Tag: Crime

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was only a few pages into this thriller, when I wished I’d seen Suzie Miller’s stage play of the same name running in the West End with an award-winning performance by Jodie Comer. I could see that Comer was the perfect choice for Tessa because I imagine she would understand this character perfectly. Tessa has brought herself from the council estates of Liverpool, via similar areas in Luton, through Cambridge University to one of the best barrister’s chambers in London. Tessa is a defence barrister, one of the best in the competitive area of criminal law. She thinks like a lawyer, her job isn’t about the truth. It isn’t about whether her client is innocent or guilty, in fact she doesn’t want to know. It’s about following the intricacies of the law. It’s about looking for the holes in the prosecution’s case and exploiting them, bringing them to the attention of the jury and creating doubt. All she has to do is create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury that the law directs them to an acquittal. It’s almost a game. A very high stakes game for the defendant, but Tessa gets paid either way. For her it’s the enjoyment of winning and seeing the the system she believes in, applied correctly. However, when Tessa goes on a date with a fellow barrister from her chambers, something goes wrong. Then she realises that the law might not be in her favour after all. Perhaps justice is more equal for some than others.

I was immediately enthralled by Tessa’s narrative voice. She’s smart, a quick study of other people and how they present themselves to the world. She is a brilliant, intelligent and careful lawyer. The author presents law like a religion. Tessa believes in the British justice system, that although there are anomalies, by and large justice does get served. After making a huge jump from her estate and family to Cambridge, she’s become a quick study of class and tribes. As she arrives at her first university lecture she spies a group of staff in suits hanging around the entrance and wonders if she’s been found out – ‘maybe I fluked it and one of those suited people are going to barge in with a list and call out my name. Tessa Ensler? I’m sorry there’s been a terrible mistake’. The boy sat on her right has clearly come from public school. He has that assured way of being that comes from knowing he belongs here and that he will be among those who change the country. The dean tells them that 1 in 3 of them will fail. As she looks to her other side she sees a girl trying to look dishevelled but with clothes deliberately made that way, rather than being worn out. With her layers of necklaces and raggedy clothes she’s showing that she has the confidence to look bedraggled, whereas as Tessa looks down at her own new jumper and knows she doesn’t belong. They know she doesn’t belong. What if she is the 1 in 3?

Yet she adapts and educates herself in how to blend in and even as a fully-fledged barrister years later, she is still well-versed in the unwritten codes of both the court room and the women barrister’s robing room. She refers to her fellow barristers as thoroughbreds. It isn’t enough for her to be a barrister, she has to know how to look and seem like a barrister. She knows the uniform – grey or blue understated suit, low comfortable heels for standing in court, hair that can withstand the wig, not too much make-up. It’s acceptable to show individuality with some quirky earrings, unusual glasses or chunky heel ankle boots. These little details are the way women have learned to own their own space, to show they are serious about the law, but do it differently to the men. Some things are sacrosanct such as the right shoes – the same designer brand, low key and stylish, but very expensive for a shoe that’s so boring. Yet within her first year as a barrister Tess has the same brand on her feet. Her rebellion comes in tiny acts like wearing a collarless shirt, coloured tights or eye-catching earrings. Individual, but not so out there it would frighten the horses. She also doesn’t have a wig tin, choosing instead to keep her wig in a Tupperware box borrowed from her mum. This is deliberate, it reminds her of where she’s from and how to remain grounded. She resists anyone’s offer to buy a wig tin for her, especially when they refer to her choice as ‘slumming it’. She’s mainly played by the rules and thinks she’s become one of them.

I will mention that there are graphic depictions of sexual assault that are a hard read, but they are necessary. They show the ambiguity that can be brought into the legal arguments. Anyone who reads the account has no doubt what happened between Tessa and her colleague. Yet already I could see the ‘holes’ in her story, the things she does ‘wrong’ and how the difference she thought was invisible, being brought up to weaken her account. She can probably imagine the way a defence barrister will cross-examine her and which parts of her story he will exploit to create doubt in the jury’s mind. I found it so painful when she overhears other female barristers discussing the accused, Julian. Julian was always hoping to be a barrister, his father was before him and is now a judge. He is immediately accepted into this world without once having to work out how to be. As the women discuss going to his dinner party and how terrible this false accusation is for him it’s clear he’s one of them, they probably went to the same school and, like her pupil Phoebe, knew which shoes to buy before they even got here. One female barrister asks her outright why she would accuse Julian, when everyone knew she was into him. She must know it’s hurting her own reputation and her career, she’s alienating the ‘very people who will decide whether she gets silk’. In that moment Tessa wonders why it isn’t hurting Julian’s reputation? There are solicitors who will never instruct her again, people who will not share chambers with her and she will likely never progress with her career again. But he will. It brings home everything about her difference from that clique – the small world of London chambers – her disadvantages as a woman, as someone from the wrong school and the wrong type of estate.

I was fascinated with whether or not Tessa would realise that the law isn’t the same for everyone and that her belief in the system she has worked for is left crumbling at her feet? Added to everything else Tessa feels foolish for every time she has said that the law dispenses justice more or less, for everyone. Now she knows it doesn’t. Even before she’s in the court room she knows that it was her difference that made her a victim in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened to Alice or Phoebe because they are protected by their class:

‘I really had thought that I was now untouchable. That if I just did my job, didn’t stand out, won my cases, I’d be like everyone else in chambers. But I am not. I am disposable, I am rapeable. Just like when I was a kid on the estate. Nothing has changed, other than the class of man that can rape me.’

In being exposed to the way the world works for the right type of people, she has naively assumed that it now works that way for her too. We are so intimate with Tessa, her inner world is huge – full of contradictions and fierce intelligence with a veneer of upper middle-class lifestyle overlying strong working class roots. I was totally engrossed in her and recognised something of myself in that working class background rubbing roughly alongside years of middle class education and lifestyle. I’m conscious of a difference in the way I view the world from the rest of my family, but I’ve always wanted to keep them close. I know that if anything terrible happened they would be there for me, just as I hoped Tessa’s mum would be there for her. I’m aware of the difference in my accent honed by seven years of grammar school, a change that turned me into a vocal chameleon, picking up a trace of wherever I go, wanting to fit in. Tessa notices this with other barristers who have accents, there’s always a court voice that’s clear, concise and authoritative. There are so many points in the story where the author captures a current change in how the world has changed, particularly for women. Tessa recalls a sexual encounter in her teens which was only borderline consensual, but back then was chalked up to experience. I remember these days well: a push up against the wall followed by an unwanted kiss so hard it bruised my lip; a grab of the hips from a man as I reached over to answer a phone in a busy office; a teenage boy who thought that because my friend was snogging with his mate, I was up for it too. These seemed like minor incidents, but wouldn’t be accepted by young women today.

