Sarah Ward's Blog, page 5

Books for Autumn: Mikita Brottman and Syd Moore

Autumn always brings a new crop of crime fiction that I’m keen to read and it’s always great to discover new authors. I discovered these two books through slightly different means and it’s interesting how authors come to your attention through recommendations or marketing material. 

[image error]An Unexplained Death was given to me as a proof by Richard Fortey, the Independent Alliance rep as he thought I’d like it. I don’t read huge amounts of true crime but it’s always wonderful to discover a well written, personal response to a particular incident. An Unexpected Death is a discursive account of the death of Rey Rivera. The author, Mikita Brottman, first hears of Rey when she sees posters reporting him missing. His body is discovered after a week or so in the apartment block where she lives. The Belvedere was once a famous hotel and, when Rey’s death is deemed a suicide, it prompts Brottman to consider all the deaths the building has seen in its history.

The book is a compelling read. Part memoir, part investigation it gives an insight on how a sudden death can impact on those on the periphery of a tragedy. I don’t want to give too much away about the ending but, with the best books, it’s the journey that’s as interesting as the conclusion. An Unexplained Death is out on the 8th November.

[image error]I was sent by Syd Moore’s publisher a sampler of her forthcoming book. I almost never read samplers as I find them frustratingly short. For the same reason, I never read the taster chapters at the end of a novel for the author’s next book. However, The Strange Casebook is a collection of short stories and reading the one provided in the sampler was a perfect introduction into this author’s writing.

Short stories collections are always hard to review as it’s difficult to summarise them without giving too much away. This collection consists of both ghost stories and tales verging on horror. I think it’s fair to say there’s a touch of Daphne Du Maurier’s influence and I found them absolutely fascinating. I read the stories in one sitting, late at night and they were a perfect autumnal read. The Strange Casebook is out on 31st October.

Review: Gallows Court by Martin Edwards

[image error]Martin Edwards is known as both a writer of crime novels and an expert in Golden Age detection. I’ve enjoyed both areas of his writing and I’m delighted to see a new direction for this author. Gallows Court, uses his knowledge of  classic crime but gives a 1930s setting a contemporary twist.

Rachel Severnake is a rich heiress, the daughter of a renowned hanging judge. She grew up on the desolate island of Gaunt and is renowned for solving the Chorus Girl Murder, to the embarrassment of Scotland Yard. In a smog filled London, women are being brutally killed and young newspaper reporter, Jacob Flint, is looking for a scoop which will make his career. His attempts to contact Rachel are met with rebuff and he becomes convinced she has some insight into the killer.

Historical crime can sometimes suffer from a sentimental view of the period in which it’s set. Edwards deftly avoids this cliché, depicting London as dark, grimy and cowering in the face of killings. It’s difficult throughout the book to decide if Rachel is hero or anti-hero, which greatly adds to the tension, keeping the reader perpetually unsettled. There are hints of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, both in terms of the sense of menace and scenes set on the island of Gaunt where Rachel is raised. I’m sure Edwards’ existing fans will love this change of tone but he should also garner new readers for his excellent fiction.

The Shrouded Path Publication Day

[image error]It’s publication day for The Shrouded Path, the fourth book in my DC Childs series. The origins of this crime go back to the 1950s. Six schoolgirls walk into a railway tunnel but only five emerge. In the present day, the reverberations of the act of violence begin to be felt.

BBC Radio Derby filmed me at a couple of the locations of the book, including Ladybower Reservoir where the drowned village of Derwent stands. The village plays a key role in my narrative:

 

Thanks to readers of Crimepieces for all their support. It’s publication day for a few other friends including Martin Edwards whose book, Gallows Court, I’ll be reviewing at the weekend. In the meantime, a competition.

[image error]To celebrate publication, I’m giving away a copy of The Shrouded Path to three readers of Crimepeices. To win, you simply have to tell me one thing that sums up the 1950s for you.I wasn’t born then but my husband is a big Elvis fan and this singer represents the decade for me. Jailhouse Rock was released in 1957, the same year in which part of my book is set.

To enter the competition, simply fill in the form below. I’ll draw the winners at 6pm on Sunday the 9th September and publish their names at the bottom of this post. I’ll also be running another competition on my Facebook page which ends at the same time if you’d like to enter twice! The competition is open to everyone regardless of location.

