Review - Until We Drown by Ava Morwood

Until We Drown

Ava Morwood (Alison Littlewood)

HarperNorth, 9 April 2026
Available as: HB, 352pp, audio, e   
Source: Author
ISBN(HB): 9780008724665

I'm grateful to the author for sending me a copy of Until We Drown to consider for review.

At time of writing this review, there is a debate going on (or at least there is if you follow these things) about a Guardian article which seems to be saying that too many horror films are being made. I think the article is basically somebody saying, they don't like horror. This is at the same time, absolutely fine because we all have our likes and dislikes and absolutely not fine if it come from a place that horror is somehow lesser, because that approaches sneering at what other people like, and that's always sad.

I was reminded of this context because reading Until We Drown I was aware that it was horror but I was exercising all kinds of readerly muscles besides the "oooh, scary" set. Sadness. Annoyance at a prickly character. Exasperation (won't you all just TALK to each other!). Worry at where this was going. All the best books do this to me, and it didn't, of course, surprise me in the least. Horror is much, much more than "oh there's a monster/ bloodstained slasher in the cave". Even Scooby-Doo was more than that. 

So, in Until We Drown we have, essentially, a family drama, at the centre of which is the relationship between Ellie and Ethan. Ellie is the narrator, telling us both about her life and her marriage. Ethan appears a bit hapless at first, suffering, like the kids, from being uprooted from a cheerful seaside home to the darker atmosphere - in many ways - of the Peak District, about as far as you can get in England from the sea. That is, until we learn that it's his trespasses that have led to the move. He still sulks, however.

But. But. We also learn that Ellie's drive to get away from the sea goes beyond Ethan's failings, it links to an incident when she was 14 and saw a young boy drown. Ellie's been burdened with guilt ever since, convinced that everyone around her is judging her. Whether or not they are is never clear - what is clear is that nobody ever talked to her about this very traumatic experience, a pattern that repeats in this novel as everyone has secrets from each other, including, eventually, teenage son Zack. (I exclude 4-year old Libby, who couldn't keep a secret to save her life).

So there's already tension between Ellie and Ethan, which Morwood conveys very well, even though it's mostly unspoken, or redirected. You just see little ripples on the surface of the pond, signs of something big and nasty moving in the depths. 

Then things begin to go wrong, in disturbing ways. Libby's whole mermaid obsession rubs her mum up the wrong way, reminding her of Ethan's straying (I should say, these past events are told gradually through chapters headed by"A memory" or "A postcard", so initially the picture isn't clear). Ellie's dismayed to discover that landlocked Derbyshire has plenty of mermaid traditions of its own. Ellie tangles these stories with the mermaid classics - Disney and Hans Christian Anderson - and notes the subtext, the female not allowed a voice, the prince who always gets what he wants. 

Oh, and also, Ellie has a kind of foresight or second sight inherited from her gran, which gives her insights, to a degree, but also sends her down rather frightening rabbit holes as she struggles to understand what is going wrong.

There is, then, an element of the supernatural but - to quote MR James - "We do not know the rules". Ellie has been trying to suppress this uncanny aspect of herself and it's not something she is willing to turn to for help. Indeed that's a running theme here - Ellie is very much alone, she has to work things out for herself, making this book a very stressy two-hander between her and Ethan. (In hindsight, others have been trying to help or at least warn her, but that's missed until the last minutes).

I love books with that composition - a real-life, 21st century mystery built on tangled hopes and fears, with just a dash of the uncanny. Because, really, we are superstitious creatures, prone to see connections between unrelated events, fear retribution for sins and omissions and look for taint in places and people and for bad luck. We are also inclined to bargain, to sit in the doctor's waiting room thinking "oh make this not be serious, make this not serious". All these instincts come out when we are afraid or we lack agency, which is just the situation Ellie is in, and which is the very crux of horror. That is, of nuanced, complex horror. Because nuanced, complex horror is the essence of the world we live in, not crude monsters. (Well, until the crude monsters became billionaires and got control of the world, but you see what I mean).

