I came late to Janice Hallett with her novel The Alperton Angels so it’s taken a hiatus from blog tours to finally catch up with her debut novel The Appeal. If you’ve been wondering whether it lives up to the hype? It definitely does. We’re taken to the world of the Fairway Player, an am dram group in an affluent village. It’s time for the players to put on a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and the usual suspects are readying themselves for auditions. Two events will affect the run: founder members Martin and Helen Hayward find out their granddaughter Poppy has a brain tumour and a new couple move into the village. Sam and Kel Greenwood are nurses and have completed years of aid work in Africa. As fundraising begins for Poppy to have experimental treatment in the USA everyone in the friendship group commits themselves to helping. All except one villager, who is suspicious and starts to make enquiries about the Hayward family. Someone within the players loses their life and another is already in prison on remand. QC Roderick Turner assigns law students Charlotte and Femi to the case. As they review the evidence they start to wonder if the right person is in prison and if even darker secrets lurk beneath?
The first thing that’s different about this book is the structure. We’re told the story through the WhatsApp messages of Femi and Charlotte as they review the evidence in the form of texts, emails, letters and other documents. At first it’s a bit disorienting because there are so many characters and it’s hard to remember how they’re all related. Luckily there’s a good glossary of characters and they do simply ‘click’ after a while. It’s a bit like dropping into a conversation half way through but Femi and Charlotte act as a pit stop where the case so far is reviewed and the relationships clarified. There are two main strands to the story and they concern the alpha family, the rich and established Haywards and new recruits the Greenwoods. The Haywards own The Grange, a venue for events and health treatments and their family home. Sam and Kel are the latest Fairway recruits, championed by Isabel Beck who they know from work and is a rather lowly member of the group. They are an unknown quantity and could easily upset the dynamic, especially since they’ve been used to a very different and dangerous environment.
Isabel felt to me like the character who holds everything together. Not only does she link old and new residents, she is the most prolific email and text writer. While her output suggests she is a very popular resident who’s at the centre of everything that happens in the village, there doesn’t seem to be much correspondence the other way. In fact other residents ignore Isabel, bitch about her behind her back or are directly snappish and rude. She’s fascinating because the relationships you’d expect her to have from her constant communication don’t seem to exist. She pays court to Sam Greenwood who works alongside her on the geriatric ward, but there’s no real evidence that they’re friends. She feels like a child in the playground that no one wants to play with. She’s on the periphery of groups, desperately laughing at their jokes and joining their events, but is never the focus of their interest. She doesn’t seem to have a solid sense of who she is, bending to the whims of whoever she’s with desperately wanting to be liked. It’s painful to read about her planning to do things with people who have no intention of doing them – she mentions her and Sam going out to Africa but theres no correspondence to show this was ever a shared plan. She reads like a borderline personality and while I felt sorry for her she also made my skin crawl a little. She’s desperate for any sort of attention and people who are desperate do desperate things. I was also a little suspicious of Poppy’s oncologist, especially when a potential donor turns up who’s happy to give 100k to the appeal but wants assurances, such as the actual supplier of the drugs? Also he doesn’t understand why he’s paying the doctor in the UK when the treatment is in the US. The doctor’s replies are vague and I wondered who was trying to benefit – the doctor, the Haywards?
Just as we settle into the community the author throws in a new variable, such as Kel and Sam’s friend who’s arrived on a break from his own work in Africa. He creates a disturbance at the yoga fundraiser giving Poppy an African doll that he claims has curative properties. He seems drunk and is possibly a drug user too. Could he have committed the murder? We really don’t know who the murderer is, even if we can work out a few of the reasons why. The most fascinating part to me is the psychological make-up of the characters and the dynamics between them. Aside from Isabel’s potential personality disorder, there’s the Greenwood’s PTSD from their aid work and the sad fact that the Haywards lost a child years before. The dynamics are clever with Alpha family The Haywards at the centre of the community, backed up by those who police the community and make their ideas happen. A new couple changes and disrupts the group dynamics where existing people know their place and dutifully follow the group rules. Then there’s those who think they’re in the community, but aren’t. Once you’ve started this novel you won’t be able to put it down. Im laid up in bed or the couch at the moment, so I read this straight through and loved every minute.
Out Now from Viper Books
Meet the Author
Janice Hallett is the author of five best-selling novels. Her debut, The Appeal, was awarded the CWA Debut Dagger of 2021 and was a Sunday Times’ Bestseller, Waterstones’ Thriller of the Month and Sunday Times’ Crime Book of the Month. Her second novel The Twyford Code was named Crime & Thriller Book of the Year in the British Book Awards 2023. It was also a Sunday Times’ Bestseller and a Financial Times book of the year. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch in January 2023 and a Richard & Judy Book Club pick.
The Christmas Appeal, a fast, fun and festive novella, was launched in October 2023. It was a Times and Sunday Times bestseller.
Her latest novel The Examiner, was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch and is out now.
Her first novel for children aged 8-12 is A Box Full of Murders, out in June 2025.
Janice is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. As a playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and co-wrote the feature film Retreat.
For the last four years I’ve been choosing my favourite books of the according to the year – Top 23 of 2023. I realised that would have to stop, otherwise I’d be doing my top 30 in a few years and that would be ridiculous. So I’ve limited myself to 20 and it’s been so hard. I’ve had to be ruthless. I enjoyed every one of these books, despite their different genres, because of the psychological elements: anxiety about the state of the world; relationship dynamics; becoming radicalised; events from the past marring the future; what makes someone kill; growing up with loss. Also, as you’d perhaps expect considering everything we have to worry about in today’s world, there are allusions to climate change, anti -vaxxers, pandemics, war, misogyny and violence against women, the wellbeing industry and psychological problems. There’s so much to wrap your reading brain around here so I’m going to whet your appetite…
This Squad Pod read from early 2024 kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. It was like a breath of fresh air. Cole is a great husband to wife Melanie, in fact he would definitely say he’s one of the good guys. So when his marriage ends he can’t understand what he’s done wrong. In the aftermath he moves to an isolated coastal area and meets artist Lennie who lives in the cottage on the cliff. Soon they’re tentatively embarking on a relationship, but when two activists go missing during their coastal walk to publicise violence against women it disrupts everything and the police are starting to ask questions. The twists in this book are brilliantly executed and totally unexpected. It’s daringly different and left me so much to think about.
Charity Norman always leaves us with a lot to think about, but this latest novel was particularly thought provoking. Scott and Livia have two children and are always on call to help Scott’s brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. It’s Scott’s inability to help his brother one Saturday morning followed by his sudden death that starts a downward spiral. One careless comment about his brother’s care sets Scott on a search for answers, branching into medical conspiracy theories and the dark web. So when son Noah falls ill, Scott has an online community ready to feed into his distrust and his grip on reality starts to slide, dragging his family with him. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Livia can’t support or even understand her husband’s perspective. In fact he’s become a danger to his children and she must protect them, whatever it takes. This is a brilliantly drawn study of how social media can lead to obsession and allow sinister, unscrupulous people to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. It’s also a painfully accurate depiction of marriage breakdown and a perfect book club choice.