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Latest Reads: Elly Griffiths and Andrew Taylor

As it’s the summer, my reading is slightly different from usual as I’m spending the time either catching up with authors’ latest reads or making headway with my TBR [image error]pile. Elly Griffiths is one of my favourite crime writers and I was conscious that I had an unread Ruth Galloway novel on my shelves. In The Dark Angel, Ruth travels to Italy at the request of one of her friends, archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli. Accompanied by her friend, Shona and young daughter, Kate, Ruth finds that Morelli is convinced his life is under threat.  Griffiths excels at relationships and I love the on-off tension between Ruth and Nelson. This is a series that gets better and better.

[image error]Elly Griffiths also has a standalone book, The Stranger Diaries, out in November. It’s a modern gothic thriller set around a school which was once the residence of writer RM Holland. Clare Cassidy teaches English in the school and is appalled when one of her colleagues is found murdered. The book is told from the point of views of Clare, her daughter Georgia and Harbinder, the detective in charge of the case. Ss we’ve come to expect from Griffiths, it’s a compelling read and I loved the cast of characters she’s created.

[image error]I heard Andrew Taylor speak at Alibis in the Archives in June and was inspired to read his bestselling novel, The Ashes of London, set in the aftermath of the Great Fire.  James Marwood, son of a traitor, is struggling to look after this impoverished father and earn a living. Tasked to search for Catherine Lovett, whose father was accused of regicide, he discovers a more deadly plot than the hunt for a missing girl. I loved both protagonists – it’s rare I like two points of view equally – and the period detail is wonderful.

[image error]The Anatomy of Ghosts is set in the late 1700s at a Cambridge College. Frank Oldershaw is involved in an initiation rite which goes wrong and he loses his mind, claiming to see the ghost of murdered Sylvia Whichcote. His mother calls on John Holdswoth, an author of a rationalist text on ghosts but living in impoverished circumstances, to investigate. Taylor brings to life a closed, incestuous world in this book which is again rich in period detail and compelling relationships.

 

Latest Reads: Shari Lapena, Mary Torjussen and Cass Green

Are you enjoying the blazing heat? I have to confess that it has slightly impacted on my reading. It is hard to hold a book (especially a hardback) and fan yourself at the same time so I’ve been watching a lot of films and crime dramas. However, I have immersed myself in a historical series (the subject of my next post) and three great crime novels.

[image error]Shari Lapena’s Agatha Christie style thriller, An Unwanted Guest, was published this week. A group of travellers are trapped inside a luxury lodge in the Catskills by a snow storm. When a woman is murdered, the remaining residents begin to inspect their fellow guests’ histories, looking to identify the killer, and decades old secrets begin to emerge. As more murders take place, alliances begin to fracture, until a spectacular denouement brings the killer to justice. Lapena, always a great storyteller, has written a compelling narrative. I loved the fact that we’re presented with a discrete group of suspects and there’s  a Golden Age feel the unmasking of the culprit. A perfect read to cool you off this summer.

[image error]Estate agents traditionally get a bad press but Mary Torjussen does an excellent job in The Girl I Used To Be of showing the pressures of a professional woman juggling her own business and family life. When Gemma wakes up in a hotel room after having dinner with a client, she discovers that she has no memory of how the evening ended. This is another page turner and Torjussen provides a satisfying portrait of a woman who doubts her own suspicions and is determined to protect her family.

[image error]Don’t You Cry by Cass Green opens with recently separated Nina who nearly chokes at a restaurant during a blind date. She is helped by a waitress, Angel, who then turns up at Nina’s house in the middle of the night, closely followed by a relative carrying a baby. A dark night of terror and violence follows as Nina begins to doubt those close to her. Cass Green excels at characterisation and delivers a satisfying antagonist and a cast of engaging characters. Don’t You Cry is out on the 6th September.

 

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Review- Three Simenon novels: Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse, Maigret’s Doubts & Maigret and the Old People.

I’ve been reading the Maigret novels by Georges Simenon since I was a teenager and many of them I’ve read more than once. I’ve found the series divides crime writers. Some, like me, love the books and others have never got into the series. I think the structure isn’t for everyone. The culprit is often known, or easily guessed, and as much effort is put into extracting a confession as to discovering who is responsible for a crime.

The books I read as a teenager were the old style green penguins. I never thought about the translation or the translator, in fact, I tended to forget I was reading fiction originally written in another language. Times have changed, however, and Penguin are gradually reissuing all 75 Maigret novels with new translations.

[image error]The first I read this month was Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse, translated by the excellent Roz Schwartz. A retired manufacturer is shot dead in his flat after playing chess with his son-in-law. Maigret struggles to find either a motive for the crime, or anyone prepared to speak ill of the dead man. Only the frozen nature of the dead man’s wife hints at family turmoil not immediately apparent. It’s not one of Simenon’s best but a good insight into Maigret’s tenacious and dogmatic approach to solving cases.