And nuanced, complex horror is just what Morwood serves up with Until We Drown. It is deeply chilling, heart wrenching at times. You fear for everyone here, threatened on so many levels, and yes, you sense a wickedness at work. It's a mark of the writing though that the precise nature of that wickedness isn't at all clear till the very end, nor how it might be overcome. 

A brilliant read, one I'd strongly recommend. 

(Oh and, yes - spoiler - the dog DOES survive, if that's something you would worry about, as I would).

For more information about Until We Drown, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Oaths and Offerings ed by Nathaniel Spain

Oaths and Offerings 

Edited by Nathaniel Spain
Carnyx Press, 4 June 2026
Available as: PB, 127pp 

Source: Advance cop
ISBN(PB): 9781919453200

I'm grateful to Carnyx for sending me a an advance e-copy of Oaths and Offerings to consider for review.

Oaths and Offerings is the launch anthology from new press Carnyx who are devoted to the writers and stories of Northern England - a noble venture. It’s an impressive and handsome volume printed on good quality paper and with stories to match! Described as “an anthology of folklore”, this collection showcases eight new stories, all with their roots in folklore but reflecting the various forms in which it occurs. So there are stories with a contemporary setting (Away with the Fairies, Charcoal Nils), those which are more straight folktale-inflected (Awd Goggle, The  Monster of no Seeming) and there is even the Jamesian (Cups and Rings). 

We see the difficulty faced by a newcomer from abroad settling in a rural community, the problems of redeveloping an old mining site, the troubles of a shepherd girl and the dangers of obliterating tradition - as well as the mutability of tradition! They're all extremely good examples of their forms, reflecting the diversity and breadth of Northern England and taken together, this is a very strong collection which should I think set Carnyx off to a cracking start.

The first story, Awd Goggle by Steven French, tells a tale handed down from the narrator's grandma about how, as  a girl, she saw industrialisation meet its match when an ancient, revered tree is torn down. The indirect narration introduces a sense of timelessness in the events (while hanging on to the essentials) a sense heightened by its being in Yorkshire dialect.

Of Mineral, of Bone by Emma J Lannie draws on the rich mining heritage of the North. Whether in the copper mines of Alderley Edge, the salt mines of Cheshire or the coalfields, mining has always been a superstitious trade. A dangerous business, it sought to know and placate whatever spirits or beings dwelt in the depths, able to cause catastrophe and take lives. We see such rituals in this story. But what happens when the miners leave and the mines are abandoned? There is a legacy - mineral-laden waters that can pose a hazard. A solution seems to have been found here, but Lannie leaves the reader uneasy that there may be aspects that engineers and builders haven't considered. A truly creepy, menacing story.

Modern Britain has a truly diverse range of food traditions, much of it derived from abroad and unfortunately subject to the same tedious culture wars as other aspects of life (periodic social media arguments erupt over the proper statues of chicken tikka masala, for example). In Away With the Fairies by Mae Tang, we see an incomer, Zhenyi, pushing back against her ignorant neighbour and seeking to respect local lore and tradition in new and bold ways. This one really made me smile and I think while short, is a microcosm of a larger truth, showing how tradition is not fixed but is the brilliant result of human effort and bargaining with real, active powers. 

Mother of God by Sophie Parkes makes a similar point, contrasting the busloads of tourists coming to see the quaint folk customs in a village with the hard lives of the residents. A couple of girls, left on their own by parents out at work, add their own spin to the packaged tradition on display for the visitors. This is the only story (I think) without a dash of  overt supernatural (though possibly I'm wrong about that).

Charcoal Nils by Emma Sprakarn is very much a folk tale, though a modern one. Set in Scandinavia this is the one of only two stories that doesn't take place in Northern England, though the atmosphere - the cold, the mountains - is one with the rest of the book, as is the sense of being a little at the margins. And also the theme of the ancient in the modern, in a story of revenge and the failure of the modern world with its invented rules to take account of what is real.

