#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.

Blogtour review - Reaper by Vanda Symon

Reaper (The City of Shadows, 2)
Vanda Simon
Orenda Books, 12 March 2026
Available as: PB, 300pp, audio, e   
Source: Free advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781917764100

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

Reaper sees a welcome return for Max Grimes, Symon’s homeless ex-detective who lives on the streets of Auckland. 

This book and its predecessor, Faceless, take a different and distinctly less comic (I'd even say, more gritty) approach than Symon's beloved Sam Shepherd series. In part (but only in part) that reflects the situation of the main protagonist. I’m sure that - as with other art - the best writing can come from working within constraints, and a detective story where the detective lacks not only any formal formal status but is at the margins of society, with few everyday resources, certainly qualifies on that score. It’s literally the opposite of the aristocratic, money Golden Age detective to whom everybody, police included, defers. And I was interested to see how Symon solves the problems that creates I'm not though going to spill the beans, you need to read the book!)

Reaper is not though merely a technical exercise in writing an outsider detective, it’s a book with heart and soul as we see Grimes caring for and suffering with his community. Indeed, he may be the only one who is caring for them, as the police miss the murders until he shouts about it and the Mayor then uses the deaths as a pretext to clear away the embarrassing street people.

Above and beyond that, though, Reaper is also a tautly written, complex and fast-paced mystery with plenty of tension and a distinct sense of menace. Has Max’s desire to learn the truth about his daughter’s death led him into a trap? Will it distract him to risks he may be running? Grimes is a strangely relatable central character, Symon makes him sympathetic though perhaps not likeable (which is a brilliant combination if you can make it work, as here). His relationship with police detective Meredith is well drawn, with her often frustrated and, rightfully, mistrustful - both feel like people who’ve been hurt and built barriers - but wanting to be of help.

Which brings me to a final point where I think this book, and the series so far (this is only the second so it’s early days) succeeds (and where it could have gone very wrong). You have to ask of a book like this, which sets out to portray a marginalised community, whether it isn’t indulging in a kind of misery tourism. That must always I think be a particular risk for crime fiction, shown for example in its proclivity for female victims, especially for attractive young female victims. (Not in this book). 

It’s a danger, however, that Symon avoids. She’s clear eyed about the people she portrays, sympathetic without romanticising, demonstrating how prejudice and exploitation affect them, but without trying to construct a “rescue” narrative or minimising the problems that have brought them to their current state. Here, of course, Max is the exemplar, suffering after the tragic death of his daughter. Meredith wants to help him, but recognises - and articulates to us - that it’s not her place to reshape his life.

As to Max, what does he want? He's not, I think, sure. Perhaps we'll find out in future books (may there PLEASE be future books!)

So all in all an intelligent and engaging bit of crime fiction which I greatly enjoyed. 

And - MINOR SPOILER - the dog is OK at the end, so you can rest easy if, like me, you worry about that. 

For more information about Reaper, 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 Reaper from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith (TG Jones if you must), or Waterstones.

Review - Itch by Gemma Amor

Itch
Gemma Amor

Hodder & Stoughton, 9 October 2025
Available as: HB, 352pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781399745369

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

"It looked like something from a fairytale about lost children following trails of breadcrumbs..."

Itch is Josie's story. Brought up, after the death of her mother ("She still found that absence difficult to cope with. It was like leaving a conversation partway through") by a slovenly father, Josie watches her mother's neat, tidy home being degraded and soiled. Her dad, alternately bullying and wheedling, can perhaps be excused a lot, but Josie grows up nervous and neglected, full of tics and avoidance.

She doesn't remember her childhood. It's blotted out. By her.

Small wonder, perhaps, that she falls in with an abusive partner whose chief joy seems to be in controlling her and who eventually lands Josie in hospital.

And so Josie ends up back in the Forest of Dean, living in her dad's holiday let - which he makes clear is on sufferance. 

It feels to me almost like a release when Josie stumbles on a decaying corpse in the woods. (Do be aware that this scene is authentically revolting - not one to tackle when eating your lunch, as I stupidly did!) While the discovery is traumatising, and the effect on Josie is profound, the body, and the subsequent murder investigation, provide a focus for her life. 

I say the effect is profound. That's perhaps putting it mildly, without giving too much away, there is a sense in which I think Josie takes the violence of the killing into herself, imagining - or does she? - that the crawling ants she discovered around the dead body have somehow infested her. Crossing the line from hallucination to real, physical presence, Josie views the colony now infesting her as an actual, almost sentient thing. Her attempts to rid herself of it are vivid and concrete - washing, scratching herself till she bleeds, even scraping her eyeballs - and distressing to read. But her growing acceptance of it as an entity, almost an actor in the events that unfold, is if anything even more so.

As the police investigation into the dead girl focusses more and more on Josie, her father's behaviour grows more menacing, and dark secrets emerge from the woods, Josie endures a punishing winter of malice and loneliness.

Itch really is a dark story. Josie's relationships are in a bad place. Her mental health is suffering (Josie's mood, her internal monologue with its undermining narrative, and her frenzied attempts to regain control, are touchstones of this story). The murder casts a shadow over her life. And her hometown, isolated in the woods of the Forest of Dean, indulges in a yearly "Devil's March" that is either a commemoration of said Devil, an attempt to exorcise him - or, as one local folklorist believes, a ritualised attempt at scapegoating difficult women.

I really enjoyed the folk-horror vibes that the March, and its mythology, evoked. Despite Jacob's (that folklorist) urgings to follow the Old Ways, Josie is sceptical of the meaning of the March and as it becomes increasing clear that there are powers abroad in the Forest, she's sceptical of them, too. They might be invoked, but if you bargain with the Devil, you'd better get the terms right? The ethical landscape here is much, more complex than "appeal to the Old Ways and they'll fix things". The infestation Josie suffers is similarly ambiguous. It, and the murders, and her tangled relationships, seem to be related, part of a pattern that's ensnared her her all her life, but it's unclear how - even if Josie can work out what happened - she can get herself clear of it.

