Book review: The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

Title: The Way of All Flesh
Author: Ambrose Parry
Publisher: Canongate Books
Publication date: 2nd October 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction
Series: Raven, Fisher & Simpson, #1
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Description: Edinburgh, 1847. City of Medicine, Money, Murder. Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson’s patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education. With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.

My thoughts: I went to university in Edinburgh and its one of those places where you can feel the history leaking out of the stones all around you. So a historical story set here, and in one of my favourite historical periods to read about, was a definite 'yes' from me. The book starts just before Will starts an apprenticeship with a doctor. Before he can get there, he discovers that a young woman he'd been visiting has died, and it doesn't seem like natural courses. Will is determined to investigate, even if it jeopardises his new position.

Dr Simpson is wealthy, but treats many patients who could never normally afford a doctor as well, and his specialism is childbirth. Midwifery is a key part of the book, and I found it fascinating and horrifying to see some of the medical practices of the period. It was one of those books where I paused to google quite a few times and learn a little bit more about what was happening in the wider medical and legal community at the time that fell outside the immediate view of the book. Pain relief in childbirth is just starting to be experimented with, but half of the doctors using it have no idea what they're doing, and many women tragically died.

There's a gripping crime plotline through the middle of the book, which I really enjoyed, and an examination of privilege and the position of women at the time through the character of Sarah. But it was the historical aspects that I really found fascinating. Beyond the midwifery, it's woven wonderfully into the story, from the setting of Edinburgh itself, to episodes like when Will spends a day with some photographers and sees how their art is developing.

I really enjoyed this book, and I'm so glad it's the start of a series. If like me you'd like to know more about the author, I was interested to learn that it's actually a writting team: Scottish crime writer Christopher Brookmyre, and his wife, who got interested in some of the topics explored in the book while working on her PhD.

Overall, I'm giving this one 9/10, and I will definitely be reading the sequel at some point.

Book review: Wychwood by George Mann

Title: Wychwood
Author: George Mann
Release date: 12 September 2017
Publisher: Titan
Genre: Crime
Source: Bought

Description: After losing her job and her partner in one fell swoop, journalist Elspeth Reeves is back in her mother's house in the sleepy village of Wilsby-Under-Wychwood, wondering where it all went wrong. Then a body is found in the neighbouring Wychwood: a woman ritually slaughtered, with cryptic symbols scattered around her corpse. 

Elspeth recognizes these from a local myth of the Carrion King, a Saxon magician who once held a malevolent court ddp in the forest. As more murders follow, Elspeth joins her childhood friend DS Peter Shaw to investigate, and the two discover sinister village secrets harking back decades. 

My thoughts: The story begins with Elspeth pulling up to her mum's house, come to stay for a while, only to find that police have blocked off the road. No one is allowed into the crime scene area, but Elspeth pops through her house and hops over the wall at the bottom of their garden. While sneaking around, she not only sees the body, but also bumps into her childhood friend Peter, now a police officer.

I really liked Elspeth as a character. She's warm and relatable, and determined to get back on her feet after the blow that sent her back to her mum's. She works hard, and her curiosity almost always gets the better of her. Wychwood is a fairly standard police investigation into a string of murders, with Elspeth accompanying Peter as he interviews several people who might be able to shed light on things.

It's a really good book, I was hooked early on, but I was disappointed by the lack of magic or fantasy elements in the book. I guess I went into it expecting something more like Ben Aaronovitch or Paul Cornell's books, where police discover that there's magic in the world, and the magical becomes a big part of the story. In Wychwood, the only reason the reader knows that magic is definitely involved is because of occasional short interludes from the killer's point of view. I'd also hoped that it might be the start of a series, but while there can easily be more cases for Elspeth and Peter, I'm not sure how believably anything magical could be tied to the town again, after the events of Wychwood.

All in all, I did enjoy Wychwood a lot, and have been recommending it to people, but it wasn't quite the book I was expecting when I started reading. A page-turning crime thriller set in a cosy English town, this book is a perfect autumn read, particularly with Halloween coming up. I'm giving it 7/10, but I'll be more cautious going into future books by George Mann.

Book review: I Have No Secrets by Penny Joelson

Title: I Have No Secrets
Author: Penny Joelson
Release date: 4th May 2017
Publisher: Egmont
Genre: YA Crime
Source: Review copy from the publisher

Description: Jemma knows who did the murder. She knows because he told her. And she can't tell anyone. 

Fourteen-year-old Jemma has severe cerebral palsy. Unable to communicate or move, she relies on her family and carer for everything. She has a sharp brain and inquisitive nature, and knows all sorts of things about everyone. But when she is confronted with this terrible secret, she is utterly powerless to do anything. Though that might be about to change...

