Bernadette
read and liked
Shiela's
review of Too Close to Home:
"After thoroughly enjoying Barclay’s “Bad Move” series featuring zany science fiction writer Zack walker, his thrillers unfortunately don’t appeal to me as much. Barclay seems to try to throw in so many twists and turns that it just doesn’t...more "
"After thoroughly enjoying Barclay’s “Bad Move” series featuring zany science fiction writer Zack walker, his thrillers unfortunately don’t appeal to me as much. Barclay seems to try to throw in so many twists and turns that it just doesn’t...more "
bookshelves: thrillers
Teenager Derek Cutter has a plan. He’ll hide in his next door neighbour and best friend Adam Langley’s house when Adam and his parents go on holidays. Then Derek will have a venue for hooking up with his girlfriend Penny. Things go awry when the Langley family returns home only an hour after leaving but while Derek is trying to work out how to sneak out without being discovered the entire Langley family is killed by intruders. The next morning Derek’s parents, Jim and Ellen, are shocked to learn of their neighbours’ fate and Derek says nothing about what he saw or heard the previous night. However, Jim Cutter learns some things that make him wonder if the Langley family were killed mistakenly.
I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Barclay’s No Time for Goodbye earlier this year and what grabbed me most were the thoughtful depictions of a couple’s individual and joint struggles in a time of crisis for their family. In Too Close to Home the characters were not nearly as engaging. Jim Cutter, whose point of view occupies most of the book, is superficial and he didn’t seem to react authentically to much of what was going on in his life. His response to people he didn’t like (punching them) was juvenile and became dull (he did it four times that I can recall) and overall I was bored by him. I never bought Ellen’s character at all but I can’t really say why without giving away spoilers but I think she waited far too long in terms of the internal logic of the story to share her secret with her husband. The only person who I really thought was depicted well was their teenage son Derek but he wasn’t enough of a pivotal role to hold the book together for me.
I also struggled to maintain interest in the plot. It seemed to take forever to get going and, aside from a few minor surprises, was quite predictable. The killer was obvious to me at the moment of their introduction and, even though it had three twists too many, the end of the convoluted plagiarism thread was easy to forecast. There seemed to me to be too many ideas jammed into this one story and so nothing really got explored terribly deeply and the fact that one thread was a very (very) long and obvious red herring didn’t really work.
The book is not terrible. But, as is the way of things, if something grabs my heart in some way I forgive its flaws and when something doesn’t grab me I do admit to becoming overly picky. For tangible and intangible reasons this book just didn’t grab me and so I’ve undoubtedly gotten hot under the collar about things that don’t really matter. However if you haven’t tried Linwood Barclay yet I’d recommend No Time for Goodbye. ]]>
bookshelves: audiobooks, crime-fiction
One night in the middle of winter a body is discovered in the snow in a small town of Painters Mill, Ohio. The woman appears to have been brutally murdered in a way that reminds everyone of a series of murders which took place in the area 16 years previously. The one person who doesn’t believe the same killer, named the Slaughterhouse Killer at the time, is active again is the town’s Police Chief Kate Burkholder. She shares a secret with two other people about that previous string of murders which makes her almost positive it’s a different killer. Accordingly she points the current investigation in other directions but the town’s other officials bring in outside help to ensure that the investigation focuses on any links to the Slaughterhouse Killer case.
The most engaging aspect of this book for me is the character of Kate Burkholder and the aspects of town life that are depicted through her. The area is home to an Amish community, of which Kate was a member until she was 18, and there is some unrest between the other townspeople and the Amish. Although Kate is no longer Amish her brother and sister are still in the community and overall she respects the Amish community even though she chose not to join it. She is a focal point for relationships between the town’s two divergent cultures and I am a sucker for stories which feature religions different to the one I was brought up with. Kate also struggles for much of the book with the knowledge that her secret may be forcing her to take actions which are not in the best interests of solving the case and I thought this complex issue was portrayed very realistically.
Overall the story was well paced: not screaming along at thriller pace but nor did it plod. There were several minor climax points before the ending and I didn’t lose my attention once. As well as being intrigued by Kate, my interest was held by an array of minor characters, mainly working in the police station. The seeds of a series were most obvious with this introduction of an engaging cast although I can’t envisage endless storylines in this setting.
