Good Friday #TEAMTENNISON #LyndaLaPlante #GoodFriday

By Lynda Le Plante https://lyndalaplante.com/ @LaPlanteLynda

Narrated by Jessica Ball

Published by Bolinda/Bonnier Audio https://www.bolinda.com/ @Bolindaaudio, Zaffre https://www.bonnierbooks.co.uk/imprints/zaffre/ @ZaffreBooks (an imprint of Bonnier Books UK https://www.bonnierbooks.co.uk/ @bonnierbooks_uk)

418 pages (11 hours 9 minutes) ISBN 9781489419187

Publication date 23 August 2017

Good Friday is the third novel the Jane Tennison Thriller Series.

I reviewed an audiobook using the BorrowBox library app https://www.borrowbox.com/ @BorrowBox. I would like to thank Tracy Fenton @Tr4cyF3nt0n from Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to take part in the #TEAMTENNISON review project. Click on the links to read my reviews of Tennison and Hidden Killers. My review of Murder Mile the fourth novel in the series will be posted on this blog in the final week in November.

The Cover

I can’t even deduce what the audiobook cover is trying to represent. The book cover (as shown) is much more atmospheric and in keeping with the series. A woman (presumably Jane) dashing upstairs with some urgency.

The narration

After Julie Teal narrated the first two books in the series, there is a change of narrator (presumably linked to the publisher change) to Jessica Ball. Never an easy task to pick up the baton after a narrator is established but Jessica has done this with some aplomb. Quite different but just as good.

My thoughts

Its 1976 and London has been rocked throughout 1974 and 1975 by a series of gun and bombs attacks by the IRA. The Bomb Squad is struggling to counteract the Active Service Units (ASU) of the IRA though there has just been the successful conclusion of the Balcombe Street siege. These were truly dark days to live through, even more so in London and Birmingham. Days nobody wants to revisit but it would be amiss for it not to be covered within this novel series. Here the author has covered it from the police perspective in the main, but we do see the motivation of at least one member of the ASU.

Jane Tennison has settled well into life as a fully-fledged WDC but is finding the work somewhat tiresome. She is bottom of the pecking order and gets all the mundane, routine jobs which she finds frustrating after the initial baptism of fire at Hackney and her first case at Bow Street. Not content to stick around tackling a shoplifting gang she has her head turned by Brian Edwards who is now in the Flying Squad. There are no female officers in The Sweeney (cockney rhyming slang – Sweeney Todd = Flying Squad) so the reckless and over ambitious Jane wants to be the first.

Jane gets her move but its not to the Sweeney but the Dip Squad, which targets the pickpocket gangs operating in the West End. Disappointed that its not the move she craved, Jane treats it as a chance to learn and hopes it will be a stepping stone up, though it seems to be where failed Sweeney officers end up. Her first day doesn’t go well but already we she that Jane has the uncanny knack or plain luck to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. On her second day she is caught up in an IRA bombing at Covent Garden Tube station and her face is plastered over the newspapers helping the injured. Now identified she is in grave danger and from this point she is pulled into working with the Bomb Squad until the ASU is caught.

We see a Bomb Squad under real pressure to get results sometimes cutting covers to get a result. An acknowledgement that amongst the successes were some miscarriages of justice.

Already an incident packed first few chapters, but after that, I’m giving nothing away by saying it is a novel that builds up to a big set piece finale. This build up is beautifully judged mixing tension with periodic pressure releases before it ratchets up again with searches and chases before a scene with real jeopardy.

Good Friday is the day of the formal CDI dinner, the major event of their year, so what bigger prize for a terrorist organisation to strike. Quite a fitting choice of day too, as The Long Good Friday is many people’s choice of the best UK gangster/crime film which also involves the IRA. In one of those strange coincidences in life there is the parallel that Helen Mirren played the female lead and was then to become the TV version of Jane Tennison. Good Friday is the Christian day that represents the ultimate sacrifice and so works as an allegory for the work of the bomb disposal experts, who willingly face death every time they try to defuse a bomb. In Dexter we have the hero, the man’s man, the womaniser but he is also a little cold and distant, unable to put down roots or have a lasting relationship. All these traits are perfectly captured, but despite living on a knife edge we see he is a caring man.

Jane’s character is developing nicely as she gains more depth. So far, she has been concentrating on her career, but she realises that she needs friends and a love life, which she addresses with mixed success. She also ends up reassessing some of her working colleagues as her first impressions are not always right. Moving out of the station house and buying her own flat broadens her horizons and leads to an interesting flatmate.

Her enthusiasm to progress her career still causes her problems as she bumbles her way into situations she shouldn’t, at times being too much of a loose cannon. She continues to learn important lessons in doing so and must learn to become more detached, not to take every development personally. Officers cannot afford to care too much. It is her instincts and observations that are making her an excellent investigator and getting her out of hot water. After ‘that dress’ she had to wear at Pam’s wedding she gets to pick a high-end ball gown for the dinner, which of course is a potential disaster waiting to happen…

Good Friday brilliantly captures the fears of a nation back in 1976 and builds up to a thrilling finale. Jane still has a long journey ahead.

Good Friday can be purchased through the Bookshop.org here

The author

Lynda La Plante (born Lynda Titchmarsh) is a British author, screenwriter, and erstwhile actress (her performances in Rentaghost and other programmes were under her stage name of Lynda Marchal), best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series.

Her first TV series as a scriptwriter was the six part robbery series Widows, in 1983, in which the widows of four armed robbers carry out a heist planned by their deceased husbands.

In 1991 ITV released Prime Suspect which has now run to seven series and stars Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. (In the United States Prime Suspect airs on PBS as part of the anthology program Mystery!) In 1993 La Plante won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her work on the series. In 1992 she wrote at TV movie called Seekers, starring Brenda Fricker and Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson.

She formed her own television production company, La Plante Productions, in 1994 and as La Plante Productions she wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy She’s Out (ITV, 1995). The name “La Plante” comes from her marriage to writer Richard La Plante, author of the book Mantis and Hog Fever. La Plante divorced Lynda in the early 1990s.

Her output continued with The Governor (ITV 1995-96), a series focusing on the female governor of a high security prison, and was followed by a string of ratings pulling miniseries: the psycho killer nightmare events of Trial & Retribution (ITV 1997-), the widows’ revenge of the murders of their husbands & children Bella Mafia (1997) (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV 1998), videogame/internet murder mystery Killer Net (Channel 4 1998) and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV 2001).

Two additions to the Trial and Retribution miniseries were broadcast during 2006.