A page-turning thriller seen through the eyes of a unique narrator, this is a truly original, heart-rending and compulsive book for young adult readers. Perfect for fans of Wonder, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Looking for JJ.

My thoughts: I Have No Secrets is told in first person by Jemma, who is unable to communicate with anyone around her - she can't even move her eyes. I really liked that the book showed me a new perspective; I've never really thought about what life might be like in that situation, or read a book told from that point of view. You really see how powerless Jemma is.

One of the big problems for her is that she's really uncomfortable with her carer's boyfriend. Since the carer, Sarah, lives in, Dan comes round to their house often and makes fun of Jemma when he's alone in a room with her. Early on in the story, he implies to Jemma that he's responsible for the murder of a young man who lives on her street. Then, Sarah goes missing. Of course, Jemma suspects Dan, but she has absolutely no way to tell anyone else about what he'd said to her.

While I did want to know what had happened to Sarah, I have to admit that I got a bit bored reading this book. By her very nature, Jemma is a passive narrator. The plot moves forwards as people talk about things within Jemma's hearing. Someone goes off to do something, comes back, and talks about it. For the majority of the book, things happen around Jemma, not because of her, and I found that very slow and not particularly exciting. So much of the action in the main plot thread (the murder investigation) happens off-page. It really emphasises the struggle Jemma has each day, which is great for broadening the horizons of the reader, but it's not so good at making the story engaging. Overall I have to give this 5 out of 10. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it worked to make an exciting book - and when it's focussed on a murder investigation, I think the story ought to be exciting.

Review: The Boy Who Saw by Simon Toyne

 Title: The Boy Who Saw
Author: Simon Toyne
Publication date: 15th June 2017
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Thriller (with supernatural twists)
Source: Review copy from publisher

Blurb: Only one boy can see the darkness.
Only one man can save him from it.

‘Finishing what was begun’

These are the words written in blood beside the body of an elderly tailor who has been tortured and murdered in the ancient town of Cordes. He leaves behind a cryptic message for his granddaughter and her son, Leo – one that puts them in immediate danger. When the mother and child are forced to go on the run, accompanied by the enigmatic Solomon Creed, they find themselves hunted across France, on a journey that will take them into the heart of Europe’s violent past. What begins as small-town murder will become a race to uncover a devastating secret dating from World War II. The few men who know the truth are being killed by a powerful organisation, and only one man stands in its way.

Only Solomon Creed can stop the murders.
Only he can save the boy.

My thoughts: The Boy Who Saw is the sequel to Solomon Creed, which I read when it came out and really really enjoyed. It left me really wanting to know more about Solomon Creed, who he was, and where he came from, so I was excited that proofs of The Boy Who Saw arrived in the office while I worked at HarperCollins.

The book gets off to a dramatic start, with the gruesome murder of a tailor, who is being tortured for information. The killer wants information about a list. As police begin their investigation, Solomon Creed enters the picture. As in Solomon Creed, he has very few memories - in fact this book takes place just a couple of weeks after the events of the first. There are two main threads to the story, wrapped around each other. The first is the Dan Brown-esque mystery of what the murderer was looking for, and the flight of the granddaughter and her son across France, aided and abetted by various others along the way as they try to remain ahead of the killer and also solve the clue left behind by the tailor.

Entangled with that is Solomon's quest to figure out who he is and where he came from, a quest that is exactly why I wanted to read this book so badly! There are a few more clues and a little bit more light shed on the situation, but if like me you wanted to find out 'who is Solomon Creed' you'll remain disappointed for now. The upside of that is that there must be more books to come!

As with Solomon Creed, The Boy Who Saw is full of elements that make you think 'Is something supernatural going on here?' Most of them can be explained away, or dismissed as overactive imaginations, but then, like in book one, a couple of things happen which unquestionably are something magical. Simon Toyne has written very skilfully to keep the reader guessing about this, and the plot is full of twists and turns. Fans of Solomon Creed will not be disappointed with this followup, and overall I'm giving it 8 out of 10.

Book Review: Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner

Title: Missing, Presumed
Author: Susie Steiner
Release date: March 2016
Genre: Crime
Publisher: HarperCollins
Source: Publisher

Description: Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date – the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.

Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman – door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge post-graduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.

Is Edith alive or dead? Was her ‘complex love life’ at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press? And when a body is found, is it the end or only the beginning?