[image error]More satisfying is Maigret’s Doubts about a train-set enthusiast working in a toy shop who is convinced that his wife is about to kill him. I remember reading this book years ago and Simenon has an eye for the absurd both in terms of setting up the crime and the eventual denouement. Women don’t always come across that well in Simenon’s books and are usually seen through the eyes of male protagonists. However, there’s a nice insight into Maigret’s domestic life as he worries about his wife’s minor illness and a sense that he’s not the young man he used to be. The translation is by Shaun Whiteside.

[image error]Maigret and the Old People isn’t the most catchiest of titles and, given that Penguin have changed a fair few of the original names, it’s surprising that they’ve kept this one. Again I can remember reading this years ago and it’s an unusual tale of a retired diplomat found dead in his apartment, Maigret’s investigations reveal an age-old love affair which appears strange to the modern reader but fits in with Simenon’s wry look at relationships. It reminds me why I enjoyed these books so much as a teenager. They’re occasionally racy and always appeared as something different from the British Golden Age writers I was also reading at the time. This translation is also by Shaun Whiteside.

Podcast Review: Death in Ice Valley

[image error]I’ve had a month or so of reading non-crime novels but I’m about to attack my backlog this week. However, I haven’t been neglecting crime entirely. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been listening to a podcast called Death in Ice Valley which I’ve found compelling.

On the 29th November 1970, a the charred body of a woman was found at the isolated  Isdalen Valley in Bergen. Next to her body were Fenemal sleeping pills, empty bottles and various items of her clothing. There was no identification and the labels from her clothes had been removed. Although investigated by the police, the woman’s identity was never discovered and the autopsy concluded that the woman had died from Fenemal and carbon monoxide poisoning.

I first became aware of the case from crime writing friend, Gunnar Staalesen. Gunnar won the Petrona Award in 2017 for his book, Where Roses Never Die. His Varg Veum books are set in Bergen and I saw him talk about the case at an event. The woman’s death has recently been subject of a podcast by the BBC World Service and NRK, the Norwegian broadcaster. If you enjoy listening to high quality journalism, I can highly recommend it.

[image error]The series opens with Norwegian investigative journalist, Marit Higraff, and British BBC radio documentary maker, Neil McCarthy, giving the background to the case. There are some fascinating details:  the pair of rubber boots that the woman bought in Stavanger, the seller remembering that she smelt strongly of garlic, and the suitcase discovered in an Oslo locker which contained, amongst other things, a coded note which has only partially been deciphered. This is what is already known but is fascinating not least because the images are shared in a Facebook group so you can see them for yourselves.

However, the journalists extend the investigation well beyond the original and there are some great potential insights once the woman’s jawbone is located and subjected to modern testing. The predominant theories are that either the woman was a spy, or a prostitute. She carried numerous fake passports but neither scenario fits the facts. As a spy she drew too much attention to herself and her choice of Christian lodgings mean it’s unlikely she took clients back to her rooms. Even her age remains unclear – this is a woman who appears to be without a history.

I can’t give too much else away without completely spoiling the series, and you might want to avoid the Facebook group until you’ve listened to all ten podcasts. Gunnar Staalesen makes an appearance in many of the episodes and suggests a realistic scenario  toward the end of the podcasts. I’m feeling slightly bereft now the episodes have come to an end.

 

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Reading Round-Up

I’ve had an eclectic book month as I’ve been reading for various events plus I’ve been trying novels that I’ve wanted to read for a long time. There’s something about the summer that encourages me to free up time to look beyond familiar authors and I’ve been racing through some interesting books.

Tomorrow, I’m at the Derby Book Festival chatting to Jo Jakeman about [image error]her debut novel, Sticks and Stones. It’s a fascinating story of three women involved with the same man, the violent Philip Rochester. When he threatens to make his estranged wife, Imogen, homeless she locks him in the cellar and finds unexpected allies in Ruby his former wife and in Naomi, his current girlfriend. With strong prose and complex characters, Sticks  and Stones is a summer psychological thriller to get your teeth into.

[image error]Next week-end, I’m at Alibis in the Archives, in one of the most beautifully located libraries in the UK. I’ll be giving a talk on Derbyshire crime fiction and there’s plenty to discuss from Sheridan Le Fanu to present day crime writers. I’m a fan of Kate Ellis’s writing and, in her books, she usually fuses past and present. In  A High Mortality of Doves, she turns her attention to 1919 Derbyshire and a community reeling from the effects of the Great War. Mutilated women are discovered around a village and tales of a soldier seen near the murder sites brings Albert Lincoln up from London to investigate a complex crime. Written with Ellis’s attention to detail, she provides a clever twist which adds rather than detracts from the story.