This was another book where marriage breakdown is depicted in painstaking detail. It reads like a thriller where different perspectives and revelations constantly change our perceptions of a situation. It’s like a whodunnit, except the death we’re mourning is the death of a relationship. Bea and Niklas have been together for thirty years and live a comfortable life in Stockholm with their children. Yet one night, after what feels like a trivial argument Niklas walks out and doesn’t come home. Weeks pass where Niklas takes a break and Bea is constantly pushing for answers, but when he returns to their flat he stuns Bea by asking for a divorce. For Bea this has come completely out of the, but is it as unexpected as she claims? Bea narrates the first half of this novel and halfway through the narrative returns to the beginning and Niklas tells us his version of events, which is very illuminating and may change the readers mind about their marriage. This is a simple device that works to devastating effect. I felt genuinely sad for this couple, because neither of them are bad people. It explores boundaries and the unhealthy reasons people can end up together. It’s also a response to grief, beautifully played out over decades. Utterly brilliant.
This is the fifth instalment of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodysson series and it was an absolute cracker. Tuva is investigating further north from Gavrik to an even more isolated town on the edge of the arctic circle. Essleburg is a town where everyone knows everyone else and there’s only one way in or out. A huge tunnel under a mountain provides access to the town, but closes down at night. Once you’re in, you’re in for the night and so is everyone else. From her hotel room at the sun-bed store Tuva sets out to look for a missing teenage boy, drawn by the fact that he is also deaf. But when bodies are found Tuva must face facts, the boy could be one of the victim and if not, could he be the killer? With it’s usual quirky characters and alien landscape, Tuva’s world is as isolating as it is disorienting. As usual Will Dean knows when to ratchet up the tension and when Tuva is in danger it’s absolutely heart-racing stuff.
As all of you know I’m a massive Skelf fan and this addition to the series was brilliant. Every Skelf novel begins with a funeral and they rarely go off without a hitch. This one is no exception, with a drone buzzing the ceremony and it’s guests. Could it be to do with the deceased or has someone got it in for the Skelf women? Jenny’s case follows on from the last book and the cops they investigated for sexually abusing young girls in the travelling community. Both are inexplicably out on bail and Jenny likes to know where they are at all times. Daughter Hannah’s case concerns Brodie the new recruit to the undertaking business. Brodie finds strange scrabbled marks around his baby son’s grave and Hannah sets up a camera, but when told that Brodie hears voices she wonders if he might have gone to the grave and acted subconsciously. Dorothy’s case comes from her involvement with a community choir that includes some Ukrainian war widows. One of the women, Yanna, has gone missing. Her husband Fedir was killed over a year ago and now she’s left her two small children with her mother-in-law. Could she have returned to Ukraine to fight, or has something happened to her? Each of the Skelf women feel vulnerable this time and I felt like the author was playing on my emotions a little. I could sense we were on the verge of a huge change and it left me on tenterhooks throughout.
I absolutely loved this book. From the very first line – ‘there is someone in the house’ – this book grabs you and never lets go. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her? The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique the narrator’s unique voice. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – the heart-stopping tension of that first night with it’s immediate threat renders everything else unimportant. I should trust what she is experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: one is harsh and angry the other is soft, wheedling – a voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. Her little girl identifies him as ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares. Often sitting in the corner of her bedroom at night whispering to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? Yet I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions. The author plays with the reader beautifully from start to finish.
Surprisingly this was my first Peter May novel and is a sequel to his crime novels set in the Hebrides. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis by family, when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. When it emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior he becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. He must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He must also, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as they started to expand on the island and become a multi-million pound industry. This is Finn’s journey, of family ties, secret relationships and the bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and old loyalties converge.
Frances McGrath is your typical All American teenage girl, living with her family on Coronado Beach, California. She has memories of growing up on that beach, swimming and surfing with her brother Finley. She is from a good family and expectations are that she will have the ‘right’ marriage and become a mother. However, things change when Finley makes a huge decision; he decides to enlist for Vietnam. It’s no surprise that he might go into military service at some point. Frankie’s dad has a wall in his office called the ‘Hero’s Wall’ where every family member’s military service is celebrated with cuttings, photos and medals. All the men, anyway. Yet not many of their friends and family members have sons who’ve voluntarily enlisted for Vietnam. There are ways of avoiding the draft, depending on who you know. Yet Finley enlists of his own accord, possibly believing the American government’s assertions that they must fight communism in Vietnam, lest it become even more widespread. Within weeks there’s a knock at the door; Finley has been killed in action. In a whirlwind of grief Frankie starts looking into her options. She wants to honour her brother and become a hero worthy of her father’s wall. Both the Air Force and Navy need a nurse to complete a long period of training before they’re posted to work in the field. However, if she enlists in the US Army, they’ll post her out to Vietnam after basic nursing training. Much to her parent’s shock Frankie is soon on her way to Vietnam. This is an incredible story about the horrors of war, falling in love and giving voice to the women forgotten in military history.
There have been some incredible historical novels this year, but I really was blown away by this story set just after WW1 and progressing to the mid-twentieth century. Two German sisters, Leni and Annette, live in Berlin and when we first meet them they’re in dire straits, living in a makeshift shelter in an abandoned garden. Thanks to war and the influenza epidemic they’ve lost their family. Leni gets a chance to earn some money at a notorious and rather seedy cabaret club called Babylon Circus. The naive and rather shy Leni becomes a cigarette girl in a second hand and pinned costume that just covers her modesty, but she is at first shocked by what she sees. With shades of the musical Cabaret the author creates a club that is a mirage of clever lighting, fairground mirrors and risqué musical numbers. It’s enchanting by dark and unwelcoming by day, but it doesn’t matter because this is the type of fun that can only be had at night. Everything is overseen by owner Dieter, a man with his own disguise having left half his face on a battlefield. When pianist Paul arrives, he and Leni start to gravitate towards each other. But Paul has a plan to leave Berlin and he would like to take Leni with him. We then move forward to the Cold War and a divided Berlin, where Annette has travelled from America to visit her sister and niece. The tensions and secrets of the Babylon Circus years still hang over the sisters, can they come to terms with the choices they made back then? Can Leni find a second chance of happiness? The author depicts her characters and the time period perfectly, with so much atmosphere. It’s an absolute must read.
Another amazing story set in Berlin is Josie Ferguson’s The Silence In Between. Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child…
Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine. When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and her world – in two. Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother, but perhaps she can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home. The author takes us effortlessly back and forth in time to understand this family and my heart kept breaking for them over and over for. While I struggled to read it at first, I’m so happy that I went back to it because it was breathtaking. It was as if someone had bottled both moments in time and simply poured them onto the page, raw and confronting. This is an absolute must read for historical fiction fans and a book I will definitely go back to in the future.
Thanks for reading part one. Part 2 is coming tomorrow.
Fin and his wife Martha are travelling in South America. Their eventual destination are the salt flats in Bolivia, an other worldly natural phenomenon where the horizon becomes endless and you’re standing in the sky. Martha and Fin are not just sight-seeing, although the urge to take photographs and capture the illusion is strong. Having been together for 11 years, lately they’ve struggled as Martha has been in the grip of an obsessive anxiety over the climate crisis. They are booked into a retreat on the salt flats, found by Martha and extortionately expensive, it promises a transcendent experience using salt to purify mind and body. So the couple find themselves crammed into a pick-up truck alongside Rick and Barb, a middle aged and out of shape American couple, and partners Hannah and Zoe. They are now in the hands of their driver who doesn’t speak a word of English and an elusive shaman called Oscar. They will spend the next few days meditating, relaxing in warm salt pools and participating in a series of salt ceremonies where hallucinogenic visions bring them face o face with their subconscious reality. Yet the final ceremony descends into chaos, Martha and Fin need to grapple with Martha’s anxiety and the moral implications of their trip. As for their marriage, could this nightmare bring them together or are some wounds too deep to heal?