My thoughts: I love a good crime novel, so when this book just kept selling and selling I decided to see what the fuss was about. Missing, Presumed introduces D. S. Bradshaw and her teammates, sets up their working relationships and starts to look at some of their individual dramas. In terms of the case they're dealing with, I was intrigued by the title - straight away is the question of whether Edith (the missing girl) is just missing, or presumed dead.

I enjoyed the various twists in the case, as the team follow different leads and uncover new clues. The story is told from several viewpoints, with the most prominent being Manon. As the book progressed I began to have a suspicion of what might have happened, even if I couldn't put together the details of it, but I wasn't sure, and it was good to read through to the end and finally get everything untangled.

While I'm interested in seeing the developments of the police team over future books, Manon's love life in this one did annoy me quite a lot, and I skimmed through large portions of her point of view chapters which didn't relate to the case. She just seemed a bit too grumpy and strange, it wasn't very interesting to read her awkward dating experiences or to see things getting messed up.

Overall, it was a promising start to a series, and hopefully Ms. Steiner can build on it and the characters she has introduced to create a stronger second book. Missing, Presumed was a good, fast read but not memorable once I'd finished - definitely the sort of book I'd class as a 'beach read' or holiday read. I'm giving it 6/10.

Review: Brighton Belle by Sara Sheridan

Title: Brighton Belle
Author: Sara Sheridan
Publisher: Constable
Genre: Historical (mystery)
Series: Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries #1
Source: Bought

Description: 1951. Brighton.

With the war over and the Nazis brought to justice at Nuremberg, Mirabelle Bevan (retired Whitehall secretary) thinks her skills are no longer required. After her lover's death she retires to the seaside to put the past behind her and takes a job at a debt collection agency run by the charismatic Big Ben McGuigan. But when the case of Romana Laszlo - a pregnant Hungarian refugee - comes in, Mirabelle soon discovers that her specialist knowledge is vital. With enthusiastic assistance from insurance clerk Vesta Churchill, they follow a mysterious trail of gold sovereigns and corpses that only they can unravel.

My thoughts: This is a fairly straightforward mystery story, with a fun time period setting. Mirabelle gets tangled into the case of Romana Laszlo when her boss goes missing. Following clues, at first alone, she finds many things which don't seem to add up, despite the fact she knows they must be connected. Needing a bit of help, she enlists Vesta, who works in the same building as her.

The characters were likeable and the mystery was interesting. Aside from the interesting time setting though, nothing jumped out at me as being particularly exciting or brilliant about the story. If I stumble on the sequel, I'll probably give it a go, but this one didn't leave me wanting to rush out and buy it. If you're looking for a nice mystery story, give it a go.

I'm rating this one 5/10.

Mini book review: Natural Causes by James Oswald

Title: Natural Causes
Author: James Oswald
Publication date: May 2013
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Crime
Notes: #1 of the Inspector McLean series

Description: Natural Causes is the first novel in the Detective Inspector McLean series, from Sunday Times best-selling author James Oswald. A young girl's mutilated body is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains are carefully arranged, in what seems to have been a cruel and macabre ritual, which appears to have taken place over 60 years ago. For newly appointed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Tony McLean this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority - but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death. Meanwhile, the city is horrified by a series of bloody killings. Deaths for which there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason, and which leave Edinburgh's police at a loss. McLean is convinced that these deaths are somehow connected to the terrible ceremonial killing of the girl, all those years ago. It is an irrational, almost supernatural theory. And one which will lead McLean closer to the heart of a terrifying and ancient evil...

My thoughts: I'd heard good things about this author for both this series and his newer fantasy series, so I'd been keeping an eye out for the books. I knew the author was Scottish and the books were set in and around Edinburgh, so that boded well for it painting Scotland & Edinburgh accurately - not something that always happens. I was right - James Oswald begins the story with Inspector Tony McLean stopping at a violent crime scene in one of the affluent areas of the city. Right from the start, Oswald brings Edinburgh to life - or rather death, as Inspector McLean goes from one crime scene to another, interspersed with time at the frantic police station and several visits to the morgue. While at first each crime seems straightforward and isolated, with a killer being found soon afterwards, Tony knows it isn't that simple and tries to untangle all the threads before someone else becomes a victim.

There is a hint of something supernatural in the story and readers are left guessing as to whether there really are ghosts involved, or whether the 'supernatural' events are simply coincidence and imagination. I thought it was a good story and I liked the cast of characters and their developing professional and personal relationship. I do plan to read the next book in the series when I can find it. So, if you're in the mood for some Scottish crime solving with a frustrated Detective Inspector and a hint of something supernatural, I can recommend this one. I'm giving this one 7/10.

