Set in southern Louisiana, the blurb for this book seemed to suggest a tale resembling something penned by James Lee Burke. And to an extent that’s exSet in southern Louisiana, the blurb for this book seemed to suggest a tale resembling something penned by James Lee Burke. And to an extent that’s exactly what it delivers. There are huge differences, of course: JLB’s tales are soaked in the lore of the place and the author’s love for it, but they’re also often abstruse, the narrative hard to follow; Moorhead’s novel provides some of the same atmosphere and sense of place, and yet despite it being a complex tale of historical misdeeds and present day angst, at heart it’s a more straightforward story.
Dr. Willamena (Willa) Pearl Watters is a child psychologist. She’s currently tortured by a disastrous television appearance, in which she became confused and, as a result, somewhat lost the plot. There’s also something in her past that she feels compelled to investigate and resolve. This combination lures her back to the small town in which she was raised, to a house owned by two, now deceased, aunts. There’s something there that is hidden and is demanding to be discovered. She is planning for it to be a short visit, and she’ll use this time to escape her present problems and emerse herself in the past.
We learn that she grew up with a bipolar mother and a younger sister she doted on. She’d spent a good deal of time at her aunts’ house – it was often an escape from the bad times at home, times when her mother was tough to be around. But the escape she was seeking quickly turns into a tortuous series of encounters with people from her past. Many seem to be aware of her televised disassembly, and it feels like she’s being taunted by them. There’s also an encounter with an ex-boyfriend, now a cop, and his spooky brothers. Very quickly, Willa realises she can’t wait to shut herself away in the house, to drink a bottle of cheap wine and decompress.
There’s also a second thread to this tale. The town has been invaded by the press and television media, as a result of a school teacher who’s gone missing and also a barrel that’s been discovered in the bayou. Human remains were discovered inside the barrel. Soon, more barrels are discovered, courtesy of a drought that’s affecting this area and is reducing the water level, causing the bayou to expose its secrets.
There are some wonderfully descriptive passages in this novel, as Willa wrestles with the challenges she currently faces and is plagued by elements of her early life, frankly things she’d rather completely block out of her mind. And yet there’s a sense that just too many issues are piling up for her personally, and with a bunch of others impacting this small town, all at the same time. It’s busy, very busy. I really think it could have all been paired back a little. A case of less would have been more.
It’s probably unfair to compare this novel to Burke’s work. JLB has been at it for many years, for time immemorial, it seems. This is Moorhead’s first novel. It’s a decent story, and it’s well told, too. Perhaps she’s stacked too much on the plate, but there really is an awful lot to enjoy here. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for her next offering.
My thanks to Thomas & Mercer for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review....more
The opening scene is tense and attention grabbing. School teacher Richard Boyle spots an ex-student approaching the school in a manner that strongly sThe opening scene is tense and attention grabbing. School teacher Richard Boyle spots an ex-student approaching the school in a manner that strongly suggests he intends to do harm. He’s got to act quickly and decisively, or this could end catastrophically. A scene plays out that is both dramatic and sad, and which throws suspicion on at least one member of the school staff for historic deeds, which most likely prompted this act.
In the aftermath of this event, Richard returns to the school to what might be described as a mixed reception. In the background, one teacher in particular seems to be plotting against him. But then Richard is faced by a second major challenge as he is confronted – out of school – by a former student who accuses him of historic misdeeds. This scenario, too, has potential for things to end disastrously for both him and his family.
A group of bad actors involved in drug dealing and Richard’s sister-in-law, a cop, are now added to the pot. What follows is a complex series of events, in which Richard makes a series of poor decisions. In addition, to make the story work and to keep the reader guessing, the author asks us to accept quite a number of unlikely co-incidences and swallow a series of misdirections. In truth, I found this all to be pretty unconvincing and highly contrived. Added to this, I was pretty sure from very early on that I knew who would turn out to be the mysterious baddy lurking in the background (I was proven to be right).
So, for me, this was a story that started brightly but then deteriorated into an elaborately conceived but improbable jumble that really made little sense. It just didn’t feel real. On the upside, the audio version I listened to was very well narrated, and the pace of the story, as well as a constant sense of threat and urgency, was well maintained throughout. On this basis it’s a three star rating from me (which might just be a little on the generous side).
My thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio for providing a copy of this audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review....more
It starts with Penelope Coyne (an elderly ‘Miss Marple’ figure) becoming aware of a murder in her small Scottish village. A man has been strangled in It starts with Penelope Coyne (an elderly ‘Miss Marple’ figure) becoming aware of a murder in her small Scottish village. A man has been strangled in the church confessional booth. Having already solved a number of murders in this quiet place - a rather odd claim in itself – she’s determined to somehow involve herself in the investigation.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Jonny Hawke is nursing a headache. He’s woken up in a room he doesn’t recognise, next to a woman he’s struggling to identify. Jonny is a police lieutenant who, we will learn, has a habit of getting his partners killed. His maverick ways have delivered results, but at a hefty price. He’s soon picked up by his latest partner and is off to visit the scene of what appears to be the suicide of a male writer. There seems little doubt that the man took his own life, but his boss want’s the i’s to be fully dotted on this one.