Tessa’s story brought up all those issues of consent that I find so interesting – does consenting to one sexual act mean you’ve consented for everything else? If we consent to sex once, does that mean we’ve consented for that whole night? Does it cover the next morning too? My husband was horrified that in law there was no such thing as marital rape until 1991. Consent was given by the woman through her marriage vows. Alarmingly there are still people who think as long as there is no violence, forced or coerced sexual intercourse within marriage does not constitute rape. The court scenes are electric, written with such tension and power. Watching the balance of that power shifting between defendants and prosecution witnesses and the barristers in their robes, posing the questions with scepticism, repeating them till you trip up and then diving in for the attack. I found myself dreading what would happen to Tessa if she didn’t get justice. Would she cope emotionally? Also, what would it mean for her professionally? Would she be trusted again? I would say ‘reading this….’ in my reviews normally, but I felt more like I was ‘experiencing this’ by Tessa’s side and sometimes in her head. She was as close as my own thoughts at times. I wondered whether it’s possible for someone to be as educated, honed and prepared for such an establishment career as the law, without becoming someone altogether different. Is there a way to separate the professional from the personal, to take on some of the female barrister’s characteristics and traditions but keep a little bit more of who you are? To take a bigger Tupperware box from home and seal even more of that professional persona inside along with the traditional wig. Her struggle between being the Tess she became at Cambridge and her chambers and the Tess who lived for a weekend house party with her friends from the estate is the struggle of every university graduate whose family earned a living in a manual job. A family who encouraged her to push herself, to reach grammar school, then be the first to go to university didn’t realise that with each step they’d lose her a little bit. A gap opens up, created by education, money, culture and lifestyle. I was strongly reminded of Tony Harrison’s poem ‘V’ that beautifully captures this dichotomy within a person, a Northerner that’s settled and makes both their name and their living in the south. Yet one line stood amongst all that anger and dislocation: ‘the ones we choose to love become our anchor’. He meant new friends but I hoped in Tessa’s case she would learn that she can be part of her family, while still being successful. To recognise them as her strength and support, rather than something you drift away from. This book is right up there, with the best I’ve read this year. Don’t miss it.

Published on 14th March by Hutchinson Heinemann. With thanks to the Squad Pod for having me in this month’s book club choice

Meet the Author

Suzie Miller is an international playwright, librettist and screenwriter. She has a background in law, and has won numerous awards, including the Australian Writers’ Guild, Kit Denton Fellowship for Writing with Courage and an Olivier Award. She lives in London and Sydney and is developing major theatre, film and television projects across the UK, USA and Australia.

Posted in Netgalley

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Charlotte and Alec Salter have four teenage children and live in the small village in East Anglia. We meet them on Alec’s 50th birthday where a big evening party is planned for most of the village as well as family. Yet at the beginning of the party there are no Salters present. Charlotte went for a walk and hasn’t returned. Alec did same, but they didn’t go together or in the same direction. Fourteen year old Etty is worried. The last of the Salters and yet to leave home she is starting to panic. She loves her mum, but if she is gone, for whatever reason, that means she has to spend two years at least in the company of her father. Just the two of them. Alone.

In the days that follow as the police investigate, there are rumours that Charlotte and family friend Duncan Ackerley were having an affair. Of course it was more widely known that Alec was seeing villager Mary Thorne, in fact his own daughter heard him on the phone to her from the other line the night of the party. When the Ackerleys invite the Salters for Christmas Day, only Lottie turns up at first, her brothers are late and Paul is probably giving it a swerve altogether. Yet Etty thinks it would be worse to sit at home, staring, worrying and jumping at every sound. As dinner time approaches, the Ackerley’s start to wonder where Duncan has got to. He’s been out for a walk, possibly down to the boat as there is a super high tide and he needs to move it. It’s Etty and Giles that start to look for him and he does try to shield her eyes as they come closer and see that Duncan is slumped in the water, dead. We move between the party night and the Christmas days that follow and twenty years later when all the Salters are once again in residence at the family home.

Everything about the house is dated and dilapidated, including their father Alec who is succumbing to dementia. Etty, ever the lawyer, is organising his move into a nursing home and the clearance of their parents possessions. For this job she has found a bright and organised woman called Bridget. She gathers the siblings and tells them that the easiest way is for them to put specific coloured post-its on their must have items, then she takes away the rest for sorting, selling and recycling. It’s emotional, especially since there are now only three of them. Their brother Paul never coped with life and the loss of their mother and sadly committed suicide on the anniversary of her disappearance. Meanwhile, now a TV personality, Morgan Ackerley is home to record a podcast on that Christmas, speculating on what happened to Charlotte and his father. This is going to stir up the village and make life difficult for both families. When a sudden event leads to yet another death, the police are called and a new detective looks at the old files as well as this new case. Are they linked in some way? Despite her boss seeming to warn against digging up what’s been long buried, this detective is determined to find out what happened to Charlotte Salter.

Seeing how much these families have changed over time is so interesting and I found myself wondering how different the Salters and Ackerleys might have been if this crime hadn’t happened. Etty melted my heart a little bit because she’s clearly so close to her mum and on the night of the party she’s the one who’s trying to raise the alarm because she knows something isn’t right. The boys are largely off doing their own thing and seem almost inured to the state of their parent’s marriage. The consensus is they’ve probably had a row, but Etty knows that despite a row, or their dad being on the phone to Mary Thorne at 2am the night before, there is no way that her mum wouldn’t turn up to his birthday party. She has always kept up appearances in that way. She even looks at her father and wonders whether he could have killed her. Her relationship with each parent couldn’t be more different, there’s a distance between Etty and her father both in the past and the present. In fact he doesn’t seem that invested in any of his children. Yet Etty can still imagine the smell of her mum’s perfume and what she would be wearing and I could imagine Charlotte hugging her daughter, her perfume just one of the many scents that signify home. With only the boys and her distant father left who will she go to for hugs? I could feel her panic as realises that after Christmas, the boys will go back to jobs and university and she will be left alone with their father for two years. I could also see the shadow of this huge loss in the adult Etty: an awkwardness about whether the family kiss to greet each other or not; keeping a lawyer’s professional manner at all times; doing all the organising and keeping busy so she can remain detached. She doesn’t cry, even when finding memories of their childhood. She holds herself stiffly, almost brittle and I wondered how much it would take for her to break.