A vivid, enthralling story, one ideal for dark winter nights.

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

Review - The Good Liar by Denise Mina

The Good Liar

Denise Mina
Penguin, 31 July 2025
Available as: HB, 272pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781787304284

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

Professor Claudia O’Sheil is about to walk into an auditorium and give a speech that will blow up her life.

or she may not...

The creator of a world-beating algorithm for analysing crime scenes - an algorithm that has convicted countless suspects - Claudia has made her reputation and her fortune based on her work. In line for an MBE, she's head of the company set up to exploit the technique, and is frequently called to give evidence, as an expert witness, about its results. In a world where the crime scene "streamlined report" is the key evidence, her method is fundamental to modern justice. The comfort and safety of her two sons, and her own reputation and living, depend on this - but now she knows that the test is flawed.

And despite her apparently comfortable life, over the past year, Claudia has been through hell. She is estranged from her drug addict sister, Gina.  Her husband is dead, and now others too. Her two sons are growing away from her. And a young man who she considers innocent has gone to prison. 

Claudia's spent that year discovering the truth - many truths - and she hasn't liked what she found.

This book is split between two timelines. At the swish reception where Claudia's supposed to cement her position in moneyed society, we get minute slices of action as she inches towards that final betrayal - and debates with herself whether this is really something she can do. Between these are more substantial portions of narrative, setting out what happened over that awful year and sketching the gilded life that beckons Claudia if only she will shut up and lie with the guilt.

Mina's technique is exquisite, playing on our sympathies from moment to moment. I began, knowing little about the story or the character, thinking, yes, go on, burn it all down - because won't that be fun to see?

Then, as I learned more about Claudia and what she's been through - and the stakes at play - I began to dread that moment and wish she'd just play nice. The harm it would cause. The fall from grace. Those slices of story, working towards the end, stave off the final crisis (and the revelation of what Claudia actually does) but they also give us more story and that story is just so absorbing, a window into a fascinating world - several fascinating worlds - and a network of well-realised, relatable charctars. No, I was now thinking as I read, let's not wreck all this, not yet, but give me more about Gina. About Charlie. About Bernie and Sam. Don't tear it all down yet (or at all?)

Claudia's decision is central here. She's not from money, but has scrabbled her way, by talent and luck (and yes, by charm) into a set of the rich and influential - Cayman Islands lawyers, knights of the realm, the academic elite. It's a two-faced set, where scandal can be overlooked if you are the right sort, went to the right school, have the right money, or the right friends. But Claudia O’Sheil, an orphan from Glasgow who has flattened her accent but still has it tucked away, ready to code-switch out, has none of these things. She's on her own.

At the centre of this book isn't so much a murder mystery - though rest assured there is one here and it's a good one - but an ethical mystery. In a year-long exploration of that wealthy London elite, we see up close - as only an outsider like Claudia can - the profound ugliness of money and social sway. It's a scene she partakes of enthusiastically, Claudia's never had much and so the fear of losing it all now is really sharp for her, even before the spiralling situation reveals threats to those she loves. 

A compelling, heart-in-the-mouth story which left me racing to see what finally happened while dreading what the answer might be.

Strongly recommended.

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

Review - Underscore by Andrew Cartmel

Underscore (The Vinyl Detective, 8)

Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 15 April 2025
Available as: PB, 416pp audio, e   
Source: Bought
ISBN(PB): 9781803367989

It's always great to see a new instalment of Andrew Cartmel's Vinyl Detective series (or for that matter, an outing for his spiritual sister the Paperback Sleuth) and I'm especially chuffed because this one quotes Blue Book Balloon in its rundown of reviews. Perhaps I can finally call myself an influencer. 

Not that I am letting that sway me in giving my verdict here. Oh no. I can genuinely say that Underscore maintains the high standard of its predecessors, as the (still unnamed) Detective (who's getting sick of being called that, however, what will Cartmel do?) launches into a search for the soundtrack LP to Murder in London, a gory 1960s Italian film whose events seem to be echoed in modern London...

The Detective, and his girlfriend Nevada, have been commissioned to track down a pristine vinyl copy of the record - but also, if they can, to exonerate its composer, Loretto Loconsole, of murdering his lover during the film's production production. The killing, for which no-one was ever charged, hung over Loconsole's later career, but his granddaughter Chloë now wants to reissue the music - something hard to do if he's still under suspicion (and harder still if she doesn't have a decent copy of it).

The resulting investigation hits all the notes that a Vinyl Detective novel should. I get sheer pleasure from the way that in these novels Cartmel creates a believable, and frankly enviable, lifestyle for his shifting bunch of characters who lunch and drink their way around a beautifully realised corner of the West London suburbs. Yet there are dangers that follow them, and Underscore has some heart stopping moments. Someone is determined to stop Chloë vindicating her grandfather, or reissuing his music, or both. Cass and Desdemona, the grandkids of the murder victim, are also hanging around - they would bribe the Detective to desist if they could (Nevada's tempted, of course) but might they go further?

How to solve a nearly 60 year old mystery? How to find a copy of a recording which - due to the scandal attached - was never issued, with the discs rather being destroyed? How to stay alive while doing both?

It's a tightly written, action filled story (with breaks for those lunches, naturally) which kept me guessing. As ever, Cartmel fills the reader in on the finer points, in this case the giallo genre, the politics of the late 60s recording industry and the surprising fidelity of a pristine vinyl copy. (It's no coincident that the Detective is after vinyl, rather than vintage CDs or tapes). The result is an excellent addition to the canon, and a better knowledge of these essential matters. 

With another Paperback Sleuth novel due this year as well it's going to be a good year, I can already tell.