I did struggle with other parts of the book. I found the burgeoning relationship between Kate and one of the external investigators brought in to help, John Tomasetti, too predictable and a bit soppy. However this probably won’t bother most readers who can’t be as unromantic as me. There were also a few plot points I found stretching my credibility metre. At one point for example someone is framed as the perpetrator of the murders and I just could not buy that everyone but Kate was so gullible as to accept the most unlikely killer. However my real issue was with the overly graphic depictions of the violence visited upon the victims of the killer (because of course one body is never enough). It really didn’t add anything to the story to have several paragraphs of bodily mutilations described for each victim and, rarely for me, I wished I was reading rather than listening so I could skip those bits.
Sworn to Silence offers a really solid story, some engaging characters and an interesting setting (although perhaps I got extra enjoyment because each mention of the wintry snow made me forget, momentarily, our unseasonal heatwave). However I’d like to see the next book avoid the overly gruesome violence.
The book is very well narrated by Katherine McInerney and the audible version that I bought has a nice bonus in the form of an interview with the author. It’s an interview by the publisher so it’s not exactly hard-hitting but does provide an opportunity for Castillo to talk about her research methodologies (she has completed two lots of civilian police training among many other activities) and she gives some good background to the book. Unfortunately she wasn’t asked about the value of the detailed and gruesome depictions of the violent mutilations of the victims and whether or not she thought the book could have been just as good without them. ]]>
bookshelves: crime-fiction
In the early 1950’s in the small South African town of Jacob’s Rest the police captain, Willem Pretorius, is found brutally murdered. When Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate he struggles against the backdrop of the newly instituted racial segregation laws (apartheid) . Pretorius’ Afrikaner family want quick vengeance: they distrust Cooper who is English and assume it is the black community or coloureds who have killed their patriarch. At the same time the Security Police descend on the town and work on the theory that Pretorius was killed by a communist or other political activist and they soon sideline Cooper from their investigation.
Of the many striking things about this book the one that is likely to stay with me longest is the unflichingly honest picture it paints of the time and place in which it is set. So many engrossing details of both the political and physical setting are provided that I easily felt myself in the town of Jacob’s Rest with its roads for whites and its kaffir paths and its segregated Sunday church services with potluck dinners. I felt awkward and angry as the realities of the segregation laws were demonstrated through the story playing out but despite my discomfort I found myself unwilling to leave the place even for a moment and read the entire book in a single sitting.
On top of the setting the book has stunning characters. Cooper struggles with nightmares from his days in the trenches during the war and regularly argues with the voice of his former Sergeant Major. Although white he is distrusted by the powerful Afrikaners but also finds it hard to be accepted by the myriad second class citizens although, ultimately, it is a myriad collection of these people, including captain Pretorius’ Zulu ‘brother’ Constable Samuel Shabalala, who help him with his investigation. But it’s not only the sympathetic characters who are brilliantly depicted: Lieutenant Piet Lapping of the Special Branch is one of the most loathsome men you’ll find in crime fiction, all the more so because he’s entirely believable.
Of course none of this would be worth much if the book didn’t also tell a gripping story and there’s a real old-fashioned whodunnit here. In trying to uncover who killed Willem Pretorius Cooper uncovers a series of crimes that have been left unsolved because the victims weren’t white and also learns of Pretorius’ own moral lapses. He races to find what these events may have had to do with Pretorius’ death as he tries to salvage his own career from being ruined by the Special Branch.
This is yet another book that has everything I look for in my crime fiction and had me alternating between indignant mutterings under my breath, heart-in-my-mouth fear and more than a few tears. ]]>
bookshelves: crime-fiction
In a small Norwegian village the near-naked body of a teenage girl is found at the lake. Once they identify her as Annie Holland Inspector Konrad Sejer and Officer Jacob Skarre learn that everyone liked the athletic young girl who babysat for most of the village’s children although many people mention the change in her behaviour some months before her death. Having precious little in the way of evidence they have to determine whether it was just a normal part of growing up or whether there an event in her life that may have had something to do with her death.
