tradition of Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar (and Stewart acknowledges her debt) and Du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, where a lookalike is persuaded to take the place of a missing person from a wealthy family.

Annabel was the much-loved granddaughter and heir of Matthew Winslow and, with Matthew close to death, Annabel’s cousin, Connor, persuades Mary Grey, a Canadian visiting England, to impersonate Annabel and claim the inheritance. But can Mary convince those who loved Anabel that she has indeed returned?

When it becomes clear that Connor and his loyal sister, Lisa, who have trained Mary to mimic Annabel, are ignorant of important aspects of Annabel’s life, Mary realises their plan is in jeopardy. Anabel’s other young cousin, Julie, reveals that Anabel had an adulterous affair with local landowner, Adam Forrest. Both Julie and Adam loved Annabel so will they, or her grandfather, see through the subterfuge?

As Mary’s suspicions about what actually happened to Annabel grow more disturbing, she fears there is no one she can trust. But can any of them trust her? Stewart keeps us guessing until the thrilling ending.

1970s

The Walking Stick – Winston Graham.

Most well-known nowadays for his Poldark series, Graham also wrote amazing psychological suspense and The Walking Stick, is a twisted love story. Deborah Dainton has a withered leg as a result of childhood polio and, as the daughter of two high-powered doctors, she fears her parents see her as their failure. She is attractive, but her lack of confidence means she can only watch as the men swarm around her two beautiful sisters.

On the surface she is resigned to a life without romance and focused on her job in a renowned auction house. But in reality Deborah longs for love and begins to believe she has found it with unsuccessful artist, Leigh Hartley. He’s a bit rough around the edges for her family and even Deborah can see that he has some dubious friends, but she warms to his vulnerability and his tenderness towards her is irresistible.

Leigh lives in a bohemian warehouse apartment in London’s Docklands (a great portrait of that area before gentrification) and when they are there the fairy tale feels utterly real for Deborah. So real that she is willing to compromise all her principles to keep it alive. This is no murder mystery, but the crime scenes, when they come, are nail-biting.

1980s

A Dark Adapted Eye – Barbara Vine

How could I leave out Ruth Rendell’s brilliant alter ego? The title is inspired, but I have to wonder if modern algorithms would warn publishers against it!

The book begins on the morning of an execution before moving back to explore the events that led to the murder. It’s the story of an intense, and in the end unhealthy, relationship between two sisters – staid Vera and glamourous, flighty Eden. Over the years romances, marriages and children, as well as WW2, intervene to complicate their lives and their powerful bond sours. When they get into a fight for the custody of young Jamie, each claiming to be his birth mother, the stage is set for tragedy.

Years later their niece, Faith, tries to unravel the complexities of their relationship and discover the truth about Jamie’s parentage.

1990s

Affinity – Sarah Waters

There seems to be a theme developing here, because Sarah Waters Affinity also deals with misguided love and betrayal. Waters third novel, Fingersmith, reveals her as the mistress of the OMG twist that is nevertheless totally convincing. In her second, Affinity, the twist is more subtle, but the book is a masterpiece of suspense.

The setting is a Victorian women’s prison, where inmates are kept in almost total isolation, seeing only their warders and occasional lady visitors. Unhappy spinster, Margaret Prior, is one such visitor. She becomes fascinated by disgraced medium, Selina Dawes, who was sentenced for apparently bringing about the death of a woman attending one of her seances.

As the women grow closer, the tension tightens so much that it becomes almost impossible to breathe as you wait and hope for the ending they both long for. When it finally comes the devastating twist is gasp-inducing, but almost a relief after the nerve-jangling wait.

I am extremely grateful to Chris for taking time to make these fantastic selections. I am even more grateful for her patience while we experienced repeated and frustrating tech issues – these selections arrived in the third email account I use. It makes me worry I may have missed other messages and be oblivious to the fact they have been sent.

One thought did strike me about Chris’s choices – in 18 months of Decades there has not been a Ruth Rendall book yet. Still many big name authors awaiting their Decades debut. It is a good job I can promise

DECADES WILL RETURN

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September 21

The Interview – C.M. Ewan

It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday.

You have been called to an interview for your dream job.

In a stunning office thirteen floors above the city below, you are all alone with the man interviewing you.

Everyone else has gone home for the weekend.

The interview gets more and more disturbing.

You’re feeling scared.

Your only way out is to answer a seemingly impossible question.

If you can’t . . . what happens next?

I received a review copy through Netgalley

Kate has an interview. Friday evening 5pm and the opportunity to take on a new position which will allow her to move on in her life after a period of trauma and turbulence.

