Goering’s Gold #RichardORawe #GoeringsGold

By Richard O’Rawe

Published by Melville House US https://www.mhpbooks.com/

389 pages ISBN 97816112199658

Publication date 26 May 2022

This is the second novel to feature James “Ructions” O’Hare.

I received an uncorrected proof to review for participating in the Blog Tour. Many thanks to Tom at the publisher for including me.

From the blurb

When WWII ended, the allies discovered that a huge amount of gold bullion plundered by Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering had gone missing. Some historians believed the gold had been hidden in a train box car in Poland. Others that it was secreted in Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps. And a few thought it was buried in the Republic of Ireland, which was neutral during the war.

When ex-IRA soldier Ructions O’Hare stumbles on a piece of Nazi memorabilia once owned by Goering, he begins to think that those who suspect the gold was in Ireland just might be on to something…

Synopsis

James “Ructions” O’Hare is lying low in France following his heist at the National Bank of Ireland which netted him €20m from the €36.5m taken. The IRA haven’t forgiven him for cutting them out of the job and have a score to settle. Following a tip off Commander Robert ‘Tiny’ Murdoch tracks him down and so Ructions and his partner and accomplice Eleanor Proctor are on the run again.

Serge Mercier is an international super fence and money launderer who helped Ructions dispose of the proceeds of the robbery. After a raid by neo-Nazis which he thwarted by the use of his panic room, but which cost the life of his butler, Serge realises it is time to act. The Nazis were after Field Marshall Goering’s ceremonial baton which it is believed is the key to finding millions of Euros worth of gold bullion.

Serge calls Ructions to offer him the treasure hunt of a lifetime. He has advanced prostate cancer so time is short and now the Nazis are on the scent they need to be thwarted. Runctions’ investments have bombed so it is an offer he can refuse even though it results in Eleanor deserting him.

In Paris Superintendent Thierry Vasseur is investigating the murder of the butler but senses bigger crimes are connected. Whilst over in Ireland Chief Superintendent Daniel Clarke is becoming rather close to Tiny Murdoch.

Ructions heads off to Ireland with the baton seeking the help of an old friend to figure out its significance and whether is indicates the location of the gold. Can they crack the code and recover any gold from under the noses of the IRA, neo-Nazis, and the police?

My thoughts

There are many who believe that there are millions or even billions in Nazi era bullion, looted art works and other associated treasures buried in Europe or South American. The many documentary series following latter day treasure hunters’ exploits on satellite TV are testament to this. It has also become apparent that Herman Goering was one of the biggest thieves in history amassing great riches including the greatest assembling of art in one place (his taste being infinitely better than the one-time struggling artist Adolf Hitler.) Some believe that there is evidence of U-Boats leaving on secret missions with undisclosed manifests of treasure or possibly fleeing senior members of the Reich. So central premise is noy outlandish and is the core of a cracking adventure tale.

The novel starts off at a relatively slow pace as the situation is set up, with the various factions introduced. Once the action moves to Ireland the pace ratchets up and the final quarter seems to fly by despite being incident packed. The plotting itself is quite intricate as Ructions manages to set off group against group and still manage to stay a couple of steps ahead of his pursuers. Finding gold is the least of his problems as he tries to stay out of the clutches of three police forces, Nazis and the IRA, some of whom want him dead.

The writing style is unflashy and puts me in mind of the style of European thrillers written just either side of the Second World War. There is no bad language and even though the IRA and Nazi’s are central to the plot violence included is minimal and not at all graphic. Its not a book that goes out to shock but rather tell a rollicking adventure tale.

The central characters are nicely drawn with Ructions as a kind of antihero hero. The author manages to make a former IRA hardman and bank robber a likable, if somewhat flawed, man who the reader is willing on to find the gold. Karl Keller and his Nazi cohorts are naïve and inexperienced wannabees, it is the grandfather figure Adelbert Keller which is the true personification of evil.

This being Ireland we get a taste of their special kind of internal politics with the interaction of the IRA with the police forces either side of the border. The informants, the influencing the hidden back scratching and general paranoia is all there albeit relatively low key. The author was a member of the IRA so the descriptions of them have authenticity though I imagine these have been dialled down to a degree. Who would have expected that the IRA’s internal enforcers are known as the ‘Nutting Squad’? Added to this is Interpol and the French police and a nice dollop of jurisdictional ‘territorial pissing’.