I’ve been fascinated with the salt flats after seeing them on an episode of World’s Most Dangerous Roads. It was incredible to see the sky reflected in the shallow saltwater surface, giving the impression of standing in the sky. It’s an image recently repeated on Race Across the World and even on a small screen it’s an incredible landscape. The author recreates that otherworldly and alien environment so well, creating an atmosphere of dislocation from the normal world even before any hallucinogens. It struck me as an odd place for a spa or well-being centre, something I always imagine as comfortable and with lush surroundings. This landscape is hard and barren. It left me dubious about the benefits of such a place and how professional it would be. As they’re collected by a taciturn driver I half expected him to rob them and leave them in the middle of nowhere. When they break down en route it doesn’t help, giving an impression of something run on a shoestring in a very inhospitable place. The building is much less luxurious than the group imagined, considering the high price they’ve paid to be there. It’s an igloo type structure built from blocks of salt. Even the beds in the dormitory have salt bases and the group are less than impressed to be sleeping in the same room. Each of the group have personal reasons to be there and the first salt ritual brings up themes of infidelity, assault and intrusive negative thoughts about the future. By confronting these issues, Oscar tells them they can process the trauma and move on. Trust has to build very quickly between the group who are letting each other into their personal spaces, both physical and mental. They’re baring their souls to each other. It’s clear that none of them will come out of this experience unchanged. Whether that’s a negative or positive change is hard to say. When Fin wakes up with a blooded face he is completely confused about how he got there. He knows he interacted with Zoe and that Barb had an accident, but the rest is fluffy and unclear. Where is the blood from and what horrors has he blacked out from his memory.
I didn’t bond with all of the characters but I was definitely intrigued by them. I could understand why all of them needed change in their lives. It was easy to understand Martha’s concerns about the direction the world is taking. Although her preoccupations are with climate change, Brexit, Covid and wars breaking out across the world have left me with anxieties about the future, especially for the younger members of our family. It only takes a few swipes of the iPad to see how climate is changing the lives of those in low lying countries. However, that proximity to information can radicalise people as the most extreme viewpoints shout loudest online and I felt this had happened to Martha. Finn couldn’t keep living with constant anxiety about the future and needed Martha to meet him in the present every so often. The author’s depiction of their relationship felt very real, showing how people in long term relationship can change over time. Sometimes out takes a conscious choice to re-commit to that person or a bit of compromise that reminds why you committed to each other in the first place. Agreeing to the salt spa was Finn’s act of commitment, to show that he can give Martha a little of what she needs in the hope it will be enough. However, he ruins that a little with his scepticism and his shock at how spartan the spa is for the money spent. As horrors start to unfold will he blame Martha or will everything they’ve experienced bring them closer together? That’s if they both get out alive. The monumental stupidity of allowing themselves to be taken into the middle of nowhere at the mercy of people who don’t speak their language and have taken a huge chunk of their savings, starts to sink in. As things start to unravel you won’t be able to put this fascinating debut down.
Out Now from Hodder and Stoughton
Meet the Author
Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter based in Glasgow. Her debut novel The Pharmacist was published by Hodder & Stoughton in May 2022.
The Government have declared a state of emergency in this tense and thought provoking thriller from Louise Swanson. They’re introducing a temporary policy of electricity rationing, so at 8pm every night the lights and all other electrical power will turn off. For Grace this is her worst nightmare, because she’s terrified of the dark and no reassurance or safety measure from her husband is going to change that. She knows that at some point she will be forced to face the dark alone. An experience of being enclosed in the dark as a child has left it’s mark. All she can do is take as many night shifts at the hospital as possible, where they’re exempt from the switch off. In the house she will have to carry a torch and try to be alone as little as possible. When the switch off comes it’s effects are worse than she could possibly have imagined. Someone is coming into her home. Late at night when she’s shivering under the covers, too scared to move. Someone is leaving behind strange gifts – a third goldfish is swimming beside Brad and Jennifer in the bowl, a horrible painting of a dragon has replaced her own photo on the stairs, a pair of candlesticks in the kitchen. With them he leaves a strange and unsettling note:
‘I have you in my sights. Love, the Night.’
Where can Grace feel safe if not in her own home? She’s an interesting character, clearly badly affected by childhood trauma and the memories of her previous, abusive relationship. The author opens with a first person account of being locked in a small pitch black space, it’s so vivid I could feel her fear. Grace tells us she was locked in a cupboard by the other children at school, where they continue taunting her until she wets herself. Since then she has always kept the lights on after dark and her partner sleeps in an eye mask to avoid the constant light. She also works at night where she can and sleeps in the day at home. She works as a carer in the hospice, spending a lot of time sitting beside those who are close to death, once her other tasks are completed. She didn’t go to university because she had a baby boy while very young and he has recently left home to live with his partner. Grace moved in with her own boyfriend and he has promised to be home in time for first big switch off. However, when she’s counting down the minutes, torch in hand, her partner is nowhere to be seen.
The author shows brilliantly how even a strong and capable woman can be triggered by something that others barely notice. She touches on how the lights out policy affects the wider population – hypothermia in the elderly, rotting food defrosting and causing waste, a rise in crime. For others the lack of power has some positives, people can’t hide or be distracted by screens and communication within families will improve. Grace has been a single mum and she works well with people who are dying, so we know she isn’t scared of the big stuff. So why has one experience from childhood left such a huge impression? Her mother had always hoped she’d grow out of it and now the twelve hours of darkness must surely mean she must face the fear? It’s like state sponsored exposure therapy. Then ‘the night’ starts visiting and suddenly the dark covers up worse fears, new ones that are very real indeed. Even worse, her night visitor isn’t breaking in, so surely they must have a key. She is unsure how to deal with it and ringing the police is pointless when they’re dealing with a darkness induced crime wave.
In between Grace’s sections of the story we meet a man who is in therapy. He left me feeling very on edge and I found myself wondering how I’d react if he were my client. He seems very unaware how counselling works, despite it being a fairly common concept these days. He also responds strangely to the therapist’s standard introduction. He fidgets, stands and paces round the room and I was uneasy on the therapist’s behalf. He seemed agitated. He’s convinced that his girlfriend is seeing another man. Is he paranoid? We have no idea how he fits into the story, but I was intrigued by him. Grace’s world becomes even more confusing when someone from her past turns up at the hospice as a patient. She knows she should disclose their connection, but if she does she knows she won’t be able to work with them. She decides to keep it to herself so she can sit with them. What clues, if any, might they have about her childhood and could what they know help her fear of the dark? As the pages turned I became more and more suspicious of her partner. Never home when he says he will be, distracted and very unsympathetic. I didn’t like him from the start and wondered if he was exercising coercive control over her. The moments when she’s under the covers with her heart racing as she hears her intruder moving around downstairs are truly terrifying. Yet he doesn’t seem malicious. He seemed to enjoy her fear and I even wondered if the night was closer to home than she thought. The truth was even stranger than expected and I found myself rooting for Grace, wanting her to get some resolution about her night visitor but also more long term relief from her phobia. That could only come from openness and facing the truth of her childhood and that time in the pitch dark cupboard. This is an enjoyable thriller with interesting insights on how childhood trauma affects us and how early relationships can inform the attachments we form in later life.
Out Now from Hodder and Stoughton
Meet the Author
Louise Swanson’s debut, End of Story, was written during the final lockdown of 2020 – also following a family tragedy, it offered refuge in the fiction she created. The themes of the book – grief, isolation, love of the arts, the power of storytelling – came from a very real place. The second Swanson book will arrive in hardback and eBook spring 2024. Watch this space.