There are many ghosts here. It’s not just Etty who was changed. They all feel the loss of their brother Paul deeply and he’s the empty chair at the table, even now. They tiptoe around each other, trying not to open old wounds but when a fire is started at Bridget’s home a new murder investigation is opened. Either the arsonist didn’t realise Bridget was at home, or didn’t care. Was their aim to kill the house clearer or was it to hide evidence that she’d unwittingly taken into her home alongside the Salter’s belongings? I found this mystery so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading and I loved the psychological aspects of how these unsolved crimes had affected the families and the village as a whole. There were a couple of crucial points past and present where everyone I suspected seemed to be going for a walk alone – without even having a dog as an excuse! I was suspecting that Lottie’s husband wasn’t as advanced in dementia as she seemed, but couldn’t be sure. The reveals were satisfying, but it was the methods of concealment that really blew me away and I loved how thorough the investigating detective was. She wanted to be sure, whether or not it disturbed or upset some people and I loved that about her. Mainly I thought about how the author successfully showed the long term effects of a crime like this, even years on from the actual incident. These children were all changed forever and the villagers have lived under a fog of suspicion for years. Etty particularly left me thinking of all the events I’ve been able to enjoy with my mum over the last 50 years, that she and Charlotte had missed out on. Finding a balance between the real emotions that surround a crime and creating a page-turning mystery is difficult, but here I think the authors have really pulled it off.

Out 29th Feb in Hardback from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Murder After The Night Before by Katy Brent

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Something bad happened last night. My best friend Posey is dead. The police think it was a tragic accident. I know she was murdered.

I’ve woken up with the hangover from hell, a stranger in my bed, and I’ve gone viral for the worst reasons.

There’s only one thing stopping me from dying of shame. I need to find a killer.

But after last night, I can’t remember a thing…

This was a delicious pick me up for a winter weekend with unexpected depth! It was the perfect mix of witty fun, but also an interesting thriller that captures the moment with some serious social commentary. When Molly wakes up after the Sparkle magazine Christmas party she’s expecting a hangover of epic proportions. What she isn’t expecting is to wake up next to a complete stranger with no memory of the night before. She has a strange combination of complete amnesia, but underneath that a feeling of unease that won’t go away. He tries to reassure her that all he wanted to do was make sure she got home safely, considering the amount that she drank. Yet, his account of the night before doesn’t make any sense to her either and she starts to question everything. Things only get worse when she staggers into work to hear the worst news she could ever hear. Firstly, there’s a sexually explicit video of her at the party going viral on social media. Worse than that she finds out her best friend and flatmate Posey is dead after an awful accident. The version the authorities give Molly just doesn’t ring true though and she suspects her friend may have been murdered. So Molly starts her own investigation, hoping to unearth the truth of what happened that night but also who would want Posey dead and why?

Molly is such a sparky, likeable character and she brings a lightness to this dark story, just enough to keep a good balance. I warmed to her as it becomes clear how much she cared about her friend and the lengths she’s willing to go to for justice on her behalf. She’s a little clumsy in her investigation skills and has flaws, but that makes her more endearing. She’s far from perfect at first, drinking a lot and dealing with loss, struggling to focus and not remotely motivated by her job on a teen magazine. Molly allows the author to tackle some heavy themes within the novel, it’s her personality that makes these difficult subjects accessible to the reader. This is also brilliant because it accesses readers who might not ordinarily pick up a more ‘serious’ novel on these themes. It’s a fine line to tread, remaining serious about a subject while writing an entertaining and engaging story, but the author has pulled it off here.

The author shows incredible skill by weaving some pertinent social commentary into the plot, about the dangers of social media and misogyny, both online and in real life. Since the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met Police officer, the rise of the Incel movement online and influencers like Andrew Tate, the depths of the misogyny in our culture have come to light. I’ve never been more aware of the divides in our society when it comes to race, disability and sexism. The recent and very public ableism and misogyny towards comedian Rosie Jones has been staggering and as a disabled woman I was affected by reading it, goodness only knows how Rosie had felt as their target. I expected the ableism, but felt it was tinged with sexism too because the comedian Lost Voice Guy, who has the same disability as Rosie, doesn’t face this relentless wave of hate. The Wild West that is Twitter has given a toxic platform to men who enjoy gaslighting women and putting them down in the most insulting ways possible. I love that Katy Brent has tackled this misogyny within her story line, from the toxic culture of social media through to the terrible experience of sexual assault. The embarrassing viral video of Molly giving a blow job in the street gets a torrent of disgusting, but very authentic comments from trolls and keyboard warriors, not all of them men. It was just like reading Twitter. None of them were levelled at the man, all the negativity is focused on Molly, effectively bullying and slut-shaming her. It really highlights how there are still different societal standards of sexual behaviour for men and women, but now proliferating on social media.

I really enjoyed Molly’s character growth, at the beginning she’s all over the place, but her love for Posey really makes her focus and get results. Molly realises that Posey was working on an investigation that might have been the cause of her murder. So she has to follow the clues her friend has found, working out answers to the questions she had, all in the hope it will bring her closer to finding her killer. Of course that puts Molly in the same danger, but she wants to find the truth for her friend and shows real loyalty and courage. Molly’s flaws and her self- awareness about them, just make her all the more endearing. There’s some snappy dialogue that keeps the story moving, but also introduces an element of wit and humour. Yes, there are moments here that are truly funny, but the balance between the humour and the darker aspects is maintained throughout. The emotional depth of the characters and particularly Molly’s feelings for her friend really did elevate this above the average thriller, but as the truth starts to unfold, there are twists and turns that leave you wondering if we ever know anyone as well as we think we do.

Published in paperback on 1st February 2023 from HQ

Meet the Author

Katy is an author and award-winning journalist from the UK. She has worked on newspapers, magazines and websites since 2005, writing about popular culture. How To Kill Men and Get Away With It was her first novel and The Murder After the Night Before is her second.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Maud Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Maud’s sister Constance is on a ship sailing to the Northern Passage, on a mission to find Franklin’s expedition ship. She has always craved adventure and climbed out of her bedroom window, taking the disguise of a cabin boy called Jack Aldridge. Does she really comprehend the dangers that could befall her should the men on board discover a woman on their vessel? On the same voyage is the rather strange and macabre Edison Stowe who has managed to get aboard as a scientific officer – mainly involving the killing and gathering of animals, as bone specimens or in jars. When Constance is lost on the voyage, the rather quiet and timid Maud is determined to find out what has happened to her sister. She devises a plan to get close to and expose Edison Stowe. Telling her grandfather she’s on a trip to the country, she embarks on a rather ghoulish steam train journey. Stowe has a money making scheme to turn various public hangings into a tourist attraction and Maud becomes one of his tourists. The author uses three different narrative voices to tell her story. A diary written by Constance on the voyage was returned to her family and gives us a front row seat for the horrors but also the wonders of the voyage complete with edible arctic creatures, ‘esquimaux’ women and the northern lights playing overhead. Then in the present day there’s Edison Stowe’s narrative of his day to day life, living in Mr Inchbold’s bone shop and dodging debt collectors. His debts being the reason behind his execution tourism. Finally, there’s Maud, whose narrative hangs everything together and provides context with memories of the sister’s lives and her own relentless quest for the truth.