I’ve had this book in my TBR pile for over a year and it may have continued to languish there among all the others but for a post on a blog this week. What struck me particularly was a quote from Fossum about being interested in “‘the good guy who does something evil’ rather than the bogeyman.” Although I have read my share of rampaging serial killer books I generally don’t find them as satisfying as those that explore the circumstances and motivations behind ordinary people reaching some kind of breaking point and so was keen to get stuck into the first Inspector Sejer book translated into English.
I knew absolutely nothing about the story when I started reading (I deliberately didn’t look at the blurb) and was hooked by the twist in the opening. As the book started I thought it was going to be about one sort of crime and just as I geared myself up for that it turned into something completely different. From then on the story was pieced together like an intricate jigsaw with many pieces needing to be turned this way and that before slotting into place to help reveal the whole picture. Without car chases or guns blazing the story managed to be suspense-filled and captivating from beginning to end as Sejer and Skarre teased out important details about village life from its inhabitants
Fossum builds up her characters in a similar way as she does the plot: slowly revealing their secrets, pasts and fears over the course of the book. As you’d expect with the main characters we develop a fairly clear picture of Sejer and Skarre over the course of the novel but the minor characters too are equally well depicted, even if only in one aspect of their lives. Annie’s father’s conversation with the man in charge of the crematorium is one of the most beautiful depictions of a grieving father I have read.
Don’t Look Back has all the things I love most in crime fiction: interesting, believable characters, a puzzle-like plot, a setting I can get lost in and a tangible credibility that sometime somewhere that exact scenario has played itself out in reality. Or will one day. ]]>
bookshelves: crime-fiction
Israel Armstrong is the librarian for the Tumdrum and District Mobile Library, Northern Ireland. One Saturday morning he arrives at Dixon and Pickering's Department Store to set up his acclaimed five-panel touring exhibition of the store's history to find the store’s proprietor, Mr Dixon, has disappeared and someone’s stolen all the cash from the safe. The Police arrest Israel for the crimes and when he's released on bail he has to try to solve the case using techniques gleaned from a random selection of crime fiction and with the help of Ted the local cabbie (and general odd-job man).
If you are looking for a book with an engaging and intriguing plot to keep you up past bed time I would suggest you go elsewhere because you won't find one here. Honestly, the entire thing can be summed up in two paragraphs and even then is a bit contrived to be sensible.
However, if you can put aside your need for story for a couple of hours and just enjoy the beauty of funny, well constructed sentences and some charming characterisations then I highly recommend the book. Sansom was (or possibly still is) a columnist for The Guardian and he brings the same kind of wry, observational wit and love of language to the writing here. Just after he is released on bail Israel is driven back to Tumdrum
Tumdrum! What can you say about Tumdrum?
An impartial observer - and indeed Israel himself until this morning - might perhaps have said that the best thing you could say about Tumdrum was that it wasn't actually offensive...Tumdrum was not really the kind of place that inspired you to want to stick around for too long: it was not the kind of place that threw its arms around visitors and offered you a hundred thousand welcomes: it was more the kind of place that made you want to check the bus timetable to find out when the next bus might be leaving.
But to Israel, now, this morning, Tumdrum was like Shangri-La.
There are some delightful characters in the book too and even though they initially might present as absurd you really ought not dismiss them as such because they all, in their way, offer insight on their world and the people in it. Whether it be the Reverend Roberts who cheekily introduces an element of showmanship into his Easter service or Robbo the local version of a radio shock jock Sansom uses his characters to make some shrewd observations about people.
I suspect It's not the sort of book that everyone will like but language lovers and people who've seen enough dead bodies for a while will enjoy this one. ]]>
bookshelves: crime-fiction
A lifeboat holding the bodies of two dead men washes up on the shore near Ystad, Sweden and Kurt Wallander’s team must investigate. They son discover that the men were dead prior to being placed in the life raft and then that the men were from Latvia. A Major from the Latvian Police comes to Sweden to assist with the investigation but returns home after only a few days. A major event that could be connected then forces Wallander to go to Riga in Latvia where he is like a fish out of water in a murky political world.