Source: Goodreads profile

The Christmas Appeal #JaniceHallett #TheChristmasAppeal

By Janice Hallett @JaniceHallett

Published by Viper Books @ViperBooks https://serpentstail.com/viper/ (part of Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books)

208 pages ISBN 9781800817357

Publication date 26 October 2023

I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. I would like to thank Anne at Random Things Tours @RandomTTours for the invitation to participate in the Blog Tour and of course the Author and Publisher.

The Cover

Just the sort of cover one might expect for a cosy Christmas read, but of course we know that there will an unpleasant surprise coming.

My thoughts

They say Christmas starts earlier each year and here we are now in October and there are a clutch of Christmas books coming out. I’m very much on the side of the Grinch when it comes to Christmas, but I decided to dip into this one because of the two previous books by the author that I’ve reviewed on this blog The Twyford Code and The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. I do have a copy of The Appeal but I’ve not got around to it yet. This small novel (novella perhaps) revisits the setting and characters of The Appeal but I think it works equally well enough as a stand-alone. Let the festivities commence…

Christmas means one thing for amateur dramatics groups, and the Fairway Players of Lower Lockwood prove to be no exception; panto season. That great British tradition that seems to puzzle foreign visitors, and here the reader is introduced to a puzzle of a different kind. With the church in desperate need of funds to repair the roof (thanks to the damage from a massive bat-poo-patty) it is hoped that this year’s performance of Jack and the Beanstalk will be a big success. After all Sarah-Jane has sourced an impressive fibreglass beanstalk to wow the audience but she has accounted for the petty jealousy of others and the liberal application of ‘Sod’s law’.

When the curtain goes up the audience gets a performance that they are not likely to forget.

If you have read any of the previous novels by the author, you will know what to expect. Once again, instead of a more traditional prose format we have we have a series of emails, text and WhatsApp messages to work through. Not as original as it once was but its an entertaining way to construct a puzzle, though I guess it is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. It is a great way of demonstrating the two-faced bitchiness of some players as they say one thing and then immediately something else to another character, so read the message to/from carefully.

It is given structure by the framing of a puzzle presented to lawyers Femi Hassan and Charlotte Holroyd by their former boss Roderick Tanner KC (retired), the question is can you the reader solve it first.

At its core it’s the attitudes and social standing of middle-class middle-England, with all its pettiness and one-upmanship. Lower Lockwood now has council and low-cost housing estates and even though The Fairway Player are short on numbers, some don’t want ‘that sort of person’ joining. More energy is expended jockeying for position, control and status within the group than trying to recruit. This is very entertainingly done but in a gentler way rather than caustic, like the dynamic between Captain Mainwaring and Sargeant Wilson in Dad’s Army. This question is do you take sides or sit back and marvel at the ridiculousness of it all.

The traditions of village pantomime are upheld with some aplomb; the dodgy 1970s script, the improvisation (in this case a Sainsburys trolly), the appearance of Santa at the end and sweets for the children (which turn out to be both unusual and expensive).  Poor Santa, as the reader will discover.

One family wanted to put on the farce When Did You Last See Your Trousers in the new year but were told farce was dead. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case as Jack and the Beanstalk goes from pantomime to farce before finally tragedy in hilarious fashion, with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Elements edge towards the macabre, but most readers will still find it darkly funny in a way that allows us a guilt free escape from a world that is dark enough at times. I love dogs in fiction and here Woof gets a couple of lovely cameos within all this mayhem. Poor Santa. A classic example of how everything going wrong can result in something far better than originally planned, though the Fairway Players are unlikely to top this performance.

The Christmas Appeal manages to capture the joy of panto, within a farce and a puzzle, which will leave you with a smile on your face. If my Christmas was this entertaining, I might be less of a Grinch!

The Christmas Appeal can be purchased via the publisher’s website here

The author

Janice Hallett is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Appeal (a Waterstones
Thriller of the Month, the Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year and winner of the
CWA Debut Dagger award) and the Sunday Times bestsellers The Twyford Code and
The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. She lives in West London.

Don’t forget to check out the other reviews on this blog tour:

Burnt Island #TEAMSCILLY

By Kate Rhodes @K_RhodesWriter

Published by Simon & Schuster UK https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/ @simonschusterUK

384 pages ISBN 978-1471165993

Publication date 30 October 2019

Burnt Island is the third book in The Isles of Scilly Mysteries featuring Ben Kitto. Click on the links to read my reviews of the first two books in the series Hell Bay and Ruin Beach.

I was sent an electronic copy to review for this project. I would like to thank Tracy @Tr4cyF3nt0n from Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to take part in the #TEAMSCILLY review project. My review of Pulpit Rock the fourth novel in the series will be posted on this blog early in November.

The Cover

A storm lashed coast with buildings and the old lighthouse, which all play a part in the story. The dark clouds, red sky and rough seas are wonderfully atmospheric, I love it.

My thoughts

A dramatic start sets the tone and imagery for the novel. It’s the Fifth-of-November, the annual celebration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up parliament and King James I and thereby resorting a Catholic monarch. We do this by letting off fireworks and burning effigies of the chief plotter (and Yorkshireman) Guy Fawkes on a bonfire (though nowadays we burn just about anyone we dislike.) Ben Kitto is on hand to make sure everything is in order which it appears to be (though why take Shadow the dog Ben?) The calm doesn’t last long though, as the local publican Steve Tregarron comes rushing to Ben to say he’s found a body. Ben dashes off with him and finds the gruesome remains of a man burned on a fire but partially covered with a sheepskin jacket. A cold night awaits Ben, exposed to the elements, guarding the body. He spots a strange inscription in a rock nearby written in old Cornish. Burnt Island literally becomes a burnt island and the two motifs of fire and the old Cornish language now weave throughout the storyline.

So, Ben faces another murder on another of the Scilly Isles, this one St Agnes is linked to the neighbouring island of Gugh accessible by a sand bar at certain times of the day. Familiar problems face Ben and he resorts to his tried and trusted methods, if you have read the first two books in the series you will know what to expect. An unkind view would be it is a formulaic retread, but it is merely reflecting the territory of the small islands, there can hardly be car chases and gun battles here. The investigation is merely the canvas for exploring human nature, the hopes and fears, desires and dreads of people in an isolated community which must rub along together, and in this novel it does this really well.

The Scilly Isles, like many small isolated and rural communities, faces an uncertain future. One problem is the retaining of the young inhabitants, giving them a realistic future so they don’t seek it on the mainland. But this means jobs and affordable housing. Farming and fishing can no longer support communities so new opportunities need to be developed. In summer tourism is a godsend to the economy but it is a delicate balance as too many buying holiday homes and lets will force up property prices. The real conundrum is how to preserve the old ways but also embrace the new. Incomers can invigorate the place, but their ways are different, often being artistic or professional, and they relocate once they are successful. All these conflicting viewpoints are skilfully drawn out and exposed in the story which results in several surprises.