Swanson, a mother of two who lives in East Yorkshire with her husband, regularly blogs, talks at events, and is a huge advocate of openly discussing mental health and suicide.
She also writes as Louise Beech. Beech’s nine books have won the Best magazine Book of the Year 2019, shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Polari Prize, and been a Clare Mackintosh Book Club Pick. Her memoir, Daffodils, was released in audiobook in 2022, and the paperback version, Eighteen Seconds, in April 2023..
Set on an isolated Scottish island called Eris, where the mainland is only accessible at high tide, an infamous artist has retreated from the world. Twenty years ago Vanessa’s notoriously unfaithful husband visited the island then went missing. After Vanessa’s death, the island became the home of local GP Grace, often referred to as Vanessa’s companion or friend. However, all her artworks were left to an art foundation set up by her first agent. The curator of the foundation is Becker, hired for his expertise in Vanessa’s work. He is under pressure from the new owner to extract the last of Vanessa’s work from Eris. They have tried polite enquiries, legal letters and ultimatums but they are sure this has all been in vain and that Grace is deliberately holding back. Now a situation has arisen with one of Vanessa’s found object installations already on display in the gallery. A visiting doctor is convinced that the bone suspended in a glass box is human. They withdraw the box from view and contemplate having to break it open to have the bone properly tested. The unspoken thought on everyone’s mind is whether this might solve the mystery of Vanessa’s missing husband? It’s an opportunity for Becker to tell Grace face to face, but also to address the missing works that must be on Eris. He feels this is the best way forward; a last ditch attempt before legal action. However, visiting Eris is not without it’s risks. Are all of it’s secrets and lies about to be uncovered.
I’ve been waiting to love a Paula Hawkins novel ever since the brilliant The Girl on the Train, which was THE novel to be reading when it first came out. It was a successful film too, even though I felt it lost something when transferred to America rather than it’s London setting. Her following novels haven’t really stayed with me in the same way, even though they were page turners. This story really did grab me. I love reading about the lives of authors and artists, because they’re always interesting characters with depth and complexity. They also usually have atmospheric settings with the sort of rambling houses I dreamed of living in when I was little. This had all three and I truly couldn’t put it down, choosing it over TV in the evening and going to be early with it too. The story was intriguing too, with the mystery of the human bone to be solved but also the missing works of art, not to mention Vanessa’s husband. Vanessa has always insisted he left the island and his wallet was found washed up near the causeway suggesting his leaving was ill-timed and the tide came in as he was crossing. Becker is torn. He knows that they must test the bone, but he feels sick at the thought of destroying one of Vanessa’s works in the process. His boss agrees that he must travel to Eris to discuss it with Grace in person and take the opportunity to bring back any works he finds that should be in the gallery.
I loved the complicated relationships in this story. Even Becker is in a strange relationship triangle. He arrived at the foundation specifically look after Vanessa’s legacy, but there was more change when Vanessa’s agent died and the house, grounds and art foundation passed from father to son. Also left behind were his frail and elderly wife and his son’s fiancée Helen. Becker was immediately attracted to Helen and to his surprise his feelings were reciprocated. This ultimately resulted in Helen leaving her fiancé for Becker and moving to his cottage on the estate. They are now married and Helen is pregnant with their first child. Becker had expected to lose his job over the affair, but his new boss was surprisingly gracious. Becker is from a modest background and he sometimes can’t believe that Helen chose him, besides her ongoing friendship with her ex-fiancé leaves him uneasy. This is a man who has everything and now he must leave Helen in his hands, so he’s feeling very conflicted about his trip to Eris.
Grace is absolutely fascinating and her relationship with Vanessa is complex. She is aggrieved that Vanessa ‘left her with nothing’ neatly ignoring the fact that she now owns the house and island. The foundation’s position is that Grace has withheld certain paintings, sketches and Vanessa’s diaries. She comes across as a borderline personality. Her early experiences have left her feeling unwanted and inadequate leaving her unable to form healthy relationships. In order to be accepted she has learned to blend her personality to fit whoever she’s with, but sadly has no idea who she really is. When she wants to form an attachment she makes herself indispensable to the other person. In Vanessa’s case she becomes quietly present, in the background preparing meals, cleaning the house and making sure Vanessa has all the conditions she needs in order to create. In her way she feels she has contributed to the works Vanessa produces. There is no word for what Grace is – friend or companion is the usual – but really she’s like a servant, always anticipating their mistress’s needs. Most of the time she feels indispensable to Vanessa, but occasionally she is displaced from her position, by the latest lover or her ex-husband popping in and monopolising Vanessa, until she abandons work and spends time with him, often not leaving the bed for the duration of his visit. Grace hates him, often retreating to her cottage across the causeway until she sees his little red sports car departing the village. Then there are heated arguments and recriminations over his visit until the pair settle once more into their usual routine. Grace fears abandonment. She remembers the relief she felt when she found her tribe at university only to return home from lectures one day and find that her two friends have moved out of their shared house without even a note. As the village GP Grace is clearly intelligent and skilled but I worried about her access to vulnerable patients. I couldn’t decide whether she was a tragic figure, or a sinister one.
Vanessa could be volatile. Her tempestuous friendship with her agent was well known and friends were surprised that she left him such a huge bequest on her death. Her marriage was also a rollercoaster of ups and downs, both of them drawn to each other but utterly incapable of living together. Could one of their legendary fights have gone wrong? As Becker arrives on Eris a battle of wills develops between him and Grace and secrets will out. The author keeps you guessing; is Grace the victim or persecutor? Is she holding on to the diaries because they incriminate Vanessa? Or is she trying to preserve the memories of her life with her friend, in the only place where Grace has felt like she’s home? The author pitched the tension perfectly and I devoured the final third of the book. We move between Becker’s narrative and Grace’s, alongside excerpts from Vanessa’s diary where each excerpt or reminiscence reveals about her clue or changes the story dramatically. Above it all is the artist – a figure we might imagine we know through their work, but art can be a mask, just a way of painting over the cracks. The diaries offer a less curated Vanessa, as well as the raw and unvarnished truth. Eris stands above all as a mystical landscape, like one of those places in a horror film that you can never leave no matter how hard you try. This was a brilliant thriller where you’re never sure about the truth until the very end.
Out Now from Doubleday
Meet the Author
PAULA HAWKINS worked as a journalist for fifteen years before writing her first novel. Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989. Her first thriller, The Girl on the Train, has sold more than 23 million copies worldwide. Published in over fifty languages, it has been a Number 1 bestseller around the world and was a box office hit film starring Emily Blunt.
Paula’s thrillers, Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning, were also instant Number 1 bestsellers.
I always look forward to a new book in the incredible Àrora series and this one really delivers! It takes two long-standing mysteries in the novels and sheds new light on everything we thought we knew. The disappearance of Àrora’s sister was the only reason she came to Iceland from the UK. She works as a financial investigator, usually in the area of tax. She’s built a life here, including a relationship with detective Daniel. Now she’s contacted by a woman who says her young daughter has memories of being Arora’s sister Isafold and they’d like to meet with her. Àrora is a straightforward and rational woman, but I remembered those lonely months where she trawled old lava flows with a drone, based on nothing but a feeling. She knows that Isafold is dead but finding her has been a compulsion for so long. How can she ignore what this little girl has to say? Lady Gugulu has been living in Daniel’s garage conversion for a long time. Once a science student and potential academic, he leads a quiet life and makes his money performing as a drag artiste. He and Daniel have become close so he’s shocked to find that his tenant has suddenly vacated the garage without a forwarding address. When three men turn up, Daniel has a sense that they’re investigators or secret service. Whoever they are, they’re leaving no stone unturned. A black eye and split lip later, he enlists Àrora to look into his friend’s finances in the hope of finding his whereabouts.
