August 20

Ouija – Zoé-Lee O’Farrell

The only thing for certain is the deaths were no accident.

Rayner High School once a prestigious school stands in ruins after such a terrible event.

A year later, a group of friends return to the abandoned school and their nightmare begins.

Something wants to get out and won’t take NO for an answer…

 

 

My thanks to Zoe-Lee O’Farrell for the opportunity to join the Question Mark Horror Blog tours.

I received a review copy of Ouija and Camp Death from the publishers so I could participate in this double-header blog tour.

 

I missed out on Point Horror as a reader, I was already onto King, Herbert, Laymon and Hutson when the Point Horror titles were at a peak. However, I was a young bookseller back in the day and I sold dozens of them, usually to the same faces every couple of weeks as a wave of young horror readers came to our bookshop to get their latest fix.

Question Mark Horror seem to be tapping into the same target readership as both Ouija and Camp Death are chillers but keep on the careful side of being too detailed with the depictions of carnage. YA readers will have a ball with these though and it is always great to see horror titles being enjoyed.

This leg of the Two Books One Tour is about Ouija by Zoé-Lee O’Farrell and the name is a big clue as to where the menace lies. Six childhood friends decide they will use an ouija board to communicate with the dead.  Not only do they feel this is a sensible thing to do, they decide to do it in the old school in their town, a building no longer in use after it was the scene of an horrific massacre where staff and students died at the hands of an unknown assailant. Though perhaps this is a mystery which the ouija board could help cast some light upon?

The book opens with a flashback to the start of the massacre in the school but before we can get too much idea as to what may be about to unfold the narrative switches to the six friends who will be the stars of the show. Readers get to learn about each of the kids and understand the group dynamic. It’s clear there are some rivalries and hidden affection but they seem a tight group despite not all of them being keen to venture into Rayner High School and communicate with the spirits.

Soon the friends are slipping out their homes and making their way to the ruined building. Their final destination (as it were) is to be the Headmaster’s study but as they edge their way along the dark corridors we can see they are not the only ones moving around the old school that night. Without getting into too much more detail things do not go to plan and the friends don’t get to complete their ritual properly, have they left a path open for any of the spirits?

It isn’t long before unexplained incidents start happening around some of the group and each becomes increasingly unnerved. Their terror is complete when one of their number dies and the readers soon learn that one death is only just the beginning.

As I tend to read at night I will confess Ouija had me nervously glancing into the dark corners of my room on more than one occasion. It’s a relatively quick read and the story zips along at a very satisfying pace which meant we got to the darker events pretty quickly. Fans of horror films and chilling fiction will get their kicks from this one as there are plenty of recognisable horror devices brought into play. Good fun and always a treat to get a new horror read, I look forward to seeing what Question Mark Horror will have for us in future.

 

Ouija is available in digital format and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0997CPK3J/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

The Question Mark Horror tour is a two book affair and I will be back with my thoughts on Camp Death at the end of the month

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August 14

Decades: Compiling the Ulitmate Library with Rod Reynolds

This is Decades. It’s a challenge I set myself to assemble the Ultimate Library, a library which began with zero books and was to be filled with nothing but the very best reading recommendations. Which books should be included? What have been the essential reads over the years?

I knew this was not a task I could undertake myself so each week I invite a booklover to join me and I ask them to nominate books which they feel should be added to my Decades Library. There are two rules which govern the selection of their five books:

1 – You may choose any five books
2 – You may only select one book per decade over five consecutive decades

Easy?  This week’s guest began his email reply to me with “I can see now why people are getting so mad about this”.  This may well be why I am asking my guests to select the books and not taking this challenge on myself!

The Decades Library is also a bookshop as I have set up a store page over at Bookshop.Org.  If you fancy reading any of the recommendations made by my Decades curators you can purchase the books through this handy link: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library    10% of the cover price goes towards supporting independent booksellers.  This is an affiliate link.

This week the Decades curator hat passes to Rod Reynolds. Back in the early days of Grab This Book I was offered the opportunity to read Rod’s first Charlie Yates book. The Dark Inside, which utterly blew me away. Two more books followed in the series and I loved them both. The Guardian described the books as “pitch-perfect American noir” which is a near perfect way to describe how I felt when I read them.   Last year Rod released his first novel set in the UK, London based Blood Red City was another terrific page turner and his latest, Black Reed Bay continues to set a high bar for tension and thrills.

You can see all Rod’s books here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rod-Reynolds/e/B01BHZGQ5E?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1628926594&sr=8-1

 

DECADES

 

1980s – The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke

 

Burke is arguably the finest prose sytlist in all of crime fiction, writing in a lyrical, poetic and mystical way about violent, damaged and gritty individuals. This is the first in his Robicheaux series, which I think is his best work. Although I can take or leave the titular protagonist, there’s no character I enjoy more in crime fiction than his fearsome partner, Clete Purcel.

