Review of Cruel Acts by Jane Casey (2019, Harper Collins)

Cruel Acts is the eighth book in the Maeve Kerrigan police procedural series set in London. In this outing DS Kerrigan and her boss, DI Joss Derwent, are tasked with reviewing the case against Leo Stone, a convicted killer. After a juror’s book casts doubt on the impartiality of the original trial, and the evidence of the pathologist is called into doubt, it seems likely that there will be a re-trial with Stone released from prison until that takes place. Stone was convicted for the murder of two women and suspected of killing a third. Examining the evidence, it’s clear to Kerrigan and Derwent that it’s not as convincing as they would like and one of the women’s family is convinced Stone is innocent. Not long after he is released, however, a fourth woman disappears from near to his residence though Stone appears to have an alibi. Kerrigan believes that the third missing woman holds the key to the case, but nobody else is convinced. In my view, this series is going from strength to strength, with a good balance between the mystery and investigation of the cases and the personal development of Kerrigan and her career and fraught relationship with Derwent and other colleagues. Both these elements are compelling and convincing in this instalment. In particular, the plot is very well constructed and storytelling has a nicely judged pace. There are a couple of well placed red herrings and twists and the denouement is very well done, being somewhat extended and unrushed, with decent wrap-up. Overall, an entertaining and engaging read and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.

Review of Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch (2013, Gollancz)

A trace of a blood in the boot of a car, the owner a suspected illicit practioner of magic. A locksmith cooked from the inside-out. A town-planner stepping off a platform in front of a train. The appearance of a stolen book on industrial-scale magic of German origin. PC Peter Grant is dashing between cases that appear to be linked to his nemesis, the Faceless Man. The leads point to a notorious sink estate in Elephant and Castle in South London, designed by an infamous German emigre. Not sure what he is looking for, but certain that the estate holds the key, Grant and his colleague, Leslie take up residence, assured that something strange is taking place.

Broken Homes is the fourth book in the urban fantasy meets police procedural, Rivers of London series. The story revolves around an estate in South London, notorious for its strange and fortress-like design that has made it a no-go area for authorities. The local council is seeking to knock it down to build something new. Residents want to be left alone. And another force seems intent on using it for something else. Peter Grant and colleagues, who specialise in policing strange phenomena, are interested in discovering more about the latter, which seems linked to some mysterious deaths elsewhere in London. It’s an enjoyable read, with a nice set of characters, intriguing elements, and usual humour. However, while there is a full story arc, the tale felt a bit too much like a bridging entry in the series, being a little too meandering and open-ended, with a number of threads that are unresolved or not fully explained. And the lack of backstory with respect to all the threads – the unit Grant works for, Lesley’s face, the Faceless Man, the Rivers – would make it a quite confusing standalone read. Nonetheless, an entertaining addition to the series.

Review of East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman (2017, HQ)

Javid – Jay to his friends – has been cruising through life as a small time dealer in West London. He keeps his head down, stays away from trouble, and goes to the mosque on Fridays, doing enough to get by but not attract attention. Just at the point where he’s bought the car of his dreams everything is turned upside down. The mosque is vandalised and Jay gets himself tangled up in a revenge attack while trying to protect a friend. During the fracas his car is stolen and with it the drugs and cash of a major supplier. Now Jay faces a tough choice, work for MI5 and rat on the supplier or be prosecuted for assault and face the consequence for the lost money. All MI5 want him to do is go undercover as a jihadist. Either way, his quiet life is over. 

East of Hounslow is the first book in the Jay Qasim series following the adventures of a small-time dealer turned reluctant MI5 agent. Rahman does a very nice job of flipping the everyday world of Jay from comfortable lad-about-town, who practises his Muslim religion and hustles to get by, to infiltrating an extremist cell who want jihad. It is the everydayness of the Muslim characters and their journey that adds an authenticity to the storytelling, though this feels a bit more paint-by-numbers with respect to the MI5 elements. Rahman portrays the lives of Muslims in Britain and how some become radicalised and many more do not without misbalancing the framing and plot. The dilemma set up provides a nice hook, and the plot unfolds at a nice pace with a couple of intriguing twists to a tense denouement. The ending seemed to unravel a little, with Jay more a bystander than a hero, but it overall the tale had a strong arc. Overall, a good blend of social and political commentary and thriller.