The Irish influence can be felt, judiciously added rather than laid on too thick. We have the daft inappropriate nicknames (Tiny is of course a big man) a bit of blather in the dialogue and a feel for the Irish way of life. The love of the pub is of course there, though interestingly key figures are tea total or modest drinkers. Overall, it feels genuine.

Goering’s Gold is a highly entertaining old-style thriller with a high stakes treasure hunt at its core that doesn’t disappoint.

Goering’s Gold can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Richard O’Rawe is a former IRA operative who was imprisoned for bank robbery in the Long Kesh penitentiary during the 1981 hunger strike by prisoners, which resulted in the death of ten prisoners. O’Rawe was the IRA’s press officer for the prisoners. He would later go on to write a bestselling book about the experience, Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike, as well as several other books inspired by his experiences in the IRA, including Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer that Changed Irish History, and In the Name of the Son: The Gerry Conlon Story. Most recently, he is the author of the IRA-themed thriller, Northern Heist. He lives in Belfast.

Don’t forget to check out the remaining stops on the Goering’s Gold Blog Tour

The Winter Guest #WCRyan #TheWinterGuest

By WC Ryan

Published by Zaffre Books (an imprint of Bonnier Books UK)

326 pages ISBN 9781838771508 Publication date 6 January 2022

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley.  Thanks to the author and publisher for organising this.

From the blurb

A gripping mystery with a classic feel, for fans of Agatha Christie

Synopsis

Its 1921 and while the Great War has ended the aftershocks of the Easter Uprising are being felt across Ireland. Civil war has now broken out.

When a car returning to Kilcolgan House the crumbling stately home of the Prendevilles is ambushed the occupants are left for dead. These include Maud Prendeville a heroine of the Easter Uprising. The IRA column responsible for the attack insist that they did not kill her and checked that she was alive when the left. Why would they kill one of their own?

Any police investigation is likely to be only cursory, so the family send for Captain Tom Harkin, a war veteran, now an IRA intelligence officer and Maud’s former fiancé to investigate.

Tom settles in at Kilcolgan as an unwelcome house guest. Working undercover he pulls away at the threads of the occupants’ secrets, some of which are perhaps better left uncovered. Within the embattled town with loyalties and allegiances divided he must separate friend from foe and be careful who he places his trust in.

Harkin’s return stirs up memories of his past love and all the while he is hampered by flash backs of his time in the trenches. Can he keep the ghosts of the past at by and discover the truth about Maud before his feelings overwhelm him?

My thoughts

This is another novel that it is difficult to pin down and categorise which are proving popular. Essentially, it’s a historical crime thriller but with a dollop of social history of the early 20th century, in particular the struggle for an independent Ireland, with elements of the supernatural in the background. A broad canvas for a bold novel.

Just twenty years ago it would have been difficult to pitch a novel with heroes who are members of the IRA to the mainstream book buying public in Great Britain, memories of terrorism and reprisals being too raw. It is a measure of progress that such a book can now be published to such good initial reviews. Now seems to be the time for us to confront our past as a nation.

Whilst the main characters are members of the fledgling IRA or sympathisers to their cause it is not written from a polarised point of view, its more nuanced than that, painting shades between the black and white and the reader gets to see some of the motivations of both sides.

The Black and Tans where fearsome men specially drafted into the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) to boost their numbers and had a reputation for brutality and instigating reprisals. There was also the Auxiliary Division of the RIC which effectively formed its paramilitary arm. These were hated by the locals and helped recruitment for the IRA. They were rough and dangerous men supposedly recruited to do a rough and dangerous job. The reality was that most were men who had served the Empire during the First World War only to return to unemployment and not a country fit for heroes. Men desensitised to kill and returned to civilian life with no thought to their future or rehabilitation into society. Sadly, this is an issue that persists to this day.

From the Republican side it is more the feeling of betrayal which eventually festers into hatred of the British in some. As is remarked in the novel many Irishmen joined the British in the War to protect the independence of small countries in Europe only to return home and have that right denied to themselves. Strong motivation indeed.

The decline of the stately home and class based system that supports it was nicely covered. A dark and cold crumbling old mansion is just the right atmospheric setting for ghostly activity and the supernatural. The woman in white appears as a potent of death.

