#Blogtour #Review - Secrets of the First School by TL Huchu

Secrets of the First School (Edinburgh Nights, 5)
TL Huchu
Tor/ Pan Macmillan, 16 October 2025 
Available as: HB, 382pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781035055487

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy of Secrets of the First School to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

It's the endgame for Edinburgh Nights and for Ropa Moyu - rather literally in her case, as she's dead, banished to the Other Place. This series has gone from relatively low-stakes exorcisms of unwanted spirits, via scuffles over membership of the ridiculously self-satisfied Society of Sceptical Enquireres (the Scottish magicians' guild) and a knife-sharp portrayal every dreadful corporate exhibition you've ever attended, and the collapse of the Society's relations with magic in England, to a sudden bid for power by the ghoul Henry Dundas who wants to make himself King, God and goodness knows what else.

Huchu wove this destination from the beginning, it's clear, and one can only pity Ropa for having such a stern creator. She's faced here with the impossible. Get back from the Beyond. Find her missing sister, abducted by Dundas's cult. Defeat said cult, when the cream of Scottish magic has been destroyed, or bent the knee to a tyrant (depressingly current, that). Do this without upsetting the English Sorcerer Royal, a mercurial figure, or the King, who rules the country with the most extreme application of Divine Right. This is a hardscrabble UK, living on the edge of starvation after a financial catastrophe not unrelated to Ropa's granny, who is also dead - making things even harder for Ropa; just scraping together bare sustenance is too much for many.

Yes, we have seen Ropa do the impossible before, or seemingly, but will she be able to use her understanding of von Clausewitz, her laissez-faire attitude to rules, and her shaky grasp of magic, to repeat that? As Ropa moves from one crisis to the next, it looks less and less likely. Her ability to walk away from allies, to insist on going alone, always a liability, seems positively self-destructive now.

Yet, she persists.

To say much more about what Ropa does would be to risk spoilers, and I won't do that, but I will say that Secrets of the First School challenges her like she's never been challenged before. She will discover that her understanding of life, magic and of herself, her family and her allies, is about to undergo an earthquake. And she will have to draw on strange sources of power to defeat the Establishment in Edinburgh - and forge strange alliances, despite that habit of walking away from people. (Though, given what Ropa discovers here, trusting anyone is going to be hard).

How it all works out is great fun and the outcome turns not only on Ropa and what she does but also on the tainted roots of Scottish magic and the tainted fruit it has produced. Dundas is a magnificent villain, but he isn't a puzzling, lone, megalomaniac criminal in the manner of a James Bond antagonist. I think that Huchu is nudging us with that character, and his origin in Empire, finance and exploitation to see parallels with some equally tainted modern figures who have the arrogance to try and make the world dance to their tune. And who, I'll prophesy, will meet a not dissimilar fate.

It's a magnificent end to what has been a marvellous sequence of stories and, I think, more than that - not just a fitting end but a powerful and moving novel in itself, the best of the five (which is setting a high bar).

For more information about Secrets of the First School, 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 Secrets of the First School from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith (they'll always be Smith's to me!) or Waterstones.

Blogtour review - The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen

The Winter Job
Antti Tuomainen (trans by David Hackston)
Orenda Books, 23 October 2025 
Available as: HB, 228pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781916788824

I'm grateful to Karen at Orenda for sending me a copy of The Winter Job to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

December 1982, and with Christmas coming up, postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has no way to buy his beloved daughter the piano he's impulsively promised her. Following his divorce - Ilmari has issues with trust, which have torpedoed his marriage, as well as all his other relationships - Helena is the centre of his life. He can't let her down. he just can't.

So he takes on a delivery job. A rather strange one. He has to transport an antique sofa more than 1000km to the north of the country. In the depths of winter. In an elderly British van unsuited to Finland's ice climate. Moreover, he's determined to take diversions on the journey to settle old obligations.

What can possibly go wrong?

So begins one of the strangest road novels I've ever encountered. As if the task Ilmari has assumed isn't tricky enough in itself, there's something... off... about the sofa (and indeed, the whole job) from the beginning. It's soon clear that others want it too - a bruiser called Otto, whose way of dealing with opposition is to knock it down, shows up, as does a pair of bickering political activists, Anneli and Erkki, who want to sell the sofa to fund the Cause.

Oh, and Ilmari also bumps into an old schoolfriend, Antero, he hasn't seen for years (since accusing him of theft, in fact). Antero is down on his luck, and joins Ilmari for the ride. But he, too, has business to settle on the journey.

As winter closes in, and this disparate group heads north in their various rackety vehicles, the stage is set for drama, catastrophe and... friendship?

The Winter Job is highly entertaining, not least in the lengths that the three groups go to acquire, or retain, the sofa. There is violence, double crossing, coincidence and heroism here - to such a degree that it seems as though this unlikely McMuffin has driven everyone clean out of their minds. (At times I was getting distinct Ealing comedy vibes, but the violence lurking here has a real edge, there are some truly gruesome scenes). It's also really enjoyable to see how Tuomainen takes an unlikely scenario and manages to invest the reader in its truth. You won't doubt the commitment of anyone here to the sofa, or the possibility that all this could actually happen.

Above all, though, or perhaps behind all or beneath all, there's more going on here than some bizarre gameshow challenge. All the participants in the Great Finnish Sofa-Off feel, in a sense, lost. They lack friends. They lack trust. They lack something or someone to come home to. Even lone wolf Otto senses this, though he then goes about building friendship in a most self-defeating way. And on those long Finnish miles - sorry, kilometres - there's plenty of opportunity to reflect on what went wrong and how it may not be too late to put is right.

The Winter Job is fun when it's doing slapstick, but also profound and moving, a kind of collective dark night of the soul for Ilmari and the rest - but is it a night they'll all come through to dawn unscathed?

Read this book and find out!

The Winter Job is translated by David Hackston into a lucid and readable English version that must have been a struggle in places given a context and setting that would be clear to the reader of the original but much harder to set out for a foreign reader.  (it's great to see David given credit on the cover).

For more information about The Winter Job, 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 The Winter Job from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith (it'll always be Smith's to me) or Waterstones.