 

Review of A Capital Crime by Laura Wilson (2010, Quercus)

Winter, 1950. A young woman and a 14 month old child are found dead in a washhouse behind a terraced slum in London. The husband confesses to the murders, though he proves to be a congenital liar, constantly changing his story. It seems like an open and shut case and John Davies is convicted of the crime, largely on the evidence of another resident of the house, Norman Backhouse, and hanged. A couple of years later, the bodies of four recently disappeared women are found in the house and two more are buried in the garden. The key suspect is the Backhouse. It seems like a terrible miscarriage of justice has occurred, unless two different murderers had been living in the same house at the same time. DI Ted Stratton had misgivings about the first case, and they’ve come back to haunt him. Meanwhile, ex-war time agent, Diana Calthrop, finds her life sliding backwards as two marriages fail leaving her in dire straits, and Stratton’s daughter finds herself struggling to make sense of her sexuality, and neither woman should be wandering London when so vulnerable.  

The third book of the DI Ted Stratton series fictionalises the events at 10 Rillington Place, where two sets of murders occurred in the early 1950s sending two men to the hangman. The first murderer was convicted in part on the evidence of the second one, casting significant doubt on the initial investigation, trial and guilty verdict. The cases subsequently led to two inquiries, though their findings were inconclusive, and influenced the decision to end capital punishment. In Wilson’s telling DI Stratton is the lead officer in both cases. He has misgivings while investigating the death of a young woman and 14 month old child. John Davies is a simpleton with a temper who continually tells lies. Some of the evidence doesn’t quite add up, but most points to Davies, who has also confessed. And everyone involved in the case, including Stratton, think him guilty. When a couple of years later, six more bodies are discovered in the house and garden, Stratton wonders if he’d made a terrible mistake, despite the evidence and confession. Along with the investigation, Wilson spins two other threads through the story, both of which are hooked around women’s sexuality and position in society. The first follows Monica Stratton as she enters the workplace and starts to question her sexual identity. The second focuses on Diana Calthrop, a woman Stratton holds a flame for, and her fall from grace as she divorces her first husband and quickly enters another doomed marriage. In part, these are included to provide a thread through the series, but they do add to rather than detract from the story arc. The result is a very nicely plotted tale that is very strong on exploring the psychological side of investigating emotive cases with criminals who constantly lie and charting character development, in particular, Stratton, Monica and Diana’s lives. The pacing, atmosphere and sense of place and time adds to the telling. Overall, the strongest book in the series, in my view.

 

Review of A Philosophical Investigation by Philip Kerr (1992, G.P. Putnam)

London, 2013 (at the time of publication, twenty years in the future). Society has become more uneven and unequal with capitalism devouring the state and prison sentences have been replaced by ‘punitive comas’. The Lombroso project uses brain scans to identify men lacking a Ventro Medial Nucleus, who are more likely to commit violent crimes, and places them in an anonymous programme designed to limit their tendencies. Only someone seems to have accessed the secret database and is murdering the men, focusing in particular on those given philosopher names as pseudonyms. Detective Isadora ‘Jake’ Jacowicz is assigned the case. Jake has her own demons related to violent men and she’s determined to track down the killer. But ‘Wittgenstein’ is a smarter than the average killer and she might have found her match. 

Kerr spins the tale out through two intertwined threads, the first the tracking police investigation, the second reproducing the journal entries written by the killer. The procedural elements are inflected with philosophical musings related to crime and punishment, with Jake increasingly questioning the ethics of the criminal justice system. The second apes Wittgenstein’s style and ideas, setting out the logic and reasoning of the killer and reflecting on the crimes committed. The result is a police procedural thriller that is thoroughly saturated with ethical and normative reflection, sometimes to the point of drowning the procedural side of the story. The issues raised are thought-provoking, but at times they seem forced centre stage, especially through the use of Wittgenstein’s notebook, and the tale feels too clever for its own good. As a result, while I found many of the ideas underpinning the book interesting, and it was quite an engaging read, it seemed a little too contrived and stilted.