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

Blogtour review - Dangerous by Essie Fox

Dangerous
Essie Fox
Orenda Books, 25 April 2025 
Available as: HB, 305pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781916788442

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

The reference in the title of Dangerous to Lady Caroline Lamb's quip about Lord Byron - that he was "mad, bad and dangerous to know" may be the thing most people know about George Gordon Byron, alongside the fact that he was considered scandalous by the Victorians (but, what wasn't?) As Essie Fox shows with her novel of his years in Venice, there is a great deal more to be said than that and Fox certainly allows the man to speak for himself in this imagined account, taking us to Venice for an exciting tale of intrigue, revenge, murder, love, sex and - possibly - the supernatural.

Framed by a prologue and epilogue describing the discovery, and later destruction, of a bundle of papers hidden in Byron's tomb at Hucknall Torkard, the main body of the book gives us the story itself. It takes place against a background of canals, gondolas, Carnivale and gothic horrors. Amidst all this, Byron is mouldering somewhat - matching the mood of damp and fever in his crumbling palazzo - mulling over his life choices, spending money and chasing women. It's a shock to him, and to Venetian society, when some of them are found dead. 

Byron fears more scandal, but he's also moved by the deaths, and sets out to discover the truth.

Literary rivalries and plagiarism also make their appearance in a rich and sumptuous story. Behind all this, Fox does, I think, give us a shrewd portrayal of a man who was obviously tortured and damaged. Wealthy and titled, he has the good fortune to be able to take himself off to a more permissive foreign locale to work though some of his issues: but, for most of the story, he makes little progress with that, and his frustration almost steams off the pages.

That degree of psychological insight and truth is impressive, and not a given in this sort of historical novel. Dangerous exists, I think, at the intersection of three different kinds of writing - the historical detective story ('Lord Byron, solving crime, in Venice!'), the supernatural ('Lord Byron... and vampires!') and the character study. If I were an author (you can be grateful I'm not) I'm sure I would go overboard on one of the first two. Yet in Dangerous we have a nice balance, with the book all the more readable because Byron's character chimes with the themes - the love, the sex, the degradation. It means something, is vital to the atmosphere, the tension, the implied chain of events. 

In Dangerous, despite it being subtitled 'A Lord Byron Mystery', we don't just get a run of the mill investigator wearing Byron's cape, as it were, we get a real human being, a particular human being, a man in some distress, wrestling with issues of truth, consequence and morality. In other words Fox has given us a historical mystery where the history isn't just set dressing. To understand and engage with the book you need to understand the straits this man was in, as well as contemporary mores and settings, and here the author informs and even educates without info-dumping on, or lecturing, the reader. 

The result is a fine piece of writing that is both an engaging mystery and a gateway into Byron's life and his world. That's not the same as a whitewash of him: Fox makes clear that he wasn't anything like an innocent: but she also shows he was a complex man and enmeshed in a culture that was itself pretty corrupt.  "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past..." as someone wrote a few decades further into the 19th century.

I would strongly recommend Dangerous for all these reasons, but also for the beauty of the writing and the tinge of mystery and uncertainty which seeps off its pages from beginning to end.

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

Review - The Get Off by Christa Faust

The Get Off (Angel Dare, 3)

Christa Faust
Titan Books, 18 March 2025
Available as: PB, 256pp, e   
Source: Advance copy from the author
ISBN(PB): 9781835411735

I'm grateful to Christa for sending me a signed advance copy of The Get Off to consider for review.

The Get Off is the third part (the final part?) of a series of novel featuring Angel Dare, adult entertainment performer, fugitive - and killer.

As the story open, Angel (given name Gina Moretti) is closing in on her sworn enemy, Vukasin. The two seem to exist in a bubble of mutual antipathy, and Angel's determined to end him. (One has the sense that if she achieves this she'll then actually be left without a purpose in life, so out of control have things spun for her).

Well, it all goes wrong, and Angel's on the run (even more on the run?) now branded a cop killer. What's more, she faces a personal Situation that messes with her in so many, very personal, ways, limiting her ability to simply disappear.

What follows is essentially a trail of destruction. Angel has hunters after her, who don't care what collateral damage they cause, so those around her are at high risk. But more than that, she seems to have a nose for trouble - not so she can avoid it, but so she can land in the middle of it. Travelling with a peripatetic bullfighter (it's OK, he doesn't kill them) seems likely to land her or him in danger sooner or later and sure enough, it does. Angel blames herself for this and yes, perhaps she makes some bad choices here (not that I'm sure she actually has many options). However there are other bad guys and girls out there and they don't hold back from dragging her into their murky plans.

So there is death after death, a trail of killings that, surely, one could see from space. Not the ideal way to stay below the radar, really. Still, if Angel can just stay ahead of the pursuit she may have a haven where she can find shelter and sort out her Situation...

This was an action-packed story full of narrow escapes, slaughter of innocents (and the guilty) and the sort of moments when you go back and reread to confirm that, yes, she really did do that. Angel is a conscientious - or perhaps I should say, conscience wracked - narrator who's fully aware that she has crossed numerous red lines. She agonises over it, and regrets the carnage, but nevertheless, she presses on. What else can she do? Despite the bloodletting, Angel is a sympathetic protagonist and I hoped against hope that she would find a good end. Nevertheless the story is realistic, indeed it pulls absolutely no punches in depicting a number of rod different, but gruesome deaths. (Probably not one for the  fainthearted, but then, you'd hardly be browsing "Hard Case Crime" if you were, I think).

A great story though from the first page and one I'd strongly recommend.

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

#Review - Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Death at the Sign of the Rook
Kate Atkinson
Doubleday, 22 August 2024
Available as: HB, 336pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9780857526571

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Death at the Sign of the Rook  to consider for review.

The appearance of a new Jackson Brodie novel is always an event to celebrate and Death at the Sign of the Rook truly lives up to expectations, culminating in a classic country house murder with all the expected ingredients - a retired Major, a vicar, a dowager and, of course, in Brodie himself, the renowned amateur sleuth.