Blogtour review - The Space Between the Trees by Norm Konyu

The Space Between the Trees
Norm Konyu
Titan Comics, 21 October 2025
Available as: HB, 104pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB/): 9781787746800

I'm grateful to Julia at Titan for sending me a copy of The Space Between the Trees to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Norm Konyu's new fantasy The Space Between the Trees brings his haunting imagery and heartfelt storytelling to the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

In 2022 a young couple, Meera and Mark are looking for a house, viewing a development that has been cut into the primeval forest. Something about it doesn't appeal - it's all a bit "Little Boxes" perhaps and despite the sylvan street names, the forest is nowhere to be found. Disappointed, they head home - which is when the fun really starts (for a rather special value of "fun") as, despite a clear road, they become lost.

The reader will have anticipated this from a short prologue set in 1902 and featuring a group of loggers who run into problems themselves. But the exact danger is left unclear. As in Downlands, Konyu plays games here with his setting.

And as in Downlands, I love the way that the threat creeps up on Meera and Mark. We've been given a hint in the prologue that something may be up, so I was expecting that journey into the woods to go wrong, but Konyu cleverly wrongfoots the reader as to what has happened and, of course, what will happen. Though Mark's story about the spooky forest where he grew up may give a hint.

Konyu's angular, understated drawing style is perfect for this - extreme horror doesn't need swirling imagery. I think it's fair to describe the atmosphere here as gothic, but by being rendered in clear, stylised graphics the creepy factor is dialled up because of a certain... incongruity? A contrast between what are very Modern graphics (in a mid 20th century sense) and the primeval, gothic mystery of the forest. The fate of the characters is slippery - they seem so solid, so well located in their clearly depicted, definite world... which then turns shifty and paradoxical as they seek to march from one frame to the next. It's like there is a magician performing in front of you, everything is visible, but then, wham! And where did that go? Look at the page again, can you spot the glitch... maybe...

I found that once I started reading this book, I couldn't stop. It is perfect for devouring in a single sitting - and then going back to see what you'd missed. There's a richness - both of storytelling and of characterisation - that is belied by the plainness of the style.

And which would be undermined if I said anymore about what happens! This is a book to come to unsuspecting, as it were.

Like Meera and Mark.

In short, really, really enjoyable and I hope to read more by Norm Konyu soon.

For more information about The Space Between the Trees, 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 The Space Between the Trees from your local high street bookshop or comic shop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith (they can call it what they like, it'll always be Smith's to me) Waterstones or Amazon.

Review - Like a Bullet by Andrew Cartmel

Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 8 July 2025
Available as: PB, 304pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781803367941

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Like a Bullet to consider for review.

The return of Cordelia Stanmer, aka The Paperback Sleuth (she's had cards made and everything) is always welcome. Unlike her counterpart in the world or rare record collecting, Cartmel's Vinyl Detective, Cordelia's got few scruples (she's certainly up for a bit of burglary) when it comes to securing down a rare, pristine paperback volume, so life is always exciting when she's around. These books are a third mystery, a third scavenger hunt, and, perhaps, the other third has a distinct flavour of mild hedonism, Cordelia employing her gains in the pursuit of pleasures both licit and... not. 

In Like a Bullet, Cordelia's been engaged by wealthy, retired rock star Erik Make Loud (known to those who've been reading the Detective's adventures) to locate a copy of the legendary 1960s novel Commando Gold. This is a book so rare that online wars break out over whether it even exists. How can she resist that challenge (and the promised reward for achieving it)? 

Especially since, on acquiring the previous books in the series, she finds them eminently readable (not really what she'd expected from an author called "Butch Raider").

As ever, though, Cordelia doesn't really know what she's getting into. Someone really, really doesn't want that book found. There's more at stake here than a musty, mouldering volume of war stories. Soon, she' dodging a very determined enemy... one very familiar with the kinds of techniques described in the books.

As ever, I had great fun with Cartmel's latest. Cordelia's a very distinct, very well-formed character, more of a loner than the Detective (while she eventually has to ask for help in this story from her ex hard-man landlord Edwin, she generally handles things herself rather than travelling with an entourage like the Detective). She's a planner, often (but not always) one step ahead of everyone else. She inhabits the same slightly raffish south west London. Cartmel also has a good eye for location and geography, mapping out backstreets, pubs and routes into and out of London, as well as giving us glimpses of the strange characters (never quite too strange to be believable) who live there.

An excellent addition to the series.

For more information about Like a Bullet, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Second Chance Cinema by Thea Weiss

The Second Chance Cinema

Thea Weiss
HarperCollins, 7 October 2025
Available as: PB, 320pp, audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780008769185

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Second Chance Cinema to consider for review.

Ellie and Drake seem very different, but complementary to one another - she a cataloguer of vanishing places, always on the lookout for the quirky, the picturesque, the vintage, he a construction expert, safe and reliable, always fixing things. So, in many ways an ideal couple.

As the two plan their marriage, however, both worry about secrets they are keeping. 

And then one night, as Ellie (of course) leads them off the beaten track, they stumble across a hidden cinema with its own, special, midnight show - The Story of You. Those secrets will be revealed, and the two will have to face some uncomfortable truths.

I adored The Second Chance Cinema. I always think there's something magical about a cinema, something liminal as one steps out of one's normal life for a while. The darkness. The anticipation. It's especially magical when you have the whole place to yourself - as though the world has, just for a brief while, bent itself around you. For Ellie and Drake, that's literally true as they attend showing after showing, taking each of them deeper and deeper into their backstories - and revealing their pasts to each other.

This is a brilliant way to tell how two people came to be who they are, and to expose the dilemmas and tensions they now face. Across the screen flit parents, siblings, childhood insecurities, teenage angst, lovers, breakups, and betrayals. "To know all is to forgive all" runs the old saying, but will that be true for Ellie and Drake? Rather, it seems likely that with more perfect knowledges comes judgement, misunderstanding and pain. Yes, you may see what happened to your lover on a certain night ten years before, but will you understand? And are they the same person now as they were then? Is it fair to judge them on that past?

