I read and reviewed 87 books in 2019, totalling 31,908 pages according to Goodreads. I rated 14 books as five star reads, two of which were non-fiction. That's a pretty good strike rate for excellent reads, which is mostly down to knowing whose recommendations to trust. Difficult to
put the books in an order as all first class.
The Borrowed by Chan Ho-Kei
Linking together six novellas, the stories trace the legendary career of Kwan Chun-dok, a Hong Kong detective, working back from the present day to 1967. While each tale is an intricately plotted police procedural, where the
mystery is a difficult puzzle that takes a different form – locked-room, prisoner-dilemma, jail break, siege, kidnapping,
terrorist conspiracy) they are also astute social and political commentaries
about Hong Kong as it passes from British colony to the sphere of Chinese rule.
Kwan is an
intriguing character, full of humanity and compassion, but ruthless in pursuing
justice. An engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking novel
with excellent plotting, strong character development, and a good sense of
place and historical context.
A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott
Manda Scott expertly
weaves together two inter-related plots that are separated by seventy
years. The first concerns a battle of wits between a master Gestapo
agent who cleverly turns resistance members and a group of SOE agents
and French Marquis that last much of the war. The second charts the
present day investigation into the assassination of one of the elderly former SOE
agents.
Both threads make for compelling stories, but when twisted together the result
is a page-turning thriller. The characterisation is very nicely done,
there’s good historical contextualisation, and the underlying premise in
terms of the post-war era is interesting. Scott peppers the plot with
twists and turns, and keeps the reader guessing to the end.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 and promptly dies. History
repeats but she lives, the doctor having made it through the snowstorm.
It is a pattern that Ursula is set to repeat dying multiple times in
several different ways, sometimes a sense of déjà vu saving her from the
same fate in a subsequent life. Mostly her lives follow a very similar
trajectory, occasionally they diverge and take a different track. At
some point, she realises that she could potentially save the world from
the darkness of the Second World War. But can one person stop fate?
Atkinson uses the repeating lives idea to explore the notion of history
as a palimpsest. The result is an engaging,
thoughtful literary novel that asks big questions but not in a highbrow,
inaccessible way.
The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh
The Blinds blends together aspects of a Western with a SF
memory loss tale. Caesura, West Texas, is a dusty, isolated town of
second chances. Its residents are either criminals or key witnesses
who’ve had their memories altered so they cannot remember what led to
them being there. A suicide and a murder have them worried. Sternbergh
spins-out a compelling yarn in which the past
gradually intrudes on the present leading to betrayal, violence,
redemption, and desperate fight to survive. The plot is very nicely constructed with plenty of intrigue and
tension, the characterization is excellent, and there’s a strong sense
of place and context. A wonderful, engaging, fresh tale of corrupted
justice.
Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran
Claire, a wonderful, flawed, complex, anti-hero character with a
self-destructive streak, investigates the murder of an
ex-boyfriend. Half
debilitated by drugs, grief, and the memories of a past case, she slowly
seeks clues. As with all detectives trained in
the Silettian tradition, her pursuit is truth rather than justice, and Gran mixes in philosophy, dead-pan and dark humour, and two interesting mysteries. I was hooked from the get-go and my interest never waned. This
multifaceted, engaging and quirky tale would be perfect for a movie
treatment or a TV series.
Only Thieves and Killers by Paul Howarth
A coming of age tale set in the
settled outback of Australia in 1885. when their
parents are murdered and their sister left for dead, brothers Tommy and Billy team up with a wealthy landowner and ruthless policeman and head off into the outback to capture the suspected Aboriginal killers. While Billy embraces the bigotry and
violence of the landowner and native police, the other starts to regret
what they have started and resist rough justice. Howarth creates an
engaging story rooted in a credible history of Australian colonialism
and the relations between settler and Aborigines without it swamping the
story or becoming preachy. There's strong
character development, and a good
sense of place and time.
Tightrope by Simon Mawer
Marian Sutro, a SOE
agent dropped into France in 1943 and arrested by the Gestapo a short
time later and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Post-war she returns to Britain to be debriefed and to convalesce but finds it hard to adjust. She still craves purpose and
adventure, so when an opportunity arises to slip back into the
intelligence world she takes it. Mawer
tells her story via a narrative pieced together by her biographer,
Samuel, who’d been obsessed with her ever since he was a boy. It’s an interesting approach as it allows for
hesitancy and silences where the biographer has to speculate about
motives and what really occurred. The tale is very nicely plotted, with Marian struggling with loyalties
and motives, and her past and her future, as she’s drawn into the cold
war intelligence and romance.
Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris
Nayir Sharqi works as a desert
guide and Katya
works as a lab technician in the coroner’s office. They are paired
together through their shared acquaintance with the brother of Nouf
Shawari. Nouf is found
dead in the desert having drowned in a flash flood and the brother asks
each of them to investigate her death. The sixteen year old girl was due
to be married shortly after she disappeared. Ferraris creates a compelling murder mystery tale that is firmly rooted
in the culture and place of Saudi Arabia. The contrast and awkward
tension between Nayir and Katya nicely unfolds, as does the
investigative elements of the plot.
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
Set in Tokyo,
The Devotion of Suspect X is a police procedural
with a difference. The reader is presented with the murder at the start
of the novel. Yasuko Hanaoka and her daughter murder her abusive former
husband. Their neighbour, Ishigami, who is smitten with Yusuko, hears
the fight and offers to help them dispose of the body and create a
cover-up. A body is subsequently found, quickly identified and the
police turn up at Yashuko’s door. Will the police discover the truth
given Ishigami’s carefully plotted cover-up? It's a slow burn, but the patient build-up is worth it. Despite
having sight of all sides in the game, the pay-off for the reader is the
double-twist in the denouement. It’s relatively rare to come across a twist
so clever and the ending is just perfect. Overall, an
absorbing tale with a nice philosophical spin.
The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonio Hodgson
A whodunit set in a London debtors
prison in 1727. Tom Hawkins, a young man who has dropped out of
training for the church, finds himself in the prison as a debtor. He has to adapt quickly, but saviour is promised if a challenge is completed – solve the murder of Captain Roberts that took place a few
months before he entered and he'll have his debts cancelled and be set
free. Hodgson draws on real
testimony about life in Marshalsea prison and the populates the story
by a number of real-life historical characters associated with the
prison. She spins the tale out with plenty of intrigue and twists and
does an admirable job of creating a strong sense of place and history.
The result is a well-researched, engaging historical murder mystery full
of colourful characters that keeps the reader guessing.
