June 19

Up Close and Fatal – Fergus McNeil

On the road. With a serial killer.

It begins with a list of names – past and future victims. When struggling reporter Tom Pritchard receives it in the mail, he’s scared, though he knows this could be the story he needs to save his career.

Especially if he can help the police to catch the killer.

But this isn’t a typical murderer. This is someone patient and ruthless, someone who’s been planning for years. Soon, the tables are turned and Tom finds himself trapped on a terrifying road trip across the US, racing from victim to victim. His only hope of saving his family is to understand the killer but, to do that, he’ll need to be close. And although he doesn’t know it yet, that’s exactly where the killer wants him to be.

 

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to host this leg of the tour. I am reviewing my purchased copy of Up Close and Fatal.

 

 

Tom Pritchard is an English journalist working in the US. He has had some success but the opportunties are not coming thick and fast and he has seperated from his partner who now looks after their five-year old son. Tom isn’t in a great position and his life is going to become so much more complicated.

Tom arrives home to find a strange letter. Inside is a list. Numbered one to ten. But just three names on the list (points four, six and nine). The other seven points are blank and at the foot of the list is a single word: WAIT.  Ever inquisitive Tom opens a search engine and looks up one of the names – a murder victim. Both the other names on the incomplete list match murder victims too but Tom cannot see any link between the three.

Wait was the instruction and Tom soon recieves a further communication. A telephone call from someone who asks if Tom recieved his letter. This call offers Tom the opportunity to write the biggest story of his career but he has to be prepared for everything that comes with accepting the challenge. The Killer (for it is a serial killer that has reached out to Tom to write his story) wants Tom to meet and dicuss the list and the background to the names on the list.

Tom realises he has an opportunity to help catch a killer if he agrees to the meeting. He enlists the help of a friend in the police force and when the time of the meeting draws near Tom is fully tracked, followed and supported by a team of officers. However the killer is far smarter than any of them suspected and all does not go to plan. When Tom’s guard is down the killer pounces and Tom finds himself travelling across country, captive to a man determined to bring his series of killings to its conclusion. And Tom has front row seats to the last murders which will complete that list of names.

Fergus McNeil has given us a serial killer road trip and it is a hell of a ride. Tom is brilliantly realised and he faces a real dilemma over his continued participation in the project his captive outlines. The killer is also wonderfully depicted by the author – he is the key to the whole story and also displays a full range of emotions as his story is told. Two very different characters and each get a turn in the spotlight as the author balances their contribution to this story.

It’s unusual to see a story putting the killer and the “hero” of the book together for so much of action. Yet Fergus McNeil makes it work. Both characters are motivated by their own agenda and though they are going to the same place (even if Tom does not know where this is) each has a different plan for how their trip will end. Unfortuantely for Tom his travelling companion has had a long time to prepare and he has left nothing to chance. Unfortunately for the killer – well you know what they say about the best laid plans…

I breezed through this fast paced thriller in just two day – highly recommended.

 

 

Up Close and Fatal is available in paperback and digital format and can be bought here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09WXNDCF1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 18

The Chemical Cocktail – Fiona Erskine

 

 

I recieved a review copy from the publishers and was invited to join the blog tour by Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours. My thanks to both.

 

In 2021 I spent 11 months of the year praising a book written by Fiona Erskine. I read it in February and in December (to nobody’s surprise) called Fiona’s book the best book I had read in 2021. When the opportunity came to read the next book Fiona had written I could not resist.

The Chemical Cocktail is the third Jaq Silver thriller and despite there being some hints at past events you don’t need to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy this one. And you WILL enjoy this book as it’s an action thriller which spans continents, has some particularly nasty bad guys lurking in the background and we get more than a few tense moments for Silver as she tries to investigate a secret from her past.

Early in the story the reader learns Silver’s mother has died and Jaq has come into posession of the last of her mother’s posessions. Within the documents she finds information which will turn her world upside down. Events thereafter give the readers an insight into the background of Jaq Silver, an understanding of how she became the woman she is but also expose some of the most secret elements of her past. I imagine for returning readers this will be a welcome look at the background of a loved character but for a new reader to the series (me) it was a wonderful way to meet the character.

