New Zealand

You know how the rule goes, you're not supposed to barrack for the "bad guy", but seriously there's no way I wasn't totally and absolutely on Osgood Sneddon's side from the start. I mean Osgood? No wonder he uses the jokingly dubbed alias of Furt Bent from Aldaheit. Which is just silly, even if you can pronounce Aldaheit and goodness knows I changed my mind a 1000 times about how to.

When I wasn't being thoroughly and completely entertained by FURT BENT FROM ALDAHEIT that is. It's a book that combines good pace and action with a dry and quite dark sense of humour, highlighting a central character, who despite being a delinquent thief and troublemaker, is somebody that you just kind of have to end up liking. A Lot.

Having a little peak around post reading the book I believe some of the action could have been inspired by some true life events in New Zealand, which is rather intriguing, as a lot of the action is quite out there. Sneddon is not your run of the mill kid as he manages to survive in the very dangerous world of crime and prison using a combination of wit, brains and sheer gall. A determined, resourceful and relentless survivor, he's a kid that packs a hell of lot into a very short life. There are other characters built into the story, the obvious one being DI Hubbard, and whilst that supporting cast are believable people, they are inevitably a supporting cast. This book is all about Osgood Sneddon and it does a very good job of that. FURT BENT FROM ALDAHEIT was an unexpected, and very engaging pleasure to read.

(Read as an ebook from Amazon)
 

Are you allowed to do one word reviews?

In which case it's ... wow.

If we're not allowed could I just add terrific, twisty, tricky, tantalising, taut and maybe tremendous.

It's really embarrassing that sometimes it can take an age to get to read a book that you knew you wanted to read the day before it came out. COLLECTING COOPER was always going to be an interesting book because Theodore Tate is a tremendous character, and Cleave doesn't always do follow-up books. But if he'd like to do a third, or really any book whatsoever, I've given myself a stern talking to and will make sure I get to it ... the day after it comes out!

Detective Sam Shephard is back, promoted (no longer a Detective Constable), working in the same squad as boyfriend Paul and still in head on confrontation with the boss, and slightly off centre confrontation with her mother.  Which is particularly difficult as in BOUND Sam's much loved father is dying, just as the case of a brutal home invasion takes most of Sam's attention and energy.

There are some absolute givens in the Sam Shephard series.  There's going to be an opening to the book which should have the reader paying attention.  Sam is going to be part energiser bunny, part her own worst critic. Whilst the focus of the books remains on Sam, as the narrator of the action, there's always a good supporting cast, and there's invariably an unusual and somehow quintessentially small town plot.  In this case, after a violent home invasion in which a man is shot dead in front of his wife, Sam is initially given the job of liaison with and supporting the wife, who was injured in the attack.  It's a difficult enough job for somebody who has the sort of mind that doesn't rest and isn't particularly comfortable dealing with raw and very exposed grief and personal retribution - particularly as the couple's teenage son arrived home to find the carnage inflicted on his family.

The complication in this book is that all the while that Sam is working this case, which is, after all a family being forced apart, she has her own family problems with her father succumbing rapidly to cancer.  Sam's own relationship with her mother has always been complicated, but the rawness of the grief and suffering of her father makes that relationship even more a minefield, and it's clear that Sam's increasing desire to get more and more into the details of the home invasion case are partially as a way of avoiding the constant confrontation.  There's also more turmoil in Sam's personal life that she has to deal with.

Sam is undoubtedly one of my favourite fictional characters.  I really like the way that her internal dialogue runs, I like the way she is her most strident critic, and I love the way she's always prepared to leap in where wiser heads might prefer not to tread.  I really really liked the way that in BOUND she finally stands up to her bullying boss, I thought the way that she tiptoed around her relationship difficulties with her mother was beautifully done.

BOUND is, however, probably not my favourite book of this series, and it took me quite a while to work out why.  I suspect it's a combination of a few things.  Firstly, this time there was a considerably more predictable plot and an extremely predictable personal complication.  To be fair though, the who and the why of the plot weren't that hard to pick, so having the how of the various threads less obvious did compensate.  Secondly, a decidedly lesser showing of Sam's wonderful housemate and voice of reason Maggie didn't help, undoubtedly because she's such a great character but mostly because she works very well as a foil for Sam's more angst-ridden internal monologues.  Finally it's also that the mostly personal twists at the end of the book again weren't that hard to pick, and in one case, there was a sort of coyness that seemed a step too far for Sam's personality type.

All of this simply means that out of the entire Sam Shephard series, BOUND wasn't my absolute favourite book.  They are, however, one of my all time favourite series, so despite promises to myself that I'd be hoarding this book until the next was on the way (I believe Symons is working on a stand-alone next up), I've now read it and I'm back in that desperately sad situation of waiting impatiently for the next book.  Things could get really desperate .... may have to re-read the series from scratch!

CONTAINMENT is the third in the Sam Shephard series from New Zealand writer Vanda Symon.  It's rapidly stepped up to be one of my all time favourite series for a whole bunch of reasons.

Firstly these are truly humorous books.  Subtly, ever so slightly tongue in cheek, the humour is both self-deprecating and tension alleviating.  My favourite sort.  Sam's voice is particularly appealing - as she busily beats herself up mentally, leaving the physical assault to the scavengers on the beach in the case of CONTAINMENT.  As mentioned in earlier reviews - because the books are told from Sam's point of view, her self-deprecation and self-analysis is part of what alleviates any sense of myopia or self-servitude that can sometimes occur with that viewpoint.

Secondly they are solid, believable, twisty and nicely complex plots.  They are particularly believable and realistic in the setting in which the action takes place.  Symon's small town or country New Zealand is a place where the crimes, the perpetrators, the cops and the victims all fit perfectly.  Often the action starts out small-time and stays that way, in other cases things escalate rapidly, frequently slightly out of control and mostly inexplicably until everything just explodes around the cops and perpetrators ears!   

Lastly, but not least of all, there are great characters in these books.  The stand out is obviously Sam Shephard herself.  The country cop who has moved to the bigger city, but not lost that practical, self-deprecating, country sensibility.  Her awareness (and willingness to beat herself up) for her shortcomings, her understanding and forgiveness and care for those who surround her is .. here's those words again .. realistic and believable.  Sam is definitely the sort of cop that you can well imagine running into at a crime scene, at the pub, in a hospital bed.  Because she is a little accident prone.  Mostly because of enthusiasm and concern for the job, partially because of a stubborn refusal to think things through totally, Sam spends more than a bit of time in her own physical or mental wars.  Just to add to the mix, the course of true love gets smacked around the head pretty regularly by Sam, and the bosom of her loving family has it's own twists and turns.

Whilst Sam is definitely the star of her own show in these books, the supporting cast isn't one dimensional or off-camera.  Her interactions with the other cops in her team, her boss, her parents, cop boyfriend and best friend Maggie are very good.  Particularly her relationship with friend, flatmate and voice of reason Maggie.  It's actually a fantastic element of these books - to have a strong, supportive and brutally honest relationship between two women drawn so clearly is a relatively rare occurrence, and it's done extremely well in these books - although Maggie is possibly slightly less present in CONTAINMENT than I recall her in the earlier books.

For all the gushing of this review, these books aren't just light-hearted entertainment.  There are often elements in the plots which are unexpected, unpleasant even - characters that are expendable, deaths that are confrontational or emotional.  The light-hearted touch of Symon doesn't conceal the reality of criminal activity, murder or mayhem.  It just makes the lesson slightly more palatable.