She meets Maggie, her recruiting agent, for a pep talk before the interview and the pair agree to meet afterwards for a debrief so they can assess how the interview went. As the hour draws near Kate is psyched, ready to impress and determined the job will be hers. If you have ever attended an interview in the past you will likely appreciate the anxiety Kate is feeling and the author conveys her apprehension well.

The book opens with a bit of background into Kate, her current job and her aspirations. Just enough detail to leave a thread of intrigue dangling. There’s something in Kate’s history which she is keen to leave behind her, a huge incident that she has had to take some time to deal with and now it appears she is ready to make changes.

Whether she will be given the job will depend on Joel. He is a dark horse, an interviewer who is hard to read and he takes a somewhat unorthodox appeoach to his questionning. Joel is about to put Kate through an interview she will never forget.

C.M. Ewan is a master at spinning an unpredictable and entertaining thrill-fest so I will not be doing much more in this review in terms of describing what unfolds when Kate’s interview begins. What I will address is the first question I had….Is this whole book about two people chatting through an interview? No – there’s a lot more going on than a grilling over a table top. Once events start to slip away from Kate and the balance of power moves to Joel this book will reach out and grab you, there will be no escape until you know how everything gets resolved.

A story you can slip into and let events take you along for the ride. It will keep you reading long past the point you should have settled down to sleep. C.M. Ewan knows how to tell a good story and The Interview is another fine example of this.

The Interview is new to paperback and is available in digital and audiobook. You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09H7HMYYP/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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September 5

Harm – Solveig Pálsdóttir

When wealthy doctor Ríkarður Magnússon goes to sleep in his luxurious caravan and doesn’t wake up, detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún are called to the Westman Islands to investigate what looks like murder.

Suspicion immediately falls on Ríkharður’s young, beautiful and deeply troubled girlfriend – but there are no easy answers in this case as they are drawn into family feuds, disgruntled friends and colleagues, and the presence of a group of fitness-obsessed over-achievers with secrets of their own.

As their investigation makes progress, Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún are forced to confront their own preconceptions and prejudices as they uncover the sinister side of Ríkharður’s past.

Harm is the third novel featuring the soft-spoken Reykjavík detective Guðgeir Fransson to appear in English. Sólveig Pálsdóttir again weaves a complex web of intrigue that plays out in the Westman Islands, remote southern Iceland and Reykjavík while asking some searching questions about things society accepts at face value – and others it is not prepared to tolerate.

I received a review copy from the publisher

Harm takes us to Iceland – the third English translated novel featuring detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún and a book which can be read as a stand alone. I have not read any of Sólveig Pálsdóttir’s earlier books but did not find this to be limiting when I was reading Harm. There were a couple of incidents which srongly suggested past events were being discussed but nothing appeared to be a spoiler for those earlier titles and not understanding the references did not cause a jarring impact on my enjoyment of the latest tale.

In Harm the reader gets to view a reunion of friends in the remote Westman Islands. One of the party is older than the others, a doctor who is accompanying his younger girlfriend. But there is disharmony in their relationship, she appears frustrated with him and their friends notice some friction. Then during their meal the older man (Ríkharður) becomes very drunk and has to be taken back to their shared caravan by his partner. She tries to help him into bed to sleep off the booze but, come the morning, he does not wake up.

The young woman is shocked at the death of her partner and we see her vulnerabilites come to the fore as she realises she does not know what to do. She gave him some tablets to help him sleep so she would not be bothered by him – now she will be accused of his murder. In panic she packs some essentials and flees – stopping to discard her mobile phone.

In due course the couple’s absence is noticed by their friends and Ríkharður’s body is discovered. Fransson and Guðrún need to find the missing woman and bring in a killer. However, something isn’t sitting right with them. The friends of the couple don’t seem to be reacting in a way the police would have expected. Furthermore, when questioned their answers are not particularly clear or helpful.

This is a relatively short read but it’s tightly constructed and charts a very methodical investigation. The story doesn’t rely on shocks and twists, chases and thrills – Harm has shades of a PD James novel insofar as it relies upon excellent story telling to keep you reading. The reader uncovers truth when the police do. The reasons behind some behaviours are eventually revealed and you understand why certain events happened in the way they did.

This is clever entertainment – a story driven crime tale without gimick or fantastic coincidences, just a rewarding book with strong characters that I am sure crime fiction fans will love

Harm is published by Corylus Books and can be purchased in paperback or digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6CB738Q/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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September 2

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with George Paterson

The Decades Library continues to grow and it is scaling up beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I started this project back in January 2021 when it was dark outside and the rain was lashing against my windows. Now here we are in September 2022 and, despite being in Scotland, the sun is shining and this is the 20th consecutive month where a guest curator is adding new books to my Library.

What is the Decades Library? It is the collection of the very best books as recommended by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists – booklovers all. I want my Decades Library to represent the stories my guests loved – childhood favourites, memorable reads or just the stories which blew them away.

