Penguin

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!

Okay, so I'm a more than a bit of a fan of Caro Ramsay for a lot of reasons.  DARK WATER is her third book, featuring a number of ongoing characters, but somehow there's not quite a feeling of a series about these.  If you've not read ABSOLUTION, the first book, that will probably sound a bit odd - but let's just say at the end of that book something I've always thought of as quite brave from an author happens.  The second book SINGING TO THE DEAD has to move on as a result, and again here, we've got a slight switch in the pairings, the characters and the goings on in this book.

We are talking Tartan Noir here - so there is the obligatory setting of dense fog, cold and a series of violent deaths that seem to have all the markings of a serial killer.  There's also a former beauty queen, her mentally ill sister, a rather attractive photographer and his well dodgy assistant and a healthy sprinkling of odd types hanging around the edges.  Adding to the obligatory list is the team being stuffed around by their bosses and all, some romantic tension in the ranks, a rookie who is prepared ot push the boundaries and the required tension within any well functioning police team.

Sounds all very predictable doesn't it.  Luckily in Ramsay's hands there's an edge, a certain something that makes the basic elements of a Tartan Noir police procedural just that little bit better than you'd think.  When I say I'm a bit of a fan - I'm talking a very very big bit.

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. 

I've been meaning to pick up KILLING JODIE since a friend, who knows her True Crime mentioned the book in glowing terms.  I can see what she meant.  This book probably told me more about the frustrations of investigating crimes and illustrated the dedication of members of Police more than any other True Crime book I've read in a while.  It also provides a very poignant reminder that murder can devastate the lives of more than just the immediate victim(s).

The book is the story of the investigation into the activities of one Daryl Suckling.  Accused of rape and kidnap, the tale that unfolds around Suckling's seeming luck in evading conviction is breathtaking (and not in a good way).  The way that the original investigators stayed with the fate of Jodie Larcombe for as long as they did really was a profoundly reassuring aspect of this book.  Extremely well written, the author, Janet Fife-Yeomans tells the story, she doesn't overtly editorialise, there's no overarching sign of her own voice in the book.  The story is told carefully and sensitively, informatively and illustratively without the need to direct a reader's conclusions, emotions or reactions.  The events do that perfectly well for themselves.

THE GHOST OF WATERLOO is the second Nicodemus Dunne book, set in 1800's Sydney in the earliest days of the Colony.  Reading the first in the series - DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER will give you the complete background to Dunne - how he came to Sydney, how he came to be earning his way as a Running Patterer.  It also explains why his background as a London policeman would lead Governor Darling to call for his assistance when a major robbery and spate of murders proves not just difficult to solve, but potentially embarrassing for the Colony leaders.  Having said that, it would be possible to pick up THE GHOST OF WATERLOO first if you need to - this book includes enough hints to give you an idea of the background, although there's no reason why you shouldn't also read the earlier book if you've not yet had the pleasure.

At the opening of the book Adair has included a cast of characters with a short bio, and, most importantly, a flag for those who are fictitious and therefore who were real people.  This should help readers a little in understanding that ultimately this is fiction set in a very real setting.  Somehow this combination of the real and the fictitious, combined with the story that is built in the book, all contribute to making a connection between 1828 Sydney and Napoleon Bonaparte believable.  Mind you, I didn't ever feel the need to sit down and check all the possible timelines - frankly, I found the book too engaging and too convincing to wonder too much about the historical veracity.  The possibility was tantalising.

Dunne is the central focus of these books, but there is a good supporting cast of characters - including a few romance elements which are nicely handled.  The reality of investigating a series of crimes in the 1800's is covered well - the small society in which the crimes are committed works nicely.  There is some humour throughout the book, and there is some action that on one hand you'd dearly like to think happened, even though a part of you knows perfectly well it probably didn't.

It does need to be remembered that this is fiction in a factual setting, and that's a scenario that can put off some readers.  The good thing about these books is there is no suggestion whatsoever that any of the events covered are likely to be history changing.  Somehow the idea that the nefarious goings on in both of Adair's books could have happened and the progress of the Colony of NSW would press on regardless works.  The setting is also realistically and very convincingly drawn in both books.  You get an almost visual feel for the way that early Sydney looked, smelt, sounded and felt for the residents.  DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER was a terrific debut of an interesting, engaging and extremely believable character in Nicodemus Dunne and THE GHOST OF WATERLOO carries on with his life, and the world around him with equal aplomb.