As the showings continue, the revelations affect Ellie and Drake, with things done, or left undone, in the past reaching out and putting their lives and relationship in question. Ellie's fears that she can't recapture her best work, and Drake's frustration that instead of building lovely, bespoke homes he's working on cookie-cutter residential boxes, tangle with family tensions and past relationships to make this a complex but rich account of a couple's situation. At the same time there's a good sprinkling of magical Christmas sparkle and humour to lighten the more intense moments.

All in all I found The Second Chance Cinema a compelling read - Weiss takes her fantastical premise and grounds it sufficiently enough that it seems real, with the authentic consequences for Ellie and Drake. It is in some ways an unsettling story, with real challenges for the couple, but it's one I had to keep reading - a "what if" that I had to follow to the last page.

For more information about The Second Chance Cinema, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Cold House by AG Slatter

The Cold House

AG Slatter
Titan Books, 7 October 2025
Available as: HB, 160pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781835412541

I'm grateful to the publisher for  giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Cold House to consider for review.

Though set in modern Britain rather than her fantasy Sourdough world, in The Cold House Slatter explores similar themes to her recent fantasy novels - here we meet a woman left somewhat alone and struggling to understand her place in the wider world. Everly'd had her share of tragedy. there is a mystery about her early life which Slatter only gradually shares, and more recently, she's lost a husband and child. When we meet Everly at the beginning of the story, she reached the "attacking strangers in supermarkets" stage of grieving, something which rather shakes her out of herself and forces her to seek help.

Though the help proves to be a recommendation to get away from it all by spending a few days at an isolated, spooky house on a remote island. That leads Everly into a somewhat folk horror chain of events which moves quickly from the charming and quaint to the downright terrifying. As we learn how she handled those earlier, terrifying events in her life, the question looms: does that make her a survivor, or a betrayer? Will she be able to summon the strength to push through, or will things, this time, just be too much?

The Cold House is a cracking read, a short book but one with terrific pace. Slatter is perfect at judging what her readers need in the book, and where gaps will be filled in. That means we don't get reams of back information about Everly's harrowing earlier years, for example, or about the history of YYY Manor, just essential nuggets which are really quite enough. But there is a beautifully told account of Everly's very real distress and sense of dislocation at the start of the book (if "beautiful" is an appropriate word for a portrayal of such distress; I couldn't find a more apt one). 

The pace also feels natural, I think, as the book moves from an initial paralysing situation to exploration to that to a real, pounding, action-y conclusion as Everly's forced to fight for her own identity - and to choose who, and what, she will trust. Her quick decisions will result in lasting consequences and we have to hope that those will be results that she can live with. I felt that the ending contained a delicious ambiguity here, and wondered if things were, indeed, over? I suppose time will tell!

I'd strongly recommend The Cold House, if you haven't read any of Slatter's stuff before this standalone would be a good place to take the temperature, as it were.

For more information about The Cold House, see the publisher's website here.

Blogtour Review - A Lethal Legacy by Guðrún Gúðlaugsdóttir

A Lethal Legacy
Guðrún Gúðlaugsdóttir (trans Quentin Bates)
Corylus Books, 20 September 2025
Available as: PB, 234pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781917586023

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy of A Lethal Legacy to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Nothing has changed at Bjargarlækur for as long as anyone can remember – so are moves to bring change to this remote farm in the Icelandic countryside a motive for murder? Three elderly siblings have lived more or less peacefully in this isolated place their whole lives, until Brynjólfur is found dead in his own bed. Called on to help out at the farm, freelance journalist Alma is far from certain that the old man died a natural death. Determined establish the facts of the matter, she finds herself caught up in a vicious family feud. Sisters Klara and Thórdís are unable to agree on the future of the farm, just as others with an interest in the place circle hungrily around them. Echoes of missed opportunities, lost love and age-old crimes surface as a reckoning takes a bitter toll on those left behind – and Alma struggles to get to the truth.

Journalist Alma and her husband Gunnar have just embarked on renovating the wreck of a house they've bought. However a most dramatic call from daughter Gunnhildur summons Alma away to a remote farmhouse. (One of the minor delights of this novel is how - from off, as it were - Gunnar, left back at home, continually reports to Alma that he's found a new problem - the floor, the windows, the heating - that will require either a tradesman he can't find, materials they hadn't budgeted for, or indeed, a complete change of plan about layout. But he never loses his enthusiasm! It'll all be fine!). Gunnhildur, a nurse who needed some time away from things after splitting from her boyfriend, reports that the elderly man she was caring for alongside his two sisters has been found dead. She worries she may be blamed for mixing up Brynjólfur's meds, and asks her mum to come out and support Gunnhildur and her own toddler daughter Una.

This is Alma's intro to the isolated community at Bjargarlækur. Soon she's in the thick of investigating Brynjólfur's death, partly to help Gunnhildur - though dear Daughter happily scarpers part way through the story as Boyfriend has appeared again - but mostly, one senses, from a prickling of her journalist's thumbs and from sheer burning curiosity.

It's a tangled tale that emerges. The siblings were at war with one another. Brynjólfur and Klara, one of the surviving sisters, wanted to preserve the farm and turn into a museum of old Iceland. In a country that has experienced rapid change one can see why this might be worthwhile. (Another of the joys of A Lethal Legacy is the glimpses of that older Iceland that we get in the stories from the sisters and some of their neighbours. One is left in no doubt how much these remote communities were required to be self-sufficient, and the echoes of that run forward to some extent into the present of the novel, with the police remote and the authorities slow to intervene in the escalating situation).

The other sister, Thórdís, was though dead set against the museum idea. Complicating the picture is the presence of a younger couple to whom the farm has been let, and who may or may not be a pair of ne'er do wells. All sorts of accusations are thrown - Slaughtering the sheep! Selling the cows! Brewing moonshine! Behind them are suspicions they may have their eyes on the place, perhaps in a stitch-up with local authorities.

Once the possibility of murder is added to this mix of family dissension, greed and a gossipy local community - a great deal is to be gleaned from the local priest and the doctor - and Alma's shut in at the lonely, slightly spooky, house - one may well expect almost anything to happen. And there is drama. The sense though that something is rubbing under the surface is an even greater source of tension, the contrast with the bleak, static landscape and the changeless decades that the siblings have lived at Bjargarlækur only adding to this.