At the same time, it's none of those things. While the murder itself evolves as a kind of play within a play (literally - Burton Makepeace House, cut off by the blizzard, is hosting a murder mystery weekend and we're treated to scenes in which the band of itinerant performers, the literal murderer(s), and all the guests who have assembled for the event, get hilariously confused) it is also commenting on, and being shaped by, events of the early 21st century. 

An aristocratic family on its uppers. 

A soldier injured in Afghanistan and facing a bleak future. 

A vicar who thinks he's gone down the wrong path. 

A middle aged couple anxious to wring every last penny form their mum's estate.

And Brodie himself, surveying it all with a jaundiced eye.

As the husband of a priest, I was particularly taken with the Vicar, Simon, a man whose backstory included the same theological college my son is currently studying at. I was struck by his dilemma, his sense of futility, of a moment of revelation that maybe wasn't - but also by his history which blends an awkward suburban past, a career in the TV industry and that moment of revelation in a York church. I recently read Atkinson's Normal Rules Don't Apply, a book of loosely linked short stories, and recognised Simon as totally belonging in the collection of rackety, slightly loner-y figures encountered there. (I would point out, though, that true vicarly mastery isn't the ability to surreptitiously glance at a watch, as Atkinson suggests. That is too obvious. The thing is to place oneself in a room so that one can easily spot the clock face, a much less obvious action. At least, so my wife tells me, and I never doubt the word of the clergy).

The book struck other chords with me too. Like Ben, the ex-Major, I have a great-uncle who died at Monte Cassino. That probably goes to show more the scale of that battle than anything about Atkinson aiming her writing at me, but I found it a telling detail. I loved Ben, the kind of diffident character who suffers fools gracefully and downplays his problems. He's currently living with his sister and her wife, the former a vet who takes in waifs and strays and has "an abundance of Labradors" (how can you have too many?) Ben might be one of the strays himself, perhaps, but when he steps onto the stage as The major in the denouement he's far from a waif, and equally far from the doddering Major of the Golden Age detective mystery that Atkinson's subverting.

This kind of telling characterisation - knowing, subversive, but still affectionate - is a highlight of Atkinson's books. With Brodie at the centre of the story, it might be tempting to focus on him and have everyone else a supporting character but Atkinson gives plenty of time and space to the others, drawing out their stories and creating fully rounded figures who then behave in fanstastically complex ways. Any could easily carry a book of their own, and I rather hope some will. Which isn't to say that Bodie himself is neglected, quite the opposite. Entering the story via those avaricious siblings who report that their mum's priceless Renaissance painting ("Woman With Weasel") has gone missing, Brodie soon spots that a similar theft has taken place at Burton Makepeace, allowing him to involve a reluctant DC Reggie Chase (hooray!) and to explore the history of an aristocratic family fallen on hard times.

There is simply so much going on in this book, often not directly concerning crimes - while there is a blend of murder and art theft here, in many respects they're almost incidental - but rather, people. And yes, people do sometimes commit crimes, but there are much more interesting things to say about people, and in particular about this bunch of peculiar people who assemble one snowy night to enact a murder...

I'd strongly recommend Death at the Sign of the Rook. I knew I would!

For more information about Death at the Sign of the Rook, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour #Review - Dead Fall by A K Turner

Dead Fall (Cassie Raven, 4)
AK Turner
Zaffre, 18 July 2024 
Available as: PB, 352pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781804181591

I'm grateful to the publisher for allowing me access to an advance e-copy of Dead Fall to consider for review, and to Anne for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

I only discovered Cassie Raven last year so I was excited to see a new book coming. In case you haven't caught on yet, goth Cassie is a mortuary technician working in trendy Camden, in London. Living on a canal boat with her cat, she has weathered a lot in her life so far, which gives her sympathy for the casualties of life who wash up, as it were, on the mortuary slab. And a natural antipathy for powers and principalities such as her own managers, or the local police.

Cassie also has a special talent - the ability (sometimes) to hear the dead, enabling her to resolve issues for her deceased clients. 

Such as solving their murders.

A supernatural twist like this could easily be overdone, made into a Get Out of Jail Free card, but Turner avoids this, using the idea in these books with great subtlety. Cassie gets hints and feelings from the dead, not their detailed memories. It is, though, enough to spur her on to pursue justice where it seems to be lacking. This special sense is though somehow bound up with Cassie's own rather traumatic past, so she's very alert to the danger of simply projecting her own feelings onto the corpses she encounters in her job.

And in Dead Fall, she needs to be. Local up-and-coming young singer Bronte, who has apparently taken her own life, is someone Cassie had unfinished business with from way back - unfinished business that leaves her feeling guilty, and means there is a real risk that she's turning nothing into something when she concludes that Bronte was, in fact, murdered. Nevertheless, Cassie's not going to fail Bronte a second time, and begins to look into the girl's troubled life and background.

In a novel that therefore explores the pressures of fame and success - and the exploitative nature of the music industry - Turner riffs off Camden's reputation as an edgy, creative but diverse sort of place as well as documenting the hounding, online and offline, of a vulnerable young woman. Of course in the background is the tragedy that befell Amy Winehouse, another notable Camden figure as well as the prurient interest of the Press, the fans - and the bitter attentions of patriarchy.

In Dead Fall we get a real zinger of a story: a perplexing mystery with a contemporary edge, one which draws on a very human tragedy. At the same time, Cassie is trying to make sense of her relationship the genial, Hooray Henryish, Archie, a wealthy doctor who wants to take her out of Camden to a life in his own wholesome, rural milieu. There's a struggle for integrity here too, I think, with Cassie equally tempted by ex DS Phyllida Flyte. Buttoned up Flyte recently came out, and Turner creates a real romantic tension between the two women, a tension even more piquant because of Cassie's distaste for police. Given the circumstances in which Phyllida left the Force in the last book, Case Sensitive, it's perhaps a little unlikely that she would be involved in a  Camden case, as here, so soon, but I can let that go given the edge that her and Cassie's relationship brings to these books.