 

Review of Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan (2019, FSG)

In reaction to the ever-growing dependency on digital technologies and the tyranny of surveillance capitalism, the predictive state and autonomous systems, a small enclave in Bristol has cut itself off from mainstream networked life, setting up an alternative counter-culture, the Croft. It’s not popular with everyone, creating inconveniences for those living in or nearby who do not aspire to its ideals, but it does demonstrate that an alternative digital life is possible. But then a radical anarchist group takes down the global internet and every connected device. Global capitalism is halted in its tracks and every production, logistical and consumption system descends into chaos. Instead of creating a better society, the world seems to implode, people scrambling to survive.  The Croft’s is targeted, it’s inhabitants battling to protect their turf and scattering. Years later, Anika – one of its former leaders – is making her way back attracted by stories of a girl who can see ghosts. At the same time, the architect of the Croft’s alternative network is making his way to Brooklyn to track down his lover. 

Infinite Detail tracks life before and after a catastrophic cyberattack that takes down the global internet and permanently disables every digital technology and system, following two threads, one set in Bristol, the other New York. In the time before and during the crash, the excesses of the global capitalism and technocratic governance in Bristol and New York is contrasted to the idealism of the Croft, a community that disconnects from the global internet, building its own communitarian network. In the time after, the folly of imploding the global system with no plan or bridge to maintain social systems is exposed, with the focus mostly on Bristol and the lives of a handful of the Croft’s inhabitants. Maughan nicely juxtaposes life before and after the crash, raising thoughtful questions and observations about a world becoming increasingly dependent on digital technologies to drive and control the global economy and state practices (and all the tech and systems discussed currently exist and are deployed rather than being speculative, though some are more embedded in the story than at present) and what happens if they are suddenly and permanently switched off. At the same time, the story relating to the Croft’s current and former inhabitants, and their own trials and memories, remains centre stage. The result is an engaging tale about our digital and surveillance present and future.

 

Review of Joe Country by Mick Herron (2019, John Murray)

River Cartwright’s grandfather, the Old Bastard and master spy, has died and an old foe shows up at the funeral. The ‘slow horses’ of Slough House – intelligence officers that have messed up their careers – have unfinished business and set off in pursuit. Except for Louisa Guy, who has requested leave to track down the missing son of a fellow former horse and now dead lover, and Lech Wicinski, a new transfer to Slough House who is busy trying to work out who sabotaged his career and personal life. Meanwhile, the head of the Service is too busy fighting political battles to worry too much about what her rejects are up to in Joe Country, and their boss Jackson Lamb is happy to give them their heads, even if it means they might lose them.

Joe Country is the sixth instalment in the wonderful ‘Slough House’ series that follows the exploits of a set of washed-up intelligence agents who’ve been put out to pasture, consigned to meaningless, menial tasks. In this outing, while each of the 'slow horses' continues to deal with their own personal demons, they also set off into Joe Country – entering the field as active agents – in order to track down an old foe. But this is somewhat of a solo run, without the back-up and resources of the Service, against professional opposition in a remote corner of Wales in the depths of winter. It seems certain that not everyone is going to make it home. Which is a hallmark and strength of the series – Herron creates a wonderful set of characters, lets the reader invest in them, and then kill off them off in subsequent books, always in service to the story. It’s a remarkably effective in terms of adding emotional resonance to the tale, but also keeping the series fresh as new misfits are cycled through Slough House. And half the fun is trying to guess who’ll be for the chop. While Joe Country is an engaging and entertaining read, with Lamb’s acerbic commentaries, snide commentary of contemporary politics, and the chase in the snow a delight, in my view it was one the weaker books in the series, with the thread linking the various elements somewhat tenuous, coincidental and underdeveloped. This gave the plot a contrived feel, held together with relatively weak plot devices. Nonetheless, it was still an enjoyable read and provides a nice setup to the next instalment.