The main protagonist Harkin suffered the horrors of the trenches and badly concussed in a shelling. He clearly is suffering from PTSD as he tries to negotiate life in ‘Civvie Street’ and is subject to flash backs and hallucinations, though at times the reader is never sure if the latter are the product of Harkin’s damaged mind or contact with the supernatural. He constantly feels the presence of his murdered for love Maud, as if she is guiding him to safety. She forgives him and is watching over him and ultimately a gift to him proves to be pivotal (albeit through an old chestnut of film and literature.)

Whilst being a male dominated novel the inclusion of Moira provides a strong female counterpoint to Harkin. It is she who watches his back and helps him to see what is in front of him and always has been, the key to his future.

This is very much a novel of trust and betrayal. The message throughout to Harkin is to be careful who he places his trust in, the enemy in front of you is easier to deal with than the one within. The betrayal when it comes is a surprise and leads to the unravelling of a sad and sordid tale.

The writing itself is nicely judged covering the more sensitive aspects with tact but not hiding away from the darker aspects. An entertaining and at times compelling novel that uses its broad canvas to great effect.

The Winter Guest can be purchased direct from the publisher here

Mr. Jones #AlexWoolf #MrJones

By Alex Woolf

Published by Indie Novella https://www.indienovella.co.uk/

384 pages ISBN 9781739959920

Publication date January 2022

I was sent a paperback copy of the novel to participate in its Blog Tour. Many thanks to the publisher Indie Novella, Alex Woolf and Becky at Team LiterallyPR for allowing me to participate in the tour.

From the blurb 

Ben hears noises in his basement and witnesses weird goings-on in his local park. His eight-year-old daughter Imogen starts receiving messages from someone claiming to be her missing mother. And then there is Mr Jones —the man who haunts the imaginations of the children at Imogen’s school. But they are just stories, surely? Ben soon develops a creeping suspicion that someone is out to kidnap his daughter. Are his fears real or a result of his own stress-induced paranoia?

Synopsis

It is ten months since Ben’s wife Susan disappeared. Prior to this he had found her making contact online with another man and confronted her about it. Naturally he sees the two things as being connected. After some initial hope that she would return Ben decides that he needs to move on with his life. His daughter Imogen is convinced that she will return, and his mother thinks he should keep an open mind about the possibility.

Amy is busy trying to rebuild her life with her son Alex. Just under a year ago her daughter Stephanie disappeared from their car whilst Amy was buying a parking ticket. Nothing has been seen of her since. The disappearance put intolerable pressure on her marriage and her novelist husband Roy walks out on her and Alex.

Ben starts to get odd feelings and then notice strange goings on in the local park. When Imogen becomes unduly interested in a ‘stick’ in the ground Ben digs it up and is alarmed to find it’s a rib bone. The relief of discovering it is a pig bone is short lived though as Imogen is convinced that her mother wanted her to have it and his communication with her through it. When Ben discovers a note inserted in it seemingly written in Susan’s handwriting he is bewildered.

Then there is Mr. Jones a strange besuited character wearing a panda mask who occasionally appears in the park. A bogeyman figure for the children but could he be the source of the strange goings on?

When Imogen befriends lonely Alex, Ben and Amy become drawn together and confide in each other their loss. As they start to piece together what is going on they realise that they need to work together if they are going to confront these strange goings on, but can they trust each other?

My thoughts

I don’t often comment on book covers, perhaps I should more, but this one pretty much encapsulates the feeling of the book. With the panda head (mask) displaying a certain friendliness which is being worn by a normally dressed but apparently sinister person in a dark and scary looking park we wonder what is to come. Top marks for setting the tone nicely before the reader even opens the novel. This is a novel that moves between light normality and dark and disturbing throughout the story and at times is quite unsettling..

I enjoyed the writing style, it’s a little bit different to the crime novels I normally read. Whether it falls into horror writing I couldn’t say, as I read so little of that genre, to me it felt more like a psychological thriller written as literary fiction. Mr. Jones may well be Alex Woolf’s first solo novel for an adult audience, but he is clearly a long established and very accomplished writer.

The pacing varies throughout the entirety of the novel. Where life is normal the pacing is leisurely but when unusual things happen, it speeds up and this works to accentuate the weirdness and the characters’ anxiety until it builds up to a dramatic and quite unexpected finale.