All in all, another great episode in this series and I can't rate it highly enough. Get this one ordered in.

For more information about Dead Fall, see the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Dead Fall from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

#Review - The Chamber by Will Dean

The Chamber

Will Dean
Hodder, 6 June 2024
Available as: HB, 400pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781399734127

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

'Never get ahead of your hat'.

The first thing to say is that Will Dean's new thriller The Chamber deserves an award for 'most high pressure novel of the year'. Literally, because the events of the story take place in a diving capsule that's been pressurised to deep sea conditions. Our protagonists are therefore breathing 'helox', a mixture of helium and oxygen - and, as main character Ellen points out, they all speak with squeaky voices which have to be decoded electronically for those outside.

An amusing thought, or it would be, if the events that befall Ellen and her five companions weren't so grim.

The Chamber does a fine job, I think, of portraying the strenuous conditions under which the divers survive. They're meant to be in the pressurised chamber for a month, attending to repairs on North Sea oil equipment on daily shifts without the need for further compression and decompression. Saturation diving like this - 'Sat' - isn't for the fainthearted, it's only for the best of the best. Everyone in the chamber has proved their ability through years of hard work and rigorous (and expensive) training. Ellen is one of the few women working at the top - or perhaps I should say at the bottom - of this industry and the role has cost her, as we find out. As it's cost her companions. They are all risking health effects from the saturation conditions and from the accidents caused by stress on the equipment (there are constant references to rust). The month away from home wrecks family and home life for men and women, though Ellen is subject to judgments which aren't made of her male colleagues. She is seen as sacrificing her family life, they aren't. 

There are also the peculiar economic conditions of the role - everyone is a self-employed contractor - which breed grudges and quarrels in what is a small world of jobs and workers. The nature of the work, providing, as it does, basic accommodation and meals - 'three hots and a cot' - fosters institutionalisation (there are comparisons both with the Armed Forces and with prisons) encouraging the divers back out, away from the perplexities and decisions of ordinary life.

So when things begin to go wrong, with Ellen and her mates imprisoned until a 5-day descompression can be undertaken, the fingers of blame point in all direction.

Dean is excellent at conveying all this through snatches of Ellen's life, chat between the divers, anecdotes about friends a rivals. But beyond that, this is an incredibly tense book. Literally a locked-room mystery, the divers are thrown on their own resources both to investigate what's happening and to protect themselves from further harm. The conditions they're in tend to paranoia even when things are going well, with phantasms and imagination a risk of long, lonely hours, isolation, and pressure. But in a macho world - even for women! - certain subjects are avoided, or at least, kept to be discussed on shore. 

With its lapses in the narration, its room for speculation about what is going on outside the chamber and its sense there are things we're not being told, the story develops an almost eerie mood which Dean contributes to by dropping references to the Scottish Play through the narrative, fitting given the location of the North East coast of Scotland (one of the main characters, it soon emerges, lives in Cawdor). See how many you can get - there is a Malcolm here, I also spotted Dunsinane, a MacDuff, numerous quotes and of course, in the chamber infection control is key so there's plenty of hand washing...

That play, I'd remind you, deals not only with a power struggle but with temptation, with an outside direction to do evil. It's a direction that one may or may not resist. There may be a connection in The Chamber: what is going on outside, and what evils, what temptations, have our characters brought in with them?

The story gets even more tense as we near the conclusion. This one kept me up past bedtime as I had to finish it. A superb piece of writing that I'd recommend strongly.

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

#Review - Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

Nobody's Angel

Jack Clark
Titan Books, 13 February 2024
Available as: HB, 224pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781803367477

I'm grateful to Titan Books for sending me an advance copy of Nobody's Angel to consider for review.

Nobody's Angel is a gritty crime novel set among nighttime cab drivers in 1990s Chicago. Eddie Miles, the focal character, crashed his family and destroyed all he loved. He ended up scrabbling for work in what is obviously a waning sector. All the talk is of the glory days of the cab trade, but the present day reality is reflected in many scenes where Eddie cruises for business amongst abandoned building and rundown malls, glad to get a trip that yields a few dollars. 

Written only a few decades ago, it's sobering how much of this book is now effectively a period piece - depicting a world with no mobiles, no Uber, one where smoking in cabs or cafés is unremarkable. And a world - consider this a content warning - where racial epiphets which would be unthinkable today are casually deployed. For example,  the n-word is used in the cab drivers' banter, as is the p-word (although I think the latter may be less taboo in the US than the UK). There are also sexist assumptions about women (we see no women cab drivers). This is where the plot kicks off. Amongst the bleak depictions of nights spent driving round the city, avoiding certain districts, avoiding passengers from certain groups, jostling for trade with the other cab drivers, Eddie ponders two series of killings - one of young women, another of fellow drivers. The drivers are seen as victims deserving of sympathy, the women as sex workers who no doubt got what was coming.

Despite that, Eddie does show some humanity (and to his own cost) when he comes across the aftermath of an assault, and this draws him into a desultory attempt to investigate both series of murders. He is, though, as he points out at the end of the book, nobody's angel and redemption seems in short supply on the hostile streets of Chicago with Eddie walking away form one opportunity (though perhaps he will still make some progress in locating his estranged daughter?)

A raw book about, often, bitter, damaged people, and one I enjoyed as giving an insight into a world very alien to me. What I enjoyed was the detail, the war stories told by the cabbies in the back room at the Golden Batter Pancake House and the scenes depicted by Clark - stories of eccentric passengers and their bizarre behaviour, stories of feuds and conflicts between the drivers, hair-raising driving and all the variety of life that a teeming, diverse city holds. These are interspersed with extracts from the Chicago Department of Community Services rulebook for cab drivers, showing just how close to the line the drivers come (and how often they cross it) in their professional lives. All of this, unfiltered, is perfect slice-of-life stuff (my favourite episode was Eddie's visit, with a customer, to a heavily shuttered dive bar in a part of town he clearly regards as a dangerous ghetto but where he and his customer find fellowship and a warm welcome).