My guests are all given the same two rules: Nominate five books to my Decades Library. But they can only pick one book per decade over five consecutive decades – a fifty year publication span. Easy? Have a go and see if you can pick your own favourites.

As September is Bloody Scotland month it is my absolute pleasure to welcome George Paterson – author of The Girl, The Crow, The Writer and the Fighter – shortlisted for the 2022 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.

George is a writer, DJ and musician who, as a member of the bands White and DMP, released a number of well received albums on the Poco Alto Label. His work can be found in a number of independent feature length and short films as well as providing the musical backdrop to the London stage production of the play, ‘ISM’.

Since returning to Scotland in 2017, his focus has been split between the spoken word – his popular weekly ‘Lost in Music’ radio show – and the written, with articles appearing in a number of online publications before finding a home as a regular features writer and reviewer for INTO Creative.

In addition, he has written two screenplays and one feature length ‘coming of age’ story, serialised on INTO, called ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’.

DECADES

1930’s – The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher

Coming two years after Dashiel Hammett’s no-nonsense game-changer ‘The Maltese Falcon’, Ivy League educated doctor and musician Rudolph Fisher delivered his own murder mystery, the thoroughly entertaining The Conjure-Man Dies. Written and set during Harlem’s 1930’s renaissance, it starts as many great tales do, with a mysterious death in the dark of night, in this instance, Frimbo, the titular ‘Conjure-Man’.

When 7th Avenue physician John Archer is called to the scene of the crime by a pair of local rascals named Jinx and Bubber, Perry Dart of the Harlem PD arrives to investigate the who do – and the voodoo – of this particular unusual case.

I came to this book relatively late – and too late for it to be influential in my own period piece – but I often ponder how ‘The Girl, The Crow, The Writer and The Fighter’ might have worked had I found Fisher’s expertly written piece before I did Hammett’s. Nevertheless, for New Yorkophiles (is that a word?) such as I, The Conjure-Man Dies puts flesh on the bones of a complex but fascinating era and a genre that until Chester Himes in the late 50’s was almost extinct.

Sadly, Rudolph Fisher died shortly after publication which meant that we never got a chance to find out whether Dr Archer and Perry Dart had the ‘legs’ that Nick and Nora and Sam Spade had.

1940’s – The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

Back in the early 80’s, I was a smart but aimless student at a crumbling state school on Glasgow’s southside. The interest in fiction that I had from primary had not followed me to secondary school. And when it came to my English teachers, they tended to fall into one of two categories; youngish educators who wanted to be your pal or bitter careerists who loved nothing more than to belt out their frustrations onto your hands. By the time I’d reached fifth year, I was pretty much killing time until I was forced out into the workplace. That’s when I met Mr O’Hagan. He didn’t want to be my pal nor did he want to thrash the shite out of me. Curt and precise, he was all business. To his eternal credit, he saw something in me that his predecessors didn’t and that came about after he handed the class battered copies of Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 novel, The Loved One. Oh no, we all thought. I knew he’d written Brideshead Revisited, the recently aired (and very foppish) TV adaptation was so detached from my damp tenement reality that the august realm of the Ryder’s Brideshead estate might as well have been on the fucking moon. However, The Loved One was a short book – 125 pages in the Penguin edition – so it wouldn’t take us long to rattle through it and move onto something less boring. However, by the time Baby Aaronson had been sliced into shape and turned into Juanita del Pablo on page ten, I was already sold. When Mr O’Hagan started asking us what we’d thought of the book, he received the usual shrugs and mumbled ‘Ah dunno’s from most of my fellow pupils. But I got it. And he got that I got it, which must have been a rare mark in the win column for him.

I found The Loved One immoral and unashamedly godless but more importantly for teenaged me, it was incredibly funny. Waugh’s matter-of-fact characterisations coupled with his savage twin takedown of Golden era Hollywood and the industries of death and perennial beauty lit a fire (or a pyre) in me that will never be extinguished. I strolled through my English exam that year and it was all down to Mr O’Hagan and Evelyn Waugh.

1950’s – To The End of the World by Blaise Cendrars

A friend to Modigliani, Chagall and Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars was one of the most effervescent, vital artists of the 20th century. Part poet and part warrior – he lost an arm in battle during the Great War – Cendrars squeezed the juices from life and it’s reflected in his work. A hugely influential and encouraging figure, not just in the pre war literary scene in Paris, but in the nascent careers of writers such as Henry Miller, who venerated the Swiss/Scot as his ‘greatest idol’, Cendrars wrote the riotous ‘To The End of the World’ in 1956. He may have been coming to the end of his own journey but as a writer, he remained full of muscle and cheek, daring his contemporaries to have a go. During the writing of my debut novel – which you can find here…shameless plug…intocreative.co.uk/shop – this book, along with Miller’s own ‘Quiet Days in Clichy’, remains as vivid and descriptive a portrayal of the Parisienne underbelly as anything I’ve ever read. As invaluable as a ream of red-marked treasure maps.