 

 

 

 

 

1990s – 1974 by David Peace

 

The first of Peace’s Red Riding Quartet, a monumental achievement from a writer who is criminally underappreciated (at least in his home country). An intense portrayal of journalist Eddie Dunford’s harrowing journey through greed, murder and obsession to the dark heart of 1970s Yorkshire.

 

 

 

 

 

2000s – The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy

 

The book that changed everything for me with its raw power. I’d never read Ellroy before and, in retrospect, this is the worst place to start because it represents the high (or low, depending on your personal taste) point of his ‘telegraphic’, jive-heavy style, making it at times almost impenetrable to the uninitiated. At first, I had no idea what I was reading, and it made no sense. By the end of it, I wanted to be a writer.

 

 

 

 

2010 – November Road by Lou Berney

 

A book set in the aftermath of the JFK assassination was always going to catch my eye because it’s the same territory Ellroy’s best work treads. But this is a very different type of novel, one with that examines what happens when a lifelong mobster realises he’s run out of road with the bosses – just as he falls in love for the first time. A beautiful and beautifully written novel about life, regret and the redemptive power of love.

 

 

 

 

2020 – We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker

 

 

All I can say about this book is that if you’ve already met Duchess Day Radley, you know why it’s here. And if you haven’t, you’re missing out on a novel that raises the bar for modern crime fiction.

 

 

 

 

 

My thanks to Rod for sharing his selections. I have never read James Ellroy so this is clearly something I need to rectify as soon as possible.  The latest consequence of Rod reading The Cold Six Thousand is called Black Reed Bay, the first book in the Detective Casey Wray series and published by Orenda Books.  You can order Rod’s new book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08T65D9XX/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 12

Half-Past Tomorrow – Chris McGeorge

Shirley Steadman, a 70 year old living in a small town in the North East of England, loves her volunteer work at the local hospital radio. She likes giving back to the community, and even more so, she likes getting out of the house. Haunted by the presence of her son, a reluctant Royal Navy officer who was lost at sea, and still in the shadow of her long dead abusive husband, she doesn’t like being alone much.

One day, at the radio station, she is playing around with the equipment and finds a frequency that was never there before. It is a pirate radio station, and as she listens as the presenter starts reading the news. But there is one problem – the news being reported is tomorrows. Shirley first thinks it is a mere misunderstanding – a wrong date. But she watches as everything reported comes true. At first, Shirley is in awe of the station, and happily tunes in to hear the news.

But then the presenter starts reporting murders – murders that happen just the way they were reported.

And Shirley is the only one who can stop them.

 

My thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the blog tour. I recieved a review copy from the publishers ahead of the tour.

 

Half-Past Tomorrow drew me in the second I read the blurb – a radio news report which is giving tomorrow’s news stories? Knowing 24 hours in advance of events which are going to happen is unsettling but to learn a murder will take place? What would anyone do in those circumstances?

Fortunately this dilemma doesn’t fall on the readers but lands at the feet of Shirley Steadman. Shirley is a pensioner who volunteers at her local hospital radio. She has had a tough life but the death of her abusive and dominating husband, coupled with the tragic suicide of her son have given Shirley a peace and inner steel which makes her a feisty and determined principle character.

Shirley is at the hospital when she finds an old radio set as she waits to begin her show. While spinning through the frequencies she finds a pirate radio station Mallet which heads into the news as Shirley is listening. She realises this station is VERY local to her home in the North East of England and enjoys listening to an amateur broadcaster sharing enthusiasm over local events.

The last story on the news tells of a local baker falling off a ladder outside his shop. Shirley hadn’t heard about the event and doesn’t give it much thought until the next day when her son-in-law also recounts the story about the baker but makes it clear it had just happened. Shirley heard about the ladder fall before it happened – she needs to understand how.

Worried she may be mistaken, Shirley tries to talk it through with her son Gabe. Gave died at the start of the book, took his own life while at sea. Yet he sometimes appears to Shirley in her kitchen and once she got passed the initial hysterical screaming she began to speak with her when he appears.

Half-Past Tomorrow shows how Shirley becomes obsessed by the pirate radio show and its predictive news reports. Despite health issues restricting her investigations Shirley doggedly chases down the reported incidents and soon becomes entangled in a way she could not have predicted.

Safe to say I had a lot of fun reading this book, I had absolutely no idea how Chris McGeorge was going to find a way Shirley could “solve” her pirate radio mystery. That need to see how the story would play out kept me hooked.  There were more than a few surprises along the way that I really enjoyed too.