These two threads – an old school murder mystery and a contemporary hardboiled detective tale – are rather odd bedfellows, and yet they are to be merged into a broader story that’s distinctly different to anything I’ve come across before. It’s a book that really demands that you don’t know too much before launching yourself into it, so I’ll pretty much halt my description of the plot there.
I’m an admirer of Brookmyre’s writing; his stories are usually well constructed and include a mix of wry humour, social comments, and plotlines/themes that often surprise and delight. His standalone novels, in particular, are written in a way that had you not known they were from the same pen, you’d swear they were born from a different hand. He’s stylistically brave and adventurous, and this might just be his most outlandish experiment to date.
My own opinion of this one is that it’s a mix of highs and lows. I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the storyline, and I particularly loved the chemistry that developed between the two leading characters. On the downside, I found it challenging to follow the complex unfolding of the tale, with its large cast. In addition, the final denouement felt rather convoluted and also somewhat unsatisfying. As a result, I’m finding it a hard book to rate. It’s probably something just north of three stars for me, but I’m going to round up rather than down simply because of the story’s originality and also because of my admiration for the mind that conceived it.
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK, for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review....more
Francesca Meadows is readying herself and also hustling her team of helpers in anticipation of a celebration feast to mark the opening of her luxury hFrancesca Meadows is readying herself and also hustling her team of helpers in anticipation of a celebration feast to mark the opening of her luxury hotel. She’d inherited the Manor from her grandparents and has subsequently invested a good deal of time (and money) transforming this familial coastal estate into a retreat for those with deep pockets. The guests are now in place, amongst them the mysterious Bella, someone who seems to have something of a history with this place, and with Francesca.
We’ll learn how events play out through the eyes of Francesca and Bella, but also through Francesca’s husband, Owen, and a local kitchen helper called Eddie. To some extent it’s hard to like any of the major protagonists, with the possible exception of Eddie: their behaviours are almost always self-serving and very often inappropriate. But the story is told with its tongue often firmly in its cheek, so I’m inclined to forgive it this characteristic. It’s at once wryly amusing, somewhat shocking and intriguingly mysterious.
Some of the locals are not happy that Francesca has sealed off access to areas they’ve always treated as communal, including a stretch of beach. They’re not going to take this lying down, so some disruption to the evening’s proceedings is possible. As we near what promises to be the highlight of the weekend, we also learn more of the history of this place, and some of these people, through a series of diary entries, written by a teenage girl who spent some time here whilst on holiday quite a few years back.
Foley draws these threads together skillfully and eventually leads us to a truly dramatic finish. This is a psychological thriller that pits a selfish need for social status against a desire to right historical wrongs. It’s really very well done. I listened to an audio version, brilliantly narrated by a team of actors.
My thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio for providing a copy of this audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review....more
Elvis Henderson receives the call while mindlessly driving his Ford Transit van through Texas, close to tReview first posted on mysteryandsuspense.com
Elvis Henderson receives the call while mindlessly driving his Ford Transit van through Texas, close to the Mexican border. He’s instructed to drive to the place he least wants to go: Quartz County, Northern Alabama. Elvis has history there, and it’s not good history. He left this place twenty-eight years ago and swore he’d never go back.
But he’s a restless lawyer who has stepped away from prestigious law firms to practice ‘small law,’ defending whoever his mysterious boss instructs him to. This time, it’s a woman charged with capital murder and facing a potential death penalty. The trial starts in just four and a half weeks, so time is very tight. But that doesn’t stop Elvis from being distracted by a billboard advertising a cabaret featuring fully nude women—there’s always time for that! Yes, Elvis is an interesting character: a man with a mysterious past, a driven professional passionate about his work, but also someone who enjoys some of the seedier aspects of life. The woman he’s been instructed to defend is Destiny Grace Harper, accused of murdering her twin babies. More accurately, her crime seems to be letting her unborn fetuses, who suffered from a rare condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (commonly referred to as TTTS), die as a result of denying them specialized laser surgery that might have saved them.
Destiny Grace had been a member of the Church of the Lord’s Rapture, run by an evangelical preacher named Jeremiah Tipple and his family. The church doesn’t allow parishioners to seek help from the medical profession. Their view is that prayers heal while doctors interfere. It’s quickly established that refusal of medical treatment on religious grounds will not be an effective defense; recent case law makes this quite clear. It’s hard to see how Elvis and the small team supporting him will be able to defend Destiny Grace. Everything seems stacked against them, including an idiosyncratic and mistake-prone judge, who seems hell-bent on supporting every wish of the prosecuting team while denying every request Elvis puts forward.
There’s a lot to take in here: a substantial cast of characters, a good deal of legal debate and argument, a plethora of Biblical quotes, and a backstory that explains why Elvis was so reluctant to return to this place. It takes a bit of concentration and patience, but past the halfway point, it really does develop into an attention-grabbing tale. Elvis is a compelling character, and he’s certainly the star attraction here. But there’s no end of colorful characters to enjoy and a compelling narrative that kept me on edge as we crept towards the story’s nail-biting climax.
