Review: THE TRESPASSER, Tana French

• 
  This edition a Kindle e-book (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B016IOF3O4
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hodder & Stoughton (September 22, 2016)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 481 pages 
• Dublin Murder Squad #6

Synopsis (Amazon)

Being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she’s there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she’s getting close to the breaking point.
 
Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed-to-a-shine, and dead in her catalog-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her—except that Antoinette’s seen her somewhere before.
 
And that her death won’t stay in its neat by-numbers box. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinetteʼs road. Aislinnʼs friend is hinting that she knew Aislinn was in danger. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the glossy, passive doll she seemed to be.
 
Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface? 

My Take

I nearly stopped reading this novel several times, and ended up being glad that I persisted, and finished it. The book took me well over a week to read - very unusual for me. It is a very long book too, but I solved the problem of the size by resorting to a Kindle edition.

Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran are struggling to work out why they were assigned this case. Perhaps it was because they were early to work. What does their boss have in mind? Antoinette suspects that it is her last chance to prove herself. Neither she nor Stephen have been popular with other members of the Murder Squad, and others seem to take great delight in sabotaging her work. And why did the boss insist they take Detective Breslin on their team? He seems to barely tolerate them.

On the surface this seems as if it could be a lovers' tiff gone wrong, but then the suspect seems wrong, and he insists that he has never entered the dead woman's flat. Gradually a different slant on the scenario emerges.

The detail in this plot is incredible, as is the insight into how detectives work.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

4.3, THE LIKENESS
4.8, THE SECRET PLACE
4.5, THE WYCH ELM 

review: THE GINZA GHOST, Keikichi Osaka

• 
   Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• ASIN : B0714J93TC
• Translated by Ho-Ling Wong
• Publisher : Locked Room International (May 29, 2017)
• Stories published originally between 1932 and 1947
• Language : English
• Print length : 206 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN : 154305742X

Synopsis (Amazon)

Although the Japanese form of Golden Age detective fiction was re-launched in the early 1980s as shin honkaku by Soji Shimada and Yukito Ajatsuji, the original honkaku dates from the 1930s and one of its pioneers was Keikichi Osaka. The Ginza Ghost is a collection of twelve of his best stories, almost all impossible crimes. Although the solutions are strictly fair-play, there is an unreal, almost hallucinatory quality to them.
Osaka, who died tragically young, was an early pioneer and master of the genre, whose work is only now starting to be re-discovered.

My take

This collection of stories was recently brought to my attention by a fellow blogger at A Crime is Afoot. The stories are essentially mysteries, not necessarily murders. Most of them present "impossible" scenarios, with unusual/unpredictable solutions, some featuring illusions or ghosts.

• THE HANGMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE, 1932, debut work featuring detective Kyosuke Aoyama
• THE PHANTASM OF THE STONE WALL, 1935, Kyosuke Aoyama
• THE MOURNING LOCOMOTIVE, 1934
• THE MONSTER OF THE LIGHTHOUSE, 1935
• THE PHANTOM WIFE, 1947, published posthumously
• THE MESMERISING LIGHT, 1936
• THE COLD NIGHT'S CLEARING, 1936
• THE THREE MADMEN, 1936
• THE GUARDIAN OF THE LIGHTHOUSE, 1936
• THE DEMON IN THE MINE, 1937
• THE HUNGRY LETTER-BOX, 1939
• THE GINZA GHOST, 1936

These stories could have been written in any language, but at the same time you are aware that the settings are a "different" culture, and notes are provided to explain Japanese weights and measures, as well as cultural terms. The ones that stick with me are THE HANGMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE, where a thief is "hoist on his own petard", THE MOURNING LOCOMOTIVE, about a train that keeps killing people, and THE THREE MADMEN, which is truly horrific.

My rating: 4.3

Review: THE LANTERN MEN, Elly Griffiths

• 
  this edition published in 2020 by Quercus
  
  
• ISBN 9-781787-477544
• 363 pages
• #12 in the Ruth Galloway series
  

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway.

She has a new job, home and partner, and is no longer North Norfolk police's resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this, and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried - but only if Ruth will do the digging.

Curious, but wary, Ruth agrees. March tells Ruth that he killed four more women and that their bodies are buried near a village bordering the fens, said to be haunted by the Lantern Men, mysterious figures holding lights that lure travellers to their deaths.

Is Ivor March himself a lantern man, luring Ruth back to Norfolk? What is his plan, and why is she so crucial to it? And are the killings really over? 