Is that impression of calm, of retreat, misleading though? 

At its heart a story of family secrets, A Lethal Legacy manages to be both truly Gothic, with the possibility that not everything going in totally natural, and also a fine, taut crime thriller. Alma's rather out on a limb in conducting any sort of investigation here and she lacks institutional backing to ask questions or poke around, having to rely on the sisters' goodwill (which is in short supply) and her de facto position as their nurse/ carer, to gather facts. 

As she does so it slowly becomes apparent that there is more going on here than you'd expect. With a parallel strand of the story focussing on possible past abuse affecting a member of her own family, and the differing attitudes of the sisters resulting in contradictory accounts of their earlier lives, there's a difficult jigsaw for Alma to assemble. She is, though, nothing if not determined.

I really enjoyed this story. The brooding, remote setting is a fitting location for dark deeds. Klara and Thórdís are magnificent characters, well drawn. Neither is exactly likeable - though by the end of the book one knows enough about them to forgive a lot - but they are a great double act. Alma is determined to reach the truth, at first to protect her daughter, but later, it seems, from sheer bloody-mindedness. And as I've said, the glimpses of Icelandic history and culture are fascinating.

As ever, Quentin Bates' translation sparkles, catching the very different characters of the individuals at the heart of this story through their speech - sometimes slangy and modern, at others more formal or even slightly outdated. He does this while navigating a lot of rather abstruse language describing funeral customs - wakes, lyings-in, funeral meats and such - laying clear subtle differences which matter to Klara and Thórdís. A lot of the background here would be known to the Icelandic reader and so it isn't explicitly set out, but the translation makes clear where everyone is coming from, as it were.

Great fun - and also in some aspects, very sad. I'd recommend this one strongly.

For more information about A Lethal Legacy, 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 A Lethal Legacy from your local high street bookshop or online from Amazon.

Review - The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Bewitching

Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Arcadia, date, 
Available as: HB, 354pp, audio, e   
Source: 
ISBN(HB): 9781529441703

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

In The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia deftly blends three timelines to produce a clever and suspenseful New England horror which is also fully aware of, and reflects on, the tradition of New England horror. It's not just, here is a seemingly innocent country of coasts and little towns where lurk horrors. it's, here is a country whose horrors have been written about. The implicit warning - Don't go into the scary place! - is turned inside out from the start, because for Minerva, the scary place is the point. (A point driven home by Moreno-Garcia's deployment of many modern horror authors' names as background: look out for the names of student halls, faculty, positions, awards and honours. See how many you can spot!)

In 1998, Minerva is a young graduate student at Stoneridge College, making ends meet by doing teaching jobs and supervising student accommodation. She's looking forward to some peace and quiet over the summer months to develop her thesis about cult horror writer Beatrice Tremblay, who herself studied at Stonebridge in the 1930s.

In 1934, Beatrice herself recounts the events which led up to the disappearance of her beloved Virginia - events which, decades later, she based one of her most celebrated stories on. 

And in 1908, Minerva's great-grandmother, Alba, who lives on a dull backwater farm looks forward to a visit from her beloved uncle Arturo and yearns to return with him to the bright lights of Mexico City.

Each of the three women - Minerva, Alba and Virginia - will learn dark truths about the hidden world and will have to find strength to face a haunting evil. To that degree, they're in a sense the same story, though with varying outcomes. Of course Minerva's and Beatrice's stories take place ion the same setting, with direct connections between the horrors they confront. But the stories are also very different, interestingly different, featuring women in quite varying situations.

Alba is at first naive, on the edge of womanhood and yearning for a life of glamour, as she perceives it. There's something a little too trusting about her, perhaps. Her natural rebelliousness at the chaffing rules imposed by her mother may, one feels, lead her into trouble and it's hard to be sure who her real friends are as a string of grisly calamities begins to hit the farm. To whom can she turn for help?

Minerva seems at first a more solid personality, her main difficulties when we first encounter her being a severe case of thesis block and her difficulty in accessing the private archives she needs to explore to learn more about Beatrice. When - through a fortuitous chain of events, even if one foreseen in a hint of not entirely usual powers - Minerva succeeds in persuading their dour guardian to led her read the notebooks and manuscripts that will open the way, Carolyn Yates still imposes a myriad of restrictions and limits. Carolyn, matriarch of the distinctly "old money" Yates family, also appears in her youth in the 1930s section of the book as a friend and confidante of Beatrice, albeit not perhaps the witness to events that Minerva would really have sought.

The third protagonist, Beatrice herself, is more of a witness, her later life writing horror perhaps an attempt to testify, to piece together just what happened in December 1934. (Or to atone for her part in it?) The disappearance of a young woman from college wasn't looked into particularly at the time, the blame, if blame there was, being directed at a young Mexican man. Historic prejudice joins the mix here alongside class attitudes and gender norms in twisting the direction of events (one wonders whether, if the love that may have been possible between Virginia and Beatrice had been able to develop, events would have taken quite the same turn).

To understand what is happening in each of the sections, you need to stand back and see the picture as a whole, to look for patterns. Minerva. once she realises the stakes, does just that, piecing together present day events with the wisdom of her Nana to meet the threat. Alba herself draws on reserves of courage to behave in ways her society wouldn't expect. And Beatrice, well, in her witness Beatrice warns and provides vital information.

As the threats mount in all three time periods, there is a feeling of doom - we know some of the outcomes, and there have been hints about some of the rest, so it can feel as though this is a predetermined road to death and loss. But Moreno-Garcia is adept at misdirecting the reader, or perhaps, letting their own assumptions disguise the truth, resulting a thrilling ending (or, endings) though with just a little room for doubt as to the future. 

She, herself, writes in the last sentence of her Afterword "I wear my bracelet against the veil eye pin my left hand."

Wise.

A gripping and exciting story. 

For more information about The Bewitching, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam

Megan Bannen
Orbit, 8 July 2025
Available as: PB, 388pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356521947

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam to consider for review.