An elderly actress, a young legionnaire on the run, murder, sex, laughs. Madmen on every floor. Even in his latter years – and he would only complete two more works after this – Cendrars has a lust for …well, lust that would shame writers a quarter his age.

I can think of precious few modern writers who would dare pick up the cudgels and follow Cendrars and the literary world is poorer for it.

1960’s – Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Stephen King said that Ira Levin was ‘The Swiss Watchmaker of the suspense novel; he makes what the rest of us do look like those five-dollar watches you can buy in a discount drug store.’

A million selling book in 1967 which became an Oscar winning film the following year, Rosemary’s Baby, is in my opinion, a masterclass in pacing, plot, dialogue and black, black humour. Set in an exclusive New York apartment block, young, aspirational couple Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse find that the whispers of malevolent behavior at their new residence are based in a terrible reality. As Guy’s acting career begins to take off, Rosemary descends into a satanic fever dream with heinous consequences.

Levin’s economy of language and his ability to conjure up a sense of the deepest dread from the seemingly mundane has stayed with me since I first read the book, four decades ago. And his fingerprints (or should that be claw marks?) are all over my current work-in-progress; a gothic thriller set in our own Upper West Side, Glasgow’s West End. Aiming for Levin is what I intend to do with ‘Westerwick’. It’s a very tall order but at worst, it’ll have its father’s eyes.

1970’s – The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

Unflinching, uncompromising and unlike anything I’ve ever read.

Muriel Spark is one of my go-to writers. If you’re after the florid, you won’t find it here. As with her note perfect, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ there is no other writer who can simultaneously cleave fat from the flesh like a butcher yet trace a narrative as precisely as a neurosurgeon. Not only is it her most stark, brutal story, Spark herself considered it one of her own favourite works.

Set in the late 1960’s, an era of female emancipation, it tells of Lise, an office worker from Northern Europe who decides, without wishing to spoil the story, that she will be the captain of her own fate. I don’t wish to say anymore about this disconcerting book other than, just go read it. Today.

It might not be to everyone’s tastes but for me ‘The Driver’s Seat’ remains a work of immense artistic bravery.

And that’s it! Quite tough calls to be made but I guess that as a writer, I’ve gone for books that continually push their way into my work space rather than those which I might return to purely for entertainment. I’ll continue to use all of those influences and distill the essence of their work and with any luck, I’ll concoct my own heady brew.

If I’m invited back onto Decades further down the line, I’ll change course around 1980 and head for home!

Spectacular mix of books, thanks to George for these fascinating selections. This is the second week in a row where there have been five entirely new novels nominated – it swells the total books offered to Library visitors and I hope it swells your TBR piles too.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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August 31

The Dark Room – Lisa Gray

Ex–crime reporter Leonard Blaylock spends his days on an unusual hobby, developing strangers’ forgotten and discarded rolls of film. He loves the small mysteries the photographs reveal to him. Then Leonard finds something no one would ever expect, or want, to see captured on film—the murder of a young woman.

But that’s impossible, because the woman is already dead. Leonard was there when it happened five years earlier.

He has never been able to shake his guilt from that terrible night. It cost Leonard everything: his career, his fiancée, his future. But if the woman didn’t really die, then what actually happened?

I received a review copy through Netgalley

Lisa Gray writes the excellent Jessica Shaw series but The Dark Room is a stand alone thriller – something I did not immediately appreciate as I don’t read the blurb when I read Lisa’s books – I just jump straight in! It took a couple of chapters for me to realise Leonard was the star of the show in The Dark Room – mark that one down to me being a dozy reader.

Fortunately Leonard is a great character and I wanted to read more about him, particularly when he sees a murder. Well let me rephrase that slightly…particulary when he discovers a photograph of a dead body which can only have been taken by a killer. How could I (the son of a photographer) resist a crime story where cameras and photgraphs play such a pivotal role?

Leonard, you see, has a fascinating hobby. He likes to buy undeveloped film from old cameras and then, in the privacy of his dark room, discover what pictures may have been snapped on these old film spools. Family snaps, holiday vistas or perhaps even a “ruined” film – the excitement of discovery for Leonard makes his hobby a constant sequence of discoveries. But his world is going to be rocked to the core when the latest film he develops uncovers the image of a dead woman. But is it a woman Leonard knows?