I'm so glad I read this book, I would point out that the rather raunchy cover isn't actually representative of the content (for the most part) though it will get you some glances reading on your morning commute!

For more information about Nobody's Angel, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders
Alexandra Benedict
Simon & Schuster, 9 November 2023
Available as: HB, 352pp, audio, e   
Source: Purchased
ISBN(HB): 9781398525375

I really enjoyed Alexandra Benedict's Murder on the Christmas Express so once I had completed that trip, I made sure to collect all the pieces for this new mystery.

And it is a mystery in several senses. 

A week before Christmas, misanthropic crossword-puzzle setter Edie O’Sullivan receives a present - a handful of jigsaw pieces making up part of a murder scene. It's accompanied by a threat - Edie has been set a challenge, to prevent a series of murders which will climax on Christmas Eve.

Edie accepts the challenge, to the chagrin of her nephew Sean who, as a young Detective Sergeant, doesn't want her trampling all over the case (either metaphorically or - because Edie seems to know no law - literally, once the bodies start turning up).

The killer, "Rest in Pieces" seems to have a particular hatred of Edie, but is also happy to commit mayhem across Weymouth, causing panic and dismay among the Christmas lights and tinsel. What do they want, and can they be stopped?

This was a fun and enjoyable book, the more so - oddly perhaps? - because Edie is actually a thoroughly dislikable character. (She knows this - asked 'How many people do you p*** off every day?' Edie response is simple: 'Sure. I'm an a******e.' Admittedly as the story proceeds we learn more about what she's suffered, which goes some way to make her more sympathetic, but her behaviour is simply outrageous. Not suffering fools gladly, and rampaging across police business, is only part of it. She insults everyone she meets, behaves obnoxiously, and goes out of her way to be as disagreeable as she can. If somebody is targeting her, it's hardly surprising, and the list of suspects isn't going to be short. 

How Edie resolves this, what it might cost her, and where in her shady past she'll need to go to find the resources she needs in this crisis - well, read the book if you want to find out! It's frankly a puzzle bt one that Benedict pulls off triumphantly. 

And as I said above, that's not the only puzzle. Hidden in the story are multiple challenges for the reader, including anagrams and song titles (some of which I managed to solve, but mostly not - the story is so good and so distracting!) It's also got a pleasingly Dickensian (while modern) affect, signalled by the opening words: 'No one was dead, not to begin with.' Indeed there's perhaps a touch of the Miss Havisham about Edie - if Miss H was prone to solve murder mysteries.

All in all, immense fun.

For more information about The Christmas Jigsaw Murders, see the publisher's website here -

#Review - Attack and Decay by Andrew Cartmel

Attack and Decay (The Vinyl Detective, 6)
Andrew Cartmel
Titan Books, 17 May 2022
Available as: PB, 464pp, e, audio, 
Source: Purchased PB
ISBN(PB): 9781789098969

In this, the sixth adventure for the Vinyl Detective and his associates, the crew make an expedition to Sweden after the Detective is hired to test listen to a sought after record (the 'Attack and Decay' of the title). It's not in one of his favoured genres at all, a sort of Goth death metal thing, but a job's a job, the cats have to be fed and the wine bill won't pay itself. Plus the client is wealthy and willing to underwrite a trip for Nevada, Agatha and Tinkler as well, so off they all go.

Cartmel has some fun with the subsequent adventure, ticking off the tropes of Scandi noir ('Lonely murder Farmhouse. Check') even while nothing in particular seems to threaten. Rather, he sticks to the winning formula of these books which I'd characterise as a sort of cosy crime, with lots of food and drink. It's as important here which restaurant the crew lunch at, whether they are able to get good coffee or not and how comfortable the beds are as who is murdered or why. (Actually VERY important, as one of said restaurants introduces Tinkler to a young lady he hopes will make all his dreams come true - and no, I don't want to describe Tinkler's dreams, if you've read this series you will be able to imagine them).

The first half of the book is therefore largely occupied by this agreeable footling around, involving the four in their usual banter and introducing them to the small town they're visiting and to some of its eccentric residents. These include a priest who searches her back garden for the neighbour's dog's poo at night, marking it with a glow stick; a Swedish woman who only speaks in Mockney English, to the anguish of her husband; and the proprietor of a second hand store based in a former water tower. 

Then the murders start...

I rather pride myself on anticipating where things will go in crime fiction, but I was completely caught off guard here when a rather bizarre caper (garnished with the usual coincidences of the series) suddenly goes sideways and everything takes a turn for the gruesome. After that things get dark very fast, in a whirl of sinister crows, bizarre killings, and suspected poisoning. Can 'Attack and Decay" actually be cursed - as the Church, which tried to suppress it, claims? If so, what does it mean that the Detective has listened to it not only one, but four times?

The second part of the book, taking forward amidst spiralling danger and hair-raising escapes, is pretty much constant action, and highly satisfying, leading up to an action filled climax in which Tinkler is key (while he is still often annoying I think in this book he's brought into the fold rather more, as it were).

Overall, Attack and Decay will be great fun for readers who know and love the Detective and his friends, having followed them through their previous outings. It's a fine addition to the series.  If you haven't read the earlier books you should though go and do that before reading this one. 

For more information about Attack and Decay, see the Titan website here.

Review - The Vinyl Detective: Low Action by Andrew Cartmel

Low Action (The Vinyl Detective, 5)

Andrew Cartmel

Titan Books, 4 August 2020

Available as: PB
Source: PB, bought from Wallingford Bookshop
ISBN: 9781785659003

The band is back together again...

I'm a fan of Cartmel's Vinyl Detective series, so am pleased to report that this latest instalment is fully up to standard. The eponymous hero - we never learn his name - his girlfriend Nevada, embarrassing friend Tinkler, not to forget Agatha "Clean Head", are back and will potter round London and environs searching for rare records and solving crime in the process.