The information Silver received in her mother’s posessions will kick off a frantic race against time chase which stretches from England to Brazil, with some stops in Europe along the way. There is little respite for Silver as she tries to elude pursuers without understanding why she is being pursued. The reader is also kept in the dark as to what the “prize” at the end of this chase may be – not knowing what was behind the attempts to capture Jaq Silver really held my attention and kept me reading.

Silver is a terrific lead character and I understand why some reviews have drawn comparisons to a James Bond type figure. She is also an expolosives expert and the author brings the science to the story in a way which is accessible, educational and entertaining.Rembmber how Tom Clancy books would suddenly jump from the action to delivere ten pages of technical specifications on a missile? Well in The Chemical Cocktail Fiona Ersine will slip in two informative and accessible paragraphs and keep the action flowing. Both styles show the author is in total command of the information and subject matter but, sorry Tom, only one is actually fun to read.

The Chemical Cocktail is sharply written with short, punchy chapters and the constant thrill of a chase and evade makes for an exciting story throughout. I loved the time I spent getting lost in this adventure tale and now need to find time to read the first two books in the series too.

 

The Chemical Cocktail is published by Point Blank Crime and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09JPH6CV1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 13

Cat & Mouse – MJ Arlidge

When you think you’re safe,
When you think you’re all alone,
That’s when he’ll come for you…

A silent killer stalks the city, targeting those home alone at night, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the victims.

As panic spreads, Detective Inspector Helen Grace leads the investigation, but is herself a hunted woman, her every step shadowed by a ruthless psychopath bent on revenge.

As she tracks the murderer, Grace begins to suspect there is a truly shocking home truth that connects these brutal crimes. But what she will find is something more twisted than she could ever suspect…

 

 

My thanks to the publishers, Orion, for a review copy and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the Cat & Mouse blog tour.

 

Sometimes all I want to read is an exciting murder story with short, punchy chapters and some nasty bad guys to make me want to root for the lead character. Thank you MJ Arlidge for Cat & Mouse – I needed you this week!

The lead character in this case is DI  Helen Grace and in the books which came before Cat & Mouse she has had more than a bit of a rough time. She’s disliked by her boss, has a death threat hanging over her, is at odds with a former lover (a colleague) who she now needs to testify against and the local press are out to get her. It probably helps to have read the previous books to get the full story behind her predicament but the author does make sure you will know enough to understand why DI Grace is a woman under intense pressure.

To compound this pressure the book opens with a particularly brutal murder. A woman, home alone as she waited for her husband to return from a late-night training session is restrained and subdued while an intruder steals her jewellery. Before the intruder leaves he pulls out a small axe and buried it in the back of her head.

The victim was a young mother, attractive, successful and prominent on social media. The press are baying for a quick arrest but DI Grace and her team have little to go on. It’s a frustrating case but the victim’s husband knows the killer, his wife had a stalker and he is sure the police should look no further than the guy who had been harassing her. Is a quick outcome going to be possible? Well, if she can prove his guilt then it may be a good outcome for Helen and her team.

I came late to this series. Cat & Mouse is the eleventh Helen Grace novel and I joined around book six or seven (I now have all the books I missed in my TBR). It’s rare for me to get sucked into a series which I haven’t followed from the first book but in this case I have gone out of my way to try to catch up. MJ Arlidge writes gripping and exciting stories, the kind of book which makes you want to keep reading late into the night.

I really enjoyed Cat & Mouse. Once or twice Grace seems to morph from police detective to action hero which didn’t quite seem in keeping with my perception of her character, but the action scenes do make for exciting reading. Lots of red herrings and plenty of plot threads surrounding Helen’s colleagues and also the reporter who is determined to undermine Helen at every opportunity. Highly recommend this series so don’t miss out.