Lisa Gray takes the reader on a twisty and unpredicatble journey into Leonard’s life. The discovery of the “murder” photograph brings Leonard back to face a period in his life he would rather forget. His relationship ended, his job changed and he had to make significant adjustments which left him somewhat beleagured and low spirited. But could this discovery give him a chance at a fresh start? It seems unlikely but investigating how he came into posession of the picture of a dead woman will open up some new opportunities for Leonard and possbily even the chance to correct some past wrongs.

I had great fun reading The Dark Room. Lisa Gray nails the pacing and the drama and I zipped through this book in just a couple of days. I have tried not to talk too much about Leonard’s predicament and the discoveries he makes in this story as the delight in discovering these for yourself is not something I should take away from you. Get The Dark Room pre-ordered – this is a good’un.

The Dark Room is published on 25 October and will be available in audiobook, digital and paperback. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09PTLCB2H/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

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August 26

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Michael J Malone

It has been a busy old time here at Chez Grab and reviews have been scarce. Even more frustrating is that Decades has not been updating each week as I would like. Time to put that to right – a return of Decades and a return to Friday too. But before we get to my guest curator I feel it is time to recap what the Decades Library is all about.

In January 2021 I began a mission. I had a virtual library. Empty shelves and the goal I set myself was to find the very best books to put onto those empty shelves. Where to start? My limited field of reading meant I was not the best person to decide which books were “the best” so I decided to ask booklovers to help me fill the shelves of my Ultimate Library. Over the last 20 months I have been joined by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists who have all selected their favourite books which they want to add to my Decades Library.

Why did an Ultimate Library become a Decades Library? That is down to the two rules I ask each of my guests to follow when they make their selections:

1 – Select ANY five books
2 – Each Guest May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

Sounds easy! I am told choosing just five books is tricky – I am also told that narrowing down five books from a fifty year publication span is even more tricky.

Taking on the challenge this week is my friend Michael Malone (with a J). Michael is the reason Grab This Book came into being back in 2014, it was his influence which led me to my first ever author event (the guest speaker was Jenny Colgan) and he also gave me the first opportunity to read a book which wasn’t a shop bought copy – it was actually one of his novels on a CD-ROM if you remember them?

It is with great pleasure that I pass the Decades Curator hat to Michael J Malone…

Michael J Malone is the author of over 200 published poems, two poetry collections, four novels, countless articles and one work of non-fiction.

Formerly a Faber and Faber Regional Sales Manager (Scotland and North England), he has judged and critiqued many poetry, short story and novel competitions for a variety of organisations and was the Scottish correspondent for Writers’ Forum.

Michael is an experienced workshop leader/ creative writing lecturer to writers’ groups, schools and colleges as well as a personal coach and mentor. He has a Certificate in Life Coaching and studied as a facilitator with The Pacific Institute.

He is a regular speaker and chair at book festivals throughout the country – including Aye Write, Bloody Scotland, Crimefest and Wigtown.

Michael can found online at: https://mjmink.wordpress.com

and his books can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-J-Malone/e/B009WV9V4Y/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

DECADES

It’s a near impossible task to pick not only five favourite books, but five from different decades – indeed, on any other day I sat down to compile this I might have chosen another five. What has surprised me as I read over my compilation is the number of historical books I’ve chosen. What doesn’t surprise me is that each of these books affected me deeply as I read them – an impact that has lasted to this day.

1970’s – Roots – Alex Haley

I remember walking to school reading this book as I walked: I literally could not put it down. As anyone who was alive during this period can testify, Roots was a social and cultural phenomenon.

It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America; it follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley, the author. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to it being a sensation in the United States. The novel spent forty-six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including twenty-two weeks at number one.

Haley acknowledged that the book was a work of “faction” with many of the detailed incidents in the book being works of the imagination, but the main facts of the story were based on his research. An approach I copied when I wrote my 2014 novel The Guillotine Choice.

1980’s – The Lost Get Back Boogie – James Lee Burke

It was while in the audience listening to John Connolly talk at Harrogate Crime Fiction Festival that I first heard of JLB. Mr Connolly said, talking about the man’s greatness – when James Lee Burke dies, the rest of us move up one.

This is JLB’s fourth published novel – and it was rejected 111 times over a nine year period before going on to be published – only to be subsequently nominated for The Pulitzer. (There’s a morale here for any aspiring authors reading this.)

But the book. Recently paroled from prison, Iry Paret, a young Louisiana blues musician, settles in with fellow ex-convict Buddy Riordan and Riordan’s family on a sprawling Montana ranch and becomes drawn into a tragic conflict involving the family and their neighbours.

No one writes about nature like JLB. And few people write about the darkness in the human heart like him either. There is a layer of melancholy running throughout the narrative – a contemplation on loss – the loss of roots (as Paret moves from Louisiana to Montana), loss of innocence, loss of opportunities and loss of time. The hills of Montana are given the same lush and lyrical treatment that Burke would later provide to the bayous of Louisiana in the Robicheaux series.