This time though, the crime comes upfront rather than as an adjunct to a record hunt - someone's trying to murder Helene "Howlin’ Hellbitch" Hilditch, guitarist from 80s all-female punk band The Blue Tits. The Vinyl Detective isn't too keen to get involved with murder again, but he's tempted by a side quest to find a copy of the Tits' rarer than rare debut album for a very generous fee - Eric Make Cloud is backing Helene - and off we go.

The search for murderer and record involves locating the surviving members of the group, their friends, and ex-colleagues (together with the band's roadie and Fanzine Frank, who's made a life's work of collecting everything to do with them). There's even an intriguing brush with a character I recognised from another series of books entirely. They're hoping to find who might have a reason to murder Helene - but it turns out easier to find someone who doesn't. In pursuit of the would-be killer, there's much rummaging in charity ships for records (the Detective) and once-cherished designer clothes (Nevada), eating out in pubs and tearooms, and exploring of the more interesting London suburbs.

...and close brushes with death. Because someone really, really wants a kill...

Compared to some of the previous books in the series, there's perhaps less emphasis on investigating and redressing a historical injustice - the mystery here is very much in the present - and it's clear that in focussing on the punk era,  the detective is well away from his favoured period and genre, but still, the task of tracing a disc - running down ex TV hosts, recording studio managers, and whoever else may have a whiff of the desired vinyl - is much the same. Cartmel has a gift for bringing you into his characters' world and making you want to stay there which simply makes this a joy to read. And we find out a bit more about Nevada's life and career.

It isn't gritty realism, by any means, but it's an assured, highly readable and fun story that builds on Cartmel's well-realised characters (even giving a positive, albeit small, role to Stinky Stanmer). These books paint a London you suspect isn't really there but you really, really wish was.

I hope this series will run and run.

For more information about Low Action, see the Titan website here.

#Blogtour #Review - Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver

Nothing Important Happened Today
Will Carver
Orenda Books, 14 November 2019
PB, e, 287pp

I'm grateful to Karen at Orenda Books for a free advance copy of Nothing Important Happened Today and to Anne for inviting me to take part in the blogtour, which I am joining today.

I should give a content warning that this book, and consequences try review, deal with themes of suicide.

Well.

For once, I'm genuinely unsure what to say.

This is a thriller different to any other I've read before. I'm really not exaggerating there. It has me speechless. Nothing I have read before is like this

One evening, as trains bear commuters home from London, nine strangers walk out onto Chelsea Bridge. Attaching nooses to the structure, they place them round their necks, and jump.

Nine deaths, nine strangers - and a manifesto from the "People of Choice". A cult is born.

But why did they die? How was the whole thing arranged? And what happens next? Important questions...

This is high concept material already, but Carver's handling of the story then takes things to an even stranger place. We don't follow the investigation, see how the police track down... something or someone, whoever or whatever caused this. We don't have a detailed examination of one or two of the victims. Instead we get short, intense vignettes of the nine and their lives before. We see the tiny tragedies, the miscommunications, self-absorption, the fatigue, the disappointments of the Lovers, the Poet, the Doctor, the Ungrateful and so on (where do these names come from?)

And Young Levant.

Almost unbearable at times, Carver's clear, simple prose illuminates what are ordinary lives, ordinary failings, ordinary lapses, which - when some obscure switch is turned - become despairing lives, hopeless failings, unforgivable lapses. We see that switch click, but we don't see where it came from, what happened. It is VERY dark, very sad, and we spend a lot of time in the heads of what seem very disagreeable people. Not disagreeable because they are contemplating killing themselves - as becomes clear, most of this group actually want to live (whereby hangs much of the mystery...) Not disagreeable because they are lavishly, epically BAD people. No, disagreeable because they are rather ordinary, rather normal, rather - uncomfortably - like you. Or no, that's not fair, I don't know what you're like.

Rather like me. Irritatingly so. A bit out of it, a bit lazy. There. In a scary, inescapable way, Carver has skewered me on his page. And see where that leads...

Around the story of the Nine (and later, the Two, and then, the Twenty) he then gives us musings on,  clinical, cold instruction in, and discussion of, how to be a mass murderer and not get discovered. And on how to establish a successful cult (and on the intersection of the two).

Again, this can get really grim. There are discussions of murders - Dahmer, Manson, Shipman, Bradey - and how their killings began and what exposed them. There are discussions of cults and how they started and grew, and how their leaders took ordinary people (like me!) and influenced them.

As you might expect these parts can also be hard to read. This is about real murders of real people. I have always shied away from "True Crime" for this very reason - in fiction, however grim, one has the consolation of knowing that at least it's all made up, and the dashy, flashy nature of crime fiction with its hero DIs helps establish that distance, even when (especially when) it gets all noir on you. Here, there isn't that distance. And Carver has clearly thought about his stuff here. There are philosophies and practicalities: the cult leader should have a Number Two who will take the fall when it all comes down. the serial killer should, through, work alone. And so on.

It's a mark, I think, of how good Carver's writing is that he engages despite this dark, grim material. And how he does. Phrases like "unputdownable" and "page-turner" are thrown around too lightly today, but they are really apt here. This is a book that, once started, you have to finish. It's a bit like getting into a very grubby bath which has rather unpleasant things floating in it but basically you have no choice.

An unforgettable book. It is scary to think what Carver could do if he turned his talents to bad. For my part, I'll watch out for crisp white envelopes in the post and put any I do receive straight in the fire...

The Nothing Important Happened Today blogtour continues with a star studded cult, sorry, cast of bloggers as you can see below. For more information about the book, see the publisher's webpage here.

You can buy it from your local independent bookshop, or from Hive Books who support Indies, as well as from Blackwell's, Foyles, Waterstones, WH Smith or Amazon, to name only a few.

#Blogtour #Review - The Art of Murder by JS Strange

The Art of Murder (Jordan Jenner 2)
JS Strange
Panther Publishing, October 1 2019
PB, e 285pp

I'm grateful to Panther for letting me have a free advance e-copy of The Art of Murder and for inviting me to take part in the blogtour.