The story is a little odd to begin with but get progressively stranger and there appears to be divergence with reality and into the realms of the paranormal. Is what Ben experiencing reality, is it a dream or is he seeing ghosts and Mr. Jones is some kind of evil entity. As the strands are unpicked the reader gets some explanations, some seemingly strange in themselves, and just when there is a sense that it’s all about to become a little banal and the reader’s guard is down the knockout blow is administered. All of this is perfectly delivered such that you are never quite sure what is happening and who is behind it.

The themes of the novel are loss, the pain it brings, and fear of the unknown. Both Ben and Amy suffer the loss of a loved one which has a debilitating effect on their present. It’s also the fear they have for losing the one who is closest (Ben’s Imogen, Amy’s Alex) which is summed up with an apparent warning from Mr. Jones which surfaces a few times “I will come for the one you love the most.” Mr. Jones brings the fear of the unknown, the bogeyman who may or may not exist, someone who could be a human or some paranormal entity. One thing for certain he is no Boo Radley.

The characters are very well drawn, we feel the pain and anguish of Ben and Amy particularly when they think they have lost their child. Ben’s descent into self-doubt and paranoia is carefully portrayed as his mental health deteriorates. Turnwood Park and the derelict house are so lovingly described that they too could almost be regarded as characters in their own right and are perfect tools for developing the psychological terror needed. Perhaps there could have been more on Luke and Jean but that would have detracted from the plot.

Mr. Jones is a dark and at times downright disturbing psychological thriller, with bits of horror added to the mix, that reads as literary fiction rather than mere pulp. Watch out or Mr. Jones will get you.

Mr. Jones can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The Author

Photo credit: Indie Novella website

Alex Woolf has written a number of novels, including Chronosphere, a time-warping science fiction trilogy, The Shakespeare Plot, about Tudor spies, and a steampunk series, Iron Sky. His Victorian supernatural thriller Aldo Moon was one of Lovereading4kids’ books of the year. He won Fiction Express awards for two of his stories and was shortlisted for the RED Book Award for his horror novel Soul Shadows. He is co-author of a comic ‘novel-in-emails’, Work in Progress, published by Unbound.

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Mr. Jones Blog Tour.

Yes, I Killed Her

By Harry Fisher https://harryfisherwriter.com/

Published by Hobeck Books https://www.hobeck.net/

400 pages ISBN 9781913793678

Publication date 17 May 2022

Yes, I Killed Her is the second novel in the Mel Cooper series.

I was sent an electronic copy to enable me to take part in this Blog Tour. I would like to thank Rebecca at Hobeck Books and the author for the invitation to participate.

From the blurb

There was a time when the perfect murder wouldn’t be so hard to achieve. But that ‘golden age’ has now passed. In today’s world of rapid and ingenious advances in forensic science – both biological and digital – omnipresent CCTV, and electronic footprints as wide as a Yeti’s, is the perfect murder even remotely possible?

Edwin Fuller (the bad guy) is convinced it is.

DS Mel Cooper begs to differ.

Game on.

Synopsis

Edwin Fuller has had enough, he’s finally going to murder his wife Rachel, and the storm brewing outside is the final piece of the jigsaw. The storm will be the perfect cover to a perfect murder.

Rachel’s body is found hanging precariously over an almost inaccessible riverbank in Leith on DI Mel Cooper’s patch.  Mel and her partner Andrew Young have the job of fronting the investigation.

Always suspect the spouse they say. Edwin is meek and mild, seemingly devastated when he received the ‘death knock’ and then had to carry out the identification. He’s briefly considered but ruled out once evidence starts being uncovered, which points to friend Jack being the guilty man. Mel and her team build a watertight case but one small point bugs her, how could a burner phone suddenly turn itself on?

Edwin is home and in the clear, but he’s enjoying himself so much outsmarting both the police and his friends and family. He’s become sort of an adrenalin junkie, living off the thrill and wanting a bigger one next. This prompts him to take an enormous risk and goad Mel in private and then deny it in public.

Jack’s wife Lisa stands by him, she knows there is no way he would have had an affair with and then murdered Rachel. These thoughts are merely reinforced when Mel expresses her doubts and together they decide to blow Edwin’s charade wide open.

My thoughts

It’s an audacious and confident author who exposes the killer in the first chapter of a novel. It’s a skilled one who can keep the reader enthralled to the final page. Harry Fisher is all of these and in ‘Yes, I Killed Her’ has produced a brilliant modern take on the classic ‘perfect murder’ story.