Maud and Constance are fascinating characters, both sisters with the hearts of lions and nerves of steel. It just takes Maud longer to realise she is every bit as adventurous and brave as her sister. Maud has the disarming advantage of beauty and a composed, modest manner that makes her seem the ideal ‘Angel in the House’. Her knowledge of pharmacy and toxicology is honed by years of helping her grandfather in his shop. She is proud of her sister and has never believed the official version of her death, but we never realise the extent of her plotting and planning until the final few chapters. What an opponent she has in the villainous Edison Stowe! Not since Uriah Heep have I felt so uncomfortable while reading about a character. He constantly made me want to wash my hands. He’s a strange contradiction in all sorts of ways: dressed like a gentleman but absolutely penniless; seemingly genteel but capable of moments of extreme violence against those weaker than himself, people or animals. He seems oddly unmoved by inflicting violence, but has strange fits of illness, where he appears to pass out as well as seeing and hearing things, including people long dead.

I was absolutely fascinated by this novel from start to finish. I love books that subvert what we think about the supposedly straight laced Victorians, especially women. She doesn’t downplay the dangers women faced, especially those that try and move outside of their boundaries. It was interesting that it was far more successful for Maud to use her strengths as a woman, than to try and be like a man like Constance. I enjoyed the more macabre and decadent tastes of the Victorians such as Mr Inchbold having a shop full of animal skeletons and a bear welcoming people at the door, the popularity of the gruesome murder room at Madame Tussaud’s and the fascination with collecting such ghoulish souvenirs as Staffordshire figures of the people they’ve just watch hang. Lizzie always creates such a fabulous sense of place and I was feeling the arctic cold and really smelling the crowds, both at the hangings and in the pub at the quay where sailors come unwashed and straight off the boats and monkeys are racing round the tables. These little extra details keep you immersed in her worlds. We even get an unexpected love story that further breaks the image people have of the Victorians. This is such an incredible story and a must for people who love their historical fiction to surprise and compel them.

Published by Picador, Hardback and Kindle Editions 1st Feb 2024.

Meet the Author

Lizzie is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter, a STYLIST and WOMAN & HOME ‘Best Books of 2022’ pick.

Lizzie began her career in women’s magazines, covering everything from feminist motorcycle gangs to conspiracy theorists, before moving into travel writing, contributing to publications including Condé Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet and the Sunday Times.

Her assignments have taken her to some of the most remote parts of the world, from the uninhabited east coast of Greenland in search of polar bears, to the trans-Himalayas to track snow leopards. She was inspired to write Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter, her debut, after taking a road trip through Australia with her twin sister after the death of their father. A chance visit to the Maritime Museum in Fremantle led her to an exhibition about a family of British settlers involved in the early pearl diving industry. Thus began an obsession and a research journey that would take Lizzie from the corridors of the British Library to isolated pearl farms in the farthest reaches of northwest Australia.

She lives in London.

Posted in Squad Pod

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Everything she is about to tell them is a lie…

Evie Porter has everything a girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a picket fence, a fun group of friends.

The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

First comes the identity. Once she’s given a name and location by her employer, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it.

Then the mark: Ryan Sumner.

The last piece of the puzzle is the job. For Evie, this job feels different. Ryan has gotten under her skin and she’s started to picture another kind of life for herself – one where her boss doesn’t pull the strings. But Evie can’t make any mistakes. Because the one thing she’s worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to – her real identity – just walked right into this town. A woman, who looks just like her, has stolen her name – and she wants more. As Evie’s past begins to catch up with her, can she stay one step ahead to save her future?

Evie has never seen herself as the sort of girl who could have everything. The things many young girls dream of -marriage, security, family – have never really factored in her life, especially since she started working for the man on the end of the telephone. They’ve never met in person, but he is able to control her whole life even the person she’s going to be. From petty theft and credit card fraud she has been noticed by the boss and honed into one of his best operatives, able to throw on a new identity and slip into the mark’s life within a matter of days. Strangely, despite her criminality, the writer managed to make me feel empathy for Evie and even root for her a little bit. Her relationship with Ryan is at a stage where the friends are asking questions and want to meet this new woman. It’s a small town where everyone knows everyone else, especially the moneyed circles that Ryan grew up in. The rules dictate that he can dabble where he likes when it comes to liaisons, but when it comes to settling down it should be within their hallowed circles. An outsider might be tolerated if they’re rich, but Evie isn’t and neither is she one of them. As she dresses for a lunch date with the women from his circle of friends I found myself willing her to succeed. She’s clever in how she dresses – a bit like them but with a boho edge, enough to be accepted but still seem as an individual. I was nervous for her because it felt like she was being dropped into a shark tank and I had to keep reminding myself that Evie is the shark. As the weeks go by she’s starting to think she can relax, when she’s thrown a curve ball. At a horse racing event Ryan introduces her to a couple she’s never met before, a man who he clearly knows well with a woman who is closer to home than either of them realise. This is an old friend, but he’s with a woman Ryan doesn’t know and when she introduces herself Evie realises that her boss is playing games. The woman introduces herself as Lucca, Evie’s real name. Could she be about to lose the only thing that belongs to her – her true identity?

The author cleverly uses shorter chapters in between the main timeline that take us back through Evie’s previous jobs. They are glimpses into her past, teasing the reader with tidbits of information until we finally meet the real Evie. Sometimes our questions are answered and other times we’re surprised by a revelation that takes us in a different direction. We see how she’s pulled into her boss’s orbit, then tested until she’s the best operative he has. There’s a sadism and an element of gaslighting in what he does, sometimes sending multiple people on the same job to see who gets there first – the first prize is staying on his payroll. Although, people don’t get to just walk away from his employment because they know too much. So far Evie has had a great track record, earning well and staying on his good side, but on the last job something went wrong, could this new game be her punishment? There are only two people who Evie trusts, one is her fellow operator Devon – a man she employs to keep her safe and one step ahead of the competition. They have become close over time and he is her family. The other person is George, a messenger man for the boss who brings her the paperwork for each new identity. Can she really trust both of them? Oddly, even though she knows there must be something dodgy about him, she’s starting to trust Ryan more too and that’s a dangerous place to be. She knows there must be something dodgy about his haulage operation, because why else would she be here? Yet, even though this started as a job she feels they’re growing closer. It’s a rare feeling that’s never happened to her before. Could her fake relationship be developing into something real? The author keeps us guessing to the final pages and it’s so tense as Evie has to question the loyalties of those closest to her and juggle her burgeoning feelings for Ryan. Could he be playing her too? Has the boss pitted them against each other to see who comes out on top?

I enjoyed the back story of how Evie had ended up in this life of criminality. It was interesting to see her pluckiness and street smarts pitted against the women in Ryan’s circle. They’re so awful that I was rooting for her. The author has created an original and pacy thriller, full of intrigue and adrenaline filled moments. I found my usual loyalties and moral code turned completely on their head and was left hoping the con artist would win.

“There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with little to no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is deliberate. The lie that sets the stage for everything that comes after it. And once the lie is told, it’s what most people believe to be true.”

Published by Headline 2nd January 2024

Ashley Elston lives in North Louisiana with her husband and three sons. She was a wedding and portrait photographer for ten years so most of her Saturday nights included eating cake, realizing no shoe is comfortable after standing for more than six hours and inevitably watching some groomsman do the alligator across the dance floor. Now, Ashley helps her husband run their small business and she writes as often as possible.

Posted in Netgalley

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Molly the maid is back! Back in a new adventure, but still living in her grandmother’s apartment, which she now shares with partner Juan Marco, and still working at the Grand Regency Hotel. Juan is on a long awaited trip, visiting family, but Molly decided to stay behind in order to supervise a really important event at the hotel. Mystery writer Mr J.D. Grimthorpe is using the newly decorated Art Deco tea rooms to make an announcement to his fans and the press. Molly knows that Mr Grimthorpe is a very particular man, a knowledge that goes beyond the average bit of research, so it must be her that oversees how he’s looked after. Against most people’s judgement she has chosen her protege Lily to prepare his tea cart, because she’s sure that she’s passed on the requisite skills for her to make a success of it. However, at the crucial moment something goes badly wrong. As Mr Grimthorpe reaches out to his personal honey pot to add just a little sweetness to his tea, a hush descends. As he takes a drink however, chaos ensues. He suddenly plummets to the ground, dead. Molly knows that Lily will be terrified especially since it’s ‘always the maids fault.’ As a detective appears to take on the case, Molly’s skills in observation and brilliant memory turn out to be useful. Yet Molly has another insight that she hasn’t disclosed to her boss or the police. She has met J.D. Grimthorpe before and her memories of that time are not the most flattering to the famous author.

Nita Prose gives us a dual narrative, but both of are Molly. We follow the aftermath of Mr Grimthorpe’s death, but also go back to Molly’s childhood when she is taken to the Grimthorpe mansion by her grandmother who is their maid. Neither narrative is simple, but Molly’s different way of observing the world and her incredible memory create an exciting and complex journey. In one we see Molly’s childhood perspective and we understand that wide-eyed wonder of visiting such a rich house with all its treasures including a Faberge egg! Through a mishap with the egg, Molly is assigned a job in the silver room, polishing all the cutlery. This is supposed to be a punishment, but Mrs Grimthrope has no idea that cleaning is Molly’a idea of fun. I loved following this unique little girl as she uses her privileges to get into every nook and cranny of the house. It’s very atmospheric, quiet with just the steady tap tap of the keys on a typewriter as Grimthorpe creates his next masterpiece. Usually she uses his well stocked shelves to read, particularly the classics like Great Expectations. Molly discovers that if she attempts to take a particular book from the shelf it opens a secret door into his study. This proves to be a vital discovery that will shape their lives forever.

In the present, Molly is making great progress by thinking back to that time all those years ago for clues. When Grimthorpe keeled over nobody noticed what happened to the tea cart, but when it’s inspected they realise two items are missing – his particular honey pot and spoon plus a signed copy of his latest book. With so many super fans and book bloggers around that day, it could have been one of a hundred people, either looking for a macabre souvenir or looking for a good way to make some quick money – the moment Grimthorpe died his books suddenly became more valuable, especially the one he’d only just signed. Molly wants to check out local pawn shops and book collectors to see if anyone has recently brought the book in. Meanwhile suspicion falls on Lily as she knew it would, she needs all the support someone like Molly can give her.

I love Molly as a character and her development in the last novel was an important part of the story. Here we see her take another person under her wing. In the interviews, the others were not impressed by Lily but Molly knew she had all the skills to become the perfect maid. She might be quiet and introverted but that meant she wouldn’t waste time talking with colleagues or guests. She might have a polite and deferential way of talking to the customers too. Molly can clearly see something of her old self in this nervous and slightly strange girl. Molly is now head maid so has the hiring and firing power, and she’s certainly found some brilliant staff for the Regency so she is trusted. Lily shines under Molly’s directions which is lovely to see, but other members or staff are suspicious of her, especially Cheryl who is a loud and greedy chancer! I thought Lily’s manner became confusing, especially after Grimthorpe’s death. She keeps repeating that ‘loose lips sink ships’ but not elaborating on the meaning. She needs careful handling and Molly knows how to manage her. I loved how impressed the detective is with Molly, and the respect that builds between them.

Mr Preston, the doorman at the Regency, is still there and still having lunch every Sunday at Molly and Juan’s flat. His relationship with Molly becomes more significant here, not just because of the investigation but because Molly is delving into her past. Mr Grimthorpe had a very closed circle of people he trusted, including his wife, Molly’s grandmother and the secretary who faithfully turned his notes and verbal ramblings into a proper plot. It was her fingers making the steady clacking sound that was the heart beat of the house. Delving this far back brings up memories for Molly, including the reasons they were banished from this inner circle. She also has to process memories of her mother, someone barely mentioned during her upbringing. Despite having a happy and healthy family unit with her grandmother, Molly still missed her mum desperately and always wondered what happened to her. The mystery is interesting and kept me guessing throughout, with me almost thinking Nita might do something wholly unexpected and pin the blame on Molly. However it’s the love of Molly that will draw readers to this story and the fact that the mystery fills in some holes in her background is a huge bonus. I found myself finishing the book, hoping that Nita Prose would be kind enough to give us at least one more adventure with this charming and unique character.

Out on 18th Jan from Harper Collins

Meet the Author

Nita Prose is the author of The Maid, which has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide and was published in over forty countries. A #1 New York Times bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club pick, The Maid won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction and was an Edgar Award finalist. Her second novel, The Mystery Guest, publishes in November 2023 in North America (January 2024 in the UK). Prose lives in Toronto, Canada, in a house that is moderately clean.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Way back in 1997, I started my first job in the mental health field as a support worker for social services. My role was spread between the day centre and the community, covering several of the halfway houses that supported people coming from a period in hospital and back into their lives. I remember being daunted when taken to one of these houses for the first time, not because I was scared of all people with mental health issues, but because there were five men living in the house and I was just a 24 year old little 5 feet 2 inch scrap who suddenly felt like they knew very little! So I felt a very personal sense of trepidation for Lou O’Dowd who travels across the world from Australia to Edinburgh for a job with the organisation SASOL. Her new life will mean living with her cousin and working shifts at a halfway house for high risk offenders including two killers, a celebrity paedophile, and a paranoid coke dealer. After orientation, Lou will be on shift alone dealing with these offenders with little more than her own instinct to guide her. What could possibly go wrong?