1990’s The Power of One – Bryce Courteney

Set in South Africa in the 1930s and 40s , The Power of One is a coming-of-age story of “Peekay”, an innocent English boy who very early in his life realizes that there are greater things at stake than the hatred between the Dutch Afrikaners and the English – the Second World War in Europe, the growing racial tensions and the beginning of apartheid will influence his world and challenge his spiritual strength.

Even though the odds are stacked against Peekay from the start, he never loses faith in the goodness of people and following the advice of several memorable mentors, he sets out to work towards his dream of becoming a boxing world champion.

This was one of those “lucky” finds I came across in my local library – a debut novel, by an unknown (to me anyway) and one that I went on to recommend to everyone I met. Chances are if I met you around this time I would have frog-marched you to the nearest bookshop to buy yourself a copy. I found Peekay to be such an inspirational character that I even read the book in the week preceeding a job interview I was going for – if Peekay could survive everything he faced then I could deal with my nerves over the presentation I had to give for this job. (I didn’t get the job, btw – but I did manage to control my nervousness.)

2000’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

Set between the 1930s,and the present, Maggie O’Farrell’s novel is the story of Esme, a woman removed from her family’s history, and of the secrets that come to light when, sixty years later, she is released from an asylum, and a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt no one in the family knew even existed. The mystery that unfolds is the heart-rending tale of two sisters in India and 1930s Edinburgh – of the loneliness that connects them and the rivalries that drive them apart – and towards a terrible betrayal.

Beautiful writing, characters to fall in love with and insight into (recent) historical attitudes towards women this is a book that deeply affected me and made me a huge fan of the author – as soon as her latest book is published it goes to the top of my TBR pile. (Hamnet, for example is A-MAY-ZING.)

2010’s The Orenda – Joseph Boyden

I heard the author being interviewed about this book on Radio Scotland while I was travelling between bookshops (I was a sales manager for Faber at the time) and I just had to buy the book from the next bookshop I went into. (You could be forgiven for thinking that my connection with Orenda Books was what made me seek this novel out, but if memory serves it was a few months after this when I heard Karen Sullivan was setting up a new publishing house, and calling it Orenda. Btw – according to the book, this is the name that the Iroquois gave to a spiritual energy that they say connects all living things.)

This historical epic is set in the mid-1600s in Huronia (part of Canada) at a time when the Hurons and the Iroquois are involved in skirmishes – just as the Jesuits arrive and begin their attempts to convert the natives to Christianity. A member of each of these three groups serves as a narrator: Bird is the warrior leader of the Wendat (Huron) nation; Snow Falls is a young Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) girl whom Bird captures and adopts in retaliation for the Iroquois killing his wife and daughters; and Christophe is a priest, whom the Hurons call Crow, who has come to convert the “sauvages” to Catholicism.

What follows is a gripping and at times brutal tale with rich and fascinating detail about the lives of the natives of this ancient land. Boyden has written a balanced narrative between the indigene and the coloniser – no one is guilty, no is innocent – they simply act in accordance with their beliefs and the habits of their people – leaving you, the reader to be the judge (please take note current crop of TV and film writers – let the characters demonstrate the unfairness of a thing rather than wagging your finger at us.)

The times in which this book is set are carefully and convincingly detailed. This is a book of love of family and friends, full of captivating descriptions of the beauty of the natural world they inhabit, acts of kindness and sacrifice, and vivid descriptions of torture and death – all the extremes of human nature are here. It’s a book that portrays the beginning of the end of a way of life, while another form of civilisation works at taking over. It is sobering, and powerful.

Thanks Michael. Every review on this blog can be traced back to the days we worked in Bellshill and the event in Ayr where your invitation to attend the writing group event opened my eyes to a side of books I had never known. All the books I have been trusted to read by publishers and authors, all the events I attend (and blog or tweet about) and all the opportunities I have been offered to participate in (reading groups, podcast guest, a Nibbies Judge, interviewing authors at their book launch) all thanks to that early support and encouragement. Thank you.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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August 15

The Woman in the Library – Sulari Gentill

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

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

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

I received a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August 15

The IT Girl – Ruth Ware

Everyone wanted her life
Someone wanted her dead

It was Hannah who found April’s body ten years ago.
It was Hannah who didn’t question what she saw that day.
Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?

She needs to know the truth.

Even if it means questioning her own friends.
Even if it means putting her own life at risk.

Because if the killer wasn’t a stranger, it’s someone she knows…

Ruth Ware always delivers! The IT Girl is another clever, twisty thriller which takes the reader deep into the lives of the characters and has you wondering which of the players in this drama can be considered trustworthy as the moving finger of accusation slides around seeking the rotten apple in the barrel.