The core of the plot is straightforward, Edwin murders his wife Rachel and does it in such a way that he believes he will get away with it, the perfect murder indeed. The reader interest comes from the detailed and intricate planning that goes into the murder and the subsequent framing of a friend. If you think modern forensic techniques have made detection easy, then think again. Edwin seems to have thought of everything and created within the margins of ‘Excel for Dummies’ a coded blueprint to the crime worthy of Leonardo da Vinci’s note books. No doubt the modern criminal needs to be au fait with what can be detected and discovered compared with the CSI style fiction on TV and in print.

It’s a novel with strong characters and they are given the stage to tell their story. It’s a Mel Cooper novel but so much of it revolves around Edwin that he is the key character. The reader starts off seeing him merely as a cold killer but as the plot develops it is clear his marriage is toxic, and his wife Rachel is dominating and controlling. Any sympathy Edwin though is short lived, we discover that Rachel herself is a damaged woman, partly due to her own mistakes, and we see where her contempt for men comes from. Much of Edwin’s unhappiness is down to his own decisions and personality traits, he’s weak, vain, and arrogant. It’s a brilliant build-up of the man only to shoot him down and whilst he is clever, he is so loathsome that the final third of the book you end up waiting for Mel and Lisa to succeed.

The pacing is nicely judged, being even and controlled as the initial evidence gathering is carried out, but once Mel is convinced of his guilt the pace ratchets up and there is the sense of urgency to prevent a miscarriage of justice. The testing out of the theories of how he may have done it are quite compelling and cleverly though out.

There are no shortages of crime novels based in Edinburgh and the surrounds but the setting in Leith is a welcome one and the reader gets a good feel for the place. As someone who has some familiarity with the dockland areas through work over a 20-year period I can appreciate some of the changes the area has gone through. My interest was piqued by the description of the Edinburgh Colonies houses which are unique to the area.

The dialogue is good and there are some injections of wit, calling the headmaster ‘ELF’ standing for Evil Little Fucker made me chuckle. For a country with such beautifully expressive dialect I was perhaps expecting a little more but that could me being an old crabbit. Nevertheless, if like me you love Scotland and its people you’ll find this novel a delight.

‘Yes, I Killed Her’ is an intelligent and highly creative top tier crime novel that draws the reader in and keeps the interest there to the final page. A stunningly good book and a series to follow.

Yes, I killed Her can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Photo credit: Catherine Keir (2020)

Harry Fisher is originally from Leith (the port of Edinburgh) but lives in Aberdeen with his wife, Shiona. They’re both into travel, outdoor activities, wine and food. They share their home with their crazy Hungarian Vizsla – his job is to stop them seizing up completely.

Prior to self-publishing his debut crime thriller, Harry had never written a word of fiction. So he just launched in – cold turkey for authors. Way Beyond A Lie is set in Edinburgh, with themes that are bang up to date: identity theft and cybercrime. During two Free Book Promotions in 2020, it was downloaded 2,700 times over five days.

His second book Be Sure Your Sins is #1 in the DS Mel Cooper series. Also set in Edinburgh, it involves six events that happen to six people that destroy six lives. It’s not a sequel but Way Beyond A Lie readers told Harry they loved Mel and her sidekick Andrew Young so, easy decision, they got their own show.

Harry loves talking to readers about crime writing. Covid has meant that online has become the norm but he’d far rather meet people face to face.

Little Drummer

By Kjell Ola Dahl

Translated by Don Bartlett

Published by Orenda Books https://orendabooks.co.uk/

276 pages ISBN 9781914585128

Publication date 26 May 2022

Little Drummer is number 8 in the Oslo Detectives series.

I was sent a paperback uncorrected proof copy to enable me to take part in this Blog Tour. I would like to than Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to participate and of course the Author and Karen at the publishers.

From the blurb

Godfather of Nordic Noir Kjell Ola Dahl returns with tense, sophisticated, searingly relevant international thriller that explodes the Nordic Noir genre, as Frølich and Gunnarstranda travel the globe to investigate exploitation and corruption in the distribution of foreign aid and essential HIV medications.

Synopsis

A scared journalist discovers a woman seated motionless in her car in an underground carpark. She is dead from a drugs overdose and at first sight it seems to be a case of suicide or accidental death.