This, the third and I think final (pity!) of Bannen's fantasy Western romances, revolves around Tanrian Marshal Rosie Fox (who is also a demigod, and therefore immortal) and haughty, aloof inventor Dr Adam Lee, the man who invented the portals that give access to the magic-touched world of Tanria.

Always a bit error-prone, as we've seen before, now the portals seem to be failing completely, and Rosie and Adam may hold the key to restoring them. It's a shame that something - oh, say, unresolved romantic tension - is stopping them working together smoothly...

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam is, I think, the best book yet in this series (which is saying something, given how good The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy and The Undermining of Twyla and Frank were). Not only is there full-blooded, smouldering romance between Rosie and Adam, but Rosie's difficult backstory is sensitively shown. Just imagine being a demigod, daughter of a good-for-nothing trickster god and a sentimental but mortal mother. The passage of time means you'll lose anyone you ever get close to - first, your adored parent, then any lover, friend or colleague, all will go the same way. Apart from that abandoning father who always turn up just when he's not wanted.

Bannen has taken care to give this world, the archipelago of the Federated Islands of Cadmus and its surrounding continents, a true sense of reality and a history and culture - the last hundred years, which Rosie recalls, have seen development so that her memories of her early life with her mum have a sepia tinge, a kind of fin de siècle quality that evokes well both the rose tinted view we often have of childhood, and the quainter pleasures of a more gilded age to which modern day Cadmus looks back wistfully.

If Rosie's missing her mum, who died decades ago, she she's resentful of her dad, not least as she blames him for the grinding poverty in which she grew up (well, he is a Trickster).

This book is I think the most unapologetically "fantasy" of Bannen's three stories. As with Cadmus, she's so far sketched in and shown the mythological background to her works, and there have been a few divine or semi divine traces, but in The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam reality, at least in Tanria, begins to shift and it's all traceable to the doings of the gods and powers. There are obscure rules in play, debts and prices have been incurred, and Rosie's about to have to deal with the consequences, even though they're not her fault. As if her complex love life, and her difficult relationship with her boss weren't enough (each time Rosie dies on duty it's such a pain for her boss! Think of the paperwork and the H&S issues!)

At the same time it's thoroughgoing romance as the two bickering protagonists are forced together in a chi-chi rural destination retreat, albeit with some unwelcome colleagues for company. Unless they can work out what's gone wrong with the portals, none of them will ever get out!

All in all, great fun, with an ending I didn't see coming. I will be sad to have to leave Cadmus (though, hopeful to find my way back there one day).

Finally, now the sequence is finished, I'd just like to give credit to Lisa Maria Pompilio for her beautiful covers. Just look at them next to each other and you'll see a pattern - a brilliant interpretation of the themes of the books.

Hoping for more like this from Orbit!

For more information about The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam, see the publisher's website here. 

Blogtour review - The Great Deception by Syd Moore

The Great Deception (Section W)
Syd Moore
Magpie (Oneworld), 4 September 2025
Available as: PB, 328pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780861548PB

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy of The Great Deception to consider for review, and to Anne Cater for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Sequel to The Grand Illusion, The Great Deception is Moore's continuation of the story of Daphne Devine. As prequels set several decades before her Essex Witches novels, I simply had to read to these book, and they don't disappoint.

The Great Deception finds Daphne assigned on a dangerous mission in Iceland as part of her work for Section W, the branch of Second World War British military intelligence tasked with all things supernatural - or potentially supernatural. Here, the ostensible target is a clairvoyant, Karlsson, who may or may not be able to foretell the future and may or may not be passing secrets to the Germans. Britain has occupied Ireland to prevent it being used as a German base, but the position of the island hangs in the balance, so anything that could tip things one way or another might be very important.

The story intrigues in a number of ways. First, Daphne herself, as Moore draws her, is a fascinating character, a very strong and strong-minded woman in an age which is still deeply, deeply patriarchal. The officers with whom she deals here are clearly not comfortable with an intelligent, assertive woman and even Septimus, who will be important to her future, doesn't treat her well. Yet Daphne persists. Next, this is a genuinely interesting and eye-opening exploration of a little known aspect of WW2. The whole occupation of Iceland, going rather against the grain of the early war, raises intriguing questions of power and collaboration which we normally see from a rather different perspective. The situation of Iceland itself is also interesting, a very poor country at the time and also a remote one but not, of course, subject to the same restrictions (or to attacks) as Britain itself so rather a haven for Daphne.

Finally, there's the whole magic/ supernatural angle. Books about WW2 magic are starting to appear in numbers, I think perhaps Syd Moore set a trend here, but readers of the earlier story and of course the Essex Witch novels will know that this author is then canny about how she uses the idea of magic. You never quite know what to believe - and that goes as much for Daphne as for us!

So when Daphne decides - and she does take the decision, in the end she choose not to trust the chain of command - that urgent action is needed, and forms her own small taskforce to undertake it, much of the focus in the story is on the material factors: the cold, availability of food, the strained relations between Daphne, her local contact Anna, their minder Björn and of course Karlssen. Daphne's forced to pick her way through what is a tense and thriller-y novel, chasing down leads and pursuing the truth - all while surviving threats from Nazi agents and the condescension of her own superiors.

Whether there's a real supernatural threat is another thing entirely, but even here, Daphne has her instincts which, we know, have guided her before. In the land of the Northern Lights, and approaching a a region rumoured to be the home of dark magic and of evil, anything may be possible.

I really enjoyed The Great Deception. It's a story with great drive - you WILL keep turning these pages - and very solidly located in its time and place, as well as having a real element of jeopardy and danger. Daphne's wrestling with guilt at some of the things she's done and at other she may have to: and there is business here that she darkly accepts she will have to deal with later, once the immediate danger is over. The story is also though, in places, very funny! 

For more information about The Great Deception, 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 The Great Deception from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.

Blogtour Review - The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox

The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder
Stephen Cox
Self-published, 1 September 2025
Available as: PB, 394pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781068164408 

I'm grateful to Anne and Stephen for sending me a copy of The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Stephen Cox has previously written a heartwarming two part SF story Our Child of the Stars/ Our Child of Two Worlds about the arrival of an orphaned alien child, the humans who take him in, and the difference that makes to the world's future. He's one of those authors that I was keenly waiting for more from, so I was pleased to see The Crooked Medium's Guide forthcoming, something in quite a different vein but still - I'd say - with a sense of family, of community, at its heart and still told from the perspective of the underdog.