I love that Helen Fitzgerald writes characters like Lou O’Dowd. She doesn’t worry about whether the reader will like her heroine or not – I did feel a strange affection for her if I’m honest. She is controversial in a lot of ways. In Australia she has been living on a sugar daddy’s generosity, depending on him for the roof over her head and a monthly allowance that’s enough for her not to work. She has never really known what she wants to do with her life so has jumped at the opportunity to be sheltered by someone else’s money. When this relationship comes to a disastrous end she has no choice but to find a job and with zero skills, Edinburgh seems like a great opportunity. She seems to veer between low confidence and an almost cocky attitude that’s veering on the reckless. Her inability to direct her own life suggests feelings of inadequacy, but when she takes on her job in Edinburgh she really doesn’t seem to comprehend the potential risks of her role. On her first day in Edinburgh she goes out to see her cousin’s play at the matinee and meets a charming man who’s intelligent and personable. He also shares Lou’s attitude to risk, suggesting sex in alleys or doorways rather than either of their homes. It’s as though Lou has met the male version of herself: charming, unpredictable and addicted to taking risks. When she finds out he’s one of the heirs to a Scottish estate she starts to wonder whether they could be more than a quick fling?

As the book builds towards Lou’s solo shifts at the halfway house, I felt so nervous for her. It also felt like the employer didn’t prepare new staff anyone near enough, just one shadow shift then in at the deep end. I didn’t do night shifts, but the thought of staying up all night as the only person in a house of murderers and sex offenders made me jumpy. To the extent that I dreamt people had broken into my own house one night over Christmas. I loved the way Helen mixed the mundane domesticity of working in a place like this, with the fear and all out horror that could potentially take over. On her first shift Lou takes it upon herself to clean the kitchen and throw out the broken crockery. This might seem like a sensible and industrious job to start with, but it takes a senior worker to point out that this isn’t Lou’s home, it’s the resident’s home and their belongings that she’s thrown out. It’s a line a lot of people would have crossed, but takes away the resident’s agency. It would have been better to try and include them. There’s the evening ritual of cocoa for each resident, but it has to be to perfectly timed in order to interrupt one resident’s suicide ritual. These are the extremes a job like this entails, but it’s only the beginning.

There’s still humour to be found though, laced with a few moments of disgust as Lou realises why one of the residents is happy to be roomed in the basement and another’s seemingly excited leg movements, turn out to be the wrong kind of excited. However, with one resident owing money to the type of people who won’t mind being repaid one body part at a time, another just waiting for Lou to drop her guard and close her eyes and one she thought she could trust, displaying his dangerous side and the depths he’s willing to plumb to scratch a powerful itch! By the final showdown my heart was racing, I was holding my breath and had to go make myself a cup of tea at 4am because I needed to finish, but I also needed a comforting brew. This was another great thriller from Helen and Orenda Books and I heartily recommend it for those who like their heroines less than squeaky clean and their danger very real.

Available now from Orenda Books

Meet The Author

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of thirteen adult and young-adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and adapted for a major BBC drama. Her 2019 dark- comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in the Literary Review, Herald Scotland, Guardian, Sunday Times, The Week and Daily Telegraph, shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award. The critically acclaimed Ash Mountain (2020) and Keep Her Sweet (2022) soon followed. Helen worked as a criminal-justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Silent Waters by L.V.Mathews

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Is blood thicker than water?

At five a.m. one summer’s morning, police diver Jen Harper wakes to find herself submerged in the silt of a river with no memory of how she got there.

Forty-eight hours later, she’s called to dive in the same river in search of a missing woman, Claudia Franklin.

But for Jen, this is no ordinary job. Her and Claudia’s families were entangled for decades – there is unresolved resentment between them, unspoken secrets.

Jen hasn’t seen Claudia for twelve years now. Or has she?

This was an interesting and complex novel that feels part thriller and part family drama. From the mysterious opening, this is a book full of secrets and lies. It’s a slow burner and I wasn’t sure at first. I found myself more drawn in by the characters involved in the story. Told through Jen, a police diver, it was a perspective I’d never come across before in crime novels. My brain immediately went back to 2023 to the disappearance of Nicola Buller, who went to walk her dog as usual one morning and never came home. The unusual circumstances- her dog left alone, her phone left on a bench on an open work call – caused a media frenzy and people spread wild theories on social media. A diver, who was contracted for searches in waterways by other police forces, offered his services direct to the family saying ‘if she’s in there, I will find her’. He didn’t. Sadly she was found days later. Water behaves in unusual ways and that mysterious movement of tides can take bodies and conceal them for days. Jen’s work was a fascinating backdrop to the disappearance of local woman Claudia Franklin from the small town of Bourne. After two days with no sign of her, police divers are called to search the river – Jen included. However, Jen doesn’t disclose her family’s complicated relationship with the Franklins, or that where a member of the public has reported seeing something in the water is exactly where she woke up after sleepwalking.

Jen is intriguing and it was interesting to experience what could be seen as quite a macho job, from a woman’s perspective. Jen is definitely one of the boys, she doesn’t expect special treatment and even changes into her dive gear with the men, in the back of the van. There are also parts of the job where Jen has an advantage, she is a slimmer build and has smaller hands for tight spaces like drainage pipes. Jen’s also a mum and that makes such an interesting and varied job harder. She only has two people she can trust to step in and look after her little boy when she gets the call, her brother and her best friend. The men in her team just see her as one of them, but they can do the job they love without the mental load of running a household and arranging child care. Jen has to do both and I had some admiration for her courage and resilience, while never being completely sure of what she’s capable of. That ambiguity in Jen’s character, plus the strange unsolved nature of her sleepwalking left her so open to interpretation.

I found the best way of reading this story is not to try and solve things. I let it wash over me and when the twists happened, they were a revelation. From a slow start, the author did let the tension build beautifully, and the revelations don’t stop coming. What I loved was how the author kept our knowledge of the case within limits. Unlike some protagonists in crime fiction, Jen stays within her role. We only know what the police divers know and it kept us with the hard evidence rather than speculation. It brought authenticity to the case and we could be sure of what had happened, showing a depth of research into diving and forensics. In the background we are building up a picture of life in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else and pasts are intertwined and complicated. Having lived in a small Lincolnshire town since I was nine years old, I know how this works. I thought the author had created a great balance between the professional and the personal, the crime and the characters. Emotions of guilt, rivalry and obsession swirl around alongside the theme of protection, especially of those we love most. This is a story that slowly takes hold of you, it’s multiple strands like the weeds in a river that wind themselves around you and pull you under.

Published by Mountain Leopard Press 22nd June 2023

Meet the Author

For over ten years L V Matthews worked both in domestic and international sales for major UK publishing houses, before leaving to pursue a career in writing.

