Crime – Page 9 – The Lotus Readers

Maud Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook.

Posted on 4th Feb 20245th Feb 2024 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.

Squad Pod

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Posted on 30th Jan 202429th Jan 2024 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.

Netgalley

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Posted on 19th Jan 202414th Jan 2024 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.

Random Things Tours

Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald

Posted on 2nd Jan 202431st Dec 2023 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.

Squad Pod Collective

Silent Waters by L.V.Mathews

Posted on 1st Jan 20246th Jan 2024 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

Squad Pod

Past Lying by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie Series.

Posted on 18th Nov 202318th Nov 2023 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.

Random Things Tours

Upstairs at The Beresford by Will Carver

Posted on 9th Nov 20239th Nov 2023 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

Publisher Proof

Bone Rites by Natalie Bailey

Posted on 26th Oct 202326th Oct 2023 by thelotusreaders

“I collected the first bone when I was twelve… Such a tiny little bone, more like a tooth. I only kept it to keep him safe.” Kathryn Darkling, imprisoned in Holloway, is facing death by hanging for her vengeance killing. Haunted by a spirit, she still hopes to perform the ancient black magic that will free her soul, or her struggle to punish the mighty will have been in vain. Will the love of her life come to her aid? Or can she find a way to escape her fate?

Bone Rites is a dual timeline story, split between the early 1900s and 1925 when Kathryn Darkling is in Holloway, the women’s prison, where she awaits the date of her own execution, by hanging. While waiting Kathryn starts to tell her story to a priest, assigned to hear her final words and offer solace as she awaits death. She begins with the first time she found a bone and performed a rite, then works her way through to her training as a doctor in Edinburgh. All the while she is developing her practice of performing bone rites, a black magic focused on freeing her soul. As she tells the stories of her bones, I started to wonder about her version of events. Clearly she’s an incredibly intelligent and determined woman and I admired that, but should I be taking the owned of a convicted murderer? Is she a reliable narrator? She seems to be slipping into madness as the tale goes, but does that mean everything she’s telling us is a lie? The thing I most enjoyed was getting inside Kathryn’s head and trying to work out what makes her tick, rather like holding a counselling session with this imaginary character. As we drifted back into her early childhood, I became won over by this obstinate little girl who won’t be deterred from her purpose. We learn about how tough her upbringing was, alongside her little brother Freddie. I love a dark story with a sense of foreboding and I thought this was perfectly pitched for a Halloween read. It’s not a traditional ghost story but Kathryn is certainly haunted, like many of us are by our pasts. I thought the book perfectly fitted it’s timelines, one before and one after WW1 considering how much change and trauma happened in-between. I also enjoyed the LGBTQ+ representation in the novel, it’s fascinating when authors ‘write back’ to a time where minority groups are under represented. All in all this was a well- written piece of historical fiction with a rather macabre edge and an admirable heroine.

Out on Nov 1st from Aurora Metro Books

Meet the Author

Natalie Bayley is author of ‘Bone Rites’, ‘Lolita’s Daughter’, ‘The Secret Life of Grandmothers’, ‘The Witch Who Saved Paris’ and ‘The Lady Lyttle Murder Mystery’ series. Her dark thriller ‘Bone Rites’ was selected for the 2019 Blue Pencil long list, went on to be shortlisted for the 2021 Blue Pencil First Novel Award and was long listed for the 2021 Caledonia prize before becoming the Winner of the Virginia Prize for Fiction. Natalie lives in NSW, Australia and enjoys ocean swimming and whispering to cats. Born in the UK, she’s been in sunny Australia since 2000. Her books are always about justice and how a seemingly powerless underdog can always find a way to fight back. My spooky historical fiction novel, BONE RITES, won the prestigious Virginia Prize for Fiction and is being published by Aurora Metro books October 2023. Enjoy!