Review of Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (2014, Penguin)

Maud has become forgetful. She makes endless cups of tea that she then doesn’t drink. Sometimes she doesn’t recognize her daughter. She slips out of her house with a purpose to then find she cannot remember why or quite where she is. But she stoically clings on to the fact that Elizabeth is missing. With a pocketful of post-it notes she keeps hunting for her friend, much to consternation of her daughter, amusement of her granddaughter, and ire of Elizabeth’s son. Somehow the disappearance has got muddled with that of her sister, Sukey, just after the war. Then, as now, she ran her own investigation, but never solved the case.

Elizabeth is Missing is a mystery tale involving the disappearance of two women, seventy years apart. In both cases, Maud has sought to solve the cases, the first concerning her sister, Sukey, and the second, her friend Elizabeth. She was too young and naïve to resolve the first, and she is seemingly too forgetful to complete the second. For Elizabeth has dementia and her thoughts slip, slide and vanish. Relying on notes to herself, a fractured memory, and a fierce determination to at least find Elizabeth, she keeps at the task. Healey tells her tale through two parallel threads, where her present day exploits provide triggers for remembering her sister’s disappearance. She does a lovely job of portraying Maud’s condition and its effect on her relationship to her family, all the while spinning out the mysteries, leading to a reasonably well telegraphed conclusion. A quite moving story that is nicely executed.

Review of Fires of London by Janice Law (2012, Mysterious Press)

The artist Francis Bacon works as an ARP warden in the blitz in London and lives with his half-blind and light fingered childhood nanny. He takes advantage of the blackout to cruise for illicit liaisons, party in various bars where other gay men meet, and run his own roulette gambling den. When a young man he knows is found dead he gets drawn into the search for the killer, with two more deaths placing him in the frame as a suspect. Edging round the fringes of a club that provides violent trysts he searches for a way to clear his name and bring the real killer to light.

Fires of London is the first of six books featuring Francis Bacon as an amateur sleuth. The tale is rooted in some biographical context, set before Bacon received any recognition for his work, and it does a nice job of capturing the blitz and the underground gay scene in the city. Written in the first person, Bacon is cast as a complex, clever man who enjoys risk, adventure, infidelity, and a degree of hedonism, and is somewhat of a loner despite the presence of his nanny companion, a steady relationship, a circle of acquaintance and friends. The mystery is nicely plotted leading to a tense denouement.

Review of The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (2017, Harper)

Anthony Horowitz has reluctantly agreed to write a book about Hawthorne, a murder detective expelled from the London Met but who’s retained as a consultant on cases. The case he’s going to shadow is the death of Diana Cowper, strangled six hours after organizing her own funeral. Hawthorne is convinced that the case is more than a robbery gone wrong and sets out to discover the truth, digging into Cowper’s past and the life of her son, a famous actor. Horowitz tags along, trying to make constructive contributions and put up with Hawthorne’s abrasive personality, but is always one step behind the detective.

The first book in the Hawthorne series, The Word is Murder, uses the first person, with the author being the central character, playing Watson the chronicler to Hawthorne’s Sherlock. Horowitz peppers the story with life as a successful author and screenwriter, dropping in snippets about work practices, various real-life book and television series, meetings with producers and directors, and relationship with agents and family. Hawthorne acts as a lofty, somewhat disagreeable foil. The mystery is well plotted, with a couple of nice twists and turns. And while the biographical approach was interesting I just couldn’t really connect with the voice which I found a bit too ingratiating.