In turn Daniel convinces his superiors to take another look at the missing person case opened on Isafold and her violent boyfriend, nicknamed the ‘Ice Bear’. He also wants to look into the parents and background of the little girl who knows things only those closest to Àrora and her sister would know. How does she know these details and could she possibly be genuine? I loved how the author played with doubt and belief when it came to this little girl. Àrora is very shocked that she knows Bjorn’s nickname and that their father called Àrora his troll girl and Isafold his elf girl. Their father was a weight trainer and Àrora definitely took after him. She still trains and is currently trying to increase her lifting weight. She’s been having steroid injections but knows they’re having an affect on her libido and emotions. She’s been irritable and takes her moods out on Daniel at times. Now she’s transfixed by the little girl and genuinely feels like she’s back with her sister when they meet. Every time they talk I felt she left Àrora on a cliffhanger. Just when Àrora is trying to stay rational, she reveals something that only Isafold could know, even confirming that Àrora is right and her sister is lying in black lava. Daniel is sceptical and suspects the parents of coaching their daughter. He brings in a child psychologist and I was absolutely glued to their session, dying to see what would come next with so many unexpected twists!
I’d always been intrigued by Daniel’s lodger but I’d never imagined this background and I was so worried for him. Having been treated to a second visit from the men in black, Daniel knows he’s dealing with either foreign agents or interpol. The best thing is to put Àrora on the trail and as she sets off to the Canary Islands to talk to Lady Gugulu’s mother. She’s suspects he’s used several identities over the years, but what exactly is he running from? As the men in black turn over the whole garage, Daniel gets the feeling they’re not just looking for his friend, they’re looking for something. It’s great to see Daniel and Àrora going the extra mile for each other in their investigations. There’s an incredible trust built up between them, because these people are so precious to them and the outcome of the investigations could be life-changing. They’re also confronting a reality that stretches their credulity: Daniel has to suspend his disbelief around all things mystical. He sets out expecting to find a rational explanation for the little girl’s apparently supernatural knowledge, treating the family as suspects rather than witnesses. I was glued to this part of the story, truly expecting evidence that they were scamming Àrora in some way. Similarly the revelation that Lady Gugulu has been on the run from the authorities is utterly unexpected. Daniel’s always known that his friend was intelligent but as Àrora starts to uncover an academic background at Oxbridge and a very unexpected career path Daniel has to accept the possibility that his friend is not what he seemed. As he says, it’s as if he has James Bond on his trail. It was lovely to spend some time with a character who always been in the background up till now. I enjoyed learning about his academic and romantic past, moving beyond his sexuality and drag persona. He proves himself incredible resourceful and resilient on this journey and my admiration for him grew enormously.
This was an enthralling addition to the Forbidden Iceland series. I loved that the author isn’t easy on her heroine, allowing the reader to see her flaws and her vulnerabilities and how they drive her actions. She’s a proper three dimensional character and hard to like in parts, particularly in the way she treats Daniel. Although, their teamwork is incredible and their ability to lean on and trust each other speaks volumes. We all know thrillers that are addictive at the time, but instantly forgettable. Here the writing was tense and addictive, but the deep and intelligent characters stay with you. The unifying story across all these novels has been Àrora’s loss of her sister so to see her search potentially moving forward was quite emotional. While someone is missing there’s always an element of hope and this is the first breakthrough in a long search. This could tip Àrora and her mother from hope, into the depths of grief. It also opens up the question of Àrora’s prolonged stay in Iceland which might come to an end if Isafold is found. The little girl who holds all this potential knowledge is a fascinating character, beautifully written with a feeling of the uncanny and otherworldly about her. Could she genuinely hold the key to Isafold’s disappearance? A strange separate narrative that’s unattributed took me all the way back to the first book and a potential clue about what might have happened to Àrora’s sister. I didn’t want to put this book down at any point. It is simply the best so far in a series that gets better and better.
Published by Orenda Books 10th October 2024
Meet the Author
Icelandic crime-writer Lilja Sigurdardottir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Lilja has written eleven crime novels, many of which have been translated into multiple languages and hitting bestseller lists worldwide. Lilja has won The Icelandic Performing Arts Award for ‘Best Play of the Year’, The Icelandic Crime Fiction Awards twice, been longlisted for the CWA International Dagger, been shortlisted for the prestigious Glass Key Award twice and had a Guardian Book of the Year. The film rights for the Reykjavik Noir trilogy (Snare, Trap and Cage) have been bought by Palomar Pictures in California. She lives in Reykjavík, Iceland, with her partner but also spends considerable time in Scotland.
I was bowled over by the first novel in the Annie Jackson series – The Murmurs. I already knew that Michael was an incredible writer, able to bring great compassion and intelligence to his characters while delivering a page turning thriller. The added elements of the paranormal and Scottish folklore really grabbed my attention and fulfilled my craving for all things weird and gothic. Here we find Annie living in her little cottage with a view of the loch, the only place that gives her peace from ‘the murmurs’ that can strike at any time beyond the walls of her home. The murmurs are sibilant whispers letting her know that someone close by is near to death. A vision of a skull appears over the person’s face, followed by a horrible premonition of how they meet their fate. One day, while working a shift in the local coffee shop, Annie can hear the whispers and feel the rising nausea. This vision is for a young local man called Lachlan. Annie sees a terrible car accident and Lachlan’s vehicle wrapped around a tree. Torn between warning him and drawing attention to herself, or walking out and ignoring the vision, Annie chooses a middle ground. She tells him his tyres are bald and he really should change them. Even this course of action backfires as only hours later she is berated by a man who comes to tell her Lachlan is dead and she could have prevented it, but didn’t. The rumours about her powers go into overdrive as people realise Annie is the woman who found the bodies of several murdered women.
Annie can’t win. She’s either dismissed as sinister or even mad or she stays quiet and is blamed for whatever ensues. Desperately wanting to hide from the world, she hopes her little cottage will continue to protect her from the murmurs, but hadn’t banked on how angry locals would be. They break her windows and target her house with red paint. Thankfully, her twin brother Lewis arrives to stay and help just as their adoptive aunt visits, hoping that Annie’s gift might help someone in need. She wants them to look into a missing person case; a young man called Damian has disappeared and she suspects something sinister has happened to him. Damian has had a very complicated past, including ending up in prison on one occasion, but in recent months he had calmed down due to the birth of his son Bodhi. While Annie is keen to explain that she isn’t a medium and can’t find people on command, Lewis thinks they might be able to help. Why not research and interview people like a private investigator? Then during their investigation if anything comes up for Annie they can act on her ideas. What awaits them is a surprising and complex puzzle, that seems to include the dark arts and a woman with the ability to ‘glamour’ others. This time Annie could be in serious danger.