Mrs Ashton is though, at first, a hard underdog to like! She is the crooked medium of the title, a convinced Spiritualist but a fraud who does NOT converse with spirits, though she has another gift, the ability to "open up" subjects and read their minds. This enables her, often, to perceive enough to convince. Sometimes, she can do genuine good, but her willingness to break into minds without consent is troubling to put it mildly.

As is her willingness to pilfer, forge and leave a trail of debtors behind.

Mrs Ashton is aided in her endeavours by the formidable Mrs Bradshaw - Braddie - a Scot who's often exasperated, and often willing to give unpalatable advice, which is generally ignored. She regards the risks that Mrs Ashton runs as unconscionable, and her gloomy warnings prove wise over the course of this novel. 

The two women are lovers, something that must, in the high Victorian age, be kept as the strictest secret, and Cox is good on both their physical relationship and the strain that this necessary discretion places on their relationship. There are some touching passages here, especially where he shows us Mrs B worrying over Mrs A, her "hinny" and recognising how she's being manipulated by the other woman.

The third member of the detective trio (as it turns out to be) is Maisie, a poor girl with a difficult family who acts as the other womens' bodyguard, spy and general fixer. Maisie is sharp and cynical, with a host of connections and contacts in the East End - and she's having none of Mrs Ashton's nonsense.

While a lengthy history of close brushes with the law is implied, putting the two older women at odds with a hostile Press and police, the central action in The Crooked Medium's Guide concerns an aristocrat, Lady Violet, who comes to Mrs Ashton for help with her abusive husband Sir Charles Barrington-Stewart, a rising MP. Though warned by Braddie to have no part of the affair, Ashton refuses to drop it and follows the Barrington-Stewarts to their country house where, naturally, murder follows. 

From this point the book is in whodunnit mode as Ashton and Braddie race to clear their name, while a distinguished Scotland Yard detective has the opposite intention. I loved the complexity of the resulting situation, which takes in the closed society of the Big House, previous crimes that Sir Charles may or may not have committed, and a perplexed spirit who - to her horror - begins appearing to Mrs Ashton. None of the information adds up, Mrs Ashton's creditors are circling and a key witness has disappeared. 

I think that credible and interesting stories often follow from characters in tight situations, people subject to constraints, and with Mrs Ashton especially, Cox gives us this in abundance. As if being a woman isn't enough in patriarchal Victorian society, Mrs Ashton is already suspected of fraud and of not paying her debts; her Spiritualism puts her at odds with the Establishment, and the loyal servants of Corwood Manor are suspicious. We are also shown hostile press accounts of her doings - clearly the crooked medium is newsworthy.

Yet she continues, winning over a person here, a person there, deploying her gift of "opening up", latching onto what little actual evidence there is and pursuing a shrewd series of deductions as to what really happened. Perhaps not likeable at first, Mrs Ashton - and her accomplices - did bring me round in a story that's mysterious, driven and, above all, great fun to read.

While most of the action is seen from the viewpoint of Mrs Ashton, and the story is always at its most vivid then, there are sections shown for example from the perspective of the detective or one of the Corwood servants and also from Maisie's. We also get to see a number of others representing something of the diversity of the Victorian Metropolis - I hope and expect that Cox is planning further episodes in this world because while some of the characters we meet, such as Dongmei Li and her family, fascinate they don't appear much - I hope they're being set up for future episodes. 

For more information about The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder or to buy the book (you should!) see the author's website here - and of course don't miss the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

Blogtour - Extract from The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek

The Winter Warriors
Oliview Norek (trans by Nick Caistor)
Open Borders Press, 11 September 2025
Available as: HB, 448pp, audio, e   
ISBN(HB): 978-1916788763

I'm delighted today to be hosting an extract from Olivier Norek's new historical novel, The Winter Warriors. 

The story...

November, 1939. A conscription officer arrives in the peaceful farming village of Rautjärvi. The Soviet Union has invaded, and for the first time in its history as an independent country, Finland is at war.

Setting off into the depths of winter to face the Red Army, the small group of childhood friends recruited from Rautjärvi have no idea whether any of them will ever return home. But their unit has a secret weapon: the young sniper Simo Häyhä, whose lethal skill in the snow-bound forests of the front line will earn him the nickname “The White Death”.

Drawing on the real-life figures and battles of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, this is a gripping, page-turning historical thriller from one of Europe’s most acclaimed storytellers.

Olivier Norek

The author...

After 18 years in the French police force, Olivier Norek turned to crime writing - Between Two Worlds was the Times and Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Year 2024. The Winter Warriors is his first historical thriller. While researching for this novel, Norek spent three months (the duration of the war itself) in Finland, experiencing the -35°C conditions in which the war was fought and in which more than 130,000 Russian soldiers died before the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty in March 1940.

The extract...

First Prologue

Light streams over his closed eyes, over his prostrate body and its stilled heart. 

All around him, the last day of war has littered the ground with bodies in their thousands, staining the snow red. Amongst the other corpses, he is no-one. No more precious, no more impor- tant. Elsewhere, he could be a father, a brother, a friend, a husband. Elsewhere, he is everything. 

In death, only their uniforms set them apart. They were ene- mies, now they lie side by side. Here, hands touch; elsewhere, lifeless faces confront each other. They have spent the whole winter killing one another. 

The dead from earlier weeks are half-hidden in the earth. Only vestiges remain: still visible helmets, occasionally parts of their backs. Their arms are like aerial roots, as if growing out of the ground itself, ready to rise, get to their feet, and haunt all those who decided on this war. 

Their blood saturates the ground, their flesh nourishes the trees, mingles with the sap. They will be in every new leaf, every new bud. There were more than a million of them, and when, tomorrow and beyond tomorrow, the wind blows through the branches of the forests of Finland, it will also carry their voices.

There had been happy days, a cherished peace.

There had been a before, in the days leading up to the Hell. 