The core argument here poses a really interesting conundrum, and it’s explored in an intelligent and comprehensively satisfying way. That alone should be enough to grab the interest of readers who enjoy a good legal thriller. But, augmented by the additional elements supplied here, what you have is not only a strong stand-alone story but one which, I hope, might prompt further adventures featuring Elvis and his crew. I, for one, would be happy to bump into this engaging legal practitioner at least one more time.
My thanks to Blackstone Publishing for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review....more
The story begins with Josie Dixon, a polyamorous teacher, meeting a man at a conference at Shepaug UniReview first published on mysteryandsuspense.com
The story begins with Josie Dixon, a polyamorous teacher, meeting a man at a conference at Shepaug University in Connecticut. They get to talking, and that night they share a bed. Then tragedy strikes. It’s our first indication that a predator may be at large.
Martha Ratcliff is an archival librarian, used to living alone but open to a relationship if the right man comes along. When she meets Alan Peralta, a traveling salesman, it seems that he might suit her. He’s kind, and she quickly grows to like him a great deal; she doesn’t love him, but perhaps that’ll come in time. An additional point of merit is that Alan is away a good deal of the time, selling his T-shirts, ties, and badges (most decorated with an appropriately succinct but amusing phrase). Martha will therefore still have her alone time, something she values. Yes, this’ll work well, she decides. They marry and settle into a comfortable routine.
But one night, she happens to be looking out of her bedroom window when he returns from one of his trips. She watches as he steps out of the car and visibly – she thinks – prepares himself to enter the house. What is it that she senses in that moment? It’s hard to describe, and yet it somehow sets her on edge. Then, following a subsequent trip, Martha finds a stain on his shirt, which had been put out for washing. Is that a bloodstain? It’s hard to be sure, but with this discovery adding to her existing unease, she starts to wonder whether Alan is quite the man she believed him to be. These suspicions cause Martha to undertake some research, looking for reports of any incident that might have been reported at, or close to, the venue Alan last attended. Disturbingly, she finds something. This spurs her on to carry out additional searches, looking for similar reports close to other venues he’d recently attended. Shockingly, there seems to be a spate of fatal incidents involving women. She’s not ready to challenge Alan yet or to report her concerns to the police – she doesn’t want to end her marriage because of a vague feeling and, perhaps, a series of coincidences. She does, however, concoct a plan.
Lily Kintner had been a friend of hers at college, where she’d helped Martha escape from the grasp of a controlling partner. Though she hasn’t spoken to her in some years, she contacts Lily with a view to enlisting her help. Lily is living with aged parents and is somewhat bored. Soon, she’s agreed to assist her friend in covertly investigating what Alan gets up to when he’s away on business. In fact, Lily is a wonderfully complex character: she’s intelligent, determined, and also something of a sociopath. Lily also engages a friend of hers, Henry Kimball, a private investigator and former police officer, to assist her.
The book is broken into three sections and is constructed in such a way that we are to view events through different eyes in each section. This works extremely well. Not only is the perspective changed, but the mood is significantly altered too. It almost feels like three separate stories, each linked by a series of common events. The tension, too, ramps up as it becomes clear that what we’ve learned so far certainly doesn’t represent the whole picture. It’s a book that at first interested me but then gradually dragged me deeper into its thrall. By the end, I was reluctant to part company with the story at all, such was the power it had gained over me. I now know that this is the third book the author has penned featuring Kintner and Kimball – I plan to seek out the others very soon.
My thanks to William Morrow for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review....more
We learn about ‘the event’ through the eyes of a number of people: some in New York City, some in London, and others in a secret secure facility in RoWe learn about ‘the event’ through the eyes of a number of people: some in New York City, some in London, and others in a secret secure facility in Roswell, New Mexico. In Roswell, the first fully-aware artificial intelligence has been created, called DELIO. It’s creators, and in fact, all of the security at the site has one guiding principle – DELIO must never be allowed to escape. It’s just too dangerous.
The timeline and location jumps around quite a bit, but in fact this turns out to be an effective way of telling how DELIO does escape and how this impacts the world, whilst at the same time describing how this AI monster was created. The characters impacted in New York and London are a mixed bunch who each have something of their own story told. The best is a NYC cop who’s about to kill himself when it all kicks off. The worst are all of the British characters, each being irritating beyond belief and totally over the top.
This is the opening episode of a longer story. In effect it’s a scene setter. I like apocalyptic tales. They give the writer free range to describe situations we’ve never witnessed, to create a world from scratch. Ok, it’s a damaged world, but the rules we are governed by are all ripped up, and a new order needs to be created. Unless it’s complete disorder, of course. It’s too early to know which way this one will go, but by the end of this episode we’ll have already received a big pointer suggesting one likely direction. It does sound interesting.
I listened to an audio version, which probably increased my dislike of the characters from my side of the Atlantic, but which was otherwise excellently performed. I look forward to seeing/hearing what happens next… but with that singular reservation....more
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