As for incomers the message becomes clear…

The island is home to a mere eighty inhabitants, a tight knit and often reserved community, but this provides an opportunity to examine so many varying profiles as Ben sifts through his suspects. Here the suspects are given some real depth of character.

The existing central characters are developed beautifully as can be done in a series. We get to see more of policeman Eddie Nickell, his home life, fiancé and newborn daughter. In his eyes Ben is losing a little bit of sheen; his hero worship is starting to become normal respect. Zoe is back on a break from her job in India, picking November because Christmas was too expensive. There were few chances for the natural chemistry between Zoe and Ben to develop this time and Zoe drops a bombshell revelation.

Ben continues to adapt back to the island ways and put the past behind him, and he learns from two new characters this time around, Jimmy Curwen (aka Birdman) and Liz Gannick the disabled head of forensics. Liz is extraordinarily determined and Jimmy is surprisingly gentle and caring, both battle the immense difficulties they face but remind Ben of the importance of freedom and independence. Ben’s godmother Maggie Nancarrow gives him her father’s vintage Rolex which is inscribed ‘Time waits for no man’. A timely reminder in both senses but will Ben take heed?

After the initial shocking discovery, the tension is built up gradually, without revealing too much to the reader. The setting is perfect for this and the author excels at drawing out the concern, paranoia and seeds of mistrust amongst neighbours. We could all be living next door to a killer but imagine living on an island of eighty people and knowing for certain one of them is one. Who do you trust when if you get it wrong it could cost you your life? Then later in the novel when the main danger and jeopardy is introduced, the pace is picked up considerable with shorter chapters and switching perspective being used to great effect. The set piece scene it builds up to is thrilling before a nicely judged denouement and ending.

Having read the first three novels in the series I would say that this is my favourite so far, so this is the bar book 4 Pulpit Rock must clear and I’m looking forward to reading it.

Burnt Island is another great ‘locked island’ mystery with themes of freedom and independence set against resentment of others.

Burnt Island can be purchased via the publisher’s website here

The author

Kate Rhodes is a bestselling UK crime writer. Her latest books are the acclaimed ISLES OF SCILLY MYSTERIES, which have been optioned for TV. Kate has been nominated for the Crime Novel of the Year award and a Library Dagger.

Kate did many different jobs including working as a theatre usherette, a cocktail waitress, and an English tutor at a liberal arts college in Florida. She was born in London but now lives in Cambridge with her husband Dave, and works part-time at Cambridge University, as a creative writing fellow.
Source: Goodreads profile

The Beaver Theory

By Antti Tuomainen @antti_tuomainen

Translated by David Hackston @countertenorist

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

Publishing date 12 October 2023

295 pages ISBN 9781914585968

The Beaver Theory is the final instalment in the YouMeFun trilogy. Click on the links to read my reviews of The Rabbit Factor and The Moose Paradox the previous books in the series.

I was sent an electronic copy to enable me to take part in this Blog Tour. I would like to thank Anne at Random Things Tours @RandomTTours for the invitation to participate and of course the Author and the Publisher.

The cover

Another madcap, eye-catching cover which is in the same style of the previous two books and is perfect for this series.

My thoughts

As with the previous instalments the novel commences with a generous dose of slapstick violence resulting in death. This time it is death by ice cream, in the form of an eighteen-inch steel and plastic cornet which is rammed down the throat of the proprietor of the Somersault City adventure park. We know this because our intrepid hero, Henri Koskinen, was there to see it happen and now realises he is in trouble. Henri the former insurance actuary, is the owner of the YouMeFun adventure park and he shouldn’t be on site, he was there trying to conduct a little industrial espionage. Who knew adventure parks could be so dangerous. Now he will become the prime suspect and to think only a few days previous life was so good.

Just a week previous Henri had bid farewell to his old apartment and along with his cat Schopenhauer moved in with his girlfriend Laura Helanto and her daughter Tuuli. A truly momentous occasion for a man so uptight and set in his ways to finally embrace domesticity. Then when he returns to YouMeFun he discovers that business wasn’t slack it was non-existent, the park had literally no customers at all. How could this happen?

There is a new competitor in town, Somersault City, planning to make a big impact. No only is their admission free, but they are offering free hot dogs (regular, vegetarian and vegan!) Our man of logic and most importantly mathematics realises that this is not the way to run a business, along with all the marketing cost costs, zero income means a significant loss. Not something to be sustained for long but clearly intended to put Henri out of business, hence the need to a little snooping around.

So, now Henri must discover who the murderer is whilst also battling to save his own park and keep the police at bay. He has previous run ins with DI Pentti Osmala of the Joint Division of the Helsinki Organised-Crime and Fraud Unit and developed a strange status quo as he approaches retirement. This time he faces the young guns Lastumäki and Salmi who are out to make their names.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, so the idiom says, and this fits the series to a tee. Everything the reader will have loved about the first two books is here, but there has been a significant distance travelled. Many novels within series can be enjoyed out of order, but this is one I would urge to start at the beginning to appreciate how perfectly everything is developed and then brought to a fitting and pleasing finale.

Henri is the numbers obsessed staid actuary who believes that no matter the problem, mathematics and statistics will provide the answer, and in his world they usually do. Throughout the series we see him out of his comfort zone, learn to accept that there can be chaos and that he must just adapt to the situation. Moreover, for a man who doesn’t understand people, because numbers are far more predictable, he must learn how to love and accept people as they are. He realises the importance of family, finally recognising that he now is part of not one but three families in a loose sense. The changes are slow but remarkable and heartwarming. There may be fewer ‘duck out of water’ situations for him but there are still plenty of uncomfortable moments as be volunteers to join the ‘dads club’.

The adventure park team develop from a bunch of misfits to a tight unit working together and now respecting Henri and caring about the place, whilst remaining a bunch of misfits. They still provide a rich vein of humour, whimsical, nonsensical, surreal and in the case of Esa toilet with his unpleasant bodily functions. Esa is a man with his own exclusion zone to be breached at your peril.

David Hackston’s work on the translation perfectly captures the warmth, silliness and humour of the text, making reading a joy.

It is Esa who has a more prominent role, with his over-the-top military like approach to security. It is Esa who when he and Henri go undercover decides they need a ‘safe word’ and comes up with pseudonyms that are truly inspired. His Walter Mitty like claims from his murky early career start to look less fanciful. Can he really have trained with the South Korean Secret Service? Surely not…

So, with The Beaver Theory our journey comes to an end, and what a ride it’s been, packed with ups and downs, a lot of laughter and plenty of corpses. I’m going to miss Henri, Laura and the gang but it’s a fitting finale that feels right, much better that than going on too long. I think it’s only right that Henri’s makes the final observation that happiness resides where love and mathematics combine, that’s good enough for me.