 

 

Cat & Mouse is published by Orion and available now in hardback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cat-and-mouse/m-j-arlidge/9781409188506

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June 8

The Lost Ones – Marnie Riches

The girl is sitting upright, her dark brown hair arranged over her shoulders and her blue, blue eyes staring into the distance. She looks almost peaceful. But her gaze is vacant, and her skin is cold…

When Detective Jackie Cooke is called to the murder scene, she is shocked by what she sees. Missing teenager Chloe Smedley has finally been found – her body left in a cold back yard, carefully posed with her bright blue eyes still open. Jackie lays a protective hand on the baby in her belly, and vows to find the brutal monster who stole Chloe’s future.

When Jackie breaks the news to Chloe’s heartbroken mother, she understands the woman’s cries only too well. Her own brother went missing as a child, the case never solved. Determined to get justice for Chloe and her family, Jackie sets to work, finding footage of the girl waving at someone the day she disappeared. Did Chloe know her killer?

But then a second body is found on the side of a busy motorway, lit up by passing cars. The only link with Chloe is the disturbing way the victim has been posed, and Jackie is convinced she is searching for a dangerous predator. Someone has been hunting missing and vulnerable people for decades, and only Jackie seems to see that they were never lost. They were taken.

Jackie’s boss refuses to believe a serial killer is on the loose and threatens to take her off the case. But then Jackie returns home to find a brightly coloured bracelet on her kitchen counter and her blood turns cold. It’s the same one her brother was wearing when he vanished. Could his disappearance be connected to the murders? Jackie will stop at nothing to catch her killer… unless he finds her first…

 

My thanks to Bookouture for my review copy and to Sarah Hardy for the opportunity to host this leg of The Lost Ones blog tour.

 

There are some authors I always enjoy reading. If you look back over my past reviews you will see I have read (and always enjoyed) many books written by Marnie Riches – she seems to nail that perfect balance of pacing, humour, darkess (oh what darkness) and tension packed thrills. Anticipation ahead of reading The Lost Ones was high. I was not disappointed.

The Lost Ones is the first in a new series which features Detective Jackson (Jackie) Cooke and we first meet her in a state of some discomfort, very pregnant, at a murder scene and without her regular partner who has finally secured a long-overdue holiday. The murder is a particularly nasty one; a young girl has been left posed in a location where she will be easily found. Her body has been mutilated and some of her limbs are missing.

Jackie cannot help but be reminded of her own brother who she lost many years earlier when he vanished when he and Jackie were both children. Her brother never returned and Jackie’s mother and her often absent father struggled on with a constant feeling of loss and heartbreak. The family dynamic is fractious and Jackie’s own family are seemingly also chaotic. She has many plates spinning in her home life and with a third child, their happy accident, on the way there seems no let up.

The murder investigation takes the majority of the story and it’s a great police procedural – even if the team are not the best at following orders. Jackie’s boss (and apparent nemesis) wants to bench her but is struggling to cover her position. Her colleagues are too busy to give the case the attention Jackie thinks it needs and she does not rate their ability to investigate this unusual murder properly.

We see Jackie covertly trying to keep working on the murder case and enlisting some willing colleagues to support her. An astute reader will definitely have that impending feeling of something about to go badly wrong, it certainly kept me reading!

I read The Lost Ones in two sittings, didn’t want to stop as there was always something in the story which kept me pushing through “one more chapter”. It’s got more than a few dark moments as I have come to expect (and look forward to) when I read Marnie’s books and this new cast of characters were wonderfully realised as I felt I had been reading about them for more than one book.

The Lost Ones is out now and I cannot think of a single reason as to why you shouldn’t buy a copy immediately.

 

 

The Lost Ones is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TWCJ33M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 6

All of the Marvels – Douglas Wolk

Every schoolchild recognises their protagonists: the Avengers, the X-Men, your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. The superhero comics that Marvel has published since 1961 make up the biggest self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages and counting. Eighteen of the 100 highest-grossing movies of all time are based on it. And not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing – nobody’s supposed to.

But Douglas Wolk did. In All Of The Marvels, a critic and superfan takes on the epic to end all epics. What he finds is a magic mirror of the past 60 years, from the atomic terrors of the Cold War to the political divides of our present. Wolk teases out Marvel’s mixture of progressive visions and painful stereotypes, its regrettable moments as well as its flights of luminous creativity. The result is an irresistible travel guide to the magic mountain at the heart of popular culture.

