Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 4

Star and the Strange Moon, Constance Sayers

Young Christopher Kent became obsessedwith Gemma Turner the day his troubled mother destroyed a photo of the doomedstar.

1968: Gemma Turner starred in alow budget horror flick L’Etrange Lune, a generic scripted mess that wouldbecome her final film.

1998: Kent now a risingdocumentary maker finally gets to witness a secret screening of Lune but itappears to be evolving long after its star and director perished…

Kennedy 35, Charles Cumming

1995 Senegal, Kite and Martha areposing as backpackers on a surveillance mission. Lockie is pretty sure Box 88are looking to recruit his then girlfriend. To say things don’t go according toplan…

Present day, Kite is contacted byan old school friend with ties to the Senegal operation who informs him that aPodcaster is about to name names in a DGSE coverup, one of them Martha’s. Kiteis anxious to protect her but is he already too late.

Book club corner : The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

I love a good country house murder mystery. 

Our narrator, Dr. James Sheppard’s discovery of his friend’s body leads to a plethora of suspects above and below stairs. The police are looking for the obvious suspect, Ackroyd’s missing stepson and in true Christie fashioned the culprit will be revealed by the little grey cells of M. Hercule Poirot.

Again Christie is shown to be ahead of her time again using plot devices that are commonplace today but coupled with her observations of human nature create these enduring classics.

Golden Gate, Amy Chua

Murder, spies, call girls, strange hooded figures, Chinese dignitaries, you’ll find them all at the swanky Claremont hotel. Detective Al Sullivan is investigating the murder of an industrialist/presidential candidate and most of his monied suspects have the surname Bainbridge. Whilst Al works the case Chua shines a light on depression era issues that the Bay Area doesn’t really like to remember - let alone talk about.

Not only is this a great whodunnit, it’s wrapped in several history lessons that will give bookclubs plenty to discuss.

Last Devil to Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery, Richard Osman

It’s Christmas at Cooper’s Chase butmurder doesn’t take a holiday and this killing affects members of the ThursdayMurder Club deeply.

Determined to get justice the clubmembers get involved in antiquing, finding a missing heroin shipment andromance fraud.

Osman provides another cracker of a mystery withlaughs and twists aplenty but his social commentary and the end of a journeyare handled with a tenderness born of experience. Warning, tissues will berequired.

Traitor, Ava Glass

The gruesome murder of a junior MI6 agent sends Emma Makepeace undercover on an oligarch’s luxury yacht. 

Her mission? To find evidence of chemical and biological weapon sales by the Russian and his partners but operation Gold Dust is soon tarnished and Emma realises that the security services have a traitor in their midst who is willing to trade everything - including Emma's real identity - to remain in the shadows.

Secret Hours, Mick Herron

Monochrome is a government enquiry all but dead, until a  Mozart level clearance file falls into their laps and ‘Alison North’ begins to testify about her secondment to the ‘Spook Zoo’ in Berlin after the wall came down.

Herron takes a trip into Le Carre territory, fleshing out backstory from Dead Lions and Real Tigers.

Bookclub Corner: March Violets by Philip Kerr

 First in the Berlin Noir trilogy, a fascinating and when you scratch the surface - disturbing - portrait of 1936 Berlin before and during the Berlin Olympics. Bernie Gunther is a tough private detective, who used to be a policeman until the Nazis starting purging the ranks of people they didn't consider 'good' Germans. Now he can choose which cases to take, he doesn't do divorce work but ask him to find a missing U-boat (code for a German jew) or some diamonds or a hired killer and he's your man. He's not a thug but he can handle himself in a fight, lethally when necessary.

Steel magnate Herman Six's daughter and her husband have been brutally murdered, a diamond necklace went missing during the murder and Six wants it back. Gunther teams up with freelance reporter Inge to track the jewels and the killer or killers giving us a glimpse of the underbelly of Berlin in the process.

The group discussion was lively to put it mildly, but the consensus was Germany doesn't shy away from its horrific past. Their history lessons focus on the rise of the Nazis and Hitler and the atrocities that took place before and during WWII. You can point to any country in the world and in their past (or their present) are events that morally wrong. History is always going to be uncomfortable, learning from history leads to changes that make life better for everyone.

Here in the U.S a right wing element inside Congress is willfully burying the country's history - because they want to repeat it? we didn't agree on that but as an aside look up Operation Paperclip. Where do you think all those Nazi scientists went? 

Prophet, Helen MacDonald, Sin Blache

It seems you can weaponize anything these days, including nostalgia. A fiery fatal accident on an overseas U.S. base and the appearance of an American diner in a foggy English field reunites a very odd couple. Rao, brought from his prison cell and intelligence officer Adam Rubinstein summoned from somewhere ‘classified’. 

Rao’s unique ability leads the pair into a life-changing/life ending investigation where your happiest memory will turn deadly.

Prophet is an inventive mashup of sci-noir, romance and Stepford-esque corporate meddling, mixed with a dash of The Thing.

Accidental Medium, Tracy Whitwell

Tania aka Tanz is a northern actress living in London, now in her mid thirties her career has dwindled down to doing the occasional TV commercial which isn't paying the bills. Whilst waiting for her agent or her toy boy to call Tanz lands a job at new age shop Mystery Pot. She befriends medium Sheila and discovers that the voices in her head are not the first sign of madness. Tanz has Romany blood running through her veins and can chat with those on the 'other side' which is all fun and games until a murderer who thinks they've gotten away with it crosses Tanz's path.