The Beaver Theory can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Source: Orenda Books

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author Iin 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach Finland was an immense success, with Marcel Berlins (The Times) calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’. Little Siberia (2020), was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger, the Amazon Publishing/Capital Crime Awards and the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The Rabbit Factor (2021), the first book in Antti’s first ever series, is in production by Amazon Studios with Steve Carell starring. The Moose Paradox, book two in the series is out in October 2022.

The translator

Source: Orenda Books

David Hackston is a British translator of Finnish and Swedish literature and drama. Notable publications include The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy, Maria Peura’s coming-of-age novel At the Edge of Light, Johanna Sinisalo’s eco-thriller Birdbrain, two crime novels by Matti Joensuu and Kati Hiekkapelto’s Anna Fekete series (which currently includes The Hummingbird, The Defenceless and The Exiled, all published by Orenda Books). He also translates Antti Tuomainen’s stories. In 2007 he was awarded the Finnish State Prize for Translation. David is also a professional countertenor and a founding member of the English Vocal Consort of Helsinki.

Don’t forget to check out the other great reviews on this Blog Tour:

Fatal Blow

By Brian Price https://www.brianpriceauthor.co.uk/ @crimewritersci

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

408 pages ISBN 9781915817242

Publication date 17 October 2023

Fatal Blow is the fourth instalment in the Mel Cotton series, click on the links to see my reviews of book 2 Fatal Hate and book 3 Fatal Dose.

I was sent an electronic copy in exchange for a fair review.  I would like to thank Rebecca at Hobeck Books and the Author for the invitation to participate in the Blog Tour.

The Cover

A nice bottle of champagne, now what is the context for that?

From the blurb

A shattering revenge attack

Mexton’s Major Crimes team is targeted by an Albanian crime gang as an explosion rips through the unit’s base. 

For DC Mel Cotton – the attack is all too personal

DC Tom Ferris is seriously injured in the blast. His fiancée, Mel, maybe physically unharmed but she’s dealing with wounds you can’t see. She’s determined to return to work, but is she ready?

Death on her doorstep

Mel’s latest case is close to home – investigating a body found in her and Tom’s garden, the body of someone last heard of in Australia. Can she catch the murderer? And can anyone stop the Albanian crime gang on their ruthless campaign of revenge?

My thoughts

He’s only gone and done it again; I am running out of ways to describe how the author manages to fit so much into a single novel. It puts me in mind of the old beer advert of the 70s and 80s; “Whitbread Big Head Trophy Bitter, the pint that thinks it’s a quart.” So once again we have what would be two books worth of incident for most authors crammed into one action packed novel that is easier to consume than that said beer (which was not a favourite of mine). As if that were not enough amongst the text, he has manged to conceal fourteen references to Sherlock Holmes stories for readers to discover! If you read with a notebook by your side, it may well get some use.

Following on from Fatal Dose where an Albanian crime gang were starting to get a foothold into the small town of Mexton, now we can see them starting to flex their muscles and things progress from ugly and brutal to fatal. If you haven’t read the earlier novel it doesn’t matter this can easily be read as a standalone, but reading Fatal Dose prior will give you a taste of the sheer breadth of his coverage and very individual style.

The story doesn’t so much start as explode onto the page as the sandwich van is blown up outside the police station, causing carnage. What a way to announce the Albanian are back and looking for revenge. From then on, like an out-of-control rollercoaster its breathless, relentless and at times hair-raising stuff, that might just leave the reader exhausted. At times I wish he would explore a situation deeper, but then he has another brilliant idea and grabs it with both hands and off he goes haring away. I guess this is his individual USP, his unique style and because he excels at it, why change.

The plot follows two strands, the investigation into a body unearthed in Mel and Tom’s garden and the revenge of the Albanian crime gang. Two very different stories but equally enthralling for different reasons.

 Mel is the heroine of the series and I have concluded that the author doesn’t really like her, or if he does, he has an odd way of showing it. With each new instalment Mel is put through the wringer in the crime fiction equivalent of Tom putting Jerry through a mangle in the classic cartoon. The danger she finds herself in is such that she barely gets chance to sit down between episodes and within the dialogue a colleague observes that she must surely have used up her nine lives by now. She seems to thrive on the danger, almost enjoying it as much as the reader will, it’s refreshing to have a fearless heroine. She really does need promotion and a move to relative safety. The serious injury her boyfriend Tom suffers will inevitably lead to changes for both of them and is a bold move by Mr Price bringing a new dimension to be explored later in the series.

The attention to detail and accuracy with the scientific bits are second to none. Here the author writes with genuine authority, such that I suspect that he had to check himself from providing the recipe for making the ANFO bomb at the start. He is one of the few authors I have read who can include these scientific facts seamlessly within the prose so that it just flows naturally rather than being obvious research. It is no wonder he is advising other authors on technical matters.

The Albanians are suitably villainous and the Polish shop keeper’s threat of summary justice keeps us on our toes, but the mystery woman proves to be the real attention grabber and the product of an unfettered imagination. I for one hope her cameo isn’t a one off appearance. The other strand is a wonderful counter point with Mel digging into the lives of a surprising and strangely dysfunctional family.

There is quirky humour too, naming a prog rock band Pentose Phosphate Shunt (a scientific process) sounding all too pretentious and accurate, will appeal to male readers of a certain vintage. The police banter itself is of the facetious and silly kind, albeit less blue than the real thing I suspect, and defuses some of the tension.

Fatal Blow provides what we can come to expect, action and thrills delivered at breakneck speed from the first to last pages.

Fatal Blow can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Brian Price is a chemist and biologist who retired from the Environment Agency in 2016. He is the author of Crime Writing: How to write the science and runs a website offering tips on science for crime writers (www.crimewriterscience.co.uk). He taught science and technology courses for the Open University for 26 years. He has advised number of leading crime writers on scientific aspects of crime.

Brian’s first crime novel, Fatal Trade, was published, as an ebook and paperback, by Hobeck Books on 14th September 2021. A free novella, Fatal Beginnings, is available from Hobeck Books at http://www.hobeck.net. The sequel, Fatal Hate, was published in April 2022 and third novel in the series, Fatal Dose, is due out on 31st January 2023.

Several of his short stories appear in the anthologies Cuckoo and Seventy Three, produced by the writing group Writers in Stone, and he has had stories published in the charity anthologies, The Dark Side of Christmas and Cooking the Books (published by Hobeck). His short story The Scent of an Ending appeared in the Crime Writers Association collection Music of the Night.

