Review of On The Java Ridge by Jock Serong (2017, Text Publishing)

Two boats set out in Indonesian waters. One, the Java Ridge, skippered by Isi Natoli, is a tourist jaunt for Australian surfers. The other, the Takalar, carries refugees heading for Australia. It is not going to plan on either vessel, but then a large thunderstorm approaches. While the Java Ridge shelters in a lagoon on an occupied island, engine troubles prevent the Takalar making land. Drifting onto coral reef in heavy seas she flounders. The Australians and their Indonesian crew rescue as many people as they can, but over half the refugees are dead and one Australian is seriously injured. Meanwhile, in Canberra, the ruling party has just pushed through a new hardline policy regarding maritime assistance to vessels in trouble. In election week there’s little appetite to roll-back the policy, even if there are potentially Australians involved. Those stranded on Dana island are on their own.

On the Java Ridge is a morality tale concerning refugee and asylum seeker policy, with Serong exploring the politics and consequences of punitive programmes through three groups: the politicians and civil servants creating and enacting the policies, the Australian public, represented by a group of Australian surfers, and the asylum seekers themselves. Each has a principal character the story is hooked around: Cassius Calvert, former sportsman turned politician and the Minister for Border Integrity; Isi Natoli, skipper of the Java Ridge; and nine-year-old, Roya, who is travelling with her heavily pregnant mother, her father and brother missing in Afghanistan. Serong keeps the focus at the individual and group level throughout, capturing nicely the personal dynamics and lived experiences of the three groups. The result is a very humanizing, empathetic, character-driven tale that is threaded through with periods of danger, tension, action and loss, with the politics playing out in multiple everyday ways. The result is a contemporary social commentary that is not overly preachy or forced, but nonetheless drives home its message whilst remaining a thoroughly engaging tale of survival against the odds with a knockout denouement. I finished the book a few days ago and I’m thinking about the flurry of final sucker punches. A superior, slow burn, thought-provoking thriller.

Review of The Delicate Storm by Giles Blunt (2003, Harper Collins)

During a false spring, pieces of a body are discovered in woods outside of Algonquin Bay in Northern Ontario. Detective John Cardinal is assigned the case, but struggles to find leads. His efforts are not helped by the interference of the Mounties and secret service, neither of whom seem keen on solving the mystery. A few days later the body of a young doctor is found naked, seemingly raped. Cardinal’s partner Lisa Delorme picks up that case, but also makes little progress. Once Cardinal’s victim is identified there’s a lead to grasp onto which points back to events in Montreal thirty years before and an act of terrorism that derailed the Quebec independence movement and had lasting repercussions for policing and security. The only people who seem interested in revisiting what happened were the victim and Cardinal and Delorme and someone has done a reasonable job of evading evidence.

The Delicate Storm is the second book in the Cardinal and Delorme procedural series set in Northern Ontario. In this outing they are investigating two deaths, a dismembered man and a young female doctor, both found in woods outside of Algonquin Bay. Neither appear to be straightforward and progress is slow, not helped by inter-agency intransience. Following the trail of the dead man leads them to Montreal and acts of political violence that gripped and shocked the nation in 1970. Blunt puts in play all the ingredients for a decent police procedural meets political thriller. However, after a decent start the story starts to lose its way. In the middle section, when the tale moves to Montreal the pace drops to a crawl and the story becomes a drawn out political history lesson on Quebec separatists and specific events. It’s interesting in its way, but is way too much tell and not show. After that, the tale winds to an underwhelming denouement, with the excitement coming more from it taking place in an ice storm rather than the mystery. What saves the story to an extent is the revealing of some of Cardinal and Delorme’s back story, with some nice character development. Overall, however, a tale that had lots of potential suspense that starts well then slowly fizzles out.

 

Review of City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris (2009, Abacus)

Shortly after Miriam, an American woman married to a contractor working in Saudi Arabia, arrives back in the country after a trip home her husband disappears. Cautious of the authorities given its repressive regime, particularly towards women, she’s scared and out of her depth. On a local beach the disfigured body of a young woman is found. Detective Osama Ibrahim is assigned to investigate, aided by forensic scientist, Katya Hijazi, one of the few women working in the police force. After a stuttering start, the woman is identified and eventually connected to Miriam’s husband. Aided by her Bedouin friend, Nayir, who could end up being much more, Katya tries to make a positive contribution to the case. But it’s not easy to be a female investigator in Saudi, and just as difficult to start a relationship of equals with a devout man. Miriam’s life, however, depends on Katya making progress on both fronts.

City of Veils is the second book in the Katya and Nayir trilogy set in Saudi Arabia. As with the first book, there is a very strong sense of place and politics, and continued good character development. The plot is intriguing and engaging, with plenty of twists and turns, though the desert denouement felt a little over-dramatic and switched pace and structure. While the story provides a fascinating social commentary on Saudi society, at times there was a bit too much tell rather than show, with the narrative explaining a situation rather than just detailing it. The result was a kind of education through fiction that felt a little too prescriptive even if it was informative. Other than that, I thought it was a well plotted, entertaining read with two lead characters I’m happy to spend time with.