Squad Pod

Still Life by Val McDermid. Karen Pirie Series

Posted on 17th Oct 202314th Oct 2023 by thelotusreaders

As you all know I’m quite happy to admit so called ‘guilty pleasures’ and glaring omissions from my library. You also know I like nothing better than discovering someone I haven’t read before, who has along back catalogue to enjoy. I am absolutely thrilled that the Squad Pod chose Val McDermid for our October book club. This is probably sacrilegious in crime reading circles, but I haven’t read a single book by the Queen of Tartan Noir. She is definitely deserving of the title and after reading Still Life I’ve purchased all the Karen Pirie series so I can read from the beginning and start my Val McDermid journey. Next month we have her new novel in the series Past Lying so my October is going to be pretty much dedicated to her.

Our story is a complicated combination of current and historic case that Pirie is set to investigate from the Historic Cases Unit. A trawler pulls a body from the Firth, eventually identified as a man called James Auld. His brother, Iain Auld, worked in the Scottish Office in Westminster and also disappeared, ten years ago. Even more odd, James had been living as Paul Allard and working in a jazz band in Paris. Two other events come up when researching the two men. Firstly, the paintings chosen from the National Collection for the Scottish Office, were found to be barely passable fakes when the government changed. Secondly, when a fire that destroyed an art gallery in Brighton appears in the press, a photograph seemed to show Iain Auld. An old school friend swears it was Iain, but he was already declared dead by this point. DCI Pirie’s starting point will have to be Iain’s widow Mary, who lives alone and has stayed in touch with brother-in-law James ever since Iain disappeared. Their second case seems less urgent and regards historic remains found in the camper van in the garage of an empty house. The van might have belonged to a young silversmith called Dani, a free spirited and bohemian girl in a relationship with a slightly older accountant called Andrea. Could this body be one of those women?

Both cases were intriguing and grabbed the attention. The story that emerges from their investigation into the camper van skeleton is one of opposites attracting. Opposites can attract, but can they co-exist over time? Dani was clearly the more bohemian of the pair and a bit younger too. She wanted to travel, design her jewellery and perhaps gain inspiration from staying at an artist’s commune. Andrea was more conservative, happy to stay in the same home and go to the same job. Andrea’s parents are abroad, could she have killed her partner and left the country? However, when they visit Dani’s father his first reaction is to ask what his daughter has done this time? So the weight of suspicion falls on her. Then they find a lead, a possible art collective where Dani is mentioned, over near Manchester. Karen sends her sergeant Jason to check things out, putting him in terrible danger. The visit quickly goes from being slightly comical (an elderly person’s painting class) to absolutely filled with tension and deadly. The case of the Auld brothers had so many facets to it and opened up the characters for me. It covered the issue of finding yourself in love with someone of the same sex after years of being heterosexual. The art and political elements were so interesting too. The criticism of the old Lib/Con coalition and the way Westminster works in general was something that chimed with my own views. The musing on Scottish independence and the way Scottish people feel about England really did interest me, but it also firmly sets a character in their place and time.

These subjects showed the reader how forthright and decisive Karen is, something we see in her professional life too – sometimes to her detriment. She had so many sneaky ways around her boss, known as the ‘Dog Biscuit’ thanks to her surname being the same as a brand of dog treats. It might not always be appreciated by her superiors but she does it to get results, out of a desire to help those affected by the crime and also because she has a disgust for unwanted bureaucracy and procedures. When she needs a European arrest warrant she goes direct to a contact who can organise it immediately, not through the boss. Often though, these short cuts do get the job done. She knows it pisses the boss off, but she’s willing to take the flak and smooth it over later. She’s a maverick whose not afraid to take a risk or spend money if it brings results for the victims of crime. I found her intelligent, determined, rebellious and competitive. She would probably drive me crazy in reality, but as a character I loved her. I also loved the way she’s trying to cope with ongoing grief for her partner Phil, while starting a new relationship with Hamish. I’ve been there so I understand the conflicting emotions, the guilt and the desire to move forward. This was so well written. She’s asserting her boundaries and trying not to jump in with both feet? There’s something she’s uncomfortable with about the relationship, but she talks herself round to the positives. Hamish’s business and the Croft in the Highlands keeps him busy and sometimes absent which I think suits her. It gives a distance to the relationship that she needs for now.