[image error]On the subject of Derbyshire, I finally got around to reading Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13. It’s not crime novel but set in a Derbyshire town where a thirteen year-old girl has gone missing. It’s probably the book that most sums up Derbyshire for me: the well dressings, the changing of the seasons and the communities where nothing and everything happens. I absolutely loved this books which deservedly won the 2017 Costa Novel Award.

[image error]While we had an unexpected period of hot weather, I read a Christmas mystery.  Portrait of a Murderer  by Anne Meredith was  first published in 1933. It’s a country house mystery where the patriarch, Adrian Gary, is murdered on Christmas Day morning by one of his six surviving children. The murderer is revealed early on but Meredith uses an ingenious plot construction to take us through the impact of the crime and the slow unveiling of the killer. It’s a clever, soberly written mystery and a perfect read if you’re missing the winter already.

 

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Reading Round-Up

I’ve been busy reading for various panels and events that I’m moderating over the coming weeks and also working hard on my own writing. Tomorrow, I’m off to Bristol for CrimeFest, the crime fiction convention which I always look forward to. On Saturday, we will announce the winner of the Petrona Award and more on this will appear on Crimepieces. In the meantime, below is summary of some the excellent books I’ve read over the last few weeks.

[image error]That Old Black Magic by Cathi Unswoth  is the story of a spy ring during the second world war who use black magic in an attempt to destabilise Britain. Ross Spooner is the detective who is forced to enter a world of mediums and occultists to discover who is at the heart of the mischief. Unsworth cleverly weaves in the real life mystery of a woman found inside an ancient tree and there’s also a hint of Dennis Wheatly about the dark practices as enemy agents attempt to promote the Nazi cause. It’s a fascinating and unusual read.

[image error]Barry Forshaw turns his attention to historical crime fiction for his latest pocket essential guide. I’ve always admired the huge commitment to research that writing  crime fiction set in the past demands and there are some giants of the genre in this book. My natural inclination is to go to the authors I have read and it was great to see substantial entries for Philip Kerr, Kate Griffin and Kate Ellis in Historical Noir. Presented in chronological order, Lindsey Davis opens the book and it ends with the less familiar Gaute Heivoll who writes about 1970s Norway. As always, Forshaw’s books are fascinating to read and provide a handy insight into new authors to try.

[image error]Mari Hannah, always a strong writer, has excelled herself with her new book The Lost. A woman returns from a holiday with her sister to discover that her young son has disappeared. Alex’s husband, her son’s stepfather, comes under suspicion but the police investigation reveals a more complex web of lies. Hannah is excellent at continually unsettling the reader and the ending was a genuine surprise. A great start to what promises to be an excellent new series.

[image error]MW Craven’s new book, The Puppet Show, has an atmospheric backdrop of the Cumbrian countryside. Police are hunting a serial killer known as the ‘immolation man’  who mutilates and burns his victims. When the name of disgraced detective, Washington Poe, appears carved into the chest of the latest corpse, Poe is brought back from suspension into the investigation. It’s a fascinating premise and Craven delivers a satisfyingly dark thriller.

Q and A with D.B. John, author of Star of the North

[image error]I’m delighted to welcome D.B. John to Crimepieces today. You might remember that I reviewed his thriller Star of the North a few weeks ago. I’m delighted to take part in his publication tour and below is a fascinating insight into how the book came about.

Thanks for agreeing to chat about Star of the North. It was a pleasure to read a substantial thriller with a satisfyingly complex plot. Can you say a little about how the book came into being?

I had long wanted to make this dark, secretive country the setting for a thriller. It was the dramatic news from Pyongyang on 19 December 2011 that first got me thinking about a plot. At noon on that day state television announced that Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader, who had ruled the country for seventeen years, had died. I watched the footage of those vast crowds crying and grieving, and behind the tears I saw fear. Everyone there, even the children, knew what awaited anyone whose eyes were dry. I became utterly intrigued to know how ordinary North Koreans coped under pervasive surveillance and extreme political control. How did they carve out any sort of private life? Did they ever risk confiding doubts, even to those closest to them? How did they live?

It was fascinating to read about North Korea, a country only known to the majority of us though what we see and read in the media. How easy was it for you to delve deeper into reality of living under the closed, secretive regime?