I only read my first Henning Mankell book,Faceless Killers, last year (yes, yes I know I am late to the party). While it was a good read it wasn’t a great one and frankly I found Wallander to be a bit of a boring stereotype so I didn’t rush to pick up the next book in the series. However, having bought the first four books all at the same time because they were on special I embarked on The Dogs of Riga, albeit without a lot of enthusiasm. Luckily I found this story much more engrossing and stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it.
One of the things that struck me most about this particular book is what a good job Mankell does of putting readers in the shoes of Wallander the outsider when he travels to Latvia. The mix of curiosity, confusion and fear that Wallander displays seemed very natural to me. Although we often see these traits in amateur sleuths or accidental heroes we don’t often see ‘official’ investigators in situations where this kind of uncertainty would be believable but in this situation it’s entirely credible. The Latvia that Mankell depicts during a time of political upheaval is a world apart from Wallander’s native Sweden and his growing discomfort with the differences is palpable.
Despite all of that I still can’t warm to Wallander as a character. His hypochondria, bowel problems (ugh!) and ‘helpless male’ shtick just don’t grab me and nor does his habit of believing himself in love with various women at the drop of a hat. About the only thing I like about him is his habit of ‘consulting’ his recently deceased colleague and mentor Rydberg which I found quite touching. He is certainly a richly created character but not one I’d care to meet in real life. Far more than the first book in the series this was a book about Wallander alone so the rest of the characters were fairly two-dimensional although as I was so engrossed in the story I didn’t mind this as much as I normally would.
This book is all about politics which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. With the bulk of the book being set in one of the three Baltic states which were, when Wallander wrote it, yet to achieve their full independence from Russia the book is dripping with big picture politics and how various individuals coped with their highly charged environment. Some took advantage of the changing landscape while others fought to return to different points in the past and I was thoroughly intrigued by this depiction. In fact the book reminded me of the cold war thrillers I used to devour than a traditional police procedural.
I haven’t decided if I will read the rest of the books in this series or not as I suspect my real enjoyment of this one might be an aberration due to the subject matter and I don’t know if I can stand another encounter with Wallander’s teenager-like behaviour. Does the man ever grow up? ]]>
bookshelves: crime-fiction, first-reads
Eight years ago David Beck and his wife Elizabeth took their annual trip to the remote place where they had shared their first kiss. That night Beck was beaten and his wife kidnapped. She was found dead several days later, apparently the victim of a serial killer. Beck has since put some semblance of a life back together but it quickly unravels when he starts to receive messages that appear to be from his supposedly dead wife at the same time as two bodies are found in the spot where Elizabeth was kidnapped from. As Beck tries to determine if his wife might be alive after all, the authorities become convinced it was Beck not the serial killer who was responsible for her death and some nefarious characters who seem to know what really happened eight years ago take whatever action is necessary to ensure no one else finds out the truth.
I know it’s an over-used phrase but this book was, for me, a genuine page turner. Sure there are coincidences and plot contrivances to be found but I still read the book as quickly as I physically could, sneaking a few pages whenever I had a spare moment. The original premise hooked me immediately and the story, although far-fetched, sustained its internal logic throughout. There were multiple switches in point of view from first person (Beck’s) to third (virtually everyone else’s at one point or another) which helped give the frantic sense that lots of action was taking place simultaneously.
While the yarn was enjoyable unfortunately the characters were a little too predictable and trite for me to really connect with. Beck is so full of wholesome goodness (he’s a white doctor in a ghetto neighbourhood who never judges anyone not even the pregnant 12-year olds and is still in love with his dead high school sweetheart and is even kind to puppy dogs….) that if I met him in real life I’d want to beat him myself. Almost all of the rest of the characters are stereotypes too: the drug dealer with a heart of gold who helps Beck to go on the run and the evil generic Asian who has seen too much and can kill a man with his bare hands and so on. About the only character who I was really interested in as a person rather than a plot device was Beck’s best friend Shauna the plus size model who “stalks into a room as though it offends her”.
However, in a thriller more than almost any other genre plot is king and I can’t go past the fact that the book kept me interested from the first page to the last. ]]>