Cups and Rings by Victoria Stewart, set in Scotland, looks at those enigmatic Pictish markings mainly found on upland stones (presumably because these are less likely to have been disturbed). Nobody knows what they mean, what they were for or the particulars of who made them but here we see two different attempts at interpretation set, perhaps, a hundred years apart. And we see what becomes of the investigators. I called this one "Jamesian" above, and it has that sense of obliqueness, of time folding away - and also, perhaps, a message that sometimes it's better to leave well alone.

The Monster of No Seeming by Sophie Reck Pointon is perhaps, of the stories here, the most obviously a folk tale, taking a young girl, Isla, set to guard the sheep, on a quest to rescue her sister Netta. In the best spirit of folklore, impossible tasks have to be carried out and the quest results in learning and growth. Punctuated by occasional remarks and exchanges from the narrator, The Monster sets up both a distance from its subject (this all seems to have happened long, long ago) and a closeness (the two settings are perhaps very intertwined).

good-dark-night (Suzannah Evans Furnass) is set in a community of the future, finding its own rituals to control a harsh environment. In a world of global heating and environmental catastrophe, that means yearning for and seeking to bring back the good, dark nights.

So, this set of stories interrogate the nature of tradition - how it can be changed, and when it’s best respected; its relationship to landscape and the use of the landscape; the place of people - individuals families, the long-settled and the newcomer, in that landscaper; and much more besides.

An impressive start to the Carnyx list, and I’ll be eager to see what comes next. 

For more information about Oaths and Offerings, see the publisher's website here.

Blogtour Review - Wonderful by Louise Beech

Wonderful

Louise Beech
Pick Lock Publishing, 1 June 2026
Available as: PB, 364pp, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781068337987

I'm grateful to Anne for sending me a copy of Wonderful to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Wonderful is published on what would have been Marilyn Monroe's hundredth birthday.

As the book opens, two women are finding new homes. In 1960s Hollywood, Marilyn is looking to buy a place that can be a retreat for her. In 2016, in Hull, Flora is moving to a flat that’s even more depressing than her last.

The book will continue to tell the stories of Marilyn and Flora, showing up similarities in their lives and also, eventually, some unlikely connections. Across the years these two women form an unlikely bond as Marilyn struggles for freedom and Flora tries to build a life, protect her sister, and overcome dark events from her early years.

Monroe, born Norma Jean and also with a troubled earlier life, has created a persona which has delivered her success as an actress, but living it is taking an increasing toll and she feels trapped. This can’t end well, as we know from tragic history, but Beech sensitively avoids cliches in giving us Marilyn’s own reflections on her life and her plans for the future. 

In Hull, Flora has also led a difficult life, quite how difficult we don’t learn till the end of the book. In her present, though, she’s focussed on the welfare of her sister, about to be released from a psychiatric ward. The relationship between the sisters, while not cosy, is very moving. Essentially they’re all each other has, their mother being around but little help. The emotional heart of the book is this relationship, one which leaves Flora little space or time for a possible romance growing with Neil, an aspiring magician who sometimes appears in the club where Flora works.

All this, and the Blessed Virgin Mary too! This perhaps unlikely figure appears to a number of women in the book, bringing a nosy journalist in her wake but also pointing to futures for some of them. Something is being built, something to support women’s autonomy and safety. Both Flora and Marilyn will play their parts.

As ever in Beech’s books, this is a story told from below, from the perspective of the underdog. Characteristically the action comes together in Hull, described as “the end of the line”, a contrast to the glitzy background of Monroe’s Hollywood (even if this has become a place she can’t set foot unless disguised) yet - across all Beech's books, a place of possibilities, growth and authenticity. Characteristically, too, this works, both on a story and an emotional level as the sheer grind of everyday life is transmuted into a struggle to understand one’s past, however dark, and realise one’s potential.

I love Beech’s books and this one fully lived up to my expectations. The book is hard reading, at times. Not everyone here is always perfect, or even always likeable. But there is a willingness to work, to build that future, that makes every page a treat.

An article I was reading the other day focussed on how resourceful Monroe was, setting up her own production company and using the law to obtain a measure of control from her studio. Beech’s nuanced portrayal captures this, as she surveys her future. 