This is Hannah’s story – the “then” and the “now” – events take place in present day where Hannah the bookseller in Edinburgh is expecting her first child and has just received some shocking news. But it is also Hannah’s story of “then” when, ten years ago, she was a new student at Oxford and finds herself sharing rooms with April.

April who died.

April who was murdered by the man that Hannah’s testimony helped put into prison.

The man who has died in prison.

The man that a journalist now suggests may have been innocent.

Hannah is tormented with the possibility she may have been instrumental in sending an innocent man to prison and she begins to reevaluate everything she saw on the fateful night April died. However we know from the “then” timeline that the man charged with April’s murder wasn’t quite so innocent and Hannah had some concerns over his behaviour. Watching the history of Hannah’s time at a Oxford play out while also reading of the consequences of everyone’s actions is fascinating and makes for an intense read.

The chapters flip between past and present and Ruth Ware’s control over the flow of facts and information is spectacular. You can’t know what will be important, misleading or character defining for Hannah and her friends so, as a reader, my opinion of characters and their level of guilt would wildly fluctuate on a regular basis.

If you want a book which will spirit you into the seemingly incomprehensible traditions and lifestyles of students Oxford Uni then The IT Girl will show you how a gaggle of students cope (or don’t) with the death of one of their own. You may like or loathe some of the people but you will absolutely want to know what happens to them and that keeps the pages turning.

You can’t go wrong with a Ruth Ware thriller!

The IT Girl is published by Simon & Schuster and is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-it-girl/ruth-ware/9781398508354

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August 8

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Susan Grossey

In January 2021 I first introduced the Decades Library. It’s an ongoing challenge to curate the very best collection of books, chosen by booklovers, so that any reader who selects a book from the Library will know they are reading a book someone else loved and felt was worthy of a place in the Ultimate Library.

Each week (usually) a new guest curator joins me to add new titles to the Decades Library. My guests have been authors, bloggers, publishers, journalists and podcasters but they all are asked to follow just two rules when they select the books they want to add to my Library.

1 – You Can Select ANY Five Books
2 – You Can Only Select One Book Per Decade Over Five Consecutive Decades

Easy? Well it does seem so – until you start trying to pin down five favourite books from a fifty-year publication span. There is often a great deal of rule “flexing” to be found when a curator makes their selections. This week, however, I am delighted to confirm my guest this week very much kept on the right side of the rules and when you read Susan Grossey’s bio you may understand why this is the case! Name dropping other books also crops up on a regular basis so see if you can spot the “honourable mentions”.

So without further delay I shall pass you over to Susan:

My name is Susan Grossey, and I have made my living from crime. For nearly three decades I worked as an anti-money laundering consultant, advising banks, law firms, casinos and others on how to avoid criminal money – yes, I am almost certainly to blame when an estate agent impertinently asks you to bring in your passport and bank statement when you want to spend squillions on a new mansion. My obsession with financial crime has spilled over into my personal life, and for ten years I have been writing a series of historical financial crime novels, set in London in the 1820s and narrated by a magistrates’ constable called Sam Plank. (The 1820s was fascinating in terms of policing history – after the Bow Street Runners and before the Metropolitan Police.) I have just published the seventh and final book in the Sam Plank series: taking place in 1829, “Notes of Change” has Sam looking in inheritance fraud, gambling and murder, while considering his future in the face of the “new police” – the Met. I am now researching a new five-part series, again taking place in the irresistible 1820s, but this time in Cambridge (my home town) and narrated by university constable Gregory Hardiman. (And if, like me, you can’t get enough of Regency history, you can sign up to my monthly e-newsletter which gives a bit more detail on the research I have been doing, which may or may not make it into the books. Here’s the link: https://wordpress.us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=793a391cd9d51c99540eb5099&id=d302de6b99 )

Any my website and blog are here: https://susangrossey.wordpress.com/

DECADES

“Scoop” by Evelyn Waugh (1938)

My father handed me this book when I was a teenager, and as he read only two or three novels a year (contending that real life was much more exciting and interesting than made up stuff) I knew it was important. The story of hapless nature columnist William Boot being accidentally sent to cover a war in East Africa is a hoot, while cleverly skewering the nastiness of the world of newspapers (the owner of the newspaper is keen for coverage of “a very promising little war”). And some of the phrases in it – “Up to a point, Lord Copper” – have entered our family vocabulary. When I read more about Waugh, I learned that you can often love the book and dislike the author – a handy life lesson.

“Ross Poldark” by Winston Graham (1945)

I make no apology for including this in my library – it may not be high art, but I can think of few other books that have given me as much pleasure or that have influenced me more. I first met “Poldy” through the BBC television series broadcast in the mid-1970s and dashed to the library for the books. Imagine the glee I felt, as a fast and insatiable reader, on discovering that there were twelve books in the series. And ever since, I have loved the twin disciplines of historical accuracy and maintaining character development and story arcs across several books – my own incarnation as an author of historical series was almost certainly set by “Poldy”.