Review of Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn (2018, Vintage)

London, 1941. The city is being blitzed nightly, Germany is still in the ascendancy, and some in Britain would like to see them win, or sue for peace. Working for British intelligence, Jack Hoste poses as a Gestapo agent, pulling German sympathizers into his web. Marita Pardoe, wife of an interned fascist politician, and considered the most dangerous agent in Britain remains hidden, however. He turns to Amy Strallen, a friend of Marita’s from before the war to try and make contact. Strallen is co-owner of a Mayfair marriage bureau. Her business is thriving, but she’s yet to find love herself. Hoste intrigues her, but a relationship founded on deception is always going to be a brittle affair, especially when the stakes are so high. Quinn’s tale is as much a character study of Jack and Amy and their tentative and strained relationship as it is about clandestine activity in Britain. Marita acts as the lynch-pin of their dalliance, but remains somewhat of an enigma throughout. Building up the backstory of both, Quinn charts their brief, doomed intersections as Jack pursues Marita at all costs. The telling is understated, painting espionage as fairly mundane with occasional flash points, and there are a couple of twists along the way. The result is an engaging, thoughtful, low-key tale of deception, trust, loyalty and love. 

Review of Black Cross by Greg Iles (1995, Harper)

January 1944. The Allies are preparing for to cross the Channel but there are rumours that the Nazis have a deadly surprise for them – Sarin and Soman gases, both much more deadly than anything the Allies have in their armoury. It is being developed and tested in Totenhausen, a Nazi camp that conducts medical experiments to test and develop the toxic gases. Churchill and the head of SOE, Duff Smith, hatch a plan to halt the use of the gases by bluffing the Germans into thinking that the Allies have the capability to exact revenge at scale. It involves smuggling their own experimental, unstable supply of Sarin into Germany and releasing it at Totenhausen. It will, however, kill both the concentration camp inmates as well as their captors. Churchill reasons that the inmates will die anyway and their sacrifice will save tens of thousands of lives. Eisenhower is set against the mission, but Churchill is convinced it is necessary. One of the men picked for the secret job, Jonas Stern, a Zionist guerilla fighter from Palestine, is prepared to sacrifice his own people for the greater good; the other Mark McConnell, an American pacifist and poisonous gas expert, is much more reluctant to participate in mass murder. They are flown into Northern Germany, where from the start their mission runs into trouble, leaving the two men to improvise, their moral dilemmas multiplying as they seek a way to destroy the camp, save as many inmates as possible, and steal secrets, knowing that the chances of success and escape are diminishing with each hour they are there.

Black Cross is a thriller set at the start of 1944 involving a secret Allied mission into Germany to destroy a camp that is producing and testing deadly poisonous gases. The action adventure of infiltrating Nazi Germany to perform a mission is given a twist through a series of moral dilemmas and Sophie’s choices and the selection of the two men selected to undertake the task. Mark McConnell is a pacifist and conscientious objector who is asked to perform mass murder for the greater good. Jonas Stern is a German Zionist who has no qualms using violence for political ends, but is formerly local to the area and may know people in the camp they are to destroy. Their inside agent is a nurse dedicated to saving lives, not taking them. The three of them are persuaded that since all the inmates are to die in medical experiments anyway, hastening their demise for liberation of the continent is the right thing to do. But executing the plan in practice, especially when you’re in situ and things are not going as hoped, is fraught. Iles spends the first part of the book patiently setting the scene, lining up the characters, building their relationships, and creating empathy for the camp inmates. Once McConnell and Stern are in Germany the pace shifts gears and he quickly ratchets up the tension. It all seems a little far-fetched but the story hook, dilemmas, characters, and twist and turns keep the pages turning with no let up. The result is a thought provoking action thriller, though the moral aspect seemed to get a little lost towards the end, with none of the characters reflecting in any depth on whether they’d pursued the right course of action and its consequences.

Review of Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid (2011, Sphere)