SILENT WATERS is her newest thriller novel (out July 2023)

THE TWINS was a Richard and Judy Bookclub pick.

Also available, Liv’s debut, THE PRANK.

Find Liv on:

Twitter @LV_matthews

Instagram @lv_matthews_author

Posted in Squad Pod

Past Lying by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie Series.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was so blown away by my first Val McDermid novel last month that I couldn’t settle to any other reading when I knew that this sequel was waiting for me on the book trolley! So in the end I gave in. We left DCI Karen Pirie at the beginning of lockdown, which she’d decided to spend in her lover Hamish’s huge Edinburgh flat with her new constable Daisy. It was a hurried and unexpected choice, with Hamish retreating to his Croft in the Highlands where he was now making hand sanitiser and profiting nicely. The team are officially stood down from working, but Karen had ordered some cold case files to be taken to the flat so they could at least read and review them. She isn’t known for being good at following rules so lockdown is a challenge, with her midnight walks and checks on the old flat she bends things a little to suit her. It would be impossible to imagine her not working though and luckily her DS Jason gets an unexpected call that triggers something. A librarian is using lockdown to file away items donated to the archive and she has been working on the papers of the late author Jake Stein. In them she found an unfinished manuscript that bothered her. The narrator is a crime writer and he abducts an aspiring writer from one of his workshops, a young girl called Laurel Oliver. He describes taking her to a shack in the woods and strangling her, then planting her body in the garage of another crime writer, Rob McEwan. Rob and Jake met at a festival and became friends, with Jake being the big name and Rob just starting out. They discovered a mutual love of chess and would play each other each week at Jake’s house, where he has the classic car, the high end kitchen decor and a beautiful wife. A beautiful wife who seems to get along with Rob very well. Stars in any creative field can fall as well as rise and as the tables start to turn for these two could Jake have carried out this murderous blueprint? All the way down to the detail of concreting her body into the inspection pit of Ron’s swanky new house? Since once of their cold cases is a young girl called Lara Hardie who did disappear in Edinburgh at the time of this manuscript, Karen can’t afford to take any chances.

It must have been very hard to write tension and excitement into a situation where people can’t go far and are largely researching online and in archives. It’s not fast paced activity and I always remember laughing out loud at a moment in one of Dan Brown’s thrillers where his hero tries to make running to the library sound macho and full of action. It could have gone horribly wrong, but somehow Val McDermid brings real tension to the case. That’s without the anxieties of every day life at this very surreal time, which are captured perfectly by the author. She relates to us the strange emptiness of a busy capital city and the difficulty of having to apply the intricacies of COVID legislation to your every movement, even if it’s just looking at papers in a library. Karen is possibly even more impatient in her working life, so there are times to bend the rules a little, but it means she never slips into the slapdash lazy ways of other people who seem to think it’s an excuse to shut down. Her boss ‘the Dog Biscuit’ thinks she could easily stay at home because HCU cases can wait; the case has no urgency, since the main suspect, Jake Stein, will never come to trial. However, maybe because she lost the love of her life to murder, Karen understands that the sooner a victim’s family finds out the truth, the better. This applies whether the suspected killer is alive or not. Besides, despite what the manuscript suggests, she’s not going to pigeon hole the case just yet. Things aren’t always what they seem.

Her relationship with Hamish is proving difficult and not because he’s in the Highlands on his croft. They actually have more problems when they see each other, probably because they shouldn’t be. There’s something about Hamish’s cheerful ability to make money out of other people’s misery that rankles with Karen. He’s angry to find Karen isn’t home in the night, but she’s out walking. Unbeknownst to Hamish, there’s an asylum seeker staying in Karen’s flat after threats were made against his life. It’s a favour for a good friend and Karen is so moved by his situation that she buys him new clothes and stocks the cupboards. We see a side to Hamish we’ve never seen before when he has a confrontation with Daisy after turning up at the flat with no warning and against regulations. This time he threatens Daisy, but on a second illegal visit he becomes violently angry to find this strange man staying in Karen’s flat. When he tries to break the door down Karen is furious: it’s her flat and it’s not Hamish’s place to tell her who can be in it; he has no empathy for the man’s plight and zero understanding of his own privilege. Plus, he shouldn’t be here in the first place. Could this be the end for their relationship? Despite this, the COVID journey that Daisy and Karen have is a lot better than most. They have plenty of room in the flat they’ve borrowed from Hamish and their frustrations are small ones, mainly confined to how difficult it is to investigate a case when every establishment seems to be working to their own idea of the rules. Jason has a truly terrible experience when his mum is hospitalised with the virus, because they can’t see her or reassure her unless the staff organise a FaceTime session. Jason’s brother takes his frustration to the extreme while Jason is just terribly sad and scared for her. The snippets of her small team’s personal lives are more apparent now that their living and working spaces are in one place. Jason is in lockdown with girlfriend Eilidh, but has proximity made their relationship stronger? Daisy has been hiding a secret about her personal life and finds lockdown a difficulty when embarking on a new romance.

Karen’s grief for Phil ebbs and flows, not helped by the extra time she has to overthink. She has to think about whether her relationship with Hamish gives her what she needs. They miss a shared outlook on the world, something she had and lost with Phil. The case didn’t go the way I expected at all, making the last sections really gripping. Karen’s ability to get results in a global pandemic doesn’t surprise me. Where some potential witnesses try to fob her off, using COVID as an excuse, Karen always tries to find a way to stay within the law while still getting the job done. I love seeing her come across petty bureaucracy, it makes me laugh because they have no idea what they’re dealing with if they take on Karen. This is crime fiction at it’s best and I’m now starting back at the beginning with the first novel featuring this interesting and incredibly insightful detective.

Out on 12th October 2023 from Sphere

Meet the Author

Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold over eighteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of six honorary doctorates and is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She writes full-time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.

Posted in Random Things Tours

Upstairs at The Beresford by Will Carver

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“The entrance to Hotel Beresford is art deco. Strict lines, geometry and arches showing cubist influence. The monochrome carpet screams elegance as it leads towards the desk that stretches the length of one wall, marble with chrome embellishments. Or, at least, it once looked that way. Back when writers and poets and dignitaries roamed the hallways and foyer. It still feels lavish. Glamorous, even. But faded. And a little old-fashioned.”

Ever since I read The Beresford I’ve been wondering what was going on through the other entrance. The entrance merely hinted at in one of it’s scenes. If what was going on up there was more weird or dangerous than the apartments at the front, I dreaded to think! In my review for the first book I wrote about the Dakota Building in New York City, because my mind kept drifting towards it while reading. It has just the atmosphere for this particular den of iniquity, it has a brooding sense of menace or presence of evil. Yet inside it reminds me of the Chelsea Hotel, a NYC landmark where in the mid Twentieth Century writers, musicals and artists lived. Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick all inhabited the hotel in the 1960’s.