Source: Author’s Amazon profile

Don’t forget to check out the other reviews on this Blog Tour:

The Secret Life of John le Carré #AdamSisman #TheSecretLifeOfJohnLeCarré

By Adam Sisman

Narrated by Seán Barrett

Published by Profile Books Audio profilebooks.com @ProfileBooks

208 pages (4 hours 29 minutes) ISBN 9781800818088

Publication date 19 October 2023

I was allowed access to an audio review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley.  Thanks to the Author and Publisher for organising this.

The cover

Dull, dull, dull. Photograph of David Cornwell (John le Carré) in a gabardine coat and trilby carrying a geography teacher’s briefcase. An attempt to portray him like a low-grade civil servant?

The narration

Seán Barrett is one of my favourite audiobook narrators, whose appeal is not in a myriad of voices and accents but more the warm quality of voice, his delivery and timing. This makes him an ideal narrator for a work like this.

My thoughts

I am not a fan of biographies, I read perhaps one a year and I have not read the author’s previous well received biography on John le Carré. What drew me here was the fact that it was dealing with the private world of a seemingly very private man and was approved by his son. In it the author explains how it came about, its plan to be seen as an annex, then a follow up, with its long gestation period. David Cornwell himself appears to have been ambivalent about certain things being written about him once he had passed on, but his son wanted it publishing to provide an insight into his fathers writing. The result is jaw-droppingly shocking at times, though never overly salacious, but does go a long way to explaining his body of work since the late 1960’s.

My first exposure to the work of le Carré was as a fifteen-year-old in 1979 when the BBC adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy aired for the first time. I had read Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and around that period Brian Freemantle’s Charlie Muffin, but here was something more realistic. Throughout the 1980s I read the le Carré back catalogue and came to appreciate he was the consummate cold war espionage writer and in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold he had written the definitive novel of the genre. By the time he wrote the partly autobiographically inspired A Prefect Spy his style seem to be changing becoming more literary and the page quantity increasing. Then following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death (perhaps more accurately coma judged on recent events) of the cold war he had to search for new inspiration. His books were still very good but like when Dylan went from acoustic to electric, some readers will prefer one period over the other. For me the interesting thing would be how this book would colour my view of his work.

Cornwell was a low-level spook posted to Germany when he started writing and having affairs even with the wives of his colleagues. It was the world-wide success of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold which prove to his breakthrough, allowing him to become a full-time writer and move into the big league of international best sellers. From this point there was no stopping him in both a literary and womanising sense.

The book is meticulously researched from first hand sources, both in person and through correspondence, making this a serious work, not some tawdry kiss and tell. The author has also shown great sensitivity towards the women concerned, keeping the anonymity of some and ensuring content has been approved. As the author remarks he probably knows Cornwell as much as any man alive and it appears that he has tried to create as honest a portrayal of the man as he was able. So, what do we learn?

Well, he was a liar throughout his life, saying what though he needed to at the time, and certainly never spared friends or family. We discover his father was a conman which had some influence as did his stint in espionage where betrayal is their everyday bread and butter, but there is much more to it than this that we never quite get to the bottom of. Certainly, the constant lies and betrayal are themes throughout his work, as is the situation where the only way out seems to be suicide.

His philandering was unusual and serious. They usually weren’t mere dalliances or casual sex, but full blown ‘love affairs’ with periods of wooing and much secret correspondence. The woman all appear to have been younger, much younger, several being half his age, and many seemed to be content with the arrangement. There was the power imbalance of the older rich man with the younger woman but on the face of it not coercive control, these women were willing partners seemingly charmed by him. One thing made clear is how much of these women and their experiences comes through in the individual books. It is suggested that each one was a muse, one he needed to inspire him to write, only to be discarded for the next novel. A fascinating observation that on the face of it appears to hold some truth.

The amusing aspect of the book is the description of how he conducted the many affairs by employing ‘tradecraft.’ Coded address books, cut outs and dead letter drops all figure as does a secret credit card held by his Swiss publicist. Was this a game, a substitute for spying? Despite all this his two wives got to know of his affairs, it seems that there were simply so many that it would have been impossible not to. His treatment of his wives seems to be somewhat callous (I qualify this comment here having not read the biography for a fuller picture) to the extent that I wonder why they remained with him.

They say never meet your heroes, this being no exception, just try to separate the man from his work. This book certainly opened my eyes to the man he was and goes a long way to explain some of the connections to his work, which for me still represents the pinnacle of the genre.

The Secret Life of John le Carré goes a long way to explain the true man behind the pen name, honest without being salacious but a strangely fitting testimony.

The author

Adam Sisman is the author of Boswell’s Presumptuous Task, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the biographer of John Le Carré, A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among his other works are two volumes of letters by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the University of St Andrews.

Source: Publisher’s website

The narrator

 Barrett (born 4 May 1940 in Hampstead, London, England, UK) is an English actor and voice actor.
In the early 1980s, Barrett went on to voice acting. He has performed the voices of Tik-Tok in Return to Oz, a Goblin in Labyrinth, Big Mac and other characters in TUGS, Thadius Vent’s soothsayer Goodtooth in Oscar’s Orchestra, Melchoir in the English dubbed version of the Lapitch the Little Shoemaker TV series, Roly the Pineapple in the English version of The Fruities and UrSu the Dying Master and UrZah the Ritual-Guardian in The Dark Crystal as well as additional characters in two video games The Feeble Files and Viking: Battle for Asgard. He also provided the voice for Captain Orion in Star Fleet, the English version of the 1980s Japanese puppet series X-Bomber.

He also narrated Fair Ground!, Timewatch and Dark Towers for BBC, dubbed voices in many anime films such as Roujin Z, Cyber City Oedo 808 and Dominion: Tank Police and has done voices for several audiobooks and radio stations.

In 1996, he was the narrator for the Channel 4 documentary series, Black Box. The series primarily concentrated on commercial aviation accidents, and the investigations related to them.

Barrett also worked as part of an ADR Loop Group on Aardman’s first computer-animated film Flushed Away, a voice director on Lapitch the Little Shoemaker and a dialogue director on The Fruities. He has also narrated episodes of the BBC TV series People’s Century and Dancing in the Street, as well as a number of BBC nature documentaries in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In 2011, he voiced Andre of Astora, Petrus of Thorolund and Ingward in Dark Souls.

Source: Goodreads profile

Hidden Killers #TEAMTENNISON #LyndaLaPlante #HiddenKillers

By Lynda Le Plante https://lyndalaplante.com/ @LaPlanteLynda

Published by Simon & Schuster https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/ @simonschusterUK

436 pages ISBN 9781471140570

Publication date 20 September 2016

Hidden Killers is the second novel the Jane Tennison Thriller Series.