My Take

The beginning of this book took me by surprise! Ruth has changed jobs, and moved into Cambridge (and I have only missed 2 books in the series!). She even has a new partner. I presume she is trying to establish a life without Harry Nelson. She and Katie are settled in their new surroundings and relationships, have been there about two years I think, but she thinks of Nelson constantly.

But all comes unstuck when convicted murderer Ivor March offers to tell Nelson where some more bodies are buried, on condition that Ruth does the excavation. So once again Ruth and Nelson are thrown together and life become compliacted.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Elly Griffiths has lost none of her touch.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS 

Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries
   1. The Crossing Places (2009)
   2. The Janus Stone (2010)
   3. The House at Sea's End (2011)
   4. A Room Full of Bones (2011)
   4.5. Ruth's First Christmas Tree (2012)
   5. A Dying Fall (2012)
   6. The Outcast Dead (2014)
   7. The Ghost Fields (2015)
   8. The Woman in Blue (2016)
   9. The Chalk Pit (2017)
   10. The Dark Angel (2018)
   11. The Stone Circle (2019)
   12. The Lantern Men (2020)
   13. The Night Hawks (2021)
   14. The Locked Room (2022) 

Review: THE HEALERS, Ann Cleeves

• 
  This edition read as an e-book through Libby, through my local library
  
• Originally published in 1995
• Inspector Ramsay #5
  

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

An Inspector Ramsay murder mystery. Farmer Ernie Bowles is found lying strangled on his kitchen floor. A second strangulation follows and then a third suspicious death which provides a link and leads Inspector Ramsay to the Alternative Therapy Clinic. Could one of the healers be a killer?

My take:

The 5th Inspector Ramsay that I have read in quick succession, in order, and it has been worth doing that for the character development of both Ramsay and his off-sider Hunter. The setting is once again a small community of fairly tightly knit people.

We start off with a bachelor farmer found dead on his kitchen floor, strangled, after a night when he went out on a blind date.

There is a range of quirky characters in this one, and a lovely lot of red herrings. I had my major suspect but I was wrong!
These are very satisfying reads. I'm just sad there is only one more in the series.

I've also read

• 4.5, A LESSON DYING - Inspector Ramsay #1
• 4.5, MURDER IN MY BACKYARD -Inspector Ramsay #2 
• 4.4, A DAY IN THE DEATH OF DOROTHEA CASSIDY - Inspector Ramsay  #3
• 4.6, KILLJOY -  Inspector Ramsay #4

 

Review: HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Kate White

• 
  this edition published by Harper Collins 2020
  
• ISBN 978-0-00-842723-8
• 366 pages
• author website

Synopsis (author)

The key to her missing memories could bring relief—
or unlock her worst nightmares.

On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives soaked to the bone at her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard. When her boss shows, he’s shocked to see her—because, he explains, she hasn’t worked there in five years.

Ally knows her name, but is having trouble coming up with much beyond that, though after a trip to the psychiatric ER, she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance journalist; she’s married to a terrific man named Hugh. More memories materialize and yet she still can’t recall anything about the previous two days. Diagnosed as having experienced a “dissociative state,” she starts to wonder if it may have been triggered by something she saw—an accident, or worse, a trauma from her childhood that has risen to the surface.

Desperate for answers, Ally tries to track where she spent the missing days, but every detail she unearths points to an explanation that’s increasingly ominous, and it’s clear someone wants to prevent her from learning where those forty-eight hours went. In order to uncover the truth, Ally must dig deep into the secrets of her past—and outsmart the person who seems determined to silence her.

My take

When Ally Linden arrives at work, she doesn't realise she has been missing for two days. Her husband hasn't realised she is missing because when he last saw her she was storming out after an argument. 

Bits of her memory return but she still doesn't have answers to her fugue state, and it seems that something deep in her past may have triggered everything. A friend suggests that she may have had a shock, and Ally is inclined to believe that after she finds blood-soaked tissues in her coat pocket.

A book that kept me engaged right to the end.

My rating: 4.5

About the author 

Kate White is the New York Times bestselling author of fifteen novels of suspense: seven standalone psychological thrillers, including Have You Seen Me? (an Amazon Editors’ mystery and thriller pick for 2020), as well as eight Bailey Weggins mysteries.

Her next suspense novel, The Fiancée, will be published on June 29, 2021.

