Archive for the ‘mystery’ Tag
Josie Fair meets Alix Summer on the night of their 45th birthday; they were born the same day, the same year in the same hospital.
In None of This is True, Lisa Jewell has crafted a dark thriller difficult to put down.
Alix is a popular podcaster and Josie leads a seemingly quiet, unassuming life. That is, until she convinces Alix to feature her as the subject of a podcast. As Josie shares her life story: meeting her husband, Walter when in her early teens. Despite the 27-year age difference, they marry and have two daughters who are now grown. One ran away from home when she was 16; the other stays closeted in her bedroom playing video games.
Alix is the mother of two school-age children and married to a successful businessman. They’re experiencing some rough spots, but she’s confident they will pass.
Chapters are identified by date beginning June 8, 2019, continuing to March 2022 – with a few gaps of weeks and months. Also interspersed in most chapters are the texts from the interviews Alix conducted with Josie and descriptions of a “Netflix Original Series” based on the interviews, and more, entitled “Hi! I’m your Birthday Twin.”
It’s evident early there’s something unsettling about Josie. It’s not just the story of meeting her husband at such a young age, there are also glimpses of odd, disconcerting behavior. Still, Alix is intrigued and ready for a new project.
As the narrative progresses, it’s difficult not to question who’s genuine.
None of This is True
Four Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2023
370 pages
A book with few likeable characters such as Paula Hawkins’ A Slow Burning Fire, is difficult to recommend. Granted, the mystery element is strong with several suspects, but it almost doesn’t matter who-dunnit if there isn’t one for whom to root.
When the body of a young man, Daniel, is found brutally stabbed on a London houseboat the immediate suspect is Laura who was seen leaving his place covered in blood shortly before the body is discovered. Yet other suspects include Miriam who lived on the neighboring boat, and Carla, Daniel’s once-estranged aunt.
The back stories for these major characters factor into the present-day mystery. Laura was in a serious bicycle accident as a child and has dealt with anger management issues ever since.
Miriam is without friends or family. As a teenager she was abducted, and these many years later she remains a broken, unkind person.
Carla, the deceased man’s aunt, had a tenuous relationship with him based on guilt for how she treated his mother/her sister. Fifteen years earlier, Carla’s three-year-old son died while in the care of her sister. Her nephew discovered the child’s body.
Hawkins offers plenty of credible twists throughout, including several instances where it seems obvious, beyond a reasonable doubt who killed Daniel.
Laura is befriended by Irene, an elderly woman (who interestingly lives next door to Carla’s late sister’s home). For the younger woman, this is significant: Irene genuinely cares about her. Consequently, Irene is finally a character the reader can actually appreciate.
A Slow Burning Fire
Three Bookmarks
Riverhead Books 2021
306 pages
Real Tigers is the third of Mick Herron’s Slough House series. It’s just as gripping as its predecessors and equally rife with often-sardonic humor.
The discredited British intelligent operatives, known as Slow Horses, once again find themselves faced with overcoming expectations of their abilities when one of their own is kidnapped. In some ways it’s a comedy of errors in the face of real danger.
Herron hooks readers from the onset with his description of the shabby Slough House, the name given to the office space where the former spies are relegated to paper pushing busy work. The M15 higher-ups expect the meaningless jobs will encourage them to quit. Little do they understand the degree of hope each has of being able to find their way to good standing. These people are nothing if not optimistic.
Toward this end, the crew sets about to rescue their colleague. The kidnappers’ ransom request is a secret file they want the Slow Horses to retrieve. It’s a seemingly impossible task.
Among Herron’s fortes is his skill to imbue characters with distinct personalities including physical features, foibles and qualities.
Jackson Lamb oversees Slough House with an attitude akin to a broken umbrella: why bother?! He’s a disheveled chain-smoking, flatulent man who’d rather sit at his desk nursing a drink. However, when necessary he will take action albeit in a slothful manner – keeping in character.
M15 conspiracies and suspicions about who is good and who’s not are other elements Herron incorporates to keep readers engaged.
Real Tigers
Four Bookmarks
Soho Crime, 2016
343 pages
The Age of Vice is a massive novel about inequity, corruption and loyalty. Despite its hefty size (more than 500) pages, Deepti Kapoor has crafted an epic story that is equal measures mystery and love story – my favorite combination.
Ajay is the manservant of Sunny Wadia, the son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful man in India. Ajay is imprisoned when he’s identified as the driver of the speeding Mercedes that kills five people. The narrative then jumps back 13 years when Ajay is a poor, barely-educated child in a rural area of India. When his father is beaten by the village leaders, Ajay is sold to help pay the family’s debts. He’s sent to a mountain farm where his situation is improved, although he’s still looked down upon for his station in life.