Criminal psychiatrist is Dr Charlie Flint is suspended from work after a man she cleared of murder goes on to kill four women. While waiting for her hearing she is asked by one of her old university professors to look into a possible miscarriage of justice. The husband of the professor’s daughter, whom Charlie used to babysit, was murdered on their wedding day. The professor is convinced the man’s business partners are not the murderers. Instead, she suspects successful entrepreneur, Jay Macallan Stewart, also a former babysitter and now her daughter’s new lover, who she believes also murdered somebody else years before. Charlie also has other motivations for wanting to visit, Oxford; a psychologist whom she has found herself romantically drawn to despite being in a steady relationship for seven years. Charlie doesn’t believe Jay is the murderer, yet she discovers a number of suspicious deaths in her past that demand investigation. McDermid spins the story around the tangled relationships of five lesbian women, told predominately through the perspective of two: Charlie and Jay. A large portion of the latter is told through extracts from Jay’s misery memoir, about her tough life growing up and the follow-up she is presently drafting. The investigation often seemed to play second fiddle to the melodrama of these women’s lives, but it’s kept moving forward through an interesting enough plot. And McDermid’s writing is very easy on the eye, keeping the pages turning. The outcome was somewhat telegraphed, but there were a couple of nice twists to offset.

Review of The City in Flames by Michael Russell (2019, Constable)

1940. Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie has been suspended from the Irish special branch in order to be sent to undercover in London. Prior to leaving he spends time on his parents farm in Wicklow, where his son lives. While there a neighbouring farmer is found dead. Gillespie is suspicious, but he’s technically no longer a policeman and it seems more convenient for everyone that the death is recorded as suicide. Before he can stir things up he’s on the boat to Wales, arriving in London to take up residence as the new barman in the Bedford Arms in Camden, an IRA haunt. There he meets Vera Kennedy, seemingly an Irish woman working as a cleaner, with whom he forms a romantic relationship. However, Vera is not who she seems, having recently landed in Britain from Germany. Ultimately, her mission lies in Ireland, where she hopes to shake the country from its neutrality.

The City of Flames is the fifth book in the Inspector Gillespie series following the exploits of a single father cop in the lead up to and during the Second World War whose mother is German. As usual, Gillespie is pulled into a plot of special branch and G2, the Irish Military intelligence, aimed at maintaining Ireland’s neutrality and the status quo internally. In this episode he’s sent to London to monitor IRA activity there, but unwittingly manages to start a relationship with a German spy who has Irish roots. Together they experience the London blitz while carrying out their respective missions. At the same time, there’s been a suspicious death close to his parent’s farm. While he’s absent is father, a former cop, sets up his own investigation. The historical aspect is well realised, and the characterisation is nicely done, with a number of regular series characters making appearances. Russell spins out both plots at a fairly pedestrian pace, which are rooted in the context of Ireland’s neutrality, and involve some real characters and events. The Wicklow plot is not really necessary, but isn't too much of a distraction, and there are a couple of decent twists as the tale closes. However, both plots are held together by coincidences that are too convenient to little more than plot devices. Overall, an engaging addition to the series.

Review of Freeze My Margarita by Lauren Henderson (1998, Random House)

Freeze My Margarita was the fourth book in the seven part Sam Jones series that follows the sleuthing of a sassy sculptor who has a habit of finding trouble. In this outing a chance encounter in a BDSM bar leads to a commission to create a set of large mobiles for a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Such is the scale of the job it demands working on site and mixing with the actors and stage crew. All is not well however within the theatre or amongst the cast, with rivalries and jealousies feeding gossip and sniping. Then a body is discovered in the bowels of the building, and mishaps start to occur during rehearsals. Sam can’t help performing a little amateur detection despite the police investigation. Moreover, given the investment, the show must go on regardless of jealousies, bickering and frayed tempers of cast and crew. The killer, however, has other ideas.


It’s 20 years since I first read the book when I was working my way through what was then described as ‘tart noir’; novels that featured a strong, sassy, independent female lead, usually with an active sex life, though also a slightly chaotic personal life. Sam Jones fits this bill, being fiercely independent and as confident at handling a welding torch as desirable men. Henderson charts Sam’s work in the theatre, her amateur sleuthing, and her new relationship with one of the actors. The setting in the theatre means there is a closed environment, plenty of characters and lots of rivalries between them. The mystery almost seems to take a back seat to the gossipy sniping and career manoeuvrings, and the denouement felt a little bit too contrived, but it’s a fun, entertaining read with never a dull moment. I never did get round to reading the last two books in the series, so if I can get hold of copies I'll probably finish it off.

