United Kingdom

Told in her own voice, Miss Molly Lefebure is tempted from her role as a journalist to work closely as secretary to one of the earliest "famous" forensic pathologists in England - Dr Keith Simpson. Set in war-time London, the work of civilian authorities continued, often in defiance of the chaos around them, investigating both unusual or suspicious deaths, as well as the results of the Blitz bombings.

During in the 1940's the idea of a female secretary sitting right beside the pathologist, typing his reports as an autopsy proceeds was probably just another slightly unexpected twist in a lot of forays by women into the unusual. Lefebure explains her reaction to the close up view of violent, sad or sordid death in a matter-of-fact way, albeit with a very mannered tone and via some selective observations. It often seems that the state of the housekeeping of the various crime sites caused much more distress than the state of the bodies being investigated. It's definitely a memoir of its time in that way, originally written in the 1950's with attitudes firmly of that time. There were points where it was impossible to avoid cringing - it almost seemed that unsatisfactory housewives were only marginally more acceptable than the worst of violent offenders.

There is, however, a particular sense of humour working it's way through the threads of these various tales which is dry, very stiff-upper lipped and sardonic. It could, however, be easy to miss, and sometimes Lefebure can come across as rather judgemental and snobbish. Which was a pity as much of the underlying detail - the poverty, the desperate circumstances, the quiet determination of the population, the insight into wartime civilian life was excellent. The brutality of murder certainly didn't seem to abate at all nor did the desperation that drove some people to suicide. In some cases it seems that the war simply provided a convenient cover-up, a trigger or even perhaps a reason for people to make mistakes, do daft things, or simply behave as badly as they do at any other time in life.

MURDER ON THE HOME FRONT has been snapped up for TV adaptation, which is not at all surprising. It's an opportunity for a look at the early days of forensic science, as well as the very early days of the change in women's roles in society. Worth a look if you're interested in either of those subjects. Miss Lefebure was, at the time of the media release that came with the book, alive, in her nineties, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and living in Cumbria, United Kingdom. Unfortunately she has since died.
 

Look, let's just admit that I'm a huge fan of this series and get it over and done with. Love DI Steel, love her glorious over the topness, love McRae's constant sooking and all being put upon. Love the madness of the world in which they have to try to operate as functioning police members, love the supporting cast, love the gallows humour. Love the whole damn thing. Even love those that don't quite live up to the other books in the series (and let's face it - we're talking bees d's worth of not living up to that which came before).

I'll therefore plead to some lacking in objectivity.

CLOSE TO THE BONE has the requisite things going pear-shaped left right and centre - with cases piling up at the door refusing to maintain an orderly line. Including McRae balancing a personal life that almost, in the last book, accidentally veered towards normal, committed and stable. Meanwhile Steele is behaving like everyone's worst nightmare caricature. Even more-so in this book as she's dragged kicking, screaming, bitching and moaning into "Management". I even, for a very brief period in my life, found myself interested in the outcome of a wildly popular paranormal novel, but only because it looks like some nutcase is basing a series of murders on scenarios from that book.

But, more importantly, underneath the lunacy and the caricature there are little ripples in the reality. Sure Steel is considerably more over the top in the book than she's been in others. Maybe because the idea of Management scares her more than babies, shared parenthood and responsibility. Okay so McRae seems to be playing a slightly straighter bat on the one hand, and yet, maybe this settling down thing has some complications that he's not being completely up front about.

With MacBride there's often been that thing in the undercurrent, that hint of the reality underneath the gallows humour and that glimpse behind the mask that's intriguing. That and the over the top nature of the characters as a coping mechanism for what they must deal with on a day to day basis. Sure in this book some of those elements are stretched out to the point where you can actually see through the elastic. Don't care. Loved it.
 

There are some books around that may not be good for your health. Since finishing WASHED UP I've had this nagging feeling that all problems should be resolved with a glass of Lagavulin malt in one hand and a shot of espresso in the other.

WASHED UP is the second book from UK / Australian author Tony Berry featuring reluctant sleuth, travel-agent and welded on Richmond resident Bromo Perkins. In this outing Bromo finds himself poking around in the trail left by a verdict of least resistance - that the drowning death of a bright young student in the Yarra River was suicide.

WASHED UP is set mostly in trendy, real-estate obsessed inner-Melbourne Richmond, and it seems extremely appropriate therefore that the story involves devious real estate agents, developers and town planners, as well as lurking underworld figures and prostitution rings. Not only do the action and players fit within the location, the way that Bromo works the neighbourhood is extremely realistic. I remember the first book in the series combined a lot of action with some travelogue aspects of the location that, whilst fascinating, had a tendency to bog things down a bit. That observation doesn't apply to WASHED UP. The location is blended into the action very well, there's a real feel for the suburb, the cafe's, the street furniture (and the pest that it can be), the narrow laneways and streets. Even when Bromo goes bush there's a good feeling of where he is, without bogging down why he's there. And an observation that sums up the climate change divide in a nutshell (I swear if one more southerner tells me the drought is over .....)

