United Kingdom

After reading Dugdall's first book THE WOMAN BEFORE ME I was kind of expecting something a bit wow from THE SACRIFICIAL MAN. Which it delivered in that sort of sock removing, what the, oh boy, cook your own dinner I'm reading, kind of way.

Mind you, it's a bit on the sneaky side. The story starts out with Cate Austin out of the prison system, working her first new assignment which is a sentencing recommendation for Alice Mariani. As explained in the blurb, Mariani helped her lover to die, and she is dealing with the consequences of that on a legal and a personal level. But it is the personal that is particularly interesting Austin as Mariani doesn't quite seem to be reacting to the death or it's consequences in a way that makes sense. It's that digging into Mariani's past - both by Austin, and in the way that the author reveals the truth, that makes THE SACRIFICIAL MAN a book that's going to stay with me for quite a long time.

There are a number of extremely good aspects to this book. The subject matter of assisted suicide and the potential outcomes is going to be confrontational for some readers, but it is a very current day issue, and this is a particularly instructive approach. There's certainly nothing sensationalised, judgemental or conclusive about the treatment. There's also a very complicated storyline which is handled deftly. The timeframe shift backwards and forwards between current day, and the time when Mariani and the man who died first meet, and the arrangement that they come to. The viewpoint also shifts between Mariani, as herself and using a pseudonym (as does the dead man which is why I'm not confusing the issue here by using his name) and that of Austin. It's also not an investigation of guilt or innocence as such, as Austin is looking to provide sentencing recommendations, for a woman who has already been found guilty.

I must admit I didn't notice when THE SACRIFICIAL MAN went from being "the book that I'm reading" to "the book that I must read" but it did. Somewhere in the middle of all of that backwards and forwards, perspective switching, something happened and the back story of Alice Mariani started to explain who she was. Somewhere there a man made a decision to die, looked for support, and set up a process that he thought was fair on everyone. Somewhere the wheels fell off that and consequences ensued. And ultimately a person tries to get to the bottom of those circumstances and come up with a recommendation on how those consequences will pay out. About there I suddenly found a depth, and some messages that I'm still thinking about.

I do really like the fictional Charlie Resnick. Sure he's another loner cop with a fractured personal life and a work ethic that sometimes seems to veer dangerously close to avoidance of the mess of the personal life, but he's also a man who loves his cats, is good to his friends, seems quite attractive to the ladies, and makes a very mean sandwhich.

There is a pool of these good, solid police procedural series coming from a similar time, and I am working my way back through them on occasions. Some of the books are re-reads, some of them are new, all of them are hopelessly out of series order. Which means that each of the books has to work on its own, which they do. Some of the plots are more complex and believable than others, and whilst COLD LIGHT does seem to rely on a few red herrings liberally dotted throughout, there is a good sense of pace, and urgency about the search for a missing young woman. As well done as the sense of rage in her father, and the attraction that builds between Resnick and her flatmate. There's some nice touches of coincidence, that are quite believable in a confined geographical location, there's also some complications in the case, and in the personal that flesh the whole thing out.

I must admit I am quite a fan of the Charlie Resnick series, although I do like most of the books by this author that I've read. Definitely one for fans of solid, believable police procedurals from what is, after all, a pretty large British pool.

It's always intriguing, who or what will be the next threats that espionage writers can employ in their thrillers. I'm not sure what it says about the world that we live in but there does seem to be no shortage of possible scenarios and nefarious goings-on to occupy the intelligence world. THE GENEVA TRAP is the 7th book in the Liz Carlyle series, and the main plot elements, as you'd expect from a writer with Rimington's background, have a ring of truth and absolutely credibility about them.

Liz is a very strong character. Strong enough to survive this particular reader's tendency to wander around in this series, as there are a few books that I've missed. Most obviously, it's her personal life that I'm behind with, but at no stage did I really get lost or feel at sea. Which was particularly pleasing as there is a sub-plot in THE GENEVA TRAP which involves her mother's partner, his daughter, Liz's own partner, a French commune, and the possibility of armed protest and personal violence.

Not everything, however, worked perfectly, particularly some of the technicalities of computer hacking. Now granted I'm not as technically expert as some around me, but there were elements in the "techy talk" that simply didn't make any sense, and lacked credibility. To the point where I had to give myself a little "it's fiction - get over it" talking to at one point. Nitpicking undoubtedly, but it did make those parts of the book hard to swallow. What wasn't so hard to chew was the spy craft, right down to the surveillance aspects, the not quite as clandestine as required meetings in parks, generational sleeper agents and all the other covert goings on.

There's good pace and action, some very nice twists and turns and a complicated but clever plot that does pull everything together in a believable finale, although that's tempered a little by some very stereotypical villains and the requisite inept upper echelons. But THE GENEVA TRAP, and the whole Liz Carlyle series are very much espionage based thrillers, and despite a few minor quibbles, this was a book that was hard to put down.