For more information about Wonderful, see the author's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Wonderful from your local high street bookshop or online from Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, Waterstones, WH Smiths (always Smith's, there is no Jones) or Amazon.

Review - Hurricane Room by Kim Sherwood

Hurricane Room

Kim Sherwood
HarperCollins, 21 May 2026 
Available as: HB, 368pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9780008495480

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending giving me access to an advance e-copy of Hurricane Room, the third part of Sherwood's 007 trilogy, following Double or Nothing and A Spy Like Me, to consider for review.

I first met Sherwood’s writing with her Testament, a superb book about Holocaust survival, memory and recovering history. So, you might think, quite different from a thriller? Maybe actually not...

Like the earlier earlier books, in Hurricane Room, besides the overarching espionage plot there's a preoccupation with loyalty, trust, survival and identity - and with betrayal. (In one brilliant passage, a character whose forbears survived persecution in Europe, coming to Britain, muses on her possible alternate identity if they'd gone to New York). While that may seem a departure from the classic Bond novels, one might argue that Bond's romantic light-footedness was always hinting at these, but here Sherwood makes the point overt with tension between Bond and Johanna Harwood, 003, Bond’s ex (and in his mind, his betrayer) who has been trying to find him.

Because, yes, Bond is back! Hurricane Room, Book Three, is where Bond comes in. He has been missing, possibly dead, throughout the trilogy so far. That is a think a good move in technical terms, if perhaps a risky one. Reading the first book, a Bond-less 007 world took a bit of getting used to but Sherwood's depiction of Harwood soon made up for that whereas I think that if Bond had been here form the start he’d have overpowered everything. Instead Books one and two gave us other 00s, 000 up to 013, M, Moneypenny and a transformed Q, creating an excellently realised and updated version of the classic Bond setup.

It's also an unsettlingly timely version. This evening I've been watching on the BBC News the new head of GCHQ, speaking at Bletchley Park (where Sherwood Avenue is cheekily mentioned), warning of the dangers to the UK of Russian covert action, including sabotage of infrastructure and, especially, Internet cables. In Hurricane Room we find one of Sherwood's characters, head of Q Branch, standing up at Bletchley Park to warn of the "everywhere war" already being fought. The finale of this book may be the long awaited and traditional shoot-out, but what's being fought for is considerably closer to reality than in the classic Bond books.

In keeping with that, Sherwood has made her own Bond, with recognisable DNA from the original books and films, but she has yeeted him and his backstory into the last quarter of the 20th century and the first quarter of this (the timeline is a bit vague, or he’d be too old). As I said, he’s recognisable, but different. More self aware. Torn between Fleming’s playboy, and… something else. Perhaps Bond needs to grow beyond being 007? Sherwood can hint at that because she’s not writing THE Bond, but A Bond. (The endless debate over  who should play Bond in the films, always in the air, came into my mind here as my mental image flitted around between Connery and Moore - the classics I grew up with. It is though a silly argument overall as there is no one Bond. Who should play Sherlock Holmes? Depends which Holmes). Perhaps the film makers don’t have that freedom because to many fans now the film ones are the the only Bond they’ll be aware of, and the producers have to deliver an ongoing franchise, not a single trilogy.)

Anyway, it is good. A high stakes threat, which as I've said is more plausible than you might expect, chilling villain, final fight in a remote secret base, touches of continuity. As well as translating the Fleming continuity into her world, Sherwood also rounds out Bond’s history in her own, which helps offset the sense you sometimes get in Fleming’s books and the films of an unanchored character. She also keeps the story abreast of recent geopolitics (difficult, given how preposterous real world plotting has got in recent seasons).