Detective Gunnarstranda has his doubts though and orders an autopsy, which reveals that she was drugged by ether first before the fatal overdose so now it is a murder investigation.

The woman is identified as Kristine Ramm and her Kenyan boyfriend Stuart Takeyo is missing. Stuart is a scientist working towards his doctorate thanks to an aid project through the University of Kampala.

Progress is frustrated until the journalist who discovered Kristine, Lise Fagernes, tracks the missing Stuart back to his hometown of Kisumu. As he is the main suspect he must be questioned and Frølich reluctantly flies off to African. Lise, however, is a couple of steps ahead of him.

Whilst Frølich is away Gunnarstranda pursues the case in Norway and takes special interest in Freddy Pedersen the owner of the bar in which Kristine worked part time. He appears to have wealth and influence far more than that which might be expected for his business stature.

What Frølich, Gunnarstranda and Fagernes uncover are crimes bigger than they expected and with tentacles reaching across two continents. High stakes mean great danger as they come to find out.

My thoughts

To borrow from the famous football cliché this is a book of two halves, or rather two parts. The part set in Norway is a traditional police procedural albeit with the Nordic twist. When the action moves on to Kenya it transforms into a political thriller of journalistic investigations into corruption. Both sides of the story are expertly covered managing to build up the intrigue in Norway and the tension in Africa.

The writing is brisk and the chapters short helping to build the tension in the second half of the novel. The chapters set in Africa mange to capture its difference to Europe, it’s almost alien feel to Westerners. Austin, the local police officer assigned to Frølich, sums it up best with his oft used adage ‘in Africa anything can happen’. Here the reader gets a feel for the endemic corruption, the chaotic streets and the low value that is put on some lives (this illustrated by the metaphor of a stray dog lapping up a murder victim’s blood). Most of all it is the sense of the fear of the unknown, the helplessness and vulnerability of the visitor. To be cast adrift here, for most of us, would be terrifying.

The plot is both excellent and unexpected as it throws off the shackles of the traditional Nordic Noir genre and moves across continents. The fraud perpetrated is credible, to this accountant reader, and the loose threads come together at the end without being it any way predictable.

Although there is a lot of incident packed into a relatively short book the characterisation is excellent. One of the advantages of a series is being to flesh out the recurring characters, so we learn of Gunnarstranda’s health problems and having to give up smoking which provides some light-hearted ribbing, and welcome humour as a counterpoint to the dark subject matter. Frølich is missing Anna his ex-girlfriend and keeps seeing her in unexpected places, but of course it’s never her it’s his memory of her haunting his reality. Lise proves to be the cure to the manifestation of this obsession, through a relationship that develops like a modern take on a Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movie. Lise has problems of her own, not helped by the discovery of the body of Kristine, stemming from her being buried in the ice tunnel. 

Many Scandinavian crime writers manage to include a strong social conscience within their work without it becoming dull and preachy. Kjell Ola Dahl is indeed one of these and in Little Drummer manages to pose the reader difficult questions about poverty, exploitation, and treatment of the third world. Much is down to the law of unintended consequences, where good intentions make life worse rather than better. How investment into fishing, something Norway has great expertise in, make a small number of people rich, with fish exported to Europe, but at the same time reducing the local fishermen now unemployed to scavenging for fish offal to make soup for their families. It is also prescient (being first published in 2003) in seeing some the problems with the mega-charity organisations which have recently made the news. Real thought-provoking stuff.

Little Drummer manages to encompass everything you would expect from a great Nordic Noir but with a modern parable to describe the plight of much of Africa delivered with compassion. The ‘Oslo Detective’ series manages to tackle some of the difficult issues of our time with intelligent and creative plots that retain the brooding darkness to be expected of the genre but remain magnificently entertaining. For me a must read series.

Little Drummer can be purchase direct from the publisher here

The author

Kjell Ola Dhall [photo by Rolf M Aagaard]

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published twelve novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers (The Oslo Detectives series) featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he also won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. The Courier was longlisted for the CWA International Dagger and was a number-one bestseller in ebook. His work has been published in fourteen countries, and he lives in the Norwegian countryside.

Impostor Syndrome #KathyWang #ImpostorSyndrome

By Kathy Wang http://www.bykathywang.com/

Published by Verve Books https://www.vervebooks.co.uk/index.php

318 pages ISBN 9780857308245

Publication date 26 May 2022

I was sent a paperback proof copy in exchange for a fair review. I would like to thank the publisher and author for granting me this privilege.