How Ajay came to be Sunny’s servant and charged with manslaughter is a circuitous tale of excessive wealth and waste amplified by exploitation. By contrast are Ajay’s strong work ethic and his gradual rise to Sunny’s shadow, something that comes with numerous perks but many strings attached.
Sunny is an addict and womanizer, but falls in love with a journalist. Their relationship is complicated. She’s not what Sunny’s father envisions as the perfect wife for his heir.
Bunty and his brother’s influence span much of the country and little goes unnoticed by either, including how Ajay came to be behind the wheel in the deadly crash.
Kapoor’s characters are vividly depicted as are India’s extremes.
The Age of Vice
Four+ Bookmarks
Riverhead Books, 2023
548 pages
The disgraced, humiliated M-15 spies in London’s Slough House are as disgruntled as ever. Yet, each has aspirations of returning to action – if only given a chance.
In Dead Lions, Mick Herron adds two new characters to Slough House, the rundown offices far from M-15’s sleek command center, while continuing to reveal more about those introduced in Slow Horses. This time the chance for redemption comes in the form of a one-time, low-level Cold War spy found dead of a heart attack.
Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, sharp-tongued superior of Slough House, suspects the death wasn’t accidental and begins an off-the-record investigation. He’s still supposed to report to M-15 headquarters, but resolutely follows his own rules.
Perhaps the most ardent in his determination to redeem himself is River Cartwright. He goes undercover in an English village after convincing Lamb to include him in the investigation.
Meanwhile, River’s colleagues Min Guy and Louisa Guy are approached by Spider Webb. He’s an M-15 underling with ambitions of making a name for himself by recruiting a Russian businessman to spy for the agency. Also off the record, Webb wants the pair to “babysit” the Russian before making his pitch.
Herron combines humor with intrigue. Like River, Min and Louisa believe these opportunities mean it won’t be long before they’re back in the agency’s good graces. Lamb’s motivation is driven by a need to understand why something occurred, especially if there’s a possibility of a national threat. Otherwise, he’s satisfied with things just as they are at Slough House.
Dead Lions
Four Bookmarks
Soho Press, 2013
347 pages
The one-time punk rocker, tattooed, cigarette smoking, gay Sister Holiday, doesn’t fit the mold when it comes to Catholic nuns. In Margot Douaihy debut novel, Scorched Grace, she’s a member of the Sisters of Sublime Blood order, which runs the Saint Sebastian School where she’s the music teacher. The convent adjoins the school.
When not one, but two fires and two deaths occur at the school, Sister Holiday initiates her own investigation convinced authorities aren’t moving fast enough to find the culprit – and avoid potential further harm to her school and church community.
Set in New Orleans, the storylines moves between Holiday’s past and what at first appears as her new-found faith. In fact, one of the strengths of Douaihy’s writing lies in slowly revealing the nun’s deepening convictions, in spite of her rebellious personality and the obstacles she encounters in her attempts to solve the crimes.
The list of suspects is credible, even as evidence points to Sister Holiday herself. The investigating police officers are convinced of her guilt. While the fire investigator, Magnolia Riveaux, is less ready to pin the blame on Holiday.
Descriptions of the Big Easy, the humidity and other characters are vivid. Sister Holiday is tenacious and the authorities consider her a pest. Her relationship with the other nuns (there aren’t many) are a way the author deftly merges the past and present. Sister Holiday is, indeed, the sum of her history: colorful tats and all.
Based on the subtitle, Sister Holiday isn’t being cloistered anytime soon.
Scorched Grace: A Sister Holiday Mystery
Three-and-a-half bookmarks
Gillian Flynn Books, 2023
307 pages
Bodie Kane, a successful podcaster living in Los Angeles, returns to her alma mater, a private boarding school in New Hampshire, to teach a podcasting and a film class. The trek down memory lane reveals several unresolved issues; including questioning her role in what she now suspects is the wrongful conviction of the school’s athletic trainer for the murder of her high school roommate.
In I Have Some Questions For You, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an engaging narrative by combining elements of a murder mystery with the transience of memory.
When two of her students choose the murder as their podcast topic, Bodie is both intrigued and uncomfortable, although the former soon overrides the latter. Bodie is forced to examine her own past at the school.
As narrator, Bodie occasionally addresses questions to an unknown reader. The identity is eventually revealed, but the inquiries help guide her as she learns more about the night of the murder, initially viewed as suicide. She considers the school’s eagerness to settle the matter and the possible culpability of numerous students and faculty.