When SAY YOU'RE SORRY was announced I promised myself that this time - straight to the top of the pile. After all, what's not to look forward to - a solid police procedural with a psychological aspect, written by an Australian, set in the United Kingdom. One of the tricks of this series is that Robotham is switching the main viewpoint around between a couple of central protagonists - ex-cop Vincent Ruiz and clinical psychologist, Joe O'Loughlin. Now at a pinch I'd have to say that Ruiz is my favourite of these two characters, but that's not to say that O'Loughlin isn't also a strong central character.

Robotham has carefully constructed a story in SAY YOU'RE SORRY which includes one of the more difficult viewpoints - that of the living, captured victim of a kidnapper, sex attacker and vicious man. Teenager Piper's voice is extremely authentic, frequently quite chilling, yet Robotham carefully controls the amount of exposure that the reader must endure, whilst simultaneously dolling out the details of the fate of both girls, their families, the village and the investigating team.

Followers of this series will know about Joe O'Loughlin's own past - the Parkinson's disease that originally, I believe, came to Robotham as an dilemma for a man whose understanding of the human mind can do nothing about the disease that is slowly taking away control of his own body. They will also know that he is now separated from his wife, although they are still in close touch if for no other reason than the support and care of their daughters. Their oldest daughter Charlie makes a classic teenager's appearance in this book, and it's a nice touch that when Charlie in trouble O'Loughlin's call for help goes straight to Vincent Ruiz. Ruiz is there in SAY YOU'RE SORRY, working with O'Loughlin as is the way with these books now, yet this story is more about getting into the head of a killer, of understanding the sort of madman who would kidnap two young girls, and seemingly keep them alive for 3 more years.

There are quite a few red herrings as is traditional, and there is a decent surrounding story of the two kidnapped girls, their families, events that led up to their disappearance, and the lives of at least two of the early suspects in the case. All this extraneous information builds and fleshes out the book and creates a world in which the victim, for whom there is still some hope, Piper, isn't forgotten and the reason for the chase not lost in the detail. To be honest the guilty party came as quite a surprise. What doesn't surprise at all is how good these books are, and SAY YOU'RE SORRY is no exception.

Grace Smith has always been one of my favourite of the fraught, vaguely madcap female private detective sub-genre for a bunch of different reasons.

Firstly I love Grace herself. Slightly bats definitely, sometimes refreshingly stupid, often times bordering on out of control, there's something refreshingly real and unmanufactured about Grace. She's the sort of girl you could see yourself having a drink with and whilst you might be a bit worried about the state of your shoes at the end of the night, your personal ego's not going to come away feeling somewhat underbaked.

Secondly I really love the supporting cast, particularly the other staff at the Detective Agency that Grace works at, most of whom are somewhat mildly bats in their own right.

Lastly I really like the plots of the books, and CUE THE EASTER BUNNY is no disappointment in those stakes, although, to be honest, the ongoing jokes about rabbits got dangerously close to being the biggest attraction.

I've been dodging the inevitable here I guess - is she the English Evanovich? Hate these sorts of comparisons as, apart from the coincidence of similar sorts of central characters - they are different books about different people in a completely different location. Given the choice, if it's my money being shelled out, Grace Smith is a better bet. None of that coy will she / won't she and with which bloke (which last time I tried a Plum book was still dragging on....). With Grace Smith there's nothing coy or cutsey - she is what she is, her love life is as on and off again as she bloody well wants it to be and besides, it's not the only thing in this girls life.

DCI Mark Lapslie is one of those grumpy, rumpled detective characters, with a slight twist.  He has synaesthesia - sounds instantly trigger taste sensations.  Which makes participating in the world profoundly difficult.  The condition is so out of control that he's had to move to an isolated cottage, communicating with his colleagues via technology, keeping the noise at bay so that he can at least function a little.  His wife has left him, taking their children with her, he's lonely, fraught, struggling to cope with the condition and the restrictions it places on his life.

Carl Whittley is lonely and bitter, struggling to cope with the reality of being sole carer for his invalid father.  While he's doing the cooking, cleaning, colostomy bag changing, and all the personal care, his mother has left and is pursuing her career as a forensic psychologist.  In some ways it makes a lot of sense that Carl's planning his third murder very early on in the book.

That last observation isn't much of a spoiler as McCrery doesn't write whodunnit style books, rather they are more an exploration of why.  Why Carl Whittley would torture a glamorous TV presenter to death, blow up some poor innocent bloke in a railway station, and still be planning more mayhem.  Why Mark Lapslie would try to stick with his job of Police DCI in the face of a personal disability that makes his every hour a nightmare.  And one of the biggest mysteries?  Why Lapslie's Chief Superintendent would think that putting him in charge of two seemingly unconnected events would provide the media pressure straw that would finally break Lapslie's back and remove him from the police force once and for all.