 

Half-Past Tomorrow is published by Orion and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08V95SMCB/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

 

 

 

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August 8

Holiday Reads: No Time To Cry and The Long Drop

The pouring rain outside and the fact it is my birthday week mean that Summer is over. I have been able to get a few relaxing days away from the day job and this quiet time has allowed me opportunity to blitz my TBR backlog.  So I now have a few reviews to write and I am keen to do some catching up – double review time again.

 

No Time To Cry – James Oswald

Undercover ops are always dangerous, but DC Constance Fairchild never expected things to go this wrong.

Returning to their base of operations, an anonymous office in a shabby neighbourhood, she finds the bloodied body of her boss, and friend, DI Pete Copperthwaite. He’s been executed – a single shot to the head.

In the aftermath, it seems someone in the Met is determined to make sure that blame for the wrecked operation falls squarely on Con’s shoulders. She is cut loose and cast out, angry and alone with her grief… right until the moment someone also tries to put a bullet through her head.

There’s no place to hide, and no time to cry.

 

 

First published back in July 2018, No Time To Cry was the first in a new series from James Oswald. Book 2 (Nothing to Hide) has been released and I understand the third book will be released before the end of this year. Which means I have a couple of months to read Nothing to Hide so I can roll straight into the third book – I absolutely loved No Time To Cry and I know know I don’t want to miss out on the Constance Fairchild novels.

Constance (Con) Fairchild finds her boss Pete Copperthawite murdered in the rooms the police had been using to run an undercover operation. As the most recent visitor to the rooms her colleagues question whether Constance was sufficiently careful to ensure she had not been followed thus blowing Pete’s cover. Pressure mounts on Con and to ensure her safety she takes herself away from work and heads back to her childhoom home.

Not that Con has missed home, she has had a complicated upbringing and her career choice is not one her family could understand. However, a childhood friend has asked Con to help find her younger sister who seems to have disappeared and hasn’t been in contact with her family. As Con digs deeper into the missing girl’s background she uncovers troubling evidence to suggest there is very good reason behind her absence. But this is not information which powerful people will allow to come to light and Con finds herself in even more danger than before.

Fans of James Oswald know he writes a great thriller and No Time To Cry is no exception. I flew through this one in a couple of days and had a huge grin on my face when a cameo appearance from a character in the Inspector McLean books suddenly popped up in Constance’s world.

Annoyed at myself for not reading this book sooner – terrific fun, I need more Constance Fairchild on my shelves.

 

The Long Drop – Denise Mina

Glasgow, 1957. It is a December night and William Watt is desperate. His family has been murdered and he needs to find out who killed them.

He arrives at a bar to meet Peter Manuel, who claims he can get hold of the gun that was used. But Watt soon realises that this infamous criminal will not give up information easily.

Inspired by true events, The Long Drop follows Watt and Manuel along back streets and into smoky pubs, and on to the courtroom where the murder trial takes place. Can Manuel really be trusted to tell the truth? And how far will Watt go to get what he wants?

 

 

 

This is utterly compelling reading. The Long Drop takes the real events which surround the Peter Manuel case and Denise Mina weaves her story around it to recount a dark period from Glasgow’s past.

In the late 1950’s Glasgow was a dark and dangerous place, Denise Mina depicts the life of the city, the atmosphere and its citizens astonishingly well – you feel yourself drawn into the book and the world around you fades away as masterly storytelling builds a new environment around you.

Peter Manuel is known as one of the most notorious serial killers. He hanged for his crimes but it seems there was always the belief he committed more murders than he faced trial for. In this book we see Manuel up close, the story addresses what he may have been like to those around him and the lengths he would go to to convince the world of his innocence. We also get focus on William Watt, his family have been murdered and he will do anything to find who was responsible.

It is a story of an obsession for the truth.  The writing is so tight, not a word seems wasted as this short but powerful story drills down into the men at the heart of a dark, dark incident. Not a crime thriller which you would read for “fun” and the subject matter dictates this is a disturbing tale too. But it is a fascinating read and one I couldn’t stop reading once I had started it.

 

 

 

 

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August 7

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Karen Sullivan

The Decades Library is growing beyond anything I could have imagined. I started this project back in January when it was dark outside and the rain was lashing against my windows. Now here we are in August, it is still dark outside and the rain is still lashing against my windows (I live in Scotland) but every week since February a new guest curator has joined me to add new books to my Library.

The five books which follow will bring the number of Decades book recommendations made by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists to 130 – there have been fewer than five titles nominated by more than one person. As readers we are blessed for choice.

What is the Decades Library? My guests are all given the same challenge.  Nominate five books to my Decades Library which they consider to be essential reading. But they can only pick one book per decade over five consecutive decades. Easy?  Have a go and see if you can pick five of your favourite books from a fifty year publication span.