I was sent an electronic copy of the novel in exchange for a fair review. I would like to thank Tracy Fenton @Tr4cyF3nt0n from Compulsive Readers #CompulsiveReaders for the opportunity to take part in the #TEAMTENNISON review project. Click on the link to read my review of Tennison the first novel in the series. The third novel Good Friday will be posted on this blog the last week in October.

The Cover

Another novel that has had various covers, all with a woman (presumably Jane) alone walking away in sinister, gritty locations. In keeping with a style for the whole series and illustrating Jane Tennison is ‘her own woman’ with a tendency to be a solo player.

My thoughts

Eighteen months have passed since the explosive finale to Tennison which resulted in the deaths of much loved and respected colleagues DCI Len Bradfield and WPC Kathleen Morgan. Naturally those who were the closest to them have reacted to these events and their grief has manifested in different ways. Jane has tried to knuckle down to work, as she is still under her probationary period and therefore under scrutiny but is haunted by thoughts of them which can be triggered by even the most mundane happenings. The usually chipper DS Spencer Gibbs had a period of sick leave to recover from his injuries but returned a changed man. Gone is much of his outgoing bravado, his rock group has folded and he is a shadow of the man he was. A transfer out of Hackney and away from the past hasn’t worked as well as he hoped and he is ‘self-medicating’ with alcohol to help him cope. DS Paul Lawrence the forensics officer tried to carry on as normal but came close to succumbing to a breakdown. Now he wants to do less office-based work and play a fuller part in investigations. All these thoughts and feelings will have a bearing on the story line.

There are two separate plot lines within the story, which cover two different investigations in which Jane is a central character. The first happens just before she covers a short secondment in CID prior to the end of her probationary period. A shortage of staff gives her the opportunity to move across early which she is only too happy to grab with both hands. She even agrees to be the undercover bait in an operation that will put her in grave danger and inevitably doesn’t quite go to plan. She trusts her colleagues implicitly, though she far from being given the full picture.

The second case comes after she becomes a fully-fledged WDC and is moved to Bow Street Station. She attends a suspicious death of a woman in the bath. She has a bloodied face clearly having hit her head on something. The officer in charge and the medical examiner believe she has slipped and hit her head on the taps, accidental death, case closed. Jane is not so sure and has a nagging doubt, surely if it had happened as they describe she wouldn’t be in the bath on her back, it doesn’t make sense. Jane is warned about ‘working solo’ and tries to persuade DS Lawrence she is right and has little time to do so before the body is released. The disobedient solo working cop is a bit of a cliché but let’s be honest we love it, if it is done well, and here it is perfectly judged to showcase Jane’s talent and determination as an investigator. Its 1974, a female detective is not going to prosper if she is a shrinking violet, something Jane Tennison could never be accused of.

The development of the characters and back story is perfectly judged. Enough to acknowledge the passing of time, the gaining of experience and personal growth, but in an unhurried fashion, after all there is a lot of ground to cover to Prime Suspect. So, we see Jane still learning hard lessons, at times being too trusting but also developing a seemingly unlikely partnership with Paul Lawrence which may prosper. Homelife changes with Pam falling pregnant, thereby taking some of the ‘when will I be a grandmother’ pressure off Jane. There are also some lovely little surprises like Jane summoning her inner Columbo with a ‘just one more thing’ and more insight into Sergeant Harris. It turns out he is not quite the ignorant cave man we thought and whilst not quite being quite like Sgt Phil Esterhaus (Hill Street Blues) he manages to display a softer more benevolent side. He knew that Jane would succeed and make a great officer if he wasn’t too soft on her, but the concept of what was happening was totally alien to him, meaning he didn’t know how to react and express himself. An interesting thought that is not often explored.

Most of all it is the feeling of the period, the 1970s, that is captured to perfection, clearly written from experience and not research. The social and cultural references are natural and almost incidental such that they barely register, there is no awkward shoehorning of facts disrupting the flow of the prose. I particularly enjoyed the description of sticky, slightly bohemian Soho of the past, with rogues who knew the ‘glamour’ of the era of the Krays, which opens Jane’s eyes. There is no real glamour or honour in the sex trade, but this is a world away from the organised trafficking of unfortunate women of today. It also highlights the attitudes prevalent at the time, some of which have improved whilst some have not, misogyny is still there but taking different forms.

The band of brothers camaraderie and banter is another thing which shines through. Even though they have put her through the wringer we share her delight at receiving the jokey gift at the end of case booze-up and the simple expression of “WDC Tennison, you are one of us.”

Hidden Killers is a superior, intelligent police procedural from a master of the genre. Already looking forward to book 3 Good Friday so look out for that later this week.

Hidden Killers can be purchased via the publisher’s website here

The author

Lynda La Plante (born Lynda Titchmarsh) is a British author, screenwriter, and erstwhile actress (her performances in Rentaghost and other programmes were under her stage name of Lynda Marchal), best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series.

Her first TV series as a scriptwriter was the six part robbery series Widows, in 1983, in which the widows of four armed robbers carry out a heist planned by their deceased husbands.

In 1991 ITV released Prime Suspect which has now run to seven series and stars Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. (In the United States Prime Suspect airs on PBS as part of the anthology program Mystery!) In 1993 La Plante won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her work on the series. In 1992 she wrote at TV movie called Seekers, starring Brenda Fricker and Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson.

She formed her own television production company, La Plante Productions, in 1994 and as La Plante Productions she wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy She’s Out (ITV, 1995). The name “La Plante” comes from her marriage to writer Richard La Plante, author of the book Mantis and Hog Fever. La Plante divorced Lynda in the early 1990s.

Her output continued with The Governor (ITV 1995-96), a series focusing on the female governor of a high security prison, and was followed by a string of ratings pulling miniseries: the psycho killer nightmare events of Trial & Retribution (ITV 1997-), the widows’ revenge of the murders of their husbands & children Bella Mafia (1997) (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV 1998), videogame/internet murder mystery Killer Net (Channel 4 1998) and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV 2001).

Two additions to the Trial and Retribution miniseries were broadcast during 2006.

Source: Goodreads profile

Can I Trust You? #RobGittins #CanITrustYou

By Rob Gittins https://www.robgittins.com/ @Gittins2Rob

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

428 pages ISBN 9781915817228

Publication date 10 October 2023

I was sent an electronic copy in exchange for a fair review.  I would like to thank Rebecca at Hobeck Books and the Author for the invitation to participate in the Blog Tour.

The Cover

I love the cover, it conveys so much, wistful, concern, self-reflection on the face of the woman and then there is the real reflection in the train window. Captures perfectly what much of the novel is about.