Makkai’s characters are intelligent and credible thanks to an array of foibles. Bodie is separated from her husband with whom she’s maintained a friendly relationship. When he’s called out on social media as sexual predator, Bodie unwittingly comes to his defense, which leads to a new set of problems. All of this comes down to power and privilege, themes further raised as the students’ podcast assumes a life of its own.
I Have Some Questions For You
Four Bookmarks
Viking, 2023
438 pages
At slightly more than 500 pages, A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George is heavy reading, but only in terms of physical weight. Rather, this lengthy mystery is engaging with plenty of possible suspects and motives – perhaps too many.
Set primarily in Guernsey in the English Channel, China River is convinced by her ne’er-do-well half-brother, Cherokee, to join him on a trip to England (from Southern California) to deliver architectural drawings to wealthy landowner Guy Brouard. Soon after their arrival, Brouard is murdered and China is arrested.
Cherokee reaches out to China’s friend, Deborah St. James and her husband, Simon, to help exonerate his sister. This is only the beginning of a long list of characters, some interesting, some entertaining and many extraneous. Consequently, attentive reading is necessary or it’s easy to lose track of who’s who.
Brouard’s back story is a major element of the mystery: he and his sister were sent from France as children at the onset of World War II. Their bond is scrutinized far more than River and Cherokee’s. However, it is only one of several relationships examined.
In spite of the numerous players, including Brouard’s son, his ex-wife, his past lovers, the local police, the cook, the groundskeeper, a teenage boy and his abusive older brother, among many more, the author deftly illustrates why each might be guilty. As the novel progresses, her portrait of Brouard changes shape as more about him is revealed.
Learning the motive is less interesting than discovering the murderer.
A Place of Hiding
Four Bookmarks
Bantam Books, 2003
514 pages
In Sara Blaedel’s The Midnight Witness, set in Copenhagen, the strangled body of a young woman is found in a park. Before long, a journalist investigating drug trafficking is discovered dead in a hotel alley. Questions soon arise: Could these cases be related but how?
Detective Louise Rick is initially assigned to the young woman’s case; later, she’s transferred to the second murder.
Blaedel’s writing is engaging thanks to well-crafted characters. Louise is smart and despite her expertise she’s often diminished because she’s a woman; nonetheless, she has worked her way through the ranks to become a detective. Her best friend Camilla Lind, a journalist investigating the same murders, is set on establishing a connection.
The author provides enough detail about the women’s lives without it overshadowing the who-dun-its. Both are single, although Louise is in a long-term relationship with a man who’s been offered a job in Scotland wanting her to join him. She’s confronted with the personal vs professional battle many women face. Camilla is earnest in her journalistic role, but also is often not taken seriously due to her gender. She’s motivated to prove otherwise.
As they pursue the cases in their respective roles their bond is strained. The tension between the two is palpable. Even as Louise becomes increasingly frustrated with her friend’s involvement she can’t help being concerned for Camilla’s safety.
A third murder victim not only amps up the police efforts, but also raises suspicions about possible leaks among everyone involved in the investigation.
The Midnight Witness
Almost four bookmarks
Grand Central Publishing, 2018
284 pages
In Nick Herron’s Slow Horses, Slough House is where disgraced and shunned Great Britain’s MI5 agents are sent on the theory it’s where they can do no further harm.
Jackson Lamb is in charge of the has-beens who’ve been relegated to his watch for various security infringements. These include, among others, alcoholism; misplaced classified documents and misidentifying a terrorist in a training exercise. Besides being crude and disdainful, Lamb has his own reasons for being at Slough House.
Mostly, the disgraced agents do nothing but while away the hours. River Cartwright, whose task is to transcribe phone conversations, resents being among the misfits. He’s anxious to return to the spy game. He’s also the one accused of botching the training drill.
When a young man of Pakistani descent is abducted and his captors threaten to live broadcast his beheading, River sees an opportunity to restore his reputation.
A discredited journalist, an addition to the Slough House team and River’s family history contribute to the fast-paced narrative. At the risk of providing a spoiler, high level corruption is an evolving factor.
Different viewpoints are provided, as are brief histories of some of the other “slow horses.” That of the kidnap victim is compelling. He’s a British citizen with no ties to any radical groups. Yet, his racist abductors think otherwise.
Slow Horses is the first in a series by Herron, an award-winning crime writer. A television production of the same name closely follows the book, but lacks its character detail.
Slow horses
Four Bookmarks
Soho Crime, 2010
329 pages
The Blue Page Special 