The author also has some fun here. Look out for her dropping the titles of earlier Bond stories, sometimes a bit rearranged. ("She'd been loved by this spy before", "eyes Bond once called golden"). But there are also references to other espionage novels: 00 Branch is headquartered at Regents Park, like Mick Herron's spies, and there also references to an "agent runner in the field" - a nod I think to one of John Le Carré's last books (A very good one, if you haven't read it). There are other homages as well,  from near familiar language - One dove was a coincidence. Two were dinner - to names and characters (Vesper, Felix) and of course classic Bondisms (Shaken not stirred). There are the deadpan quips ("Hello Conrad. You seem to have lost face" to an opponent badly scarred in a battle with Bond and Harwood, "I've always been attracted to women walking into water with heavy pockets" - which itself inverts a famous beach scene).

Most of all though, and more seriously, Sherwood plays, in a gently meta way, with the idea of Bond himself. Harwood reflects that "He struck her as a man out of time, awake for the first day in centuries" which is a sense is every Bond revival, I think. Similarly, as events resolve and danger falls away "There was something staged about him now" which is just... so right. Bond as a character, any Bond, in any book, which any actor, has to be stagey, camp, oiled, poised. This, you feel, is Harwood's problem with him, this is why they couldn't be together. Behind the facade of the spy novel there is a deeply felt and resoundingly true relationship here, and we don't know how that will end. It doesn't feel as though it can come to any good...

I'd highly recommend this book, and the trilogy as a whole. This is Bond - this is writing - of the most compelling, truthful and engaging class.

For more information about Hurricane Room, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Mortedant's Peril by RJ Barker

Mortedant's Peril (The Trials of Irody Hasp, 1)

RJ Barker
Tor/ Pan Macmillan, 
Available as: HB, 432pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781035064274

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Mortedant's Peril to consider for review.

Meet Irody Hasp, Mortedant for hire.

In the city of Elbay, Mortedants aren't the power they used to be.

These celebrants - part confessor, part psychopomp - were once greatly respected for their ability to probe the last thoughts of the dead, reconciling lifelong quarrels, bringing peace to the dying... and locating hidden money and valuables. That last, however, has brought them down somewhat, as they're now suspected of profiting from a fraudulent trade. 

Hasp is a marginal figure even among this disdained group, shunned by his peers for his poor birth and questionable past. He scrapes a living. It's sufficient, however, for him to indulge his alchemical hobbies, probing the work of the spurriers, a more favoured trade, who create marvellous living devices. It's illegal for a Mortedant to engage in such work, so Hasp benefits from his obscurity.

Hasp's quiet life changes, though, when he's called out to attend to a city employee who has died suddenly.

Somebody doesn't want a Mortedant at this death, and pretty soon Hasp finds himself accused of murder and scheduled to hang (and worse - believe me, it is worse) - unless he can prove himself innocent in three days. With the city building up to its annual festival, nobody is interested in the troubles of a penniless Mortedant - except for his guard, Whisper, a woman of the sea-people, who he's been forced to accept (to prevent him fleeing injustice) and a young urchin, Mirial, who has her own reasons for sticking close to him.

Across those three days, Hasp must ransack the secrets of Elbay or suffer the consequences. 

Of course, nobody wants those secrets to come to light...

I loved this book. It has great - what's the right word? - verve. Elbay is a teeming, complex society, a city built on rigid social hierarchy but that also seems to be sitting on something older - older magic, older technology, a VERY old but curiously absent governor, the Roundhorn - and to conceal powers, barely held in check, that regularly scorch the ring of ground outside the walls. Hasp's explorations provide an excellent gazetteer. He really knows his way around, and Mirial knows hers even better. Clearly the first of a series, Mortedant's Peril shows us all sorts of locations and possibilities from the very highest point of the Dome to the depths of the citycore which I'm sure we'll learn more about in due course. It also details the convoluted social hierarchy, based both on wealth and on inherited distinctions, that keeps the poor in the lower tiers - and hints at strange, other-worldly powers. No, Elbay isn't your standard fantasy city. Nor is the society that flourishes inside. 

Hasp himself is an intriguing character. I started this book thoroughly disliking him. He is self-obsessed, arrogant, prone to dismiss everyone and everything around him as worthless, especially those outside Elbay (Hasp has never left the city) as barbarians - so Whisper is referred to in the earlier part of the book (by Hasp) as "it" until she gradually, grudgingly earns his trust until, when she's threatened and in danger he's beside himself. Hasp has, as becomes clear, though suffered loss and is perhaps still smarting from that (he'd never admit it) but he can and does change and shows himself brave, resourceful and determined.