 

I recieved a review copy through Netgalley

 

I can’t quite get my head around how many comics Douglas Wolk read to put himself into the position where he could write a book called “All of the Marvels”. Six decades of comics, over half a million pages (presumably not the classic adverts from the 1970s where you could buy x-ray glasses) and tens of thousands of individual comic books. I am more than a little bit jealous to be honest as there are so many classic storylines I still hope to find time to read one day.

Why am I reviewing a book about a man reading comic books? Because I love comics. More accurately I love Marvel Comics and I wish more people would read them too. I wondered how a book addressing all the Marvel comics would discuss the huge volume of stories, the vast array of characters and whether it would inspire new readers to pick up some comics to try them too.

I also wondered how this book would read…where do you start discussing that vast body of work and which characters do you focus on? Well it didn’t read quite how I had expected and the focus sometimes surprised me but it works. Douglas Wolk does not take a chronological approach to the comics and I was secretly pleased by this as I suspect I may have jumped to “my era” of reading which was the 80s/90s. Instead there is an early focus on Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The stories they crafted, how they worked together, other artists and writing teams that contributed and how some of the most famous characters came to the news-stands.

There was a section about the Shang-Chi comics and the martial arts books from the 1970s when Bruce Lee movies were doing well in cinemas and Western audiences were keen to discover more. He discusses how some writers dominated a particular title and then how the title declined or lost focus when the writing teams changed. It’s fascinating to see how one man (and for years it was mainly men) can make or break a character and define how we see them now. This focus on writers allows a shift through different characters over a long time period but don’t expect a Spider-Man chapter, an Iron Man chapter then a Hulk chapter as the narrative is much more fluid and conversational.

Naturally some characters will dominate Marvel’s history but Douglas Wolk does mix up the focus and I found myself deep in passages discussing characters I don’t really know and the author made me want to read those comicbooks.

Will All of the Marvels appeal to new readers? I think perhaps not as I came to this book with a bit of knowledge of Marvel and their big name artists/authors and this really helped me relate to what I was reading here. But I also found I was learning about the team behind the scenes as well as the teams on the pages. I also wanted to read many, many more books which I hadn’t really considered prior to Wolk’s

It’s a huge undertaking to cover so much material and there is the risk your favourite story or hero may not get many mentions. However, All of the Marvels is a fascinating analysis and recounting of some of the most famous stories in comicbook history. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am sure many Marvel finds will find it equally absorbing but non fans may struggle to fully engage.

 

All of the Marvels is published in Hardback, Audiobook and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B093J5Z88L/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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June 5

The Game – Scott Kershaw

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

THE PERSON YOU LOVE MOST IS IN DANGER.

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

IF YOU LOSE, YOUR LOVED ONE WILL DIE.

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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May 24

The Daughter – Liz Webb

I lean in and whisper the question I have never let myself utter in twenty-three years. “Dad, did you murder Mum?”

Hannah Davidson has a dementia-stricken father, an estranged TV star brother, and a mother whose death opened up hidden fault lines beneath the surface of their ordinary family life. Now the same age that Jen Davidson was when she was killed, Hannah realises she bears an uncanny resemblance to her glamorous mother, and when her father begins to confuse them she is seriously unnerved.

Determined to uncover exactly what happened to her mum, Hannah begins to exploit her arresting likeness, but soon the boundaries between Hannah and her mother become fatally blurred.

 

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy of The Daughter which I received through Netgalley

 

Hannah has returned to her family home to care for her ailing father. He has taken a fall and been hospitalised so Hannah is dividing her time between the challenging hospital visits and staying in her childhood home surrounded by all the memories which this brings back. Her dad’s dementia means he is not always aware of what is happening around him and he often seems to believe he is living in the past if his reference points and stimulus bring his memories to periods long gone.