The synaesthesia aspects of the Lapslie series are the obvious hook that makes them different from other British, grumpy, rumpled, cynical and rather world-weary detective stories.  The other difference is that idea of the who being known by the reader up front, and the books being less of a journey to the discovery, and more a look at the characters, their motivations, and ultimately, the way in which the detective get's the bloke the reader already knows all about.  There's often traces of quite black humour in this series as well, although in this particular book you'll have to dig a little deeper to find it, and you may also need to have a fairly high tolerance for graphic descriptions.  To be frank, there's very little about Carl and his activities that can be explained, or even vaguely quantified, and at the same time there's something rather bleak about the dogged way in which Lapslie pursues his perpetrator.

Not that TOOTH AND CLAW itself is bleak, this is really a very readable, absorbing and interesting entrant in a series that is definitely well worth pursing.  I suspect it is, however, one of those series that would be best read in order, as the way that Lapslie's synaesthesia affects his life, his ability to do his job, and everyone around him does ebb and flow, and you need to understand how that all works to get an understanding of him overall.

The series in order:

Still Waters (aka Core of Evil)
Tooth and Claw
Scream

WINK MURDER is the debut book from ex-journalist and sub-editor Ali Knight.  Given that the book is set within the cut-throat and odd world of tabloid television, perhaps her background has informed the way that the world of the media (albeit she worked in print) works.  

There was so much about the run down and the early part of this book that didn't appeal, I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to get to the end of it.  The high-flying husband returning late at night, drunk, covered in blood, muttering.  The stay at home mother with the part-time, lesser job in her husband's world, waiting at home for him to return - unsure of her marriage, convinced that her husband is having an affair - but unable to do anything about that.  Questioning her mothering ability, worried about the state of the house, guilty for working part-time; a stereotype of the little less-attractive woman married to the gorgeous high-flying husband.  Mostly I think it was the whinging, self-absorbed, kind of useless first person voice that was getting to me.

But really... "do not assume" should be displayed on a poster in front of my nose, right below the one that says "stop reading blurbs and media releases....".  From the absolute start of this book Kate, who is the main voice of the novel, is tricky.  Caught in a spiral of wishing problems under the carpet, trusting and mistrusting her husband, believing he could be capable of everything from infidelity to business corruption to murder, she fights her own paranoia with an increasing sense of desperation and lack of self-belief.  I don't think she ever quite loses that slightly whingy, disbelieving tone, but there is a point in the book where she decides, somehow to take matters into her own hands.  Not by confronting the husband mind you, she opts for a considerably more complicated path to finding out the truth.  Which unexpectedly works.  Which, given the personality that has revealed itself in her own voice, actually makes a lot more sense.  I think I would have been profoundly disappointed if Kate actually grew balls and stepped up to the mark, but somehow her panicked, suspicious, vaguely lunatic behaviour made a lot of sense - had bucket loads of credibility if you like.

I'm not really sure what it was that made me pluck WINK MURDER from the teetering stacks of unread books around here, as when it first arrived, unsolicited, I will confess to being underwhelmed with the blurb and the media release.  Which is exactly why I think I'll stick up those two posters, and maybe spotlight them.  This is actually a very good book, involving, car crash fascinating and not at all as simple as it seems.  Right down to the last page.

Upside, Neil Cross has written some fantastic recent books.  Downside, LUTHER THE CALLING has a connection with a TV series which I've never seen.  So interesting to see if a fabulous author has written a fabulous book, regardless of whatever's been going on over on the small screen.  Especially as, I believe, this has been a reverse adaptation with the TV series coming before the book.

The most important thing about any of this author's books is that, particularly as he has such a name as a scriptwriter, there's nothing filmic or screen treatment about the books.  These are fully fleshed out stories, with strong characters, really good plots and whilst there's nothing staid about the books, there's nothing obviously "treatment" about them either.  This factor is a particular relief for this reader who has ploughed through way too many film scripts loosely disguised as novels over the years to be at all comfortable.  

What is particularly worthwhile about this book is the character of DCI John Luther, a moody, difficult, man with a volatile personality and absolute tunnel vision when it comes to getting the bad guy.  Rules are broken, lines aren't just crossed - they are obliterated and bridges go up in smoke as Luther strides through the world that Cross builds in LUTHER.  Despite the moodiness, despite the intensity of this character, Cross is also able to pull off a fantastic storytelling style.  Crisp, pointed yet descriptive, Luther and the world he occupies come vividly to life.

So in a poor attempt to take a leaf from the author's own book:  LUTHER's a fantastic character.  LUTHER THE CALLING is brutal, in your face, fabulous.