It seems, after all, that there is more at stake than the life of one Mortedant, and Hasp's beloved Elbay (see the fuss he makes when he has to go beyond the walls, briefly) may itself be at risk.

More than just a series opener, Mortedant's Peril is a tense, gripping story of a race against time, as the chapters count down to Hasp's flaying and hanging. In his desperate search up and down Elbay's steep slopes there seems very little, really, that he can do to save his neck. Yet he carries on, refusing to give in.

This is, I'd say, a characteristically RJ Barker book, exploring a strange world through the eye of a flawed and marginalised character, taking the limitations of that (Hasp's poverty, his outcastness, his previous bad choices) and making them into real plusses.

Great fun, but more than that, Mortedant's Peril is fantasy with real heart.

For more information about Mortedant's Peril, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour review - Under the Blazing Sun by Jenny Lund Madsen

Under the Blazing Sun
Jenney Lund Madsen (trans by Paul Russell Garrett)
Orenda Books, 21 may 2026
Available as: HB, 275pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781917764155

I'm grateful to Orenda for sending me a copy of Under the Blazing Sun to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Jenny Lund Madsen's Under the Blazing Sun follows her reluctant hero, crime author Hannah, on a new writing assignment - and into a new murder mystery.

Lund Madsen's previous book, Thirty Days of Darkness, introduced Hannah, a somewhat self-important literary writer who talked herself into writing crime (how hard can it be?) Packed off to Iceland by her editor, Hannah blunders into a real life crime, from which she however is able to draw inspiration, ending up with a whole new career and a book that's more popular that her earlier, more earnest, writing.

I was eager to see what Jenny Lund Madsen would do for this follow-up. Can the same idea really work again? It turns out that it can, and in Under the Blazing Sun that's triumphantly proven. Hannah, who's rather self-pitying at the start not only because she can't get that second book written but because she's missing her girlfriend Margrét, is an unlikeable character at first sight. She hates her crime novel, Murder Island - the book of hers that people want to read - and would prefer to be known for her litfic. When her long suffering editor Bastian gets Hannah on a popular TV show, she has a tantrum and walks off set. I, like, I suspect, many other readers, would have not blamed Bastian at this point for dropping her, yet instead he sends her off to Sicily to stay in a villa where she can write, far away from mundane distractions.

Instead she sets about swigging wine and enjoying the local food. And of course, Hannah being Hannah, catastrophe strikes - and soon she's trying to clear name of murder. It's here that Hannah's more attractive side shows. While you might expect her to collapse in a heap of self-pity and demand rescue, she doesn't. She sets about investigating the crime. Hannah is dogged and determined, almost to an embarrassing degree, milking the police for information, shoving her nose in wherever it's not wanted (up to and including running around Sicily asking question and the Mafia, does this woman have a death wish?). There's something admirable in Hannah's sheer persistence, even if you cringe at times at the situations she's getting herself into.

Of course, Hannah being Hannah, she manages this while still downing prodigious quantities of wine, and is also painfully, exasperatingly demanding of Margrét who's yet to disentangle herself of her husband in Iceland. One might almost feel that the distraction of the murder is taking Hannah's mind off her personal difficulties (though, she does also let herself get distracted by a cute young policewoman). And you fundamentally feel that Hannah's right about a couple of things - that the murder is linked to local corruption, that the police don't care and are simply trying to pin the crime on an obvious suspect - and that she's being targeted by somebody, as threatening notes begin to arrive. As matters become tense, it seems a race between Hannah blundering on the truth through sheer audacity, and a clever and motivated criminal catching her first. The tension builds in the final quarter of the book as Hannah, finally, acquires an ally, and as the villain makes their move.