This is how Hannah finds herself on a dangerous and traumatic spiral in The Daughter. Hannah had been going through a very difficult time in her personal life and the combination of stopping her medication and not taking proper care of herself means she has lost a lot of weight. Hannah’s father had not seen her for a while before his fall and hospitalisation and when he looks at his daughter from his hospital bed it appears his dementia leads him to believe that Hannah is actually her mother Jen. Jen died when she was the age which Hannah is now and Hannah’s father was the primary suspect in her murder.

From his hospital bed Hannah’s father sees his “wife” and with a flash of apparent lucid thought he tells Hannah he is “sorry”. Sorry for what? What has her father felt he needs to apologise to her dead mother for? Could it be that he is *finally* confessing to her murder and showing remorse as his life draws to a close?

Hannah decides she must discover the truth about her mother’s death. The incident which effectively destroyed her family and set their lives on an unforseen path. To do this Hannah needs to connect with her estranged brother (now a successful TV star), engage with her creepy and over-familiar neighbours, chase down old friends of her mother (who do not want to be known as such) and even speak with the policeman that was convinced her father was a murderer.

The Daughter is a web of lies, scandal, tragedy and secrets. Hannah herself has skeletons in her closet and as she digs deeper into the life of a mother she barely knew someone may turn her own mistakes against her.

Liz Webb has done a great job keeping this domestic drama a tense and engaging read throughout. I knew with certainly at least three times where the story was heading and I was wrong each time. I got there in the end but I definitely enjoyed being wrong and revisiting my suspicions.

Scandals, secrets and lies all make for great stories – this is one such story.

 

 

The Daughter is published by Allison & Busby and is available in hardback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-daughter/liz-webb/9780749028756

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May 19

Six Wounds – Morgan Cry

To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . .

Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect.

With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

 

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the Six Wounds tour and to Gordon Brown for an early review copy.

 

Six Wounds is the follow-up to last year’s Thirty-One Bones which saw Daniella Coulstoun ripped from her life in Glasgow (where she worked in a call centre for an insurance firm) to the Costa Blanca. Daniella had recently lost her mother and, as a consequence, inherited a murky pub frequented by an odd collection of ex-pats who were a thoroughly disreputable crowd. You do not need to have read Thirty-One Bones to enjoy Six Wounds (and I am sure you will enjoy Six Wounds) but knowing the background of the main characters is always nice and Thirty-One Bones is a thumping good read too. Either way, there are good books here to be enjoyed so you can decide where you want to jump in.

In Six Wounds Daniella has a whole new series of problems to contend with. She already knew her mother was involved in numerous dubious schemes and she was someone that had her fingers in many pies. But now Daniella is running Se Busca and it seems some of her mum’s former contacts expect Daniella to continue facilitating the same activities and enterprises – whether she wants to or not.

But before the reader catches up with Daniella’s latest dilemmas and predicaments there is a more dramatic incident to propel the reader back into her world. The book literally begins with an explosion of energy, chaos and destruction as Se Busca comes under attack for reasons as yet unknown. When the commotion has settled there is one unwelcome object left behind and it will bring the police to Daniella’s door.

Unfortunately for Daniella the police are going to be playing a large part in her life while this story plays out. She is not in control of events which are going on around her and her home and her bar are both being used by persons unknown who will try to gain leverage against her.

In Thirty-One Bones I felt Daniella was sharp and keeping well on top of her new surroundings. She was a savvy operator and I loved how she was able to handle what was being thrown at her. But now she seems less assured, the full implications of her sudden relocation to Spain is hitting in. Her mother has left her more problems than she can comfortably cope with. The pub is failing and needs major investment. Her co-owners are a dubious and duplicitous bunch and Daniella knows she can’t trust them but more importantly will they side with her when the chips are down? It all does seem to be getting too much for one person to contend with.

What did strike me as I read Six Wounds was how quickly Morgan Cry managed to grab my attention and nothing else I was reading at the time came close to matching that level of focus. I read Six Wounds over a weekend, everything else was ignored as I was totally engrossed in the events on the Costa Blanca. The story zips along at a slick pace and mixes tension and humour with some devious plotting. I was hooked.