A further reminder that the Library is now also a Decades Bookshop over at Bookshop.org.  You can buy any of the nominated titles through this link (which is an affiliate site): https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

 

This week’s guest needs no introduction (which is lucky as I forgot to ask her to write one).  If I say Orenda Books you will surely know the force of nature that is Karen Sullivan.

Karen founded Orenda Books in 2014 and the first books were published in 2015.  In 2016, Karen was a Bookseller Rising Star, and Orenda Books was shortlisted for the IPG Nick Robinson Newcomer Award in 2015 and 2016. Orenda won the CWA Crime & Mystery Publisher of the Year Dagger in 2020 and were a regional finalist for the Small Press of the Year Award in the British Book Awards in 2021.

 

DECADES

 

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)

The ultimate coming-of-age novel, classic children’s literature that appeals to readers of all ages. Anne Shirley is an unforgettable character – tragic, unwittingly feminist, eternally optimistic, accident-prone, proud, intelligent, funny – and the snapshot of (my native) rural Canada at the turn of the century is immensely evocative. My own personal manta is drawn from this book: ‘Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?’

 

 

 

The Rainbow, D H Lawerence (1915)

D H Lawrence won my teenaged heart while I was at university, appearing to encapsulate what I perceived to be the human condition and all its existential angst in every book. This is a book about love in many forms, about relationships, about desire, and the fact that it was banned when it was published indicates its forward thinking. It also gives us an invaluable insight into life in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (1920)

My high-school English teacher described this book as ‘ravishing’, and the story and its themes have stayed in my mind ever since. It’s about desire and deception, about rebelling against society and the decimation of innocence – a metaphor for the growing disillusionment about the  ‘American Dream’. Its sophistication is breathtaking.

 

 

 

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)

Another children’s book, and one that lays bare the struggles of American settlers, with bold, inspirational themes of survival, the importance of family, and the power of hope. It’s a classic for good reason, and although there are often shocking and dated attitudes towards Native Americans, it does serve a purpose in enlightening us to cultural beliefs and mores at that time, fed largely by ignorance and fear, and is upon reflection a lot more positive than it might seem. Few can fail to be inspired by this book.

 

 

 

 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (1943)

A beautifully written coming-of-age story about a young immigrant girl in early 20th-century Brooklyn, it embodies the bright, often blind hope of the American Dream, and highlights a period of vast social change. Its inspirational messages – that anything is possible if you persevere, believe – provided comfort to and renewed determination for the American people during the war.

 

 

 

 

It’s been an absolute delight to have Karen take part in my Decades challenge. When I was struggling to get Grab This Book established Karen was hugely supportive and entrusted me with early review copies of the first Orenda books which were making their way into the world. Watching Orenda Books grow has been a joy and Karen’s support and encouragement still keeps me going.

 

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 6

A Rattle of Bones – Douglas Skelton

In 1752, Seamus a’Ghlynne, James of the Glen, was executed for the murder of government man Colin Campbell. He was almost certainly innocent.

When banners are placed at his gravesite claiming that his namesake, James Stewart, is innocent of murder, reporter Rebecca Connolly smells a story. The young Stewart has been in prison for ten years for the brutal murder of his lover, lawyer and politician Murdo Maxwell, in his Appin home. Rebecca soon discovers that Maxwell believed he was being followed prior to his murder and his phones were tapped.

Why is a Glasgow crime boss so interested in the case? As Rebecca keeps digging, she finds herself in the sights of Inverness crime matriarch Mo Burke, who wants payback for the damage caused to her family in a previous case.

Set against the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, A Rattle of Bones is a tale of injustice and mystery, and the echo of the past in the present.

 

My thanks to Polygon for providing a review copy of A Rattle of Bones.

 

When you’re selecting a new book to read you always hope you pick one which you will enjoy. This is particularly important if you are selecting an audiobook. The time you expect to devote towards reading a story means you will be looking for a rewarding return for that investment. What can you do to reduce the risk of selecting a disappointing read?

Well I recommend picking up a book by Douglas Skelton, he always delivers a tight, gripping thriller. Skelton will perfectly balance tension, humour and the human engagement needed from characters to make them authentic and believable. He consistently delivers and with his Rebecca Connolly series he seems to be hitting new highs.

A Rattle of Bones is the third book in the series, you don’t need to have read either of the two previous novels to enjoy this one. Rebecca is a journalist working for a news agency in Inverness. Events in Thunder Bay and The Blood is Still have left her somewhat rattled and there has been some turmoil she has had to endure but Rebecca is made of strong stuff and plugs on. What she did not anticipate was a direct threat to her safety when a face-to-face confrontation takes an unexpected turn. Someone doesn’t like Rebecca’s reporting of certain events and makes it clear he will be watching and wating for the chance to make her pay.

It’s a chilling opening to the story and places a constant threat over Rebecca for the whole story.