From the blurb

Highly anticipated, razor-sharp novel about women in the workplace, the power of Big Tech and the looming threat of foreign espionage

Synopsis

Leo works at the State Protection Bureau in Moscow. He plucks Julia from one of the ghastly state orphanages and grooms her for hi-tech espionage work. His plan is to set her up in Silicon Valley in a start-up business to infiltrate from the inside. Julia’s rise is stellar, and she becomes the COO of Tangerine one of the biggest companies in the sector and in doing so becomes an icon for women in business everywhere. Silicon Valley looks up to Julia Lerner.

Alice Lu has the credentials to have a successful career, but it has plateaued at engineer level in Tangerine. She sorts out hardware problems for management and when she is not doing that she works as analyst. Her long-term boyfriend has left to chase his start up dreams but those don’t include Alice.

Late one Friday Alice runs a report on the serves and discovers that one is drawing significant amounts of data.  She should leave for the weekend but with nothing special for her at home she cannot put this out of her mind. She continues to pull at this ‘loose thread’ and discovers security at Tangerine is not as tight as people might think it is or should be. Alice discovers things that surprise her but must decide what to do with information before her own digging is discovered.

My thoughts

This is very much a novel for the twenty first century. Cyber-crime is in the news and rising. People have been aware of hacking for some time now but it’s becoming clear that state sponsored infiltration and malware attacks are increasing. Spies are no longer men who lurk in the shadows but work in light and airy open plan offices.

The fear that Big Tech is becoming too powerful and so much being concentrated within a few massive corporations is real and the author mines this to great effect.  People have been too trusting or lazy and there is so much data out there that can be assembled about us all. I think once people have read Impostor Syndrome they will think twice about their social media posts, at least for a short time.

I found the espionage in the book quite credible. It stands to reason that state agencies are trying to get assets within major corporations, especially high-tech ones, across the globe. As the novel exposes any discoveries are going to be undisclosed to preserve confidence in the business and sector. The premise of the ‘God Mode’ not being removed initially seems a little far fetched but there have been so many significant data breaches reported and if a spy can leave his laptop on a train or in a wine bar then perhaps it is not at all far-fetched. Alice’s discovery and the pulling at the threads is skilfully handled but it didn’t quite capture the jeopardy of discovery or the thrill of a chase.

Much of the book is well executed satire of life in Silicon Valley. There is Tangerine the somewhat pretentiously named corporation, which represents all the major players in the market at some point, with its huge campus. There is much fun to be had at the expense of on-site yoga studios, sleep pods and every obscure cuisine restaurant possible (Hawaiian vegan anyone?)  

This is light-hearted but we also get a sense of the drudgery of the worker bees like Alice. They land a great job but there are big commutes ahead, property prices they cannot afford or rentals that keeps them in a sort of wage poverty such that they take food from work just to survive.

Its good so read a book with so many strong female characters in it. There’s Julia the spy, a highly successful businesswoman who becomes so settled she cannot give the life up. In the hapless Alice we have a heroine to get behind has she struggles with her family ties as she battles to do right. The kindly and laid-back Miriam is a nicely judged counterpoint to all the dynamic characters and her interactions with Leo.

The male characters do not come out so well. Here we see the downside to Silicon Valley, the successful men are portrayed as shallow, feckless, unfaithful, narcissists and squanderers, the rest are nerds. Unkind perhaps, though I suspect she has caught many of the big chiefs to a tee. Not exactly a feminist tract, more a case of shining a light on the attitudes to sex and ethnicity in a toxic environment with a deft touch rather than a sledgehammer blow.

A wry and satirical look at life in big tech USA which is both highly enjoyable and amusing.

The author

Kathy is the author of FAMILY TRUST and IMPOSTOR SYNDROME. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School, and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Impostor Syndrome can be purchased direct from the publisher here

May God Forgive

By Alan Parks https://www.alanparks.co.uk/

Published by Canongate Books https://canongate.co.uk/

384 pages ISBN 9781838856748

Publication date 28 April 2022

The fifth novel in the Harry McCoy series.

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley.  Thanks to the author and publisher for organising this.

From the blurb

McCoy has twenty-four hours to find two kidnapped boys before they turn up dead in Glasgow’s city centre, in this fifth dark and gritty Harry McCoy thriller.