 

Six Wounds is published by Polygon and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/six-wounds/morgan-cry/9781846975707

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May 16

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Caron McKinlay

It isn’t Friday but it IS time for a return to the Decades Library. It has been a while since we last visited the Library and I apologise for the brief hiatus which just so happened to coincide with a change of role in the day job (same job, new work), exam season in Scotland (teenager Grab has been working hard and we have been supporting where we can) plus lots of other fun reading things which I simply cannot talk about just yet.

But it’s time the Library welcomed a new curator and as it is Publication Day for The Storytellers I wanted to share Caron McKinlay’s selections today – rather than wait for Friday to roll around.

As it has been a couple of weeks I will recap what the Decades Library is all about. I am assembling a Library of the very best books. I started this project back in January 2021 and I had no books on my Library shelves. I did not know which books would represent the “very best” and I knew that I would not be able to fill a Library with just my personal selections so I invite guests to join me and ask them to nominate their selections for inclusion within the Decades Library. I ask them to pick their favourite or memorable reads or the books which they believe the best libraries should offer to readers.

Each guest must follow just two simple rules when nominating books to the Decades Library:

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

 

So with a huge congratulations on publication day I pass to Caron McKinlay for five new selections.

Caron grew up in a mining town on the east coast of Scotland where her dad would return from the pit and fill her life with his tall tales. She never thought about making a career in writing – that was what posh people did, not someone from a working-class council estate.

However, her father’s death was the cause of deep introspection and her emotions gave birth to a short story, Cash, which was published in the Scottish Book Trust’s anthology, Blether. This gave her the confidence to try and believe in herself.

When not blogging, reading, and writing, Caron spends her time with her daughters. She doesn’t enjoy exercise – but loves running around after her grandsons, Lyle and Noah, to whom she is devoted.

Caron had three childhood dreams in life: to become a published author, to become a teacher, and for David Essex to fall in love with her. Two out of three ain’t bad, and she’s delighted with that.

You can buy The Storytellers here: https://geni.us/theStorytellers

And Find Caron here:

www.twitter.com/caronmckinlay

www.instagram.com/caronmckinlay

www.facebook.com/mckinlaycaron

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZML8bGo9h/

Good Reads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60844999-the-storytellers

Website

http://www.caronmckinlay.com

 

Decades

 

The 1980s

‘The Silence of the Lambs’ by Thomas Harris

Contemporary takes on the novel focus on Hannibal Lecter, the fearsome imprisoned serial murderer antagonist. But as the title suggests, the book is as much about the FBI agent Clarice Starling, her childhood as an orphan, and the screaming of slaughtered lambs on her cousin’s farm she experienced as a child. An eerie relationship grows between Starling and Lecter, as, perhaps for the first time in his life, he experiences empathy for another. Not exactly a love story, but a fascinating depiction of the way that relationships can grow, like weeds, in the unlikeliest of places as, at the end, he writes to her that he hopes, for her, the lambs have stopped screaming. I will never forget a section of the narrative where I thought “Huh what just happened” and had to turn back to read the pages again. I loved that!

 

 

The 1990s

‘The Notebook’ by Nicholas Sparks

I have always been swept away by grand romances. One of my favourite books is Wuthering Heights. In its own way, ‘The Notebook’ evokes the same sense, for me, of two people whose love transcends the passage of time and events. “I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough”. How romantic? Of course, like all the best books, the story is unfolded in ways that you would never expect, beginning with an old man reading a ’story’ to an old woman in a nursing home. But who are they, and who are the characters in the story he tells her? It’s such a beautiful story that makes me cry every time I read it.

 

 

 

The 2000s

‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger

Write a book that involves time travel, and you already have me halfway there. But this is so much more. The poignant story of how Clare waits, as the years roll by, to be reunited with her one true love as he is flung across history and back again is both heart-breaking and uplifting. The love story is what captures you. But it only works because of the superb manner in which Niffenegger deals with the time travel element, allowing you to suspend disbelief long enough to become enthralled with Clare and Henry’s relationship. Another one that had me sobbing at the end.