"You townies have no idea what life's like out in the bush, even almost on the city fringe where we are. Bloody climate change doesn't mean watering our lawns on alternate days or hand-washing our cars. It means droughts and floods one after the other and nothing in between. If our cattle aren't being swept away by the rivers then our sheep are falling over for lack of feed and water."

The plot of WASHED UP is nicely complicated, without being overdone, and the characterisations are good and solid. Bromo Perkins is exactly what you'd expect from a bit of a lone-wolf type, and the idea that he's one of those accidental investigator's doesn't tinkle a bell, let alone clang. It's perfectly understandable that he's the sort of bloke that would do a favour for a mate - male or female. That he'd get the job done and still maybe not get the girl (any of them really), is a given. The thought that he's out there stalking the narrow laneways, glaring at the street furniture and chucking the odd wry comment at a daft t-shirt slogan is quite believable.

WASHED UP is available from a number of Australian online book sellers, or as an ebook from Amazon. 

One of the things that makes Louise Welsh one of my favourite authors is the way you just never know what to expect when a new novel arrives.

In THE GIRL ON THE STAIRS Jane Logan moves to Berlin to be with her partner Petra, in the lead up to the birth of their first child. From the moment she arrives there's something wrong. Jane is uneasy in their chic, upmarket apartment, where amongst lots of other oddities, there are shadows on the stairs and a neighbour's daughter who Jane is sure is in danger.

A psychological mystery, the book is chilling and discomforting. There's something about the fears that Jane develops that don't quite ring true. Of course the world is seen through Jane's eyes, so small events are major and Jane is extremely isolated. By the move to a foreign country, by her partner's work commitments which seem to keep her distant and in an apartment, and neighbourhood that also somehow seems isolated and claustrophobic. Yet, at the same time, the reader can't help but wonder, is Petra really so distant, are things quite that gothic, and dark, is there really something behind Anna, the next door neighbour's daughter hostility, or is Jane imagining things.

As this doubt started to grow there were points where loyalties were compromised. We're supposed to be seeing things from Jane's point of view, yet somehow, Jane doesn't seem to be getting it, is possibly constructing mountains out of molehills. Is she the classic unreliable narrator?

The concentration on the book is very much on a woman whose mind may be playing tricks on her. The physical setting of Berlin contributes little to the narrative other than a feeling of the other, "somewhere foreign", providing isolation. Her pregnancy, her partner's pre-occupation outside the home, all provide a vehicle for pulling the focus back to Jane, back into Jane's head, back into Jane's overwhelming imagination.

As I'd expect from this author, I'd no idea how THE GIRL ON THE STAIRS would evolve when I started it, and it did take quite a while to twig what was going on. I didn't particularly warm to Jane, found her viewpoint unsympathetic and a bit offputting. The introspection was uncomfortable, the isolation palpable. Despite all that, there was something very compelling about the story that dragged me into it. Right to the sort of ending that I love - subtle, unexpected, unsettling, challenging.

Sometimes a man must take a step back to move forwards... and sometimes he just has to get up close and into a lot of faces. Either way James Bishop is exactly the sort of bloke you want to see looming up behind the disaster that life can sometimes turn out to be.

BACKTRACK is the second James Bishop book from Jason Dean, in, so far, two rather good, solid thriller books with a flawed but resilient central hero. Bishop, former marine, wrongfully accused prisoner, close protection bodyguard now disappearance expert manages to extricate a young woman from a nasty husband with suspect involvements, into a new identity and life with considerable aplomb. So he's not best pleased when it turns out that she's subsequently vanished. Bishop has a bit of history with obligations he messed up, and he isn't going to let that happen again. So he is determined to find Sonja Addison and how come there are other blonde, young women disappearing as well?

One of the most common things about a lot of thrillers of this kind, is that the central threat's got to be big and bold and just that bit out there. In this case whilst it might be a bit difficult to swallow the ultimate reason, there's something very convincing about the idea that women could just drop out of sight from disparate locations and backgrounds and have nobody make a connection, until a suspended female cop and an ex-marine with a tricky past accidentally fall over each other in the middle of their individual searches.

Of course it doesn't hurt in the acceptance stakes that Bishop is quite an interesting central protagonist. Far from perfect he's got enough of energiser bunny syndrome to be exciting and enough aches and pains to be plausible. It helps also that his sidekick in this adventure, Clarissa Vallejo, suspended cop, secret lover and particularly talented car driver is also a strong character who contributes, rather than stands around or causes complications.