My thoughts

I guess most of us have experienced déjà vu, the strong sensation that we have lived through a situation before, that things or people are familiar to us when we a coming across them for the first time. For some people this can be a real neurological problem, associated with epilepsy, but for most of us it’s the brain’s wonderful ability to make connections that we are unaware of. Usually, a fleeting experience it might feel a little unsettling at the time but just occasionally it can have lasting effects, as it does for Axel Petersen in this story.

Axel’s perceptions are pushed into overload when he lets his mind wander whilst on a train journey. A young woman sits opposite him and he is convinced it’s his daughter Cara and reaches out to her. It is not Cara but looks just like her, greatly embarrassed he steps off to the toilet to clear his head. How could it be his daughter, she vanished without a trace twenty years ago putting her parents through hell in the process. If it was Cara then she would have aged considerably over those twenty years, this young woman looks like Cara did when she disappeared. It’s the twentieth anniversary of her disappearance, surely his subconscious is making spurious connections and convincing him he was back in the past. On returning to his seat there is a message pencilled into the book he is reading “can I trust you” but who wrote it? This becomes a recurring motif. When the train pulls into his station, at the end of a rural line, its dark and the weather is foul, the combination of the need to apologise for his mistake and a lack of taxis lead him to offer a lift to her holiday cottage. With few options available she accepts the lift and they exchange a few words, she is Penny.

The following morning there is a police presence near where he dropped Penny off. He was clearly one of the last people to see her. At this point he makes the split-second decision not to mention the events of the previous evening, a decision he will come to regret. For the second time in his life a young woman has disappeared and once again he will become the prime suspect in the investigation. This is not déjà vu though, but something real and disturbing.  

A simple but gripping idea, that two women go missing on the same date twenty years apart. It could be one of life’s many coincidences, not that the investigating police officers believe in those, nor does Axel as he becomes convinced that the current disappearance has its roots in twenty years ago.

The recurring themes of the novel are those of escape, search, family ties and close friendship. Several characters feel the need to escape for various reasons, for safety, liberty and to literally save their life. We see Axel’s original search for Cara, helped by wife Donna and the pressure of this that results in their separation as all family ties become severed. The second search for Penny also takes its toll and he briefly becomes a fugitive, like Richard Kimble, as he tries to investigate whilst being the prime suspect. Friendships can have binds as tight as those of family and so it proves here, bringing safety and protection at a cost to all those involved.

The story is told on the two timelines of the current day and twenty years ago. These move along rapidly as there is much ground to be covered in both periods. The chapters are very short and for much of the novel alternate between the two timescales. This means that secrets are revealed slowly and the reader can never get to far ahead of themselves, but I found it rather jerky as times failing to move the narrative enough before the next switch. I’m sure other readers will love this style of storytelling. It does build the tension up towards the impressive finale which is both clever and skilfully executed.

The characterisation is interestingly developed. The twenty years back story is well explored as this is the catalyst for what is to come but it is on an emotional level where it really hits the target. At times it is highly emotive and the reader really does get the sense of loss, angst and despair for Axel and Donna’s loss of a daughter who by then was not even a child. That these feelings even extend to the officer who like Axel is going through it for a second time is a real tour de force which other writers wouldn’t have explored. Throughout I struggled to find a character who was truly engaging, I’m not sure if this was any deliberate intent but I found that it really added to the uncertainty and doubt. Even Axel the man we should empathise with is either stupid or mendacious as he makes bad decisions such that the police are right in treating as the prime suspect. Jericho is perhaps the most interesting Character who plays an important role but I will add no more to avoid spoilers.

Can I Trust You is an intelligent, intricately plotted thriller that explores the effects of loss and the need to feel safe.

Can I Trust You can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Source: Goodreads profile

Rob Gittins is a screenwriter and novelist. Rob’s written for almost all the top-rated network TV dramas from the last thirty years, including Casualty, EastEnders, The Bill, Heartbeat and Vera, as well as over thirty original radio plays for BBC Radio 4.

He’s previously had six novels published by Y Lolfa to high critical acclaim. Rob’s first novel for Hobeck, I’m Not There, is a crime thriller and the first of a new series set on the idyllic, if occasionally sinister and disturbing, Isle of Wight.

​Rob’s second book with Hobeck, a psychological thriller, The Devil’s Bridge Affair, was published on 25 October 2022.

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Artificial Wisdom #ThomasRWeaver #ArtificialWisdom

By Thomas R Weaver https://thomasrweaver.com/ @tom_weaver

Published by Chainmaker Press https://www.chainmaker.press/ @chainmakerpress

386 pages ISBN 978173943430

Publication date 5 October 2023

I was sent a hardback copy of the novel to participate in its Blog Tour. Many thanks to the Author and Team LitPR https://www.literallypr.com/ @literallypr for allowing me to participate in the tour.

The cover

A very bold and striking cover. An ancient Greek or Roman bust dissolving in a pixilated way in itself a metaphor for the future of humanity and civilisation.

My thoughts

What an incredibly imaginative, creative and thought-provoking novel this is. It manages to bring together so many different literary genres in a melting pot of a story that is cogent and intelligent when it could so easily have turned into an ambitious mess. The result is an entertaining thriller, that captures the essence of the world today, full of warnings and difficult questions. So just what can the reader expect.

Well, the setting is 2050 and the world is burning up in some post-apocalyptic hell. Population is migrating towards the fewer inhabitable regions of the earth where law and order is struggling. It is not just the heat but the humidity that is the real killer and 10 years ago 400 million people were killed in the Persian Gulf in one extreme weather event, the tabkhir. The result of this was the formation of a Caliphate in the Middle East to isolate and protect those remaining and to give a chance to rebuild. The extremely wealthy have managed to avoid the worst of the weather and disorder by the creation of six man-made island states the size of small cities protected by domes. Strictly controlled these islands named after great ancient city states like Carthage, more around the oceans. So, there are heavy sci-fi futuristic influences present in a vividly imagined world to come with nanobots and augmented virtual reality to name just two. The author’s background helps to bring a feel of authenticity here, it may not be so but it could so easily be spot on.

It is also a political thriller with an election running throughout. It is recognised that the survival of mankind is at a critical point, so bad that there is a need for a world dictator to take control and make the big decisions. Then at some point in the future when there has been a recovery in the climate and environment, the individual states will take back control. The race to be dictator has been reduced to two, a former president of the United States and the Governor of the six Floating States. Expect dark machinations here, with US politicians even less popular than today up against Solomon (think the Wisdom of Solomon) a very different man, is he someone to be trusted and relied upon. A tough choice and a dirty fight.