Personal threats don’t stop Rebecca from working and she finds herself investigating the imprisonment of James Stewart, convicted for killing his lover, the politician Murdo Maxwell.  Maxwell’s body was found in a locked room in his home, Stewart was unconcious beside him with a bloody poker in his hand and it was clear to the police and prosecutors that Stewart killed Maxwell while under the influence of drugs – his sentencing was but a formality.

Ten years later there are now doubts over Stewart’s guilt. Banners have been erected which suggest there has been a miscarriage of justice – Stewart is innocent. Rebecca agrees to run a story which alerts readers to the possibility James Stewart did not murder Murdo Maxwell, she then finds herself in a lawyer’s office under the promise he can cast further light on the matter.

Rebecca is about to become caught up in a complicated drama which has its roots over a decade earlier. Long memories, rivalries and personal pride make people do unpredicable things and Rebecca is caught up in the mix. Oh and don’t forget…someone is out to get her.

If every book was as enjoyable as this I’d be a happy reader.

 

A Rattle of Bones is published by Polygon and is available now in paperback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08Q3M2L36/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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August 4

The Night She Disappeared (audiobook) – Lisa Jewell

2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.

Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.

The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

She never returns.

2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.

‘DIG HERE’ . . .

A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.

 

I recieved a review copy of The Night She Disappeared from Penguin Random House. I’d like to thank Georgie Fenn for the opportunity to listen to this brilliant new audiobook.

 

Regular visitors will know I love getting lost in a new audiobook. Sometimes however, the day job can get a bit chaotic and I need to give full focus to that and an audiobook takes longer than expected to complete.

Not being able to listen to The Night She Disappeared as frequently as I wanted has been extremely frustrating. I was delighted this week’s holiday gave me the chance to finally spend some quality time with this cracking audiobook production.

In 2017 Kim’s daughter Tallulah left her infant son with Kim in order to go out for an evening with her boyfriend and her college friends. The pair did not return home that evening and in the morning Kim is becoming increasingly worried.

A jump ahead to 2019 sees crime writer Sophie moving to the same village as Kim and Tallulah lived. She realises that she recognises Kim and recalls the story of her missing daughter, there are still appeals for help in finding Tallulah. Her curiosity is raised and even more so while exploring the area she finds an abandoned house and a sign suggesting someone should “Dig Here”.

That drew me in. Dual timeline stories are a bit of a favourite of mine at the moment. In the right hands an author can tease out reveals, drop red herring and keep vital information back from the reader (listener in my case).  This means my perception of different characters will swing wildly from supportive to distrusting and will almost certainly ensure I have no clue where the journey will take us.  Lisa Jewell is clearly an author that revels in this position of power – she had me second guessing everything!

Getting to know Tallulah in when she was the focus of the narrative POV was a bittersweet experience as we know she disappeared after a night out. Is she AWOL? Dead? Hiding from her mother and son?

Her relationship with her boyfriend (who is also father to her son) is “complicated” and he is also missing. Is he a victim too or does the fact he has a bit of a temper mean we need to treat him with suspicion?  What about Scarlet? She is at Tallulah’s college and the pair have little in common yet seem to be bonding – at Scarlet’s decision.

So many questions. And through Sophie in 2019 we feel we may be seeing some of our questions answered. Or not. More secrets and mystery will follow here and Lisa Jewell is toying with us as readers.

It’s a story which does give a satisfying resolution. Having being wrong with many of my predicted outcomes I felt I was given a fair reward for the investment in the story.

All audiobook reviews need to include reference to the narrator too. A good book is too frequently let down by a listeners niggle with the voice they choose to listen to for over ten hours.

The good news here is that Joanne Froggatt delivers The Night She Disappeared brilliantly.  I knew she had nailed it when early in proceedings Kim visits some of Scarlet’s friends and Joanne Froggatt nailed their disinterested vague attitudes. Oh I was raging at them!

My first time listening (or reading) Lisa Jewell. The Night She Disappeared ensures I will be back for more.

 

The Night She Disappeared is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format.

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on The Night She Disappeared (audiobook) – Lisa Jewell
July 30

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Nick Triplow

So soon we are back! I have the honour of welcoming a new guest to Grab This Book today.  Another booklover who has five wonderful books to add to the shelves of my Decades Library. Five books which Nick Triplow feels no self-respecting book collection should be without.

Before I allow Nick to introduce himself and share his five chosen books I will quickly recap the Decades challenge.  In assembling the Decades Library I ask each guest to nominate ANY five books they would like to see added to the collection.  However, there may only be one book per decade over any five consecutive decades. So it’s five books from a 50 year publication span. I want the Library to give readers the best reading choices.

