Simon & Schuster

I really think that whenever I feel like a bit of a whinge about the way life is these days, I should read a book like EUGENIA. Eugenia Falleni was a woman born into a large Italian Family, who grew up in New Zealand, and spent most of her all too short life in Australia, living most of it as a man.

Mark Tedeschi QC looks at what happened to Eugenia in her early life, a rape and subsequent birth of a daughter which complicated her life even more, how she functioned in day-to-day life, her first marriage and the death of her wife for which she was charged with murder, along with a second marriage and life post trial and time in jail.

Whilst the book is written by a lawyer, and looks closely at the rights, wrong and inadequacies of the trial and sentencing that she endured, it's not just about the legal. Tedeschi considers many of the elements that made up Falleni's difficult and tragic life, considering the question of her gender dysmorphia, and how she kept it a secret, particularly, it seems in the case of two marriages to women. Although her first wife, Annie Birkett, had finally discovered the truth, her second wife Lizzie Crawford refused to acknowledge that her husband, was in fact, a woman, even after police and had arrested Falleni, and doctors had examined her and declared the obvious.

It's impossible to read EUGENIA and not have sympathy for a woman who, may or may not have committed murder, although the book's conclusion is that her defence could have argued accidental / manslaughter. It's impossible not to consider how incredibly difficult, confronting and complicated her life must have been with such an obvious case of gender dysmorphia. Despite even the worst of idiocy about such issues in current day society, at the very least you'd hope there would be some support, understanding, and friendship somewhere. Alas for Falleni she was the target of ridicule and disrespect from everywhere. She was subjected to the worst sexual violence, attacked by the press, treated like a freak by the public and let down badly by her defence. Although there was finally kindness in jail, it was a bit of a kick in the teeth to find out that even her death was an absolute, flat out, utter and complete tragedy.

I'd never heard of Eugenia Falleni before I read a short story in a true crime collection a while ago, so I'm really grateful that Tedeschi took the time to delve, consider and write this book. Eugenia Falleni deserves it.

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.

I've been happily reading the Anna Travis series by Lynda La Plante since the first book and enjoying them.  Despite a few odds and ends that can be mildly annoying.  Ongoing romantic angst, a tricky senior officer (in this case the early on love interest as well), and some seriously big books without always having quite enough story to fill out all of the pages.  

BLIND FURY, unfortunately, nearly defeated me before the end.  Which is a pity.  Because the investigative elements of this book are actually not too bad.  It does take a while for things to get moving mind you - but it's an interesting sort of a case, with the bodies of two young unidentified girls and an identified older prostitute seemingly having little in common.  Aside from the circumstances of the dumping of their corpses, and the way in which they were raped and killed.  Identifying the victims requires a lot of good old fashioned police investigative work - a lot of which is done by the team that Anna is working with - with flashes of insight from Anna herself.  At the same time, for reasons best known to DCS Langton, Anna and a colleague also find themselves visiting a maximum security jail to discuss the case with a previously convicted multiple murderer who claims he has a unique insight into the mindset of this new killer.  

Langton and Anna have a romantic history (they lived together at one point) and both have moved on.  A while ago.  It is mentioned, not quite as frequently as in earlier books, and it's sort of spiced up a little with some vaguely longing behaviour from Langton which seems to cause Anna to realise, frequently, that she's moved on.  Moved on to the point where she forms a relationship with one of the guards on the unit where killer Cameron Welsh is held.  And at this point the personal elements of the story start declaring themselves in bold face letters, with a little neon decoration for good measure.

BLIND FURY heads off into unbelievable territory fairly quickly - with the unfathomable concentration on an unconnected, unqualified, convicted killer as some sort of "expert" witness in the case.  Which didn't stack up well on it's own, let alone when you also have to accept some of the leaps of brilliance or "intuition" elements of the normal Anna investigation style.  Normally this sort of thing is a little easier to swallow as previous books have belted along at a good pace, but this one dragged.  As the focus is increasingly on Anna and her personal life, the concentration on the actual investigation wanes - and that got really annoying, as the process of identifying the two unknown girls, connecting them to the dead prostitute and then the painstaking work required to try to identify suspects was reasonably compelling.  Or at least it felt so stacked up beside the inevitability of the trainwreck that is Anna's personal life.  

Overall there just wasn't enough of the good elements to hide or compensate for the increasingly sinking feeling of inevitability that hit as soon as a new man walked into Anna's life and the book dragged on to its foreseeable and really disappointing conclusion.