Synopsis

Harry McCoy is back at work earlier than he should be after a month in hospital recovering from a bleeding stomach ulcer. He should at least be easing himself back in by desk duty but no, swigging copious amounts of Pepto-Bismol he’s back on the streets.

A seemingly meaningless arson attack on a hairdresser’s shop has resulted in the deaths of five women and children leading to anger on the streets. Three youths have been arrested and their arrival is met by a furious mob. An audacious rescue is carried out when the prison van is rammed, and the youth are spirited away. When the badly mutilated body of one is found with the message ‘one down, two to go’ it’s clear that it was no rescue but vigilante justice. Who was behind it is not clear but there are not many with the means to carry out such a co-ordinated plan to snatch them?

Life in the Glasgow underworld grinds along, nonetheless. McCoy’s friend Stevie Cooper is keeping a low profile as his ‘firm’ has been weakened in recent months. There are indications that a turf war between rival bosses Dessie Caine and Johnny Smart, so perhaps the arson attack is part of this? Caine is trying to develop legitimate businesses and is cosying up to the new archbishop Father McKenna with promises to build a new chapel.

When McCoy is called to a suicide, an apparent jumper from the roof of the Great Northern men’s hostel, he recognises him to be Alistair ‘Dirty Ally’ Drummond purveyor of pornographic materials at the market. Meanwhile Wattie is saddled with the case of an unidentified young woman who is found in a church yard by a dog walker (“it’s always a bloody dog walker”). McCoy lend a hand, but it quickly develops in an unexpected direction which results in Harry having to confront a harrowing point in his past.

My thoughts

Back to 1970s Glasgow, the grim harsh time before much of the city was regenerated. The optimism of the 1960s has given way to the reality that the city has been passed by and any improvements since the war have merely created brutal concrete slums.

The author captures the warts and all ugliness of life for many at that time and doesn’t flinch with its portrayal. He excels in describing the dirty, dark, dismal, and dangerous which flows throughout the prose. It works so well because it is laid out matter of fact rather than feeling forced or in any way contrived. The plot is multistranded but pulls together nicely in the final third of the book. It’s even paced and the narrative switches between the strands keeping the reader’s interest.

In Harry McCoy we have an engaging main character with plenty of baggage and the potential for much future development. He is seriously flawed but trying to do right, though with his own brand of pragmatic morality as can be seen with the closure of this novel. He is wedded to his past, loyal to his childhood friend and gangster Stevie Cooper, which has the potential to bring him down. There is also pain and distress in his past which manifests in this novel with his meeting Ally Drummond and finding his alcoholic father in a hostel. This is deftly handled by Mr Parks in amongst the bloodshed and mayhem.

Many of the side characters are broken people trying to survive their shattered lives, finding succour where they can mainly through cigarettes and alcohol. The odds are stacked against them, but they battle on the best that they can. These are not added merely for the grotesque that some bring, rather there is an element of fondness added, these are tough people doing their best. Unsaid is that those who are not tough fall by the wayside.

The description of making an alcoholic cocktail from milk and hairspray had me going to Google, I’ve heard of many street concoctions but that was a new one for me, though one never to be sampled. This is then counterbalanced by the mention of Red Hackle whisky which had me thinking, that’s a long-discontinued brand, a nice nostalgic touch (the ‘red hackle’ being the feather worn by members of the Black Watch regiment).

The book is peppered with violence including razor slashes, beatings, and torture but in such a way as it is not gratuitous. The violence itself is for the reader to imagine not detailed upon the page, more in the spirit of Hitchcock’s Psycho than the modern slasher style. Even so it will remain dark and bleak enough for most readers’ taste.

For me nobody captures the bloody awfulness of this period like Mr Parks, managing to keep it both entertaining and believable. This is one fantastic series that shows no sign of running out of steam or letting up pace and I for one can’t wait for the next novel.

May God Forgive can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Portrait of Alan Parks (source: his web site)

Alan Parks  worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing. His debut novel Bloody January was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, February’s Son was nominated for an Edgar Award, Bobby March Will Live Forever was picked as a The Times Best Book of the Year and The April Dead was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. He lives and works in Glasgow.

In April 2022 the Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award 2022 in the category Best Paperback Original for Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks (Europa Editions – World Noir)