I would also like to remind you that all the books which feature in my Decades collection can be purchased through the Grab This Book Decades page at bookshop.org :   https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library     This is an affiliate site and 10% of the cover price will go towards supporting Indy Bookshops.  I also get a small cut. You can visit the site to see all the books which have been nominated by my guests. If you see a book which takes your fancy you can see the guest responsible for nominating that book (I have added this info) and return here to read their original post.  The search function in the top left of this page is your friend.

This week brings news that Nick Triplow will be writing a forward to two Ted Lewis novels which will be returned to print by No Exit Press. E-books are out next month for Jack Carter’s Law and Billy Rags, paperbacks following in Spring 2022. I am thrilled that Nick is joining me today so it’s time I shuffled off and handed him the microphone…

DECADES

 

I’m Nick Triplow, author of the biography of noir fiction pioneer, Ted Lewis, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir; the South London crime noir novel, Frank’s Wild Years; and the social history books Family Ties, The Women They Left Behind, Distant Water, and Pattie Slappers; well as short stories, including Face Value, a winner of the Northern Crime Short Story competition.

Along with Nick Quantrill and Nikki East, I’m a founder/director of Hull Noir Crime Fiction Festival and co-host of Hull Noir’s Three Book Friday (Hull Noir YouTube channel). I’m a graduate of Middlesex University’s English, Writing & Publishing degree and the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam.

Originally from South East London, I moved to Barton upon Humber (still south of the river) in 2001.

 

 

 

PHILIP LARKIN – THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS 1964

Larkin had arrived in Hull in 1955. Interviewed some years later, he said, ‘I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things.’ Exactly that. The poems are about the reality of Larkin’s life and reflections on the society that surrounds hi. They have a sense of Saturday teatime melancholy: a recognition of how time and tide diminishes each of us and of the details that matter fleetingly along the way.

Many of the poems in The Whitsun Weddings have an anecdotal, conversational tone. The language is colloquial, the poems entirely accessible. To capture a sense of the place and how perfectly Larkin walks us into the lives of people mostly like us, I can recommend watching Dave Lee’s short film of Here, read by Tom Courtenay:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZEgh5vhPVk]

 

JOHN LE CARRE – TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY 1974

In John Le Carré’s classic cold war novel, the spymaster George Smiley has a classic ‘tell’. In moments of reflection, the man charged with hunting for the Soviet agent buried deep inside the British secret intelligence service, cleans his glasses with ‘the fat end of his tie’, a character trait, from which we infer that somehow, beneath the multiple layers of his intellect, Smiley has access to a deeper tier of perception than those around him.

I’m on my third copy, the other two having fallen apart on the road somewhere. It has been, by turns, a companion novel on suburban commutes, through sleepless nights in box rooms in shared flats, in London parks on summer afternoons. You get the picture: it’s a book for life.

 

 

TED LEWIS – GBH 1980

 

As Ted Lewis’s biographer, I should register an interest.

The critical reappraisal that followed the No Exit Press reissue of GBH last year rightly regarded it as an overlooked noir classic. A brief biographical note: by 1979, Lewis was unwell, coping with diabetes and the effects of alcoholism. Taking himself to the places GBH inhabits demanded commitment to the depths of his own imagination and experience. This is the book about which Derek Raymond, himself no stranger to dark themes in his writing, wrote, was ‘a novel as direct as it is stunning … which never relaxes its grip for a paragraph … an example of how dangerous writing can really be when it is done properly.’

 

 

 

PAT BARKER – REGENERATION 1991

A quite extraordinary piece of historical fiction that says as much to us now about the insanity of mental health and its treatment and it does the course and causes of the trauma among First World War combatants, and the humanity of the doctors, namely W.H. Rivers, who pioneered approaches that regard patients as individuals, rather than the sum of their symptoms.

It’s a superbly written story whose historical detail blends seamlessly into the narrative texture. It’s immediate, alarming, thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining. It’s also a go-to for me as a writer. If I’m stuck, I’ll take Regeneration down from the shelf and ask: how does Pat do it?

 

 

 

CATHI UNSWORTH – BAD PENNY BLUES 2009

Republished by Strange Attractor Press earlier this year with a striking mod-noir cover design and an introduction by author, music journalist and cultural critic, Greil Marcus, Bad Penny Blues is a fictionalised account of the case of a killer (or killers) who, between June 1959 and February 1965, murdered eight women and left their bodies in or along the Thames in West London.

Seen through the eyes of Stella Reade, a young art student and designer haunted by visions of the murdered women and Pete Bradley, an aid to the CID at Notting Hill Police Station transferred to the notorious West End Central, Cathi Unsworth shows what the crime novel, particularly one so committed to the truth, is capable of. It’s complex and coercive, a classic London noir.