For fourteen years Kate served as the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and though she loved the job (and all the freebies to be found in the Cosmo beauty closet), she decided to leave eight years ago to concentrate full-time on being a suspense author.

Her first mystery, Even If It Kills Her, was a Kelly Ripa Book Club pick and #1 bestseller on Amazon. She has been published in countries around the world. Her most recent Bailey Weggins mystery, Such a Perfect Wife, was nominated for an International Thriller Writers Award.

Like many female mystery writers, Kate fell in love with the genre after reading her first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of Redgate Farm.

Kate is a frequent speaker at libraries and conferences and loves to share her journey from magazine editor to suspense novelist in a talk called “On Becoming an Author: Forging a New Creative Path and Finding Winning Ideas All Around You.”

She is also the editor of the Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, a collection of recipes from the field’s top-selling authors. In addition to writing mysteries and thrillers, Kate is the author of several bestselling career books, including The Gutsy Girl Handbook: Your Manifesto for Success, as well as I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: How to Ask for the Money, Snag the Promotion, and Create the Career You Deserve, and Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do.

She divides her time now between New York City and Las Flores, Uruguay.

review: TELL ME LIES, J. P. Pomare

• 
  this edition published by Hachette in 2020
  
• ISBN 9-781869-718619
• 230 pages

Synopsis (Publisher)

Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children and a successful career.

On a warm spring morning Margot approaches one of her clients on a busy train platform. He is looking down at his phone, with his duffel bag in hand as the train approaches. That's when she slams into his back and he falls in front of the train.

Margot's clients all lie to her, but one lie cost her family and freedom.

A fast-paced psychological thriller for fans of The Silent Patient.

My Take

It is not just Margot's clients who lie to her, the success of her entire career has been based on lies, narrowly avoided conflict of interest and compromise.

Margot knows that she is a successful psychologist. She spends much of her time in pigeon-holing her clients, confident that she can help solve their problems. But she doesn't seem to see behind the facade they present, and she doesn't realise that at least one of them is stalking her, and just biding his time.

Her own problems seem to begin when her family house is fire-bombed. She thinks that the culprit is one of her clients, but she picks the wrong one. And then her consulting rooms are fire-bombed as well, but her office has been ransacked too, and she realises that the fire-bomber was looking for something.

An interestingly constructed plot, with little problems for the reader to solve along the way. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.8 

I've also read

4.6, IN THE CLEARING
4.8, CALL ME EVIE 

Review: NOT DARK YET, Peter Robinson

• 
  this edition published in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton
  
• ISBN 978-1-529-34307-6
• 374 pages
• #27 in the Inspector Banks series
  

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction) 

Murder is only the beginning for Banks and his team . . .

The gruesome double murder at an Eastvale property developer's luxury home should be an open and shut case for Superintendent Banks and his team of detectives. There's a clear link to the notoriously vicious Albanian mafia, men who left the country suspiciously soon after the death. Then they find a cache of spy-cam videos hidden in the house - and Annie and Gerry's investigation pivots to the rape of a young girl that could cast the murders in an entirely different light.

Banks's friend Zelda, increasingly uncertain of her future in Britain's hostile environment, thinks she will be safer in Moldova hunting the men who abducted, raped and enslaved her than she is Yorkshire or London. Her search takes her back to the orphanage where it all began - but by stirring up the murky waters of the past, Zelda is putting herself in greater danger than any she's seen before.

And as the threat escalates, so does the danger for Banks and those who love Zelda . . .

My take

Another many stranded plot, firmly rooted in the infiltration of Britain by East European mafia. Added to that the exploration of Banks's personal life. Some heart stopping moments as not only Zelda is abducted but also Banks himself is snatched and then thinks his end has come.  

I am always an advocate of reading a series in order, and that has stood me in relatively good stead in the case of the Inspector Banks series. However I have missed only one of the recent titles in this series, but it was enough to ensure that I did not know who one of the important characters in this title, Zelda, was.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

FRIEND OF THE DEVIL (2007)
4.6, ALL THE COLOURS OF DARKNESS (2008)
4.6, BAD BOY (2010)
4.9. BEFORE THE POISON
4.7, WATCHING THE DARK (2013)
4.3, CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
4.8, ABATTOIR BLUES
4.4, THE PRICE OF LOVE
4.5, BEFORE THE POISON
4.6, SLEEPING IN THE GROUND
4.8, CARELESS LOVE - #25