~Ailsa

Buy it: The Book Depository

Cut Short - Leigh Russell

I don't usually read crime fiction, but I was delighted to receive a review copy of Leigh Russell's deput novel, Cut Short.

When D.I. Geraldine Steel relocates to the quiet rural town of Woolsmarsh, she expects to find her new home to be somewhere where nothing much ever happens; a space where she can battle her demons in private. But when she finds herself pitted against a twisted killer preying on local young women she quickly discovers how wrong she is...

By day, the park is a place for children's games, for people walking their dogs or taking a short cut to avoid the streets. But in the shadows a predator prowls, hunting for a fresh victim. When an unwitting bystander comes forward as a witness she quickly becomes the next object of his murderous obsessions - someone whom the killer must stop at all costs.

D.I. Geraldine Steel is locked into a race against time, determined to find the killer before they discover yet another naked corpse . But can she save the lives of the town's young women - or will Geraldine herself become the killer's ultimate trophy?

As I said, I'm not a reader of crime fiction but I have to say I found Cut Short a quick read. The novel has a 'law and order' feel to it, as we see the steps, dead ends and eventually success of the detectives in their pursuit of a serial killer. I really enjoyed being able to see things from different perspectives and really enjoyed some of Leigh's characters, namely D.S. Peterson and can't wait to see how their stories develop further as the series progresses.

In regards to the crime side of the story (which obviously is the main part), Leigh doesn't hold back and gives us a very gritty view of the characters' (both victims and minor characters) lives. That being said, I enjoyed the fact that through the bantering relationship of Geraldine and Peterson, and the focus on Geraldine and her sister Celia, or Craig, there was a lightening of the plot.

Overall, I think crime readers will really enjoy this book, and I look forward to reading more about Geraldine Steel and the other characters in Cut Short

Interview: Will Lavender

The other week, I reviewed 'Obedience' by Will Lavender. He's now very kindly agreed to do an interview for us. I asked him about things from plotting, to how he became a writer, and his new project, Dominance.

1) First off, when did you decide you wanted to write, and how did you come to write this novel? Where did you get the idea for Obedience from?

I knew I wanted to be a writer early on, after I read the Bunnicula books by James Howe. I remember thinking how cool it was that people told stories for a living, that there were folks out there who were making books and providing them to people for enjoyment. I've always had an affinity for books and an aptitude for writing--and so it was natural that I got into this. I got the idea for Obedience from the Mt. Washington McDonald's case, which was well-known in Kentucky for a couple of years earlier in the decade. The scientist Stanley Milgram's name was mentioned in the newspaper account of the case, and I got to thinking about how far someone might go only because a person in authority tells them to go there. I was a college instructor at the time, and I wondered how far I might be able to go with my students. I couldn't go that far, obviously, and wouldn't for ethical reasons--but Professor Williams does.

2) The plot twists are great - how hard was it for you to keep some information hidden, and lead the characters where they are supposed to go? I'm guessing you must have had a very good plan. Were there times when you missed things, or did most of it come out right first time?

A lot of what you see in the book came to me when I was writing the first draft. I did not have a very good plan, in fact I didn't have that much of a plan at all. I had three main scenes: the very first scene of the novel, one of the middle scenes, and a late scene that allows things to start moving toward the climax of the novel. That was it. It's an age-old battle in novel writing: Should one write with or without an outline? I always choose to write without, because I need those plot twists to surprise me. If they don't surprise me, then they won't surprise a reader. The plot twists in Obedience continued to surprise me, so I just kept on going and kept putting them in. My editor helped a great deal with consistency and coherence after the first draft was done, but at least 75% of the book you see now is pretty much how I conceived it.

3) Can you tell us a bit about your next book? Is it in any way a sequel to Obedience?

My next book is called Dominance. My deadline is October 1st. It isn't a sequel per se, but I do use some of the same themes. The book is another college novel, this one set in upstate Vermont. It's about a class of English majors that is taught via satellite by a convicted murderer. As the class gets into the syllabus, they discover that the murderer may not be who he says he is--in fact, he may not even be guilty of the crimes he was convicted of. It's been a difficult book to write, probably because I'm working with different timelines and time sequences. (Part of the book takes place in the present, with the students from the original class grown up and the novel's heroine investigating a murder that looks shockingly similar to the ones her old professor was accused of.) But if you enjoyed Obedience, you'll like this new one as well.

4) I'm dying to know - what happens to Brian after the end of Obedience?