Jordan Jenner is back!

Yes, the reclusive, cat-owning gay private investigator from Cardiff returns to the page with a new murder mystery. Following the events of Death on the Rocks, which took place over a (very bleak) Christmas it's now April but while you might be expecting green shoots and new life, it's not quite like that.

Jordan's brother Ashley is still sleeping on the sofa, with Jordan no nearer understanding why he has left his partner, Ben. Perhaps a city break in Amsterdam may help the two relax? It's not to be, since they catch the attention of... someone... over there and on return, Jordan finds himself in the middle of very sinister goings-on centred on Cardiff's art world.

Events which culminate in murder.

As with Death on the Rocks, there's a personal angle to this - Jenner has been hired by one of the artists at the focus of the scandal, and soon finds himself having not only to investigate a death, but also to pin down the identity and motivations of a fringe group, the 'Dirty Dollys'. This mysterious cabal is a rather brilliant creation of Strange's - they act as a pack, targeting popular, up-and-coming artists with fraud and blackmail. Are they an artistic movement? In it for the money? Is it political? How far might they actually go? Nobody seems to know, so the threat to Xander Draper - the darling of the Cardiff art market - has to be taken seriously.

At the same time, someone is following Jordan. Someone seems to know where he lives. This has got very personal - even more so that in the first book, where Jordan's mother became embroiled.

I liked this story, it's fast-paced, continually throwing things at Jordan. We get to see more of his personal life - credit should go to Strange for writing books where the gay characters are many and diverse - and he's a fascinating mass of contradictions, a but of a loner and a grump perhaps but likeable and understandable. He's certainly a long way from being the stereotyped antisocial detective. Jordan is more at the centre of this book in some respects because, while the police are involved, he's no longer an external consultant to them (budget cuts). He also has his own client involve din the case, giving him a slightly different agenda from the official police. That makes him less part of a team and leaves more for him to do.

I found the Dollys (the spelling is deliberate) an intriguing group, the whole setup - artists picked off and subject to harassment in the full light of day, as it were - having something of the sulphurous edge of a Margery Allingham story. This book is completely naturalistic, there's nothing supernatural here, but the drive and motivations of the villains (if that's what they are) does have an almost metaphysical cast.

Strange has a style that grows on you - sometimes it feels as though it could do with a bit of polish, and it may not be to everyone's taste, but in my view there is lots of smoothed down writing out there, lots of bland stuff that reads pretty much the same and this one (with its predecessor) has something distinctive which is actually quite rare and precious.

Overall, a welcome return to the world of Jordan Jenner which left me wanting more.

You can buy the book from Amazon here. The publisher website is here. The blogtour continues with sone excellent reviewers - check out the poster below!

#Blogtour #Review - Hire Idiots by Prof. I.M. Nemo

Cover by Jenny Haines

Hire Idiots
I M Nemo
Fox Spirit Books, 25 August 2019
PB, 214pp, e

I'm grateful to the publisher for a free e-copy of Hire Idiots and to Emma @damppebles for inviting me to take part in the blogtour.

Hire Idiots opens with a murder on campus, but the (surely pseudonymous?) I M Nemo keeps the reader guessing as the story doesn't follow the routines of the Whodunnit but swerves off into campus politics and the new-liberlisation of education.

Kingsley College is a small US liberal arts college, about to suffer the full force of a modernising, business-friendly, profit-oriented management team. The situation is analysed, I'd say, with some bite by Prof Nemo and while the - never fully explored - murder and the - mysteriously unclear - occupation of the campus theatre by a protester/ gunman/ whoever function as two instances of the slightly strange, setting the scene for the beginning and end of the book, most of it is about that takeover and the struggle of a motley collection of academics to keep their ideals and academic freedoms.

Central to all this is Clarence Van Dyke, a specialist in the poetry of William Blake (one of whose couplets opens the book: Degrade first the arts, if you'd mankind degrade; Hire idiots to paint with cold light and hot shade). Van Dyke is British (cue various jokes about his connections with that fellow from Mary Poppins) but is comfortably settled on campus, bustling between lecture hall, pub and his apartment (the "campus cottage"). Over the course of several days we see his growing realisation of what is in store as a collection of management consultants, Vice Presidents for this-and-that, and fancy management types with glossy titles swarm in, speaking an alien language (benchmarking, assessing, synergy) and looking to make cuts.

Is Nemo using this society in miniature to stand for the wider world - as above, so below - with the methodology of the "disaster capitalists" dissected? Create a crisis. Apportion blame what it can't be settled. Move in and pillage. We see it here as the campus's support services are first contracted out, with the bell soon to toll, it seems, for faculty as well.

While most of the view point is Van Dyle's, we do see a little from the perspective of Happy Winter, the new Chief Academic Officer, a woman more comfortable with her charts and metrics than actually doing any teaching. I would have liked to see more of her point of view, to understand a little better what the motivations of the forces of barbarism are here, but I think that Nemo's heart and passion is really with Van Dyke and the upstart academics (and I sense that's rather the point of this book: it breathes anger and revenge and is dedicated 'For my colleagues who fight on' even if it also claims to be wholly a work of fiction).

That makes the story something of a polemic and if you're not sympathetic to Nemo's point of view you might not enjoy this book, so be warned. For my part, I rather got along with the anger and passion, which gives it a slightly different feel. While perhaps rough in one or two places (I think it effectively telescopes twenty or thirty years of creeping managerialism into one, nasty shock - could Van Dyke really have as been näive about modern trends as he seems here) it effectively draws in the sides and almost becomes a bit of an allegory for wider society and politics in the early 21st century.

An entertaining, fun and thought provoking read.

You can buy Hire Idiots from Amazon UK or Amazon US. Or visit the Fox Spirit Store at

https://www.foxspirit.co.uk/product/hire-idiots-by-professor-i-m-nemo/ 

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