Review of Seventy Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler (2005, Bantam)

Late 1973. An elderly lawyer is killed by a snake bite, dying in the lobby of the Savoy Hotel. A member of the wealthy, aristocratic Whitstable family is blown up on a train after destroying a painting in the national gallery. His brother is murdered a short time later. Bryant and May, detectives with the Met’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, quickly discover that the lawyer acted for the Whitstables but have few leads and no sense of the motivation behind the deaths. Moreover, they seem powerless to stop other members of the eccentric family being murdered. The posh but troubled receptionist in the Savoy is running her own investigation, despite being warned to leave the detection to the police. Sam is seemingly making progress, but has also attracted potentially fatal attention. Unravelling the mystery of the Whitstables’ assassinations is a tricky task, but gradually, Bryant, May and Sam start to make headway, linking the crimes back to the formation of a secret society 100 years before.

Seventy Seven Clocks is the third book in the Bryant and May series set in London. In this outing, set at the tail end of 1973, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is investigating a set of bizarre deaths linked to the wealthy, aristocratic, haughty Whitstable family and a sub-group of the guild of watchmakers. Everything about the case is peculiar, which suits Bryant and May, though its political ramifications and its coincidence with moving offices is a nuisance. The involvement of a troubled hotel receptionist is also a hindrance, though she is also has the habit of discovering useful clues and is determined to succeed where the police are failing. As the death count rises it seems that there is a group of assassins set on wiping out the entire Whitstable family. Unravelling the reason why is far from straightforward given the conspiracy of silence surrounding the Whitstables. Fowler plots a complex case that has plenty of mystery and intrigue. Given the PCU focuses on the fantastical and unusual, it’s no surprise that it’s a somewhat unbelievable. That’s fine as it’s all consistently realised and often fascinating. However, the role of Sam stretched coincidence to breaking point a few times in terms of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and family connections. While she’s a nice character, she was also too often used as a plot device to move the story forward. Other than that, it’s a fun and absorbing read chocked full of interested historical titbits about London and its institutions.

Review of A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (2015, Black Swan)

Peter Todd has led a full life. At times eventful, much mundane. A God in Ruins charts its path in a non-chronological order, and that of his wife, self-centred daughter and grandchildren. His childhood in the stockbroker belt and wartime exploits as a bomber captain flying over Germany and Occupied Europe haunt his subsequent trials, tribulations, and attempts to live a good life. The hook and strength of the telling is its eloquently realised characterisation and charting of familial relationships. Peter and his family are three dimensional characters with depth and the social situations are freighted with realism, and Peter’s wartime experiences have an insider quality and perspective. There is strong emotional resonance throughout. The to-ing and fro-ing across time added to rather than detracted from the story, though it sometimes felt too much time was spent with Viola, his awful daughter. While it was an interesting and at times captivating read, it lack the novel hook of its companion book, Life After Life, and the ending might make little sense without knowledge of the idea explored in that book. An engaging, well told read.

Review of A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott (2018, Corgi)

Present day and an elderly woman is found shot dead in a car park. To Capitaine Inés Picaut it appears to be a professional hit. The only clue is a business card sown into the lining of the victim’s coat. Picaut and her team discover that the victim's name appears to be Sophie Destivelle and a local film company was making a documentary about her involvement with SOE, a British-American Jedburgh team and the French Marquis in the Jura Mountains in the days leading up the D-Day landings and liberation. Other members of that group’s war-time leaders are present in Orleans, as is a special conference attended by high ranking American intelligence officers. When a second killing takes place of the son of one of the Marquis members, Picaut realises she has two mysteries to solve: who is killing Marquis members and their descendants and what happened during the war to prompt the murders so many years later. The remaining Marquis are not talking, determined to complete unfinished business and discover the identity of the suspected spy within their close knit resistance group. What started in the early 1940s is seemingly about to come to a bloody end.

