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Songs By Dead Girls – Lesley Kelly

When Scotland’s leading virologist goes missing, Mona and Paterson from the Health Enforcement Team are dispatched to London to find him. In a hot and unwelcoming city, Mona has to deal with a boss who isn’t speaking to her, placate the Professor’s over-bearing assistant, and outwit the people who will stop at nothing to make sure the academic stays lost.

Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Bernard is searching for a missing prostitute, while Maitland is trying to keep the Chair of the Parliamentary Virus Committee from finding out quite how untidy the HET office is.

My thanks to Ruth Killick for my review copy and the chance to join the blog tour.

Songs By Dead Girls takes the reader back to Lesley Kelly’s virus riddled depiction of Edinburgh first encountered in the fabulous The Health of Strangers. I was a huge fan of THoS when I read it last year (my review is here) so I was delighted to hear Lesley was re-visiting the dystopian world she had created.

Life in Edinburgh is not too dissimilar to our reality, but a terrible virus has had devastating impact upon the population and regular health screenings are required to ensure everyone remains virus-free. The HET guys are tasked with ensuring people attend their screenings and chasing down potential defaulters. Songs By Dead Girls they face a significant challenge as the primary expert on the virus has vanished just ahead of his scheduled check-up. He is due to make a presentation to the Scottish Parliament so his absence will soon be noticed – can the HET track down their missing expert without the media finding out what they are up to?

The constant threat of the virus hangs over all characters but it is fascinating to see people adapting quickly and viewing the danger as a frustration – totally believable. The story balances the HET duties and responsibilities with their family/personal lives too. These “away from work” scenes make the characters come to life for me, they are more than the day job and they have loved ones, problems and loneliness to contend with too – that engagement and buy in will keep me returning for more pages, another chapter.

Songs By Dead Girls was a brilliant read. It was fun, suitably puzzling, had several engaging plot threads which kept my attention and I love the dysfunctional HET family – they range from competent to bonkers and are so entertaining. Following their growth and development over the two books has been a treat and now that I know there is scope for more HET stories I really hope that this will happen (please).

If you enjoy a twisty thriller with engaging characters then Songs By Dead Girls is an absolute must read. I love this twisted world that Lesley Kelly has created and she delivers the fun along while also keeping an undercurrent of danger for her wonderful cast.

Songs By Dead Girls is published by Sandstone Press and is available in digital and paperback format. You can get your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Girls-Health-Strangers-Thriller-ebook/dp/B076WDH824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524854543&sr=8-1&keywords=lesley+kelly

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June 17

The Health of Strangers – Lesley Kelly

Nobody likes the North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team, least of all the people who work for it. An uneasy mix of seconded Police and health service staff, Mona, Bernard and their colleagues stem the spread of the Virus, a mutant strain of influenza, by tracking down people who have missed their monthly health check. Now two young female students are missing, raising question after question for the HET. Why were they drinking in a biker’s bar? Who are the mysterious Children of Camus cult? And why is the German government interfering in the investigation? Mona and Bernard need to fight their way through lies and intrigue, and find the missing girls – before anyone else does.

My thanks to Keara at Sandstone for my review copy

Meet the North Edinburgh HET.

The HET?

Well that would be the Health Enforcement Team, an agency set up in the aftermath of a viral outbreak which has caused the loss of millions of lives around the world. More on that in a second…

The Health Enforcement Team are our focus in The Health of Strangers and they are an endearing dysfunctional lot. Mona was a cop who was offered the opportunity to move to HET to make a name for herself but was she perhaps shunted off to keep her out the road? Her colleagues Bernard and Maitland also have secrets in their background or their home life so collectively they may not come across as a well-oiled unit. The conflicts and insecurities in the team does give Lesley Kelly plenty of opportunity to get some great dialogue going between her characters – love a bit of bickering between colleagues to lighten the mood!

So the virus – a flu strain which mutated. The first wave contaminated many of the population but lots of people recovered (albeit after much discomfort). But the virus mutated and the next wave claimed many lives – those that had contracted flu in the first viral wave developed an immunity but it also meant they saw friends and loved ones die when the virus returned in its mutated form.

Society changed, some people turned to religion (new Chapters within the churches were formed), pregnancy increased the risk of dying from the virus, different countries adapted better to controlling and containing the spread of the disease. But everyone is now required to attend regular health screenings to ensure they are not unknowingly carrying the virus – miss a screening and you are reported to the HET who are expected to find you and take appropriate action to minimize any potential contamination risks.

I really enjoyed The Health of Strangers. The dystopian setting is nicely balanced not too bleak but Edinburgh is clearly a changed city. There has been an horrific event but life still continues – but it continues differently for the survivors. People are adaptable and the human resilience shines through but they will be suffering and their grief will channel rage and distrust – characterization will make or break a story like this and Lesley Kelly has absolutely nailed it.

I realise that I haven’t even mentioned the missing girls – the ones that have missed their Health Check, the girls that the HET are tasked with finding. The missing girls will the team busy (and frustrated) and this is the crime story at the core of the book, the investigation is well constructed and there are all the distractions and unreliable witnesses to challenge the team.

So The Health of Strangers is a crime thriller in a dystopian and ravaged Edinburgh with a great cast and the pages which virtually turned themselves. I bloody loved it.

The Health of Strangers is published by Sandstone Press and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Health-Strangers-Plague-Lesley-Kelly/191098566X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497565274&sr=8-1&keywords=lesley+kelly

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August 8

Station 11 – Emily St. John Mandel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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