The novel pretty much ends for me where it ends for the reader. I've been asked a hundred times about Brian, and I really couldn't tell you what becomes of him. I would hope he is granted some leniency for what he did, because he was of course driven to that point by the class. Brian was a tough character to write in general; he comes to Winchester sort of a broken soul and then has this bizarre class that he really doesn't even want to take come along. You feel more sorry for him--at least I do--than the other two main characters. But essentially he chose to do what he did at the end of the book; I believe, though, that a jury would agree that he was manipulated in some pretty profound ways.

5) Did you ever have doubts about or trouble being published? How did you get your agent & publisher?

I didn't really have too many doubts about Obedience because I knew it was different, and I was pretty sure it was a book that would appeal to people who read thrillers. I found my agent on a Web site called PreditorsandEditors.com. From there she helped me clean the manuscript up, and then she sent it off to a few publishers. Before long we had some interest and then, eventually, a few offers. The book has been published in eleven or twelve foreign countries and was a pretty big seller in China. Movie rights have been discussed, etc. None of that happens without a good agent--and I definitely have one of those.

6) What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Read. Read a lot and then continue reading and finally read some more. And not only that: read like a writer. Read with an eye toward how published writers do things. Not just big things, either--I'm talking about the "little" things as well. (Though they are in no way small.) How do writers use tags in dialogue, for instance? How do they get characters from place to place? How do they write action sequences? How do they make their characters come to life? All these things can be picked up if you go out there and try to find them. I'm not talking about stealing--I'm talking about picking up the essential pieces of writers' styles and then making them your own. I try to learn something from every book I read, good or bad.

Thank you very much, Will!

Will's website can be found here: Click, where you can learn more about him, his books, and his influences. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this interview!

Posted by Gapyeargirl123

Obedience, by Will Lavender

From the back cover:

The beginning of the fall term at Winchester University in rural Indiana. On the first day of class Professor Williams presents a startling scenario to the students in his Logic and Reasoning 204 course: a young girl has gone missing and the class has until the end of the quarter to find her or she will be murdered.

The students believe Williams’s tale is nothing more than a logic puzzle, but soon three of them – Mary, Brian and Dennis – stumble upon a real-life, unsolved disappearance that sounds eerily similar to the one Williams described, the case of Deanna Ward, a girl who went missing twenty years earlier and was never found. Each of them becomes obsessed with the two women and with the professor, himself a shadowy figure. As the real world and Williams’s puzzle begin to merge, the three young people are thrown into a complex and horrifying game of deception. What’s real? What’s fiction? And how far will the students go to obey authority?

I’d been looking for this book in paperback for months, after reading a review, and it didn’t disappoint. A five hour train journey after buying it, and the only reason I hadn’t finished was because it got dark. I just couldn’t make myself put it down before that.

After the prologue, the book begins with the ominous heading ‘SIX WEEKS LEFT’. As the book goes on, these headings help increase the ever-present tension: moving from weeks into days, then finally hours. The mystery is introduced straight away: it turns out that no one has any idea what their new professor, Mr Williams, looks like – he’s somehow missing from the yearbooks, despite his name being mentioned, and the website shows only his brief CV, while the box for the photo is gray and blank. The three main characters are quickly introduced in Williams’s first class, where they are both puzzled and intrigued by the scenario he describes. The first couple of chapters follow the three students through their early classes with Williams, and we quickly learn that they have secrets of their own, some that they conceal from their friends, and others that are hinted at but left for the reader to guess about.

I think it’s very hard to talk about this book, to describe it, because there are so many twists. There is so much information that is ever so slowly revealed over the course of the story, and a lot of what Dennis, Mary and Brian are discovering throws what they’ve already learnt into question. Who can they trust? Who should they believe? It is clear that someone is lying, but whether that is the Professor himself, about who Polly is, or Orman, the dean, who claims Williams is a plagiarist, and a liar obsessed with a long-ago crime? The evidence seems to make the issue of who to believe swing back and forth between the two. But then it starts to seem like the students are being pointed in certain directions, herded to exactly the places where someone wants them to go. And the deeper they go, the darker things get.

I love how the narrative switches from one character’s point of view to the other – all three of the students have very well-defined personalities, and it adds to the general confusion that the reader never gets to see all of what is going on. Like the characters, I was hooked on finding the answer, and trying to work out what was a prop and what was real.

It was a fascinating read, with a shocking conclusion. I definitely have to re-read, knowing what's happening, to see how different it seems. If you want a book to keep you up past our bed time, and make you give strange teachers a second look, then this is definitely one for you.

Overall rating? 8 stars, I think.

Will Lavender has very kindly agreed to do an interview for us here at the Book Bundle! That will probably go up sometime next week. If anyone has any questions they'd like to ask, please leave them in the comments.