My visit to the country in April 2012 was a strange kind of research trip. I was careful about asking questions, because people there can’t answer them freely. An ‘incorrect’ response could have terrible repercussions if overheard by a minder or an informer. From long habit, North Koreans keep their thoughts and feelings well hidden. And on my tour I was shown only those sights the regime wanted me to see – the monuments and achievements of outmoded socialism. Pyongyang is a bit like a gigantic film set, with the population behaving as extras. But of course, now and then it was possible to peek behind the scenery, and see the reality: vagrant children, empty factories, women washing clothes in dirty river. Raw poverty.

I got a much clearer picture about daily live in North Korea from the defectors I met in Seoul. One was a young soldier who’d been arrested for distributing free CDs of Christian music at a market. He didn’t want to talk about his punishment but I could see he was missing fingers. Another was a bright young woman who’d been caught helping people cross the river border into China. After her prison sentence she was shunned in her own village and realised no one would ever marry her. From them I learned the details that help bring characters to live. However I learned the most by far from Hyeonseo Lee, whose memoir, The Girl With Seven NamesI co-authored in 2015. Many aspects of this novel were inspired by her bravery, intelligence, and sheer tenacity.

One of your principal characters is Jenna, an expert on Asia, who is recruited by the CIA when they discover her twin sister might have been kidnapped by North Korean agents. You expertly  explore of what it means to be a twin and also an American of mixed-race. How did you manage to avoid clichés around both these subjects?

[image error]I wanted to make Jenna a twin after reading about the kind of bereavement suffered by a surviving identical twin, and for much of her life Jenna believes her sister is dead. With many people, the pain of grief eases a little with the years, and they can start to honour and cherish the memory of the one they’ve lost. I’m not sure this process is the same for an inseparable, identical twin. The survivor may be traumatised in ways others can’t imagine, and would simply never be the same person again. They might forever be living with a ghost. And aside from that, of course, an identical twin premise generates no end of plot possibilities…

As to Jenna being mixed race, I know from my research interviews that Korean-Americans are seldom entirely accepted by Korean Koreans. Mixed-race Korean Americans are even less accepted. And in ultranationalist North Korea the attitude towards Jenna and her twin would be downright racist. Like many people who have had to manage multiple identities, Jenna has grown up as something of an outsider. Cho and Mrs Moon are also outsiders in their way. Such people often have an inner strength and resilience they don’t realise they have, a quality I find attractive. I’m drawn to writing about outsiders and misfits, maybe from my experience of growing up gay in a very unaccepting time and place.

 I particularly liked the very human experience of Mrs Moon who finds a propaganda balloon from South Korea filled with treats. How did that character come about?

The ‘ajumma’ is a familiar figure in North and South Korea. These tough, hardworking no-nonsense matrons, found in every marketplace, are treated with a curious mix of respect and derision in Korean society. They do not suffer fools, and have no difficulty making men look weak and incapable. I wanted Mrs Moon to be smarter and tougher than any of the men in her environment. I imagine there must be many real-life Mrs Moons in the North, women who were strong enough to keep their families alive through the great famine in 1990s, and are now making their own good fortune by hustling and trading. These women are rebels in a way, resisting the entrenched patriarchy of Korean society. They are the class of people least likely to be taken in by nonsense Party ideology. Goatshit, as Mrs Moon would call it.

Your book is timely as, of course, North Korea is prominently in the news at the moment. I’m sure you’ve been watching events – do you think that the there is likely to be some kind of resolution for families whose relatives have been abducted by the North Korean state?

Sadly I don’t think so, not in the foreseeable future at any rate. I suspect Kim Jong-il’s (very cagey) apology about the abductions in 2002 was a blunder for the regime and won’t be repeated, given the international outrage it provoked. The most famous of the victims, Megumi Yokota, who was a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl when she was snatched in 1977, remains a great cause célèbre in Japan, and is widely believed still to be alive, despite the regime’s repeated insistence that she died. Under huge pressure, North Korea did release a handful of the victims in 2004, but on their return to Japan they behaved oddly, refusing ever to talk about their lives in North Korea, even to their own families. Clearly the regime still retained some terrible hold over them. A far more likely development would be for Kim Jong-un to allow reunions for the families separated by the Korean War – still a poignant issue in the South, even after all these years. That’s a gesture he may easily make, if relations with the South continue to improve.

What’s next in terms of your writing? Will you continue in the same vein or do you have a surprise for us?

I haven’t entirely closed the door on this novel. I’ve left it open a crack at the end. It took me so long – five years – to get to know these characters well. I suppose I’m reluctant to let them go altogether. There may be a sequel. And of course, as a CIA agent, Jenna’s missions could take her anywhere. I’m don’t know where yet, although I’m extremely interested by what’s happening inside Russia at the moment. I think the West has been slow to realise the dangers of that country’s emergence as a hostile police state.