“A Bear Called Paddington” by Michael Bond (1958)

Despite having no children of my own, I am a great reader of children’s books and still re-read favourites from my own childhood. (I wanted to include “The Little White Horse” by Elizabeth Goudge in this list, but that was published in 1946 and I’ve already had that decade…) I have chosen “A Bear Called Paddington” as it is the first Paddington book, but you could choose any one of the twenty-six Paddington books written by Michael Bond and you would not go wrong. They are beautifully written, with neat plots and vocabulary that does not talk down to children, and the central messages of acceptance, kindness and a desire to help others deserve as much publicity as they can get.

“The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” by Muriel Spark (1961)

This is a double win for me, as both the book and the film would make it into any “desert island” lists I might be invited to make. What I admire about Spark is her sparseness and hidden cruelty – you are reading along merrily and suddenly catch yourself thinking, “No! They can’t really just have said or done that!” This slim volume – telling the story of the seemingly positive but ultimately fatal influence of an Edinburgh schoolmistress over her favoured girls (“you, girls, are the crème de la crème”) – fascinates and horrifies me every time I read it. And as for Dame Maggie Smith on her bicycle in the 1969 film, well, it’s among the greatest film openings in history.

“The World According to Garp” by John Irving (1978)

This is one of those instances where I couldn’t believe my luck: an author whose book I just couldn’t put down, and who then went on to write so many more crackers. He is one of the few whose new book I will buy in hardback on day of publication because I Just Can’t Wait. Irving’s best, in my view, is “A Prayer for Owen Meany”, but that came out in 1989 (and would take me into a forbidden sixth decade.) This one is about a boy who grows up with his single feminist mother and becomes a writer and teacher – much of it is semi-autobiographical, and all of it is gripping. And as a teenager, reading the infamous car crash scene certainly put me off doing anything daring with my boyfriend in his car…

Where else but the Decades Library will you find Paddington Bear nestled beside Miss Jean Brodie? My thanks to Susan for five stellar choices. I am a big fan of Susan’s Sam Plank books and I was absolutely delighted when Susan agreed to make her Decades choices – honestly the beam on my face when I spotted Paddington in her choices!

DECADES WILL RETURN

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August 2

From The Ashes – Deborah Masson

It only takes one spark to reignite an old mystery . . .

DI Eve Hunter and her team are called to the scene of a fire that has destroyed a home for underprivileged children in Aberdeen. No-one knows how the blaze started; all they know is that one person didn’t make it out in time.

Her team have dealt with their fair share of tragedies but this case affects them each deeply – particularly when they start to suspect that everyone at the home, from the residents to the staff, has something to hide. And when a horrific discovery is unearthed in the ruins of the property, the team must ask themselves – did someone have a secret worth killing for?

I recieved a review copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

This is an excellent murder story but at times it can be harrowing too – children in care, victims of desperately sad circumstances or parental neglect or abuse. Very real, very well depicted by Deborah Masson and the plight of some of the youngsters in the story will not be quickly forgotten.

DI Eve Hunter and her colleagues are not immune to the tragedy they are called to investigate. A fire at a children’s residential home is a difficult situation – kids with no stability and very few possessions are forced from the place which should be their haven and all signs are this was arson…they have been targeted. But more upsetting is that one of the children didn’t get out the house in time. Trapped, alone and nobody heard him calling for help.

The death of a child has tensions running high amongst her team and when the press come sniffing Eve knows some of the details of the fire and the young life lost are going to light up newspaper headlines and make her task even more challenging.

Somewhat hindering her investigation is the fact one of her team is not focusing his full attention on the fire. An accident in the centre of Aberdeen has left several damaged cars, one shaken up police officer and an unidentified young man fighting for his life after being hit by the vehicles. Who is the mysterious injured man? Why is he not carrying any identification and what can be done to help him?

But the majority of the story is centred around the residential home for the children. It’s been a home for vulnerable children for many years and as we read deeper into the book we discover the previous owners were not the nicest of folk, the children fearful of their guardians and resorting to sneaking around behind their backs to keep secrets. The story of these former home residents are told in flashback form and it further amplified the desperately sad situation the children in care can sometimes find themselves in.

An arsonist needs to be caught, a killer identified and Deborah Masson juggles this right cast brilliantly. There are secrets to come out and it may destroy some lives if they do – but a child is dead and Eve Hunter is not going to rest until the killer is found.

Emotive, powerful and perfectly paced I really enjoyed this one.

From The Ashes is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/from-the-ashes/deborah-masson/9780552178259

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