 

 

 

The 2010s

‘11/22/63’ by Stephen King

This mix of time travel and one of the world’s great storytellers is just hard to beat. As ever, with King, the characters leap off the page, and their stories are never as straightforward as you would have imagined. The central character, Jake, has set himself the task of using a time portal to travel back in time to prevent John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But life, for a character in one of King’s novels, is never easy and, in the end, he is forced to confront a moral dilemma.  This was brilliantly plotted.

 

 

 

The 2020s

‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’ by V.E. Schwab

Yet more twisty time travels. There might be a theme developing here. In the eighteenth century, a young woman barters her soul to avoid an enforced marriage. Consigned by the Devil, to live forever but be remembered by no one. We follow her life and struggles as she learns to live a lonely life. But in the twenty-first century, she finally finds love with someone, Henry, who does remember her. What will the Devil do now? Such gorgeous prose and the book I wish I had the talent to write. It was always remain one of my favourite books.

 

 

 

 

I am reading The Storytellers at the moment and enjoying it immensely. Unfortunatley the secret reading I am doing is keeping me away from finishing it for the present but a review will be forthcoming as soon as I can catch up!

As for these magnificent Decades selections – I am delighted that another Stephen King book has made its way onto the Library shelves (particularly as it is one of my favourites). And The Notebook! That’s a real crowd pleaser too.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

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May 13

Requiem in La Rossa – Tom Benjamin

In the sweltering heat of a Bologna summer, a murderer plans their piece de resistance…

Only in Bologna reads the headline in the Carlino after a professor of music is apparently murdered leaving the opera. But what looks like an open-and-shut case begins to fall apart when English detective Daniel Leicester is tasked with getting the accused man off, and a trail that begins among Bologna’s close-knit classical music community leads him to suspect there may be a serial killer at large in the oldest university in the world. And as Bologna trembles with aftershocks following a recent earthquake, the city begins to give up her secrets…

 

 

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the Requiem blog tour

 

Housekeeping first – Requiem in La Rossa is the third book in The English Detective series by Tom Benjamin. Daniel Leicester is a private investigator working in Bologna and he prevoiusly featured in A Quiet Death in Italy and The Hunting Season. Requiem in La Rossa is my first encounter with Daniel Leicester but I didn’t feel I was struggling to keep up with characters or background events having missed the first two novels. Purists may wish to read the series in order – based on the quality of the third novel I think that would be a very enjoyable experience – but you can absolutely jump straight in with Requiem too.

So to the book. Bologna in the summer. Temperatures are high and the city is being rocked by a series of earth tremors which initially had residents diving for cover but now seem to be more of an irritation than a cause for panic. But for one professor the heat and fears of earthquakes are no longer a concern, he has been killed during an altrication with a young drug user.

The police consider the issue closed. The killer is in custody and there seems no reason to believe there is anything further to investigate, they have their man. But Daniel Leicester is asked to look into the issue. The killer is a former student, a very talented classical musician who spectacularly and unexpectedly failed in his exams and was let go from his studies. Leicester gets the opportunity to speak with the boy and finds his explanation of events is inconclusive but does not indicate the actions of a murderous individual.

Adding some complexity to Leicester’s investigation is the fact there is more than one individual connected to the professor and the classical music scene who has met an unexpected death. Leicester finds the body of a young musician who has hanged herself leaving no message or explanation around why she took her own life. Unfortunately his discovery will get him on the wrong side of the vindictive Commisario Miranda. Their verbal sparring was very much a fun element to the story.

This is a cleverly written, slow-burn thriller. The pacing of the story lends itself well to the opressive summer heat and the time we spend with the characters lets them develop very nicely to ensure I am invested in their lives. Too many books zip along from incident to incident and the cast suffer as a consequence, it’s hard to be upset about the death of a character who we know very little about.

One slightly surprising consequence of reading Requiem in La Rossa was the realisation I know very little about Italy, the Italian language and their police and political structures. I loved discovering more about Bologna through the story (it is wonderfully presented by the author) and I almost felt I was learning as I was reading.

All in this was a very enjoyable read. I welcomed the slower pacing which accompanied this well told tale and the characters shone through.

 

Requiem in La Rossa is available in paperback, audio and digital format and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/requiem-in-la-rossa/tom-benjamin/9781472131645

 

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