Her dogged determination and that of her team can lead to taking risks, but they don’t hesitate. Karen gives Jason his own tasks showing trust and confidence in him. She keeps her borrowed recruit Daisy close to her, they’re very different but there’s definitely an attention to detail in Daisy that echoes Karen’s. She instils in both of them her philosophy that just because it’s a cold case doesn’t mean they do half a job, or a slow one. She holds these mispers and victims of crime in high regard and expects the same from her team. As the COVID pandemic starts to move across the world there’s a further sense of urgency to their work. While the case of the body in the camper van starts to resolve, the Auld brothers case takes many unexpected turns. As the trail moves over to Ireland, using the art world to unravel some clues, it was great to see that Karen is happy to get her hands dirty and isn’t the sort of boss who hands that stuff to her juniors. Here she’s sitting in vegetation, watching a house for suspects and deftly deploying a tracker. She’s just as deft when walking into a small gallery and questioning an art dealer. Whatever it takes to uncover the next steps. When talking about her cold cases, Karen articulates something that crime readers often feel. She knows there’s an explanation that solves all these clues and exposes a pattern, but she just can’t see it yet. You have to let it wash over you, read more and hope that all will become clear. The difficulties solving this one kept me reading and kept me thinking about the case when I was doing other things. As COVID worsens and starts to lock down the country, decisions have to be made about how the team work and live. Karen makes a choice I didn’t see coming and I would be interested to read how it works out moving forward. This was one of the best crime novels I’ve ever read, with a fascinating central character that I can’t wait to read more about.

Meet the Author

Personal Purchase

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith

Posted on 15th Oct 202314th Oct 2023 by thelotusreaders

I wouldn’t have imagined back at the beginning, that we would get this many books down the line with private investigators Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. In fact after the last book I thought the author had hit a wall with ideas or was trying to hard to be up to the minute with technology and new trends. I was pleased to find that this was a much better investigation. Full of tension and very dark in tone, this book delves into a church that’s really a cult, every bit as huge and secretive as Scientology. This is a tale of abuse: financial, physical, sexual and spiritual. In parts it is hard to read but compelling and fascinating to see how it’s teaching affect the people who follow it, but also our investigative duo. Sir Colin Edensor approaches Strike to try and bring his son home from the United Humanitarian Church’s compound in Norfolk. Chapman Farm claims to be self-sufficient, growing fields of vegetables and keeping animals, as well as undertaking evangelical work on the streets of Norwich. Sir Colin’s son Will has been part of the UHC for several years and would seem completely indoctrinated. He’s failed to get him out before, but desperately wants him home to see his mother who is dying of cancer. How will Strike and Robin go about their task?

The best way to discredit the church and get close to Will would be for someone to go in undercover. It would be better if that was a woman and Robin volunteers. Strike is reluctant to agree, but can’t come up with a sensible reason for that instinct, knowing his reluctance is probably down to his growing feelings for his partner. However, their other female investigator Midge is covering a famous actress who has a father and son stalker team who want to kidnap her. Robin is adamant it should be her and creates a persona called Rowena, who visits their London base for a ‘service’ with just the right clothes to suggest she has money, borrowed from Strike’s half-sister Prudence. It’s agreed that Robin will go to Chapman Farm for an induction period but they pick a place on the perimeter fence to leave a fake rock. Every Thursday Strike will leave a letter under the rock for Robin to find and she will leave a reply, if she wants to come out she can let them know and they will use blot cutters on the fence and bring her out.