All in all, Under the Blazing Sun is an enjoyable and distracting romp of a crime story with a unique protagonist and a rather bewitching setting. Yes, Hannah's put through the wringer, but (I hope) she gets another book out of that and she even seems to take some steps to self-understanding and to being just a little less selfish. Perhaps. This is also a very funny book, Hannah's habit of putting her foot in it carrying her not only into danger but into some humorous situations (often at the same time).

The translation, by Paul Russell Garrett, is excellent and lucid.

For more information about Under the Blazing Sun, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Under the Blazing Sun from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith or Waterstones.

Review - Quite Ugly One Evening

Quite Ugly one Evening

Chris Brookmyre
Abacus, 7 May 2026
Available as: HB, 400pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9780349145822

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Quite Ugly one Evening to consider for review.

In a sense I feel that reviewing Quite Ugly One Evening, Chris Brookmyre's new Jack Parlabane novel, is rather superfluous, on at least two levels. First, Brookmyre is already a phenomenon, an industry to himself almost and trying to comment on it feels as though I am the ant sitting on the axletree of the wagon and shouting "see how much dust I raise!"

Then there's the point that this is not just a Brookmyre book, but a Brookmyre Parlabane book, and that is something his fans always want to see more of. What can I say that could change this (in either direction)? Perhaps this level of fannish investment is a bit of a double edged sword for an author (see Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes) but we are where we are. For many readers the reappearance of Mr Parlabane alone will make this a must-read.

All that said - I think there is more to QUOE (can I coin that?) than fan-pleasing. A lot more

For a start, as we know well, Parlabane isn't a cardboard cutout character. That is the point of him, of course, he matures, he learns (or not) from his mistakes. But still I feel that the man we see here is, while recognisable and clearly the Parlabane of old, also a beautiful study in (middle) aging, regret, and loneliness.

In QUOE, Parlabane is approaching 60 and is suddenly orphaned after his mum dies (something that happened to me a couple of years back, so I can confirm Brookmyre's handling of this sensitive subject and Parlabane's stunned, regretful and confused response). The mystery of the father who abandoned mother and son years before remains. At a loose end after a(another) story goes wrong and with his job on the line (again), Parlabane goes rogue and - perhaps - repeats an earlier mistake, accepting work from MI5.

(Will he never learn...?)

For reasons that don't make a lot of sense to begin with (they will make more by the end of the story) Five send Parlabane off on a luxury transatlantic cruise, tasking him to get close to an eccentric British family, the Maskyns. The Maskyns own a beloved 1960s puppet series that is NOT, I repeat NOT, Thunderbirds. (But clearly it also is).

The Imaginators is, unlike its real-life model, embroiled in culture-war shenanigans. Vastly popular through a spin-off role-playing game, it has become beloved of keyboard warriors who resent the idea of an updating, let along one that might pay deference to modern sensitivities regarding race, gender, colonialism and so on. At the same time, the IP is drowning in debt and a hostile takeover bid looms. All of which comes to a head on that luxury liner, currently hosting a themed cruise with most of the Maskyn family aboard. Business feuds, personal disputes, family politics and general skullduggery will all come to a head - with Parlabane the potential and handy fall guy.

But why, exactly, are the spooks interested...?

I was impressed by the sheer verve of this book. That's quite a feat for Brookmyre to pull off, when his lead character is already jaded and disenchanted and has just suffered a bereavement. Yet there's something about the combination of the writing, the very real peril, and the acerbic commentary on the modern cultural landscape, that makes QUOE a gripping page-turner. 

Almost incidentally it's also a brilliant example of the locked-room mystery - indeed a double locked-room mystery as we have a locked room on a mid-Atlantic liner. Parlabane (whose fear of being isolated on the ship adds a sense of peril) has to deploy all his skills and keep his wits about him to reach the finishing line here. And he may not like everything he discovers.

Something of an old-fashioned mystery (but aren't hose the best?) but imbued with very modern dilemmas, Quite Ugly One Evening really invigorates this series. This book isn't just one more in its franchise, it shows that Parlabane's countercultural instincts and bloody-mindedness remain vital and relevant. I would strongly recommend. 

For more information about Quite Ugly one Evening, see the publisher's website here.