A Treachery of Spies is the second book in the Capitaine Inés Picaut series, but can be read as a standalone. 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 resistance cell never quite gets the upper hand, even in victory, and the tight core of leaders are unsure if and who might be a spy. The second charts the present day investigation by Picaut into the assassination of one of SOE agents, Sophie Destivelle, herself turned and turned back again and also an assassin of traitors and collaborators during and after the war. Both threads make for compelling stories in and of themselves, with nicely crafted and well told plots, 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 as to the identity of the Marquis traitor and why the killing has resumed. An excellent read to finish up 2019.

Review of The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (1935, Orion)

A stranger interrupts a conversation between Dr Grimaud and his friends in a London pub. He says he’s an illusionist and that his brother is a more powerful one and will call on Grimaud and take his life. A few days later the brother seemingly performs that feat, entering the room of Grimaud, shooting him, then vanishing. On the same night, the illusionist is also killed, shot at close range in the middle of an empty street, two men just a few steps ahead and a policeman nearby. In both cases, there are no footprints in the snow. The killer seemingly appears, commits murder, and vanishes. Trying to solve the case is Superintendent Hadley and criminologist Dr Fell. Fell is convinced there is a logical solution, the difficulty will be in identifying it.

The Hollow Man was the sixth book in the Dr Gideon Fell series than ran to 23 instalments. In this outing, Fell and Superintendent Hadley seek to solve two puzzles – one a traditional locked room mystery in which a murderer seemingly vanishes from a closed room with only one viable exit, the other a play on the theme, in which a man is shot a close quarters on a street by a seemingly invisible man. In both cases it has been snowing, but there are no footprints in the snow surrounding the house or on the street. It is clear there is a direct link between the murders and the reason for the deaths are rooted in events many years before in Europe. Solving the mystery, however, is far from straightforward. The story is all about the plot and puzzles, and the writing is quite functionary, the characters one dimensional, and the sense of place pretty lifeless. The story is one long plot device and the puzzles convoluted and contrived to the point of parody. Carr is seemingly aware of this, even slotting into the story a chapter long treatise on locked room mysteries. In some ways, that is the most interesting and believable section of the book. The story itself was far from credible, though it is held together and propelled by the fantastical spin of events.

Review of Brothers in Blood by Amer Anwar (2018, Dialogue Books)

Having served five years in prison for manslaughter, Zaq Khan is working in a builders’ yard run by a Sikh family. When the owner’s daughter goes missing, supposedly run off with a Muslim, Zaq is blackmailed into searching for her. The pressure is turned up a notch by her bullying brothers, who are keen to find Rita before her father. Zak begins his hunt for Rita, starting with her workplace and friends, but he soon realises that there is more to her disappearance than first appears. To make matters worse he’s set upon by two groups of young men, the fighting skills he learned in prison keeping him in one piece. What seemed like a relatively straightforward task becomes increasingly fraught with danger. Moreover, finding Rita is unlikely to lead to safety.

Brothers in Blood is set in and around Southall in West London, its cast the area’s Asian community. Zaq Khan is a young Muslim trying to put his life back together again after serving five years for manslaughter. When the daughter of the Sikh owner of the builders’ yard where he works goes missing, Zak is blackmailed into trying to find her. Refusing an arranged marriage, Rita Brar has supposedly run off with a Muslim; a cardinal sin in the eyes of her patriarch father. Her brothers seem particularly keen to find her. Reluctantly, Zaq sets about the task, using the help of his best friend, Jags, and a local gang of car thieves. It’s soon clear there’s more going on than a young woman trying to avoid a marriage not of her choosing, and Zak’s got bruises from two brawls. Anwar charts Zaq’s quest to find Rita and deal with the wider drama surrounding her disappearance. The writing is a bit flat at times, there’s bit too much tell vis-à-vis show, and a couple of the plot devices felt a bit strained (the blackmail hook and Zaq’s ability to take a beating and also give one). However, this offset by a well-charted plot with some nice intersecting threads leading to a decent denouement, a lot of forward momentum, and nice characterisation. It’s also refreshing to read some England-based crime fiction that’s ethnically diverse. Overall, an enjoyable read with an engaging plot.