As regular readers will know, Strike and Robin are one of my favourite literary couples, but I’ve been wondering during the last two novels how long she can keep them apart? There’s also a trend for putting Robin in danger to evoke feelings in her partner. Here I was genuinely worried for Robin before she even went into the farm. I could understand her wanting to assert her ability to go undercover and her authority as partner to make the choice – it shouldn’t have to be okayed by Strike. Yet as a person Robin has certain life experiences that a church like this could see as weaknesses to exploit: the rape she suffered at university, the knife attack on her first case that left her with PTSD, there’s also the fall out from her marriage to Matthew and her undisclosed feelings for Strike. These chinks in her armour will be seen by people used to exploiting others. I think there are times when asserting your authority and taking a feminist stance are admirable, but not at the expense of your own safety. ‘Rowena’ is noticed straight away by recruiters at the London temple and after a few attendances, Rowena is taken to Chapman Farm and starts at the bottom of the pile, working in the fields and mucking out the animals. In between there are services or talks about the church’s purpose, bombarding new recruits with images of everything that’s wrong in the world until their current place seems like one of safety. Then a process of breaking recruits down begins – lack of sleep, restricted food or fasting, manual labour and strange interventions and group therapy where the individual is broken down mentally. All of this starts to have a detrimental effect on Robin, but the most disturbing practices are around familial relationships. Children are taken to a dormitory and school so they are no longer a family unit but belong to everyone. Family groupings outside the UHC are rubbished as false attachments that should be broken immediately. Then there’s the spirit bonding. On the farm there are pods called ‘retreat rooms’ there expressly for the purpose of when someone approaches you and asks for sex. Emotional bonding is not the norm, sex is just another form of service, given freely with no ties. What will Robin do if approached?

There were times when I found myself a bit lost on who was who because the cult has so many members and their relationships are complex. There are also complications about the names they have for themselves. I think the author could have achieved the same effects and build up of tension within the farm with less characters and a shorter process of indoctrination. I also felt that Robin would have struggled to come out more than she did. The PTSD seemed mild considering what she’s seen and heard. The experience of looking after a disabled child who isn’t receiving the medical care he should was horrifying and was the main experience she struggled to shake off. The neglect was terrible and Robin desperate wanted him found by the police. However, she was cornered in the retreat room by a naked Will Edensor and was sexually assaulted by the church leader, but once she’s out it’s never mentioned and she doesn’t even tell Strike or Detective Murphy, her boyfriend. I wondered if this might be revisited in the future but it did seem odd to leave it hanging. I also started to be confused by the ex members that Strike was interviewing and where they’d fit into the hierarchy. There was so much detail surrounding the doctrine of the cult and it’s different prophets that I felt the other cases disappeared into the background. In fact one case seemed to be there only to serve as a distraction for Strike at a strategic point. Nevertheless, the tension built as Strike started to unravel the truth and Robin was still inside.

All that being said this was a much better novel than the last in the series. I was totally engrossed in it by half way through and barely surfaced till the end. Of course there is the question of Robin and Strike’s relationship. Ex-girlfriend Charlotte comes to the fore again, trying to lure him back in with an unforgivable lie. I was hoping he would see the manipulation, especially since he’s on his own and can’t run anything past his best friend. He’s wrestling with risking all that he’s built in terms of his business and their friendship if he tells Robin that Charlotte has been right all along, he does love her. Can he find the courage to tell her?

Meet the Author

Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series is classic contemporary crime fiction from a master story-teller, rich in plot, characterisation and detail. Galbraith’s debut into crime fiction garnered acclaim amongst critics and crime fans alike. The first three novels The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014) and Career of Evil (2015) all topped the national and international bestseller lists and have been adapted for television, produced by Brontë Film and Television. The fourth in the series, Lethal White (2018), is out now.

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym of J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults. After Harry Potter, the author chose crime fiction for her next books, a genre she has always loved as a reader. She wanted to write a contemporary whodunit, with a credible back story.

J.K. Rowling’s original intention for writing as Robert Galbraith was for the books to be judged on their own merit, and to establish Galbraith as a well-regarded name in crime in its own right.

Now Robert Galbraith’s true identity is widely known, J.K. Rowling continues to write the crime series under the Galbraith pseudonym to keep the distinction from her other writing and so people will know what to expect from a Cormoran Strike novel.