Michael moves us through different timelines and perspectives, from Annie and Lewis’s investigations to new characters called Ben and Sylvia who are pupils at a private school several years earlier. I found their tutor very disturbing, almost grooming both of them into his fascination with the occult. He’s chosen exactly the right students to draw into his web, students who are distanced or estranged from family and potentially vulnerable. His name is Phineas Dance – an awesome name for the villain of the piece! He gives them a reading list including Alastair Crowley and other proponents of the dark arts and they take to his teaching very well, particularly Sylvia who we watch become more obsessive as she matures. Their training involves ritualistic sacrifice, as well as the attainment of wealth and success – using their new powers to ensnare other followers of celebrity and influence. This leaves them both free rein to operate where they live, having local dignitaries in their pocket. Every few years they have a chance of ensnaring the Baobhan Sith, a mythical female deity who can unleash havoc. All they need is a sacrifice and who better than Annie? The author excels at creating a nail-biting game between Sylvia and Annie’s powers, with Sylvia drawing Annie towards her beautiful home and Annie’s murmurs being suppressed then surging again. Annie is confused by this strange sensation, that feels as if her brain is dialling in and out of a radio station! I was mentally begging her to resist Sylvia’s strange abilities and stay with her brother who is in a battle of his own. He’s using detective work to find out about their missing man Damien and unearthing a possible link to a terrible fatal accident that happened when he was only a teenager. Could this incident be behind Damien’s reckless and addictive behaviours? I loved his interactions with the detective working the missing person’s case, Clare is deeply suspicious of the brother and sister team at first. However, when she has an inkling that corruption might be at play she works in tandem with Lewis and they make a formidable team. I even detected a a bit of chemistry between them. This is a fast moving case, especially when Annie is targeted, meaning you won’t be able to put the book down until you know if she can be found before the ritual sacrifice begins.
When you finish this book you’ll feel like you’ve been on a fairground ride! The author has a brilliant way of engaging the reader’s emotions, drawing us into the character’s inner lives in a depth that can be rare in thrillers. It’s his ability to make us root for this brother and sister pairing that drives this novel. I feel so much for Annie, who hasn’t asked for this strange ability she has but has to live with the consequences and it’s a lonely life. She’s misunderstood and shunned by people who really don’t understand how powerless and frightened she feels. It was great to see her with the back up of her brother, who accepts her abilities without question and doesn’t judge. Their bond felt very real and setting aside the paranormal elements of their quest, they did remind of the close bond I have with my own brother. When you add these characters to a great case, full of drama and danger, it makes for a very satisfying reading experience. I absolutely raced to the conclusion, never expecting the outcome and enjoying the twists along the way. It left me hoping for more from Annie and Lewis, with a hope that Annie gets a little bit of respite from the murmurs first.
Published by Orenda Books 12th September 2024
For more reviews check out these bloggers on Septembers blog tour.
Meet the Author
Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country. He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. Blood Tears, his bestselling debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers. His psychological thriller, A Suitable Lie, was a number-one bestseller, and the critically acclaimed House of Spines, After He Died, In the Absence of Miracles and A Song of Isolation soon followed suit. A former Regional Sales Manager at Faber & Faber, he has also worked as an IFA and a bookseller. Michael lives in Ayr.
It’s a very brave author who spends three novels establishing a fascinating and complex character, then chooses to leave him out of the fourth novel in the series. We’re back in Sheffield where Adam Tyler is searching an old cinema when he’s hit from behind and falls from a high gantry. He reaches the Northern General in a coma and the strange thing is that his team have no idea what he was investigating. None of their current cold cases even mention the place, but it’s not unusual for Tyler to investigate an avenue of enquiry alone. As Tyler clings onto life, with his old boss Diane by his side, we follow DC Mina Rabbani as she tries to cover the CCRU’s open cases, while surreptitiously looking into Tyler’s movements and locking horns with DC Doggett who is the official investigator of Tyler’s attempted murder. Meanwhile, at an artist’s event, Mina meets an awkward young woman called Ruth. She also stands out in this group of yummy mummies who’ve been taking a pottery class. She suggests they meet for coffee and Mina agrees half-heartedly, knowing it’s likely her job will prevent it from going ahead. As Mina and Doggett find a barely literate note, written in Sheffield dialect on Tyler’s desk they’re sure that this is what he’s been chasing. The note is a strange confession to a potential murder, but holds none of the details that might give them something to work with. More to the point, what is it about this note that made Tyler keep it to himself, especially from Mina who felt they’d developed trust. Our case splits into two timelines; the present investigations told through Mina’s eyes and a flashback to six months ago where we follow in Tyler’s footsteps. Each timeline inches forward slowly, drip feeding clues to the reader and ensuring we keep turning the pages.
There’s also a third narrative voice following Ruth, the young woman from Mina’s arty party. Both had felt out of place at the event and this could be the innocent reason she sought Mina out for conversation. However, when she bumps into the same woman in the street a short while later I started to wonder if this was the coincidence it seemed. Mina is still unsure but does agree to coffee, feeling sorry for the young woman who seems a little awkward and unsure of herself. As Ruth’s circumstances begin to unfold I felt sorry for her. She lives in the home where her father recently died, but he still feels very present, both in the fixtures and fittings but also in Ruth’s mind. His chair still seems to embody him, marked forever by his hair oil and a halo of yellow nicotine. It’s clear that he was a huge presence, a domineering father who bullied his daughter. His need for care and to control her have kept her indoors and alone for so long that she’s scared to meet people. The scene where a group of girls befriend her in a bar and mooch drinks from her is particularly sad because she’s clearly vulnerable. Her desperation is written all over her face, so when a much younger man takes an interest in her I was immediately suspicious. I had a strange sensation of feeling protective of Ruth, but very wary at the same time. Mina really does develop into an excellent investigator in this novel. She’s always had great instincts, but here she steps out of Tyler’s shadow and really shines. She is shocked when the ACC puts her in temporary charge of the cold case unit in his absence, but determined to prove herself. Doggett warns her that her loyalty to Tyler is admirable, but could also hold her back. He wonders if the ACC is testing her and that a possible promotion could be on the cards. She has some interesting chemistry with the new uniformed liaison officer Danny that made me smile. We also see a lot more of her family and community in Sheffield, giving us insight into how determined and independent she has been to get where she is. This case will have her questioning every part of her world, even those closest to her.
As for Tyler, even though his insular and secretive ways have carried on there have been some changes since the revelations of the last novel including his difficult childhood. The crime ring known as The Circle were shown to have influence even inside South Yorkshire police. We see again how protective he is of those he’s come to trust – such as bringing ex-ACC into the CCRU. As usual he doesn’t mind rattling even the most gilded of cages; he comes into conflict with previous local MP Lord Beech, who warns him off digging into the kidnap of his first wife. As soon as he reaches hospital Diane is by his side, but so is Scott. Tyler met Scott in the last novel, but we see in the flashbacks the ups and downs of their tentative relationship. It’s good to see Adam being more vulnerable with someone and Scott’s training as a counsellor might help him understand this complex man. I read late into the night to finish because I was desperate to see all those puzzle pieces slot into place. As the complex truth is finally revealed it’s life changing for one of the team and has implications for every character we meet in the course of the investigation. The Lord, a schoolteacher, a lawyer and a carer can all be traced back to a crime that isn’t what it seems. I wanted to know how far Tyler had come with his enquiries and most of all who met him at the disused cinema of the opening pages. This was a tense, intelligent and complex thriller that had so much emotional depth too.