This really is a great thriller series, with a central character who is definitely somebody you'd want on your side. Not the least because he's somebody who is not so good, so perfect, so invincible that you don't end up with a sneaking desire to barrack for the baddies once in a while. With a strong, capable and well-developed female sidekick in BACKTRACK, any slight wobbliness in the plot believability was a mere hiccup in what was, overall, a most enjoyable and fast-paced adventure.
 

A standalone novel from the author best known for his Bob Skinner series, THE LONER was a real surprise package.

Styled as an autobiographical account of the author's friend, journalist Xavier (Xavi) Ailsado, THE LONER is partially the recollections of the central character, partially the observations of the narrator. It's an affectionate telling of Xavi's life, from his beginnings in Scotland, the son of a local mother and a Spanish refugee. His father and grandparents having settled in Edinburgh after they were forced to flee from Franco's regime. It's a story of family that stays together and family that fractures all at once.

Xavi is a gentle giant of a man, raised by his grandmother, until she and his father, a successful businessman return to Spain, leaving him with money, a place to live, a real connection with them and the chance to grow into his own person. Despite his potential as a professional footballer, Xavi is not that upset when injury ends that possible career, as exposure to newspapers via his father's latest business venture - the media in Spain - has convinced him that journalism is what he really wants to do. His life seems comfortably, and somewhat boringly predestined, with a childhood sweetheart fiancé, a good job, a place to live, and a secure self-image and almost abnormal control for a young man of his age.

Told with great restraint, there is, however, a sense that something is not quite right drawing the reader in. It was actually quite surprising how quickly the book engaged, and kept the reader's interest, particularly as there isn't a crime up front, there's no investigation, there's nothing of the normal stylings that you expect in some measure from crime fiction. Told mostly from Xavi's viewpoint, interspersed with snippets that give the reader just enough clues or hints to wonder, the book is a slow burner. The structure is also intriguing, opening with a "co-author" note from Jardine, taking off in an autobiographical style, heading into the ups and downs of what seems, on the face of it, to be a reasonably ordinary life, not only is it very hard to tell where it's heading, it rapidly became just about impossible to not be intrigued.

Obviously, THE LONER is something a little different. It's not about the investigation of a crime or the identification of a perpetrator. It's not about justice or explanation or retribution. It's the story of strongly-held beliefs, love, and how truth can be manipulated, even if sometimes with the best of intentions. It's a character study and Xavi is the sort of character that many readers will feel a direct, close, personal and real connection with. It's also not a particularly straight-forward or even an always easy book to read. But it is a very memorable one.
 

Discovered this little grab of two short stories whilst wandering around the KOBO site recently (love love love my Android Tablet and the way I can have multiple bookshops at my fingertips), but I saw this and thought I've not read any early Val McDermid stories for a long time, so why not.

The best thing about this is that idea of going back to the starting out of a character and a series. I don't think, by any stretch of the imagination, that you could suggest these are the most indepth, intricate and complicated plots that you've ever read in crime fiction, but they certainly were enjoyable little stocking fillers, ideal for a quick read over a stinking hot post-Christmas period.

As an unrepentant, welded-on, dedicated Christopher Brookmyre fan I do have to ration these books a bit. So NOT THE END OF THE WORLD has been lurking here for quite a long time, although I was a little startled to learn it was originally published in 1998. Not because it's been lurking for that long but because the central themes, in particular rabid evangelical religious fanatics, intolerance, insistence, terrorism and short-sighted idiocy works just as well now as it did then. Actually make that less startled, more disgusted.

NOT THE END OF THE WORLD does take a little while to get started, which, (weak pun alert - I tried / can't resist) is not the end of the world. Because the guts of the book made me stop and think, and increasingly made me more and more disgusted with the way that the things haven't changed and the lunatics are still out there waving their intolerance in everyone else's faces and shoving their messages down everybody's throats. When I wasn't laughing at their portrayal, I was more than just a little bit annoyed with the sorts of things that Brookmyre was holding a magnifying glass on - right up close and very very pointedly as Brookmyre does best.

This was one of my particular choices for "please myself month". Worked perfectly.

DEADLY CODE is the 3rd book in the Dr Rhona Macleod series, a series, which up until now I've really enjoyed, but for some reason this one didn't work. Mind you, terrific sense of place, very atmospheric what with Macleod off in the remote Scottish Isles battling the evil menace of a cult of Scottish extremists. Or I think that's what they were. The big problem was that the plot was a bit too silly at points. Not that the idea of extremists of any kind is a bad concept, but not where there needs to be so much coincidence and frankly, a whole heap of heavy lifting to get Macleod into the action, get her to the various locations, and keep her involved. And the resolution is one of those extreme leaps of science that, sure, could happen. But hasn't as yet. And I kind of like my crime fiction to stay away from the realms of speculative / science fiction. Having said that, my main problem with this book was the enormous leaps of coincidence and a certain feeling of convenience about the whole thing that meant it didn't work. Onwards to the next in the series for this reader. (I understand there's 6 of them now).