Second Prologue 

For many years Finland belonged to someone else.

For centuries, it formed part of the kingdom of Sweden. For a further century, it came under Russia’s sovereignty. It was not until 1917 that it gained independence. 

In 1939, therefore, Finland was 22 years old. Twenty-two years are hardly sufficient to make a man, let alone a country. 

In a storm of lead and fire, Stalin’s Red Army, the largest in the world, swept through this neutral, poorly armed nation, launching a bloody conflict known by history as the Winter War. 

The hellish events that are the subject of this novel took place in that year of 1939 at Kollaa in Finland. But also on its isthmus, in Karelia. On the ice fields at Petsamo. From the shores of its gulf to the distant reaches of Lapland. 

Imagine a tiny country. Imagine a huge one. Now imagine them clashing. 

Twenty million shells. The Earth almost cracked in two when Russia pounded its crust in the same place day after day for more than a hundred days. 

Tank columns against old-fashioned rifles. A million Red Army soldiers against workers and peasants. But past conflicts tell us it takes five soldiers to face a single man fighting for his land, his home country and his own people, hands clutching his carbine, a sentinel behind the door of his barricaded farm. 

And a single man can change the course of history. 

At the heart of the harshest of its winters,

at the heart of the bloodiest war in its history,

Finland saw the birth of a legend.

The legend of Simo Häyhä, the White Death.

And yet there had once been happy days, a cherished peace. There had been a before, in the days leading up to the Hell. 

For more information about The Winter Warriors, 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 The Winter Warriors from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith or Waterstones.

Review - Clown Town by Mick Herron

Clown Town

Mick Herron
Baskerville, 11 September 2025 
Available as: HB, 340pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781399800433  

I'm grateful to Baskerville for sending me an advance copy of Clown Town to consider for review.

Clown Town sees a full return to Slough House for Herron after last year's sort-of Jackson Lamb backstory, The Secret Hours. And this is a familiar Slough House, an office gone bad, a dusty, sticky, despair-haunted tomb for the careers of its crew of Service internal exiles.

Yes, the gang's all here again, River, not yet back on active duty after his brush with novichok; Louisa; Roddy; Lech; Roddy Ho; newcomer Ash; Catherine; and, of course, Lamb himself. All the Slow Horses are ready to go... slowly.

And yet. I wouldn't have thought this possible, but the Slough House we see here is actually less jolly, more bleak - somehow - than in the earlier books. It's as though Lamb has, somehow, brought back extra weights from the past Berlin of The Secret Hours, weights that drag on the spirit and chill the mind. Perhaps it's that the Slow Horses are reeling from the losses and near losses they have suffered. From missing faces and empty office chairs. The attrition has been brutal - surely one of the perks of being a down-and-out on Spook Street is that you're insignificant, gently rotting down a side alley, of no interest to the Big Men (and Women) who hunt down the main drag?

Of course that's not how it's turned out, and maybe Lamb's lot are starting to realise. Whatever, when the shadow of past Service malpractice arises, when Peter Judd begins to stir, when Taverner starts to weave her threads, there's more than a smidgen of wariness to be seen. Plus, with key members of the team signed off, pondering jumping ship, or (Louisa) actually resigned, the response to these challenges is particularly fragmented. More so than ever, I felt myself muttering "just walk away". Even Lamb seems, if such a thing were possible, less enthusiastic than normal to look under stones and join dots.

The story kicks off from a minor discrepancy in the library of River's grandfather, the OB, as reassembled in a spook-linked Oxford college. River, still, as I said, signed off, has time to look into this, and it shouldn't open any forbidden doors, should it? Well, of course it does, and we soon discover that Slough House isn't the only scrapyard for the Service's embarrassments. So that's two teams turning through the dustbins on Spook Street, but there are actually more, and there'll be encounters, near misses and misunderstandings.

The ending of the book is of a piece with that. There's a glorious (gloriously written, not a triumphant event) - a marvellous performance by not just the Slow Horses but by several other teams of clowns, which must have been a real swine for ringmaster Herron to write; a tour de force of incompetence, dark humour, muddled motives and bad luck - but that isn't the climax of the book, it delivers another sucker punch just when you think things can't get darker, leaving the already tarnished morality of this world even more shabby at the end.

A gripping, twisty and melancholy story, though one often enlivened by Herron's deadpan humour (the highpoint of which was, for me, the song that goes through Roddy's head. It sounded familiar to me. Where have I heard it? On TV somewhere, perhaps...)

For more information about Clown Town, see the publisher's website here.

Review - For the Road by Stark Holborn

For the Road

Stark Holborn
PS Publishing/ Absinthe Books, August 2025
Available as: HB, 62pp, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781803945286

I'm grateful to the author for giving me access to an advance e-copy of For the Road to consider for review.

In the tradition of the gritty Western, Jesse Bartos is running - from what, from whom, to where are unclear, possibly as much to him as to the reader. Jumping from a train, clutching the precious suitcase he daren't open, he ends up stranded at a dusty railroad halt miles from nowhere. A place where the train never comes, the tracks silt over with dust. Where everything is faded, broken or despairing.

There is I think a powerful melancholy to places like Dawn's Holt, places where people only come to be somewhere else. Get stuck there and you may lose yourself, like the body buried at the crossroads whose ghost doesn't know which way to turn. All the imagery here is of death, of letting go, of being carried away - from the dust which sweeps into every corner, to the scraggy hens laying their sulphurous, inedible eggs to the motorcycle gang that periodically threatens to sweep Jesse away. (Would that be to lose himself further? Or a redemption, a way out? Clues are scant.)

Is Jesse going to die? Does he want to? Can he save himself, either by riding away with the biker gang, finally catching the train - or staying put, making a life with Reo, the son of the family living at the station house, who captivates Jesse.

Holborn's writing here blends the Western and the mythological, the strange tales and origin stories of the little family echoing heroic legends of birth and creation from the elements. How come they are here, in the desolate station? Why are they engaged in a losing fight against the ruling powers and principalities, one with which Jesse's fate - and perhaps his own history - are entangled?