Published by Simon and Schuster 24th October 2024
Meet the Author
Russ Thomas was born in Essex, raised in Berkshire and now lives in Sheffield. After a few ‘proper’ jobs (among them: pot-washer, optician’s receptionist, supermarket warehouse operative, call-centre telephonist and storage salesman) he discovered the joys of bookselling, where he could talk to people about books all day. His highly acclaimed debut novel, Firewatching, is the first in the DS Adam Tyler series and published in February 2020. Nighthawking and Cold Reckoning, the second and third books in the series, followed in 2021 and 2022. To find out more, visit his website or follow him on Twitter: https://russthomasauthor.com T: @thevoiceofruss
I’m convinced that I’m fated to never meet Will Dean. Despite booking to meet him twice this year both COVID and MS relapses have had ridiculously accurate timing and I didn’t manage either event. It’s so frustrating because I really am such a Tuva fangirl. I really enjoyed this trip back into her world, even if at times it was tense, threatening and claustrophobic. Will’s intrepid reporter is enticed to a town further north than Gavrik because her instinct is telling her there’s a story. Dubbed ‘Ice Town’ it’s a minor ski resort with only one upscale and very empty hotel. Stuck in its mid-century heyday it is now losing out to the bigger resorts and the hotel must be on its knees. Tuva can only access the town via a tunnel through a mountain. Traffic queues at the tunnel mouth as drivers are alternately let through. It then closes at night leaving residents cut off from the outside world. Tuva has been drawn by a missing person’s report, a teenager called Peter has disappeared. Nothing unusual in that, but Peter is deaf and Tuva is imagining how isolated he must feel. She worries that his hearing aid batteries have run out of battery life. She imagines him stuck somewhere in the dark, in freezing temperatures and not even able to hear the search teams shouting his name. Tuva packs up her Hilux and heads north hoping to find out more about Peter and maybe help the search. She’s heading for the only B & B in town, but when she gets there it’s clear they should have dropped the second B – something Tuva points out with her usual tact! It’s actuality two bedrooms in the back of the a sunbed shop with very thin walls, but Tuva does not need luxury and expenses are scrutinised carefully by her boss Lena. As she starts to acclimatise she starts to realise that, if possible, this is a quirkier town than Gavrik. She’s also without the long-standing relationship she usually has with the police. Can she find Peter without their help? Without her usual support system to call on, might she find herself in danger?
She rounds out that Peter lived with his grandmother and seems quite isolated in then community. Kids at school thought he was weird and girls mention that he made them uneasy, always staring at their mouths. Tuva is quick to point out that this isn’t sexual, he’s just trying to lip read. The church seems to be the gathering point for the community, with the Deacon organising the search parties. Instead of the police, once the tunnel is closed at night, the residents are protected by the Wolverines, a local biker gang. Tuva meets one of them at the only watering hole in town and finds out he’s actually a poet, an unexpected hobby for a huge mountain of a man dressed in leather. Tuva has managed to shack up next to the only other outside journalist, a girl called Astrid who has the other room beyond the sun beds. Tuva feels an urge to find Peter quickly and when a body is found near the tunnel she fears the worst. When news comes through that the body isn’t Peter, the search is based on two possibilities: either Peter and another resident have gone missing at around the same time and died from exposure, or Peter is in hiding, because he is the killer. This change from victim to possible perpetrator worries Tuva, she knows how disorientating it is to have no hearing out in the wilderness. She also worries that if the police do catch sight of him he won’t be able to hear their commands and they’ll shoot him. She asks the police chief to remind her officers that Peter can’t hear them.
It’s not long before Tuva is plunged into disorientating situations herself, in one scene when she’s staying at the resort hotel her isolated lobby falls into darkness and she can’t find the right bedroom door. For a moment she’s terrified and knocks a picture off the wall in her panic. It made me very jumpy because it seemed targeted because she’d been placed in such a remote part of the building. When waking up one night after a dream she feels around the bedside table and can’t find her hearing aids or her phone. As she feels her way around the unfamiliar room, I had the uncanny sense that she might be being watched. Anyone could be lurking in the dark. Who has moved her stuff and is someone in the dark watching her panic? That definitely had my heart racing. Then she finds them on the desk, remembering she’d had one too many at the pub and must have left them in the wrong place. Another scene that kept me glued to the book was when she took the ski lift down to the town and for some reason the power goes out. She hears what she thinks is a shot and the overhead light goes out. Now she’s just swinging silently in the dark and in the cold. She knows it doesn’t take long for frostbite to set in and she tries to protect her face. She is so vulnerable at this moment and I was scared for her. I felt like someone was playing with her, like a cat does with a mouse. I had to finish this scene before I could get up and do anything else.
Will writes the quirkiest characters and here there are a few. There’s Ingvar who comes across like a college professor and lives halfway down the slope with his dogs. Could he have tampered with the ski lift, after all he might seem respectable now but he has served a sentence for murder. The poet bouncer is another surprise, especially when Tuva unexpectedly wakes up in his house. There’s a pod-caster who is becoming quite well known, but his listeners don’t know that he keeps the slopes smooth by day and keeps large numbers rabbits in his basement for food. Once it becomes clear that they have a spree killer on their hands, the odds are a lot more serious. Could Tuva end up being a target due to her snooping around the town and asking too many questions? Maybe Peter’s position as an outsider has created resentment and a desire for revenge? For some reason Tuva doesn’t think he’s the killer, although he still hasn’t been found and bodies are starting to pile up. The claustrophobic feeling of the town isn’t helped when the killer’s methods become known. They disarm people with bear spray, several times more powerful than ordinary pepper spray which is banned in Sweden. Other items they use are military grade so could this be someone who served in the army? The victims are asphyxiated with a tourniquet used on the battle field that has a clever gadget attached. It can be turned to create the necessary pressure, even if you can only use one hand? It’s an unusual piece of kit and Tuva wonders whether the killer is a medic or has used one on the battlefield. Or is it the ability to adjust the pressure that’s key? To allow a few breaths then cut the victim off again, playing God.
I enjoyed the realisations Tuva has about her own life. She recognises that Lena and Tammy have kept her on track since her partner Noora died. To the extent of making sure she’s eating and getting some sleep. Despite losing her mum she certainly has some substitutes. I loved how Will lets thoughts of Noora just wander across her mind from time to time, sometimes happy memories and sometimes deeply sad ones. I’m glad that she gets to hear Nora’s heart beat from time to time. There is a strange coincidence that may have a huge impact on her personal life going forward. The tense few chapters that bring us to the finale are so confusing! My suspicion was running back and forth constantly and the clues come thick and fast here. I really didn’t know who to believe. We’re on tenterhooks and I remember thinking why does Tuva put herself and us through this? The ending coming in time for the Santa Lucia festival was beautifully done and those of us who’ve been reading since the beginning and love the weirder members of the Gavrik community will love a little cameo towards the end. When will someone pick this up for TV or a film series? It’s a fabulous franchise and it just gets stronger all the time.
Out on 7th November from Point Blank.
Meet the Author
Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying law at the LSE, and working many varied jobs in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife. He built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.
Readers probably won’t believe this but this is my first Peter May novel. I’ve had his books on my ‘authors to explore’ list for when I’m second hand book shopping, but something always gets in the way of me reading them. So, when I was offered this blog tour I jumped at the chance to finally read one. I love books set in Scotland and I am a particular fan of Tartan Noir – crime novels and mystery novels from authors like Doug Johnstone and Val McDermid. I was immediately drawn into the incredible scenery and atmosphere of the Isle of Lewis. This is the fourth in a trilogy, so I’ve definitely got some catching up to do where Fin McLeod is concerned. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. It emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior. Fionnlagh soon becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. Finn knows he must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He also knows, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as the industry started to expand on the island and become a multi-million pound concern. This is a journey of family ties, secret relationships and a bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and revelations converge.
Fin and his wife Marsaili both grew up on the island, so it holds echoes of their relationship over the years. It’s strange for them to be back on Lewis after a ten year absence and awkward to turn up on Fionnlagh’s doorstep where his wife Donna is devastated by the possibility that her husband has killed his teenage lover. Their daughter Eilidh is happy to see her grandparents and currently oblivious about her father’s fate, but it’s clear to see the damage Fionnlagh’s exploits have had on Donna. These early chapters felt like being sucked down into a whirlpool of memories. There’s such an incredible sense of place and the use of Gaelic words and names feels foreign, strange and somehow magical at the same time. There are tourists enjoying the white sandy beaches, but we’re taken down below the surface to the realities of living somewhere so remote and bleak. Then further down to the horrors underneath where salmon are eaten alive by lice in their cages, where beached whales gasp their last agonising breath on the sand and a beautiful girl with her whole life ahead of her can be thrown over a cliff like rubbish.
“He finally reached the Black Loch just before seven-thirty. He parked above the beach as sunlight fanned out towards him across cut-crystal water, revealing the secret colours that concealed themselves on the shore, among rocks and boulders and the seaweed washed up to dry along the high-tide mark. To his right, cliffs of Lewisian gneiss rose steeply out of the water and he could just see the gables and chimneys of the house that stood above them overlooking the bay. He cast his eyes down again to the water’s edge and left footprints in the wet sand as he followed the curve of the day towards the looming black of the cliffs. Somewhere here Caitlin’s body had been washed ashore.”
Peter May has portrayed the environment, whilst also showing the extent to which climate change and the eco- industry have impacted the surroundings he’s known for his whole life. The old cottages are damp and battered, some being refurbed by incomers with money either as family homes or holiday cottages. New houses are squat, one-storey dwellings built to blend with the sand and the heather with large windows giving uninterrupted views of the landscape. Younger islanders are focused on eco-activism with Caitlin Black and her friend Isobel starring in a programme about the island’s ecology. They care about fish farming practices driven by the market across the globe for salmon. Practices that prevent wild salmon from swimming up river to spawn as well as terrible conditions for the farmed salmon too. Huge cages that once held a few hundred salmon now hold a hundred thousand, with such a high mortality rate they’re having to take them from the cages and dump them into rock crevices formed from by the tide. They lay there rotting until the sea washes them away.
“The activist’s aerial shots exposing the illegal dumping of dead fish, and the zombie salmon, half eaten by sea lice, swimming listlessly around in cages where anything up to twenty-five percent of fish were already dead. She listened in horror as he conjured up an image of the stinking, maggot-ridden morts […] and the 1000-litre containers of formaldehyde that a desperate Bradan Mor was using to try to kill the sea lice.”
Fin’s narrative takes us on his investigations around the island, trying to find evidence to disprove the police’s theory that his son is a killer. A task made much more difficult when his DNA matches samples taken from Caitlin’s body. Why would he rape someone he’s been sleeping with for months? This is according to locals who’d noticed their clandestine comings and goings from a derelict cottage by the sea. Despite the urgency of the present moment, Fin is also pulled inexorably into the past, because this island has a huge hold and power. I felt centuries of history in the land it’s people and their relationships. This is sometimes positive, as Fin remembers beach parties where he first met Masaili as a teenager and they make love on the beach in the present, grasping a tiny moment of happiness and connection in the hurt and devastation. The most terrible memories involve a scheme to steal fish from the fish farm and pass them off as wild salmon, for a ghillie from the estate to sell on. Fin goes along with it despite his misgivings, but the scheme is originally suggested by Niall. A group of teenagers meet and drive to the fish farm several times, but one night there’s an awful storm and a sense of foreboding. This enterprise leads to two deaths and creates a suspicion in Fin about his friend Niall. If he is willing to steal from his own family and brush aside the death of a friend, is he capable of murder? Niall’s surname is Black and Caitlin is his daughter.
It feels as if the island has a consciousness. It sees your past and your future as clearly as the present, almost as if they’re happening simultaneously. I felt it when Finn walked across the very place he stood with Masaili when they were first meeting at six years old and she had two pigtails. She also called him Finn for the first time, christening him with a nickname he still uses. This is a thin place, unchanged for centuries. It also said something about how we experience the world. We are rarely solidly who we are in the present, with past and future forgotten. We are simultaneously all the selves we’ve ever been. In this way Fionnlagh can be a good father, a talented teacher and a suspect in a murder. There are also darker moments from Fin and Marsaili’s past that come alive here. Her narration is a rare moment in the novel but she relives a night in Glasgow from their university years, when she found Finn in bed with another girl in their student flat? It makes us realise that Finn isn’t wholly the upstanding man we think he is, he was also the cause of so much hurt, rather like his son.
There’s a sense in which this trauma is generational, not just in individual families but in the island itself. The environment has always been harsh and people have found it to survive. It’s a hunting and fishing community and other nearby islands, like St.Kilda, became uninhabitable in the early Twentieth Century due to the difficulty of growing and catching enough food for the islanders. Fin takes us back to a conversation he had with his grandfather about the whaling industry, brutal tales of harpooning these majestic creatures and turning the sea red. It links to the beached whales in the bay, possibly drawn off course by one of them being unwell and in distress. As the vet assesses these giant creatures and people desperately try to save them he talks about a tradition in the Faroe Islands where they draw whales to the shore then hack them to pieces. Fin has violent memories of being forced to join a seasonal slaughter. In his last summer before university, Fin felt like a black cloud had descended because he and his friend Artair had been chosen to join the guga hunters. This was a four hundred year old tradition where twelve men would travel to An Sgeir, an island no more than a rock in the middle of the ocean. A guga was a young gannet, once hunted in a desperate need for food, their slaughter was now a rite of passage. Hunters killed two thousand birds in a fortnight, then they would be plucked and salted. Fin felt disgusted by the idea, but it seemed unavoidable and it would be dishonourable to give up your place.
“Neither Artair nor I wanted to spend two weeks on that bleak and inhospitable rock, scrambling among the blood and shit that covered the cliffs, slaughtering defenceless birds.”
This was a tense and complex case with so many possible suspects, and Peter May also keeps us guessing about Fionnlagh. Perhaps he could be the killer, after all he does confess. In a way this created a crime novel that didn’t revolve completely on whodunnit, but on the tensions between different characters and also their environment. He also creates a compelling picture of the beautiful and intelligent victim, Caitlin Black. A girl as embedded in the island as Fin, with a deep passion for the island’s environment and it’s flora and fauna. She epitomises the gap between generations, but also between those who want to protect the island and those who are making a generous living by exploiting and polluting it. I loved how deep the island and it’s history ran in these people, something I can understand having lived right next to the River Trent for most of my life. In fact the first thing I did when moving into my last village twelve years ago was go to the river bank and take off my sandals to feel the river bank under my feet. The river and it’s daily tidal bore, the smell of fresh cut hay, the cool of the forest, the crunch of dry pine needles underfoot as well as the smell of straw bales in the sun and freshly turned earth are all in my soul. They make up part of who I am and although I moved away for study, I have returned and unknowingly into the same village where my great-great grandmother is buried. Our ancestors call to us and this is definitely what Fin and Marsaili are feeling, as well as need to be close to Fionnlagh, Donna and Eilidh. This is something he couldn’t have imagined ten years ago, but now he wonders if it’s where they belong. Perhaps this means future additions to the series and on the basis of 5is novel, I’ll be the first in the queue if it does.
“He leaned over to kiss her and remembered that little girl with the pigtails who had walked him up the road from the school to Crobost Stores giving him the nickname that had stuck for the rest of his life.”
Out on 12th September from RiverRun Books, an imprint of Quercus.
Meet the Author
Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He won Journalist of the Year at twenty-one and was a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and became one of Scotland’s most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, led two of the highest-rated series in Scotland as a script editor and producer and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television and return to his first love, writing novels.
The Lotus Readers 