 

 

My thanks to Nick for these five brilliant recommendations. Regeneration released when I was a young bookseller working my way through university holidays.  I remember selling dozens of copies and every single time I rang a sale of Regeneration through the till I was reminded of my colleagues mocking me as when I first heard about it as I thought it was a new book about Doctor Who. I was very much a young geek in training – happy days.

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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July 27

Girls Who Lie (Forbidden Iceland 2) – Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she’s taken her own life … until her body is found on the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected fifteen-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Fifteen years earlier, a desperate new mother lies in a maternity ward, unable to look at her own child, the start of an odd and broken relationship that leads to a shocking tragedy.

Police officer Elma and her colleagues take on the case, which becomes increasingly complex, as the number of suspects grows and new light is shed on Maríanna’s past – and the childhood of a girl who never was like the others…

 

My thanks to Karen at Orenda Books for my review copy and to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to host this leg of the Girls Who Lie Blog Tour.

 

After last year’s introduction to the Forbidden Iceland series (The Creak on the Stairs) it is a welcome return for Elma the Icelandic police officer who is the lead character and the investigator tasked with these challenging investigations.

Seven months before our story begins a single mother (Maríanna) left her house and walked out on her teenage daughter. At least this is how things appeared, Maríanna had left a note for her daughter which seemed to apologise for her decicion to leave. She never returned and given that it was common knowledge Maríanna had struggled with parenting and had trouble bonding with her daughter nobody really questionned the initial decicion that she had taken her own life.

Back to the present and Elma is in an Icelandic cave and looking at Maríanna’s body. The seven months have not left Maríanna in an easily recognisable state but the cave protected her body from many of the elements and the police pathologist is certain that Maríanna did not take her own life.  The police are now looking at a murder investigation but seven months on many memories are clouded and the questions which should have been asked when Maríanna first disappeared are less easily answered.

Interspersed between the chapters which track Elma’s investigation are some flashback/memory sections where a young mother recounts the problems she is experiencing. She did not wish to be a mother and she does not think she can do it.  As her child grows older the subsequent sequences show the pair have no relationship and the mother cannot control (or even communicate with) her daugher. These are awkward and uncomfortable reads and while it sounds like you are reading Maríanna’s story you just cannot be sure this is the case.

As for Maríanna’s daughter. When she was young she would do short foster stays with a family. This would be at times when Maríanna was unable to cope, when she went off the rails for a period and just week on week. The foster family hoped Maríanna would put her daughter to them permanently but Maríanna never made that step and kept bringing her daughter home week on week.  Once Maríanna walked out on her apparent suicide the foster arrangement became permanent. Now there is a new family structure in place, a happy family, and the police coming round to ask questions will not be condusive to a quiet and relaxing situation. Expect people to lie to protect their positions and the life they have established for themselves – afterall, the book is call Girls Who Lie.

When you’re reading translated fiction and you totally forget you are reading translated fiction then you know you have been well cared for by a top notch translator. All the plaudits to Victoria Cribb for taking Girls Who Lie and bringing it to the English speakers (readers) who would otherwise have missed out on Elma’s second outing.

It feels a slow burn at times and Elma even notes  but the journey through Girls Who Lie is absolutely worth it and I hope you find you enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

 

Girls Who Lie is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08T5VZ6MK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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July 25

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Marina Sofia

My favourite part of the week is when I get to share another Decades post. Over the past few weeks I have received more selections which I shall share with you soon and will ensure Decades continues well into August. I still have a long wishlist of guests I would love to join me in the future.

The only downside to having a pipeline of new guest posts is that I know which books are coming up each week. So imagine my surprise and delight when Decades left the building and a selection of five titles appeared on Marina Sophia’s blog over at Finding Time To Write. I offered Marina the opportunity to make her selections official and join me as a guest to curate her titles into the Library.  But I also offered the opportunity to make five different selections. So this week you can scroll down for the five “official” Library additions but also use the links provided to see the initial five too – it’s a double win for sharing the booklove.

If the Decades Library is new to you then let me quickly explain what happens.  I am populating the Ultimate Library starting from zero books and inviting booklovers to join me each week to add new books to the Library.  Each guest has just two rules to follow when making their selections:

1 – Select ANY five books
2 – You can only select one book per decade from any five consecutive decades.

Easy – five books published over a fifty year span.

Time for me to step back and allow Marina Sophia to introduce herself and to share her five choices.

 

DECADES

Five Books in Five Decades: 1920-1960

Translated Fiction

 

I should confess that I am a thief! I enjoyed the concept of Decades so much that I ‘borrowed’ it for my own blog, using the five most recent decades. In an attempt to halt any further poaching, Gordon kindly invited me to participate in the proper version of it. I couldn’t resist, since it gives me the chance to add to the favourites I missed last time round.