A powerful story of sense and feeling, For the Road systematically anatomises a life and portrays a young man who has, though misfortune, come to a turning point, a junction (or, as I said, a crossroads) where things may go different ways. Dawn's Holt (not "halt" - a "holt" is a refuge...) provides Jesse with a little respite, but not much, a time in which choices can be made. This short book shows which ones he selects, and why. It's powerful, concentrated and enthralling, a book to be inhaled as much as read, and then to be considered and turned over after.

Recommended.

For more information about For the Road, and to buy the book, see the publisher's website here. 

Blogtour Review - The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone

The Transcendent Tide (Enceladons, 3)
Doug Johnstone
Orenda Books, 14 August 
Available as: PB, 283pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781916788626

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

In the third and final part of The Enceladons Trilogy, we follow the mysterious jellyfish hive mind to the Arctic Ocean where the refugees from Enceladus have sought shelter. While the story could continue - and perhaps one day it? - this book draws a line, of sorts, for now, indicating what the presence of this peaceful, aquatic species may mean for Earth and its natives. Sandy reappears of course, as do Lennox, Vonnie, Ava, Chloe and Heather. 

Heather, ever restless, burdened by her life, chose to join with the Enceladons, to become, not one of them but more like them. Even this has not though wholly healed her mental wounds and she has also become concerned that Enceladons themselves may have changed, at last reacting to human aggression not by withdrawing but by retaliating. Boats have been sunk, hunters found dead. Heather wants to know more.

Lennox and Vonnie have been hiding out evading the authorities while missing their connection with the Enceladons. Ava has been caring for baby Chloe, but meets a crisis that she believes on Sanday can help her with. At the same time Lennox and Vonnie are tracked down by a mysterious billionaire, Karl Jensen, who clearly knows more than he should about the Enceladons.

I have been impressed by the way that Doug Johnstone has made each of the books in this series a different story, not just a recap of the same story. In Book 1, The Space Between Us Heather and Ava in particular had difficult personal circumstances which intertwined with an almost Buchan-esque flight across Scotland, pursued by both the authorities and a vengeful husband. Sandy's true nature, and that of his fellow Enceladons, were revealed in the course of this, showing the peaceful Enceladons in contrast to the patriarchal human authorities and attitudes. In Book 2, The Collapsing Wave, a secretive US military operation imprisoned our heroes and sought to control - and perhaps destroy - the Enceladons. Again, human militarism and desire for control were shown, but on a wider stage than in Book 1 and perhaps with wider consequences

Now, in The Transcendendent Tide, just as they seemed to have achieved safety, new threats arise for the Enceladons - and for the little band of friends. Also threatened is Niviaq, an Indigenous Greenland woman who is well aware of the realities of colonialism and might therefore be expected to be wary of the mysterious space aliens as well as the  wealthy private organisation now operating helicopters, ships and private jets from a sophisticated base in her homeland.

I enjoyed The Transcendendent Tide as much for its moral dimension as I did meeting dearly loved, familiar characters. There is action and mystery here - what is Jensen really up to? What's been happening to the sinking ships? - but also a crunchy ethical debate. What steps is one entitled to take - perhaps obliged to take - in the face of threats to life and to a way of life? What might though be lost of a peace loving species take such steps? Heather perhaps acts here as something of a conscience, I liked the way she doesn't judge but wants to know. Her conversations with Sandy are frustrating, limited as ever by the different conceptions the two have of individuality (even after Heather's transformation) and she's forced to investigate herself. But she doubts her judgement and even more, her right to judge.

All in all an exciting and satisfying end (or, I hope, pause?) in this evolving story, with tough choices for all.

For more information about The Transcendent Tide, 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 The Transcendent Tide from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or  Waterstones.

#Blogtour #Review - The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen (trans David Hackston)

The Burning Stones
Antti Tuomainen (trans David Hackston)
Orenda Books, 24 October 2024
Available as: PB, 300pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(pB): 9781916788435

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

Anni Korpinen is the star saleswoman at sauna stove maker Steam Devil.

But is Anni also a serial killer?

All the facts seem to suggest it. Anni's colleagues have her down as a cold-blooded killer (albeit one who employs hot steam for her murders) and local police chief Kiimaleinen is determined to make charges stick. 

Only one person believes in Anni's innocence - herself. But can she really hold out in the teeth of the evidence?

The Burning Stones was a fun book to read. It's described as comedy crime, but I think the truth is more nuanced than that - while the story does have its humorous aspects, it's a very dark humour, and the comedy arises from a desperate human predicament. The crime we see is also very, very gruesome. And the eventual revelation of who the killer is and what their motives are points less at human wickedness but at small, rather pathetic and plaintive motives - certainly compared with the nature of the killings. So it's equally a rather sad book, the record of a few days that turn Anni's world upside down, stressing all her relationships and breaking some behind repair. 

I enjoyed the way that Tuomainen throws the burden of proving her innocence on a woman who manifestly has no special talents in that line. As she repeats several times, she is a saleswoman (though a very good one) not a detective. Anni's attempts at tracking down the real killer often seem apt to land her in more trouble, and there's a murky secret in her past that makes it hard for her to be frank with (possibly) sympathetic policemen who might be willing to help - so she's very much on her own, surrounded by colleagues who mistrust her and who, let's be plain, all have questions to answer themselves.

Anni does though have one resource to fall back on - the peace she gains from her regular sauna sessions and swimming in the local lake. Many times in the story she retreats to ponder matters in the steam. But might even this, her understanding of the uses of the sauna, be evidence of her guilt? 

A real mystery, an involving and enjoyable story with well drawn and plausible characters and a tale with ratcheting tension, as Anni waits for that knock on the door, this is a book I'd strongly recommend. It's also a window onto Finnish sauna culture which was enlightening to say the least! I'd never, for example, heard about the concept of a "bumlet" (you'll just have to read the book!) I think that David Hackston's translation is brilliant here, it's as though Tuomainen is deliberately posing challenges, using colloquialisms, songs and jingles, technical terms and very specific language for which, clearly, there are no direct English equivalents and which require words to be created. Hackston deals with all this and more with aplomb and gives us a very readable text besides.

For more information about The Burning Stones, 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 The Burning Stones from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith or Waterstones.