“Each floor looks the same yet somehow has its own unique landscape; it’s known for something particular. A celebrity affair. A mysterious death. A legendary party. Rumours that a serial killer crashed there between sprees. Rock stars smashing up rooms. Writers creating their masterpieces. Some is legend, much is true. All is talked about. With fondness, fascination and morbid curiosity.”

The author tells his story through a series of fascinating characters who live or work in the building. A young boy called Otis who lives on the seventh floor with his parents, who are constantly at war. Sam is an angry man who lets everyone feel his displeasure, often taking out his anger on wife Diane and son, Otis. Diane is turning tricks while Sam is at work in order to have an escape fund, often leaving Otis hanging round the building trying to avoid what’s going on. His favourite place to hang out is at their neighbours, but knows his mum would go crazy if she found out. Neighbour Danielle is a jazz singer with a voice so smokey it immediately conjures up exactly the kind of bar that would employ her. She likes to sit on her couch, under the window with one leg dangling out into the street. Along the corridor are the Zhaos, a sweet Chinese couple who also like to dangle out of their window, smoking something a little stronger than Danielle. Then, living in the penthouse on the top floor, is Mr Balliol. He owns the building and has the disconcerting ability to know everything that’s going on in the rooms he rents out and often sidles up to guests and his staff with no warning or sound. His unique staff are working on a business conference which will keep the hotel busy for a couple of days, but today is going to be an unusual day. Many different rumours swirl around the Beresford Hotel, some more fantastical and darker than others. It’s had more than it’s fair share of deaths, some accidental and some less so. Today is going to test the people who dismissed those darker rumours as impossible. Anything is possible at The Beresford Hotel.

“Peeling paint and faded hopes. Much like Carol. Carol seems to age with the building. For every strip of wallpaper that gets ripped or falls away, Carol gets another wrinkle. When the front facade gets uplifted with a new paint job or some detail on the masonry, Carol turns up with a Botoxed forehead or facelift. But not from a reputable surgeon. From somebody she saw advertising in the back of a magazine.”

Of all the characters I was absolutely transfixed by hotel manager Carol who seems like part of the building. She is that wonderful mix of unobtrusive, but yet ever present when needed, that all the best hotel employees have. No one notices the person who quietly sits in her office or on reception, but Carol has an uncanny way of knowing most things that go on in the hotel. She can probably guess at the rest, but doesn’t share Mr Balliol’s seemingly supernatural abilities. She has the world weariness of having seen it all before; most guest’s behaviour is not as unique as they would like to think. So she’s adept at covering up minor indiscretions all the way up to the accidentally dead: the husband who’s beaten his wife for years and finally gets his comeuppance, a solo sex game gone wrong or prostitutes- who end up accidentally dead more than most. Nothing much surprises Carol, even if a business conference does turn into a wild party or bacchanalian orgy. Yet behind the secret door to her inner office we see a softer Carol, perhaps the real woman beneath he hard nosed employee. It’s clear she’s suffered a loss. One guest who has spied Carol’s profile on a website has noticed this crack under the surface:

“He remembers Carol’s profile among the twenty that he settled on. He could see her former beauty, but this isn’t about going deeper than the surface, it isn’t some outreach programme. It isn’t benevolence or sensing someone’s spirit. Danny can see that Carol is broken. And he likes that. She had loved somebody so completely and then they died, and she has never recovered.”

Her soulmate and husband Jake is almost fatally injured in an accident and hasn’t come out of a coma since and as the weeks go on she begins to realise that the Jake she knew and loved was gone. His body was here, but not his mind, and the more time that passes the more it dawns on her that he is going to need help with his most basic human functions – he will have to be fed and piss into a bag for the rest of his life, if it can be called that. In desperation she calls on God, she will do anything if it will save the man she loves. God doesn’t answer. Yet bargaining is her only hope and if God won’t answer ……

Will Carver is one of the most unique writers I’ve ever read and this latest novel is no exception. He understands human nature. Not that all of us are checking into hotels and choking the life out of prostitutes, but he gets the smallest most innocuous and innocent thoughts as well as the darker side of our nature. His narrative voice is conspiratorial, it lets us into every corner of the hotel and also gives us curious little asides about the world we live in. Many of the speeches are recognisable as things we’ve thought and said about the absurdities and horrors of our world.

I loved his insight into writing through the character of I.P. Wyatt who also lives on the seventh floor and is struggling with that difficult second novel after a very successful first. His words are probably self-reflexive – where an author writes their own experience of writing the novel into their novel – although I do hope Carver isn’t applying Wyatt’s method.

“Some days he writes without breathing for hours, others he spits four perfectly formed words onto the page. And each evening, he deletes everything. He can’t stay in love with his words. He had it so perfect. Anything less than that and he will be chewed up by the press and readers and strangers online who just want to vomit vitriol with no personal consequence. Even if he can replicate the quality of that last book, it won’t be that book, that surprise success. And too much time has passed now. It will never live up to the hype. He should have just churned something out quickly. Something that could be torn apart that he wouldn’t care about.”

Carver has taken the age old tale of the Faustian pact and brought it up to date, into the 21st Century where despite all the advances in science and technology there are still terrible events we can’t control. As we all know, especially if we’ve watched Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s film Bedazzled, making that sort of bargain or deal rarely benefits the desperate petitioner. The brilliance of Carver is that when we think we’ve worked out what’s going on, just like the twelve elite businessmen at their conference find out, a whole new level opens up before us. This is a daring novel, with a deep vein of human emotion at the centre. Yet it’s also playful, thrilling and dangerously dark indeed. If you’re not convinced by me then I’ll let Carver persuade you in his own words.

“When you watch a television soap opera, things are hyperreal. It’s unfathomable to have that many murderers and fraudsters and adulterers living on one street as part of one of three largely incestuous families. Life isn’t like that. Things don’t happen in that way. Hotel Beresford makes television soap operas look like a four-hour Scandinavian documentary about certified tax accountancy.”

Published 9th November 2023 by Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by four standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door and Suicide Thursday. Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his children.

THE BERESFORD is currently in development for TV.

If you would like to get in contact, I can usually be found on TWITTER/X @will_carver but who knows how long that will last..?

You could always check out my website where you can join the MAILING LIST to stay updated with deals and competitions and which EVENTS I will be attending throughout the year. (There are also many hidden easter eggs within the site, just as there are in my books. Feel free to click around and see what you find.)

Recently, I have also become a podcaster and present the LET’S GET LIT podcast with fellow writer SJ Watson, where we discuss books and writing each week while sharing a drink. (Find us wherever you get your podcasts from.)

Oh, and just in case TWITTER implodes, I can also be found here…

FACEBOOK – @WillCarverAuthor

INSTAGRAM/THREADS – @will_carver

BLUE SKY – @willcarver