I started using the pseudonym Marina Sofia for all of my literary endeavours because I was working in a very competitive and strait-laced corporate environment at the time, but now I’ve become so fond of the name that it even features on the novels that I translate. I write mainly poetry and crime fiction, although I have yet to publish a full-length volume of either. For many years I was an avid reviewer for Crime Fiction Lover before embarking on a third (fourth? fifth?) career as publisher of translated crime fiction with a social edge at Corylus Books. So it might surprise you that I did not pick crime fiction for each decade, although I did focus entirely on translated literature. I also chose five earlier decades than I featured on my blog, since these decades are among my favourites in world literature.

 

1920s

The Threepenny Opera – Bertolt Brecht

The First World War and its aftermath featured quite heavily in the literature of the Roaring Twenties, so I was going to suggest The Forest of the Hanged by Liviu Rebreanu (1922), one of the most poignant descriptions of having to fight against your countrymen when you are part of a declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the English translation is obsolete and out of print, so I cannot recommend it with a clear conscience. Instead, I will suggest a far-better known piece of work. Bertolt Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper (1928) is a translation and modernisation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, so is supposedly set in London, but it describes the folly, hedonism and poverty of Berlin during the Weimar Republic superlatively well – and in fact, any society undergoing profound social transformation, as I discovered with Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. Better still, go and see this performed if you can, because the Kurt Weill music is fantastic!

 

 

1930s

 

Vol de Nuit – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It might surprise you to know that under duress I might have to confess that my favourite book in the whole wide world is The Little Prince, which always makes me cry no matter how many times I reread it. However, that was published in the 1940s, so instead I’ve picked another book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) (1931). With its themes of loyalty, courage and sacrificing individual lives for a greater cause, it was a timely novel which hit all the right nerves and become a great bestseller, was turned into a film and Guerlain even had a perfume created in its honour, with an iconic inverted heart bottle.

 

 

1940s

A Shameful Life – Dazai Osamu

Another decade, another war to ponder over and few do it better than Japanese writer Dazai Osamu. His two major novels, which are still hugely successful and influential in Japan, were both published immediately after the war and are tales of defeat and despair. Setting Sun (1947) is not just the portrait of a family, but also describes the directionless anomie of post-war Japan, while No Longer Human (1948) is far more personal – in fact, the author committed suicide shortly after completing it. There is flicker of hope in the former novel, while the latter is relentless in its gloom. Nevertheless, I would recommend the latter, not least because it’s out in an exhilarating fresh translation by Mark Gibeau under the title A Shameful Life.

 

 

1950s:

The Waiting Years – Enchi Fumiko

After so many men, it’s finally time to bring in a woman author, and I’ll stick to Japan. Enchi Fumiko’s The Waiting Years (1957) is a subtle study of unequal marriages and the challenges of ageing for women. Although Japanese society still discriminates against women, this book shows us how much worse it used to be a few decades earlier. The devoted wife of a government official has to not only resign herself to him taking on a second wife or concubine but also has to actively select the suitable bride herself. This novel tells the story of how they accommodate themselves to each other over time, in a restrained, beautiful style, sad, without soap-opera melodramas.

 

 

 

 

1960s:

The Sculptor’s Daughter – Tove Jansson

 

I had to fit in one of my favourite authors somehow, even though she wasn’t quite as productive in the 1960s as one might have expected. Tove Jansson’s Moomin days were largely behind her (published in the 1940s and 50s), while her novels for adults started coming out in the 1970s. However, she did publish a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories in 1968 entitled The Sculptor’s Daughter, which give a fascinating insight into her life as the daughter of two extremely creative parents. Needless to say, Tove is a painter both with her brushes and with her words: nobody can capture the beauty and loneliness of snowfall quite like her!

 

 

 

 

You can find me on my somewhat optimistically named blog Finding Time to Write or far too frequently on Twitter as @MarinaSofia8 and do please follow us also at @CorylusB.

 

My thanks to Marina for sharing her selections and be sure to check out her original post too.  Although these five are the titles which will officially enter the Library, the selections are part of the fun too and there can never be too much booklove!

 

Something new now. I have set up a Decades Library over at Bookshop.org .  Over the next few days I will add all the previous Decades selections to a Grab This Book Decades store. This will allow everyone to see all the selections which have been made since I began this challenge back in January. Sophia’s selections are already uploaded.

Grab This Book Decades allows you opportunity to purchase any of the books which have been added to the Decades Library.  I also list each person that nominated the books so you can return here if you want to learn more about why any title was nominated.  It is an affiliate account and this means that 10% of the cover price of the book goes to support indy bookshops, if you buy through my Decades Library shop I also get paid a percentage. I am not going to retire on any sum I may receive from this but any way to support independent booksellers is a bonus as far as I am concerned.  The Decades Library is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Marina Sofia