There is also a strong traditional crime aspect to the novel. The main character Marcus Tully is an investigative journalist, who lost his wife and unborn daughter in the tabkhir and is totally driven to unearth the truth and be damned with the consequences. He finds himself on New Carthage and when there is a murder with a close connection ends up working with the head of security Claudine October to track down the killer. There’s a great rapport that builds up between the two throughout the story and a smidgen of sexual chemistry too. Conventional in creation, but this being 2050 they have different tools at their disposal.

Throughout there are nods to music, film and literature, but at no part does it become derivative. The author has curated a Spotify playlist to accompany the novel, the ending may disappoint the odd reader but has the same kind of impact as the original Planet of the Apes and Tully has one scene very reminiscent of A Christmas Carol.

The plot is very dense, this is not a story to plough through as it requires so much thought but the prose itself remains very accessible. It’s a case of there being so much packed in. The central characters are engaging and develop nicely as the story progresses. The introduction of the huge man off the streets, Haymaker, into Tully’s team brings some welcome light-hearted moments to a serious novel. I loved his “can’t bodyguard while making coffee” as a get out from doing his share of the domestics.

The greatest aspect to the story as it works on so many levels, it succeeds in all the genres above, is very entertaining and at the same time quite terrifying. Not terrifying in the sense of say gothic horror but the fear of the unknown, the fate that is to befall mankind if we continue as we are. This is not climate change cranks (climate hobos in the book) or fearmongering but a sense that what is needed now is world cooperation when there is none, and that technology is developing so rapidly that we are losing control. If that isn’t the zeitgeist of the world of 2023 vintage, then I don’t know what is.

Can man find the wisdom, artificial of otherwise to save humanity and the world? Artificial Wisdom imagines just what may happen and is simply a stunning thriller.

Artificial Wisdom can be purchased from Amazon here and the bookshop.org here

The author

Alongside writing, Thomas is a tech entrepreneur. His last startup was acquired by Just Eat Takeaway. Despite swearing to family and friends (none of whom believed him) that he would never run another startup again, he recently started a new project in stealth backed by Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator. The concept is focused on bringing some of the ideas explored in his debut novel, Artificial Wisdom, to life, specifically around communicating in augmented reality.

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The Push Over

By Daney Parker https://daneyparker.co.uk/ @daneyparker

Published independently through Amazon Publishing

283 pages ISBN 9798391803829

Publication date 19 April 2023

I was sent a paperback copy of the novel to participate in its Blog Tour. Many thanks to the Author and Team LitPR https://www.literallypr.com/ @literallypr for allowing me to participate in the tour.

The cover

The paperback cover captures a dark slightly brooding river scene, at sunrise or more likely sunset, but is perhaps a little too generic. The eBook version is much brighter with a riverboat scene and works much better for me.

eBook Cover

My thoughts

Grace is a reporter on a local weekly newspaper, she is bogged down with the mundane. You know the kind of thing, arguments at the parish council, fly tipping and the local summer fete. Hardly worth all the training and college work to report on this kind of thing. Until one day she is given the assignment of investigating the death of a cyclist. The cyclist was run over by a bus on a wet and windy day, the driver was distraught and there was a suspicion that the cyclist may well have been pushed into its path. An old lady pulling a distinctive shopping trolly was seen in the vicinity, surely she couldn’t be a callous killer? Grace is reluctant at first because memories are being rekindled, back to her wedding day when she became a killer… Could such a small-town harbour two killers, living merely streets apart?

Just what did happen on the river cruiser on Grace’s wedding day? She’s convinced she became a killer that day. After bottling things up for so long she decides to write down her thoughts as a form of confessional. The reader must ponder over whether it is to clear her mind, to come clean with the police or will it become a suicide note.

When Grace’s friend Ruth’s cat Boris goes missing, they search and put up ‘missing cat’ posters. An old lady rings Ruth telling her she has found Boris so all is well. When Grace’s cat Miro also goes missing and is also found by an old lady, Grace’s journalistic senses are twitching. It turns out to be the same old woman, Iris who claims to have a knack in finding lost cats and keeps a folder of her successes. Grace sets out to discover whether Iris is a mysterious ‘cat whisperer’ or whether there is something more sinister at play?

The story is told through two timelines an historical one which covers from college to marriage and one two years later when Grace struggles with the past and writes her ‘confession’. Each chapter starts with a short press cutting with Grace’s byline to give a sense of how mundane her job is, and most have sections of the confession. This structuring works well, both strands each progress towards the events of the fateful day as it happens and as Grace remembers it in conversations with Ruth. This holds the reader’s attention and builds up suspense, though we are aware that answers will be revealed when we reach the wedding day, a day which holds several surprises.

We quickly become aware that Grace is a troubled young woman. Her father died when she was very young and her mother is rather cold, issuing strong punishment for ‘stealing’ biscuits out of the tin (and it was only a custard cream not a chocolate one!) This leads to Grace internalising problems, brooding over them and generally making things worse. The sort of person that people seem to treat badly she takes these slights to heart. Her mother, husband Conrad and friend Skye have all treated her badly and an emotionally hurt Grace might have killed one of them the reader realises. Which one? The problem is that Grace has managed to dwell on it so much, replaying events in her mind like a video so often, that like a rerecorded video tape become fuzzy so do her recollections. Each iteration changing the telling very slightly like a game of Chinese whispers with herself.

Ruth is the sort of best friend that we all should have sensible, stoic (well she has boisterous young twins) and caring. It is Ruth who endeavours to save Grace from herself. She tries to draw her into the reality of the current day whilst also confronting her demons. Personally I found Ruth a more engaging character that Grace with all her insecurities.

This is a story of perspectives and recollections. That three people can experience the same event whilst in proximity but each have a different perspective of what happened. Time makes matters worse as recollections dim or can change over time. So, the reader can never be certain what the truth is for much of the story.

This is a relatively short novel, so the story progresses quickly, and the added switches of timeline keep the reader hooked. The suspense that is built is one more of curiosity and intrigue rather than one of shock and horror, even though we know of at least one body. Once the journey is commenced you will be convinced to remain on board to its ultimate destination, the truth. Or is it just another distorted recollection? Who is The Push Over?

The Push Over is a suspenseful tale of confused recollections.

The Push Over can be purchased from Amazon here

The author

Daney has enjoyed working with words for as long as she can remember. Her career has mainly been working as a journalist for magazines, but her passion is making up stories. There is always some truth in the novels she writes – for example, in The Push Over the wedding reception is held on the same boat that Daney had her wedding reception on. Thank goodness, though, no one died during the real wedding party.

As well as writing, Daney likes chatting and has a habit of getting people to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets. So if you ever meet up with her, be careful what you reveal.

Daney writes in the Isle of Wight, has two children, one husband and two cats. 

Source: Amazon profile

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