Review of Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin (2013, Orion)

For his last case in internal affairs DI Malcolm Fox has been assigned to investigate a 30 year old murder case in which the police team was suspected of helping the perpetrator evade justice. It’s a case from the start of Rebus’ career when he was a new member of the ‘Saints of the Shadow Bible’, a group of detectives who brandished their own form of justice when the system failed to adequately punish criminals. Retired and now re-employed to work cold cases, Rebus is clinging on to being a police officer. His old team are relying on him to stifle the investigation, but that’s hardly his modus operandi, even if it means he could bring himself down. It’s a distraction he doesn’t need however given he’s got a whiff of something off in a car crash involving the justice minister’s son, which is quickly followed by the minister’s death. His old colleague DI Siobhan Clarke is involved in that case, which provides Rebus the opportunity to interfere. Rankin nicely brings his three principle characters together through the investigation of the old and new cases, spinning an intriguing and entertaining tale. As usual the strength of the story are the lead characters and their interaction, the well-constructed plot, and the contextualisation and extension of the longer series arc that made the installment feel like catching up with an old friend. My sense was that there wasn’t an element out of place.

Review of The Address Book by Deirdre Mask (2020, Profile Books)

For many people street addresses seems quite mundane and routine. However, as Deirdre Mask, details they have become vital pieces of information for those living at an address and the operations of government and business. Yet, in many parts of the world street addresses remain absent causing issues for those who do not possess one. In this fascinating book, Mask travels to a number of locations to explore the history, variance and politics in street addressing, using her own investigations and interesting facts and anecdotes to illuminate the stories. As a popular science book it works well, keeping the analysis light and engaging, while providing enough depth and reflection to be insightful. And there’s a reasonable geographical mix, with stories relating to several countries, including beyond the West. Personally, I think there could have been more discussion of postcodes and other spatial addressing units such as townlands and parishes, and also how addresses are vital to industries such as geodemographics and data brokers (there is a capital imperative to addresses not just governance), but generally a wide range of addressing issues are discussed. 

As an aside, I thought it was interesting that Ireland featured so little in the book given the author was living on the island when she started researching and writing. A very large number of homes in Ireland have no street address – in the county I reside in over 60% of addresses are non-unique (I share mine with 13 other properties some of which are 3-4 km away and I have no road name or house number). And there can be multiple townlands of the same name in the same county. It is only the towns and cities that have road names and numbers. The solution, introduced in 2015 (after a lengthy debate and delays), has been individual property postcodes, which are still not widely used, even by government (and interestingly the biggest blocker of their introduction was the national postal service). In addition, many street names in Ireland were changed after independence, with all the associated politics that involved. Yet, Mask travels from Ireland to West Virginia to look at a place transforming its addressing and then onward to other countries. It seems odd given Ireland’s own history of addressing to not discuss where one is residing. Regardless, overall an interesting and enlightening read.

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 City of Jackals by Parker Bilal

The fifth instalment of the Makana series set in Egypt. Makana, private investigator and Sudanese refugee in Cairo, has been hired to find Mourad Hafiz, an idealistic student who seems to have dropped out of university. He’s working for the police to try and help uncover the mystery behind two fellow countrymen found murdered. While the student’s disappearance seems like it might be connected to political activity, what lies behind the two deaths is murky. Both cases though lead to a Christian church in the slums which helps refugees fleeing from war in Sudan, a protest camp that is seeking recognition and better treatment, and a pharmacy group and medical institute. Quite how they are all connected is not clear and no-one is keen to share information, though they’re clearly on edge. Adding uncertainty to Makana’s investigation is a shift in his relationship with a pathologist, who may or may not be making romantic overtures. The latter creates a nice shift in character development in the series. As with the other books, there is a strong sense of place and culture, and social commentary concerning family, work and politics. Indeed, Bilal does a good job balancing the mystery elements with observations about the political regime and Sudanese refugees in Egypt. The reason behind the case was somewhat telegraphed, but that little affected the enjoyment of the unfolding plot. However, the denouement did feel somewhat staged and rushed. Overall, another strong addition to a very good series.

Review of Empires of the Sky by Alexander Rose

Empires of the Sky tells the story of the early days of powered flight and whether it would be airships or airplanes that would come to dominate air travel. For the most part it is a fairly detailed, lengthy history of airships, with a particular focus on Zeppelins and the men who would make and fly them. The Zeppelin story is one of triumph over adversity given their massive cost, many early disasters and Count Zeppelin’s political marginalisation. Even after the First World War, the company managed to keep going due to the political and corporate shenanigans of its new boss, Hugo Eckener, who pioneered international and transatlantic flights. With the rise of Nazism, however, Eckener’s vision became subverted for political ends and ended with the Hindenburg tragedy in 1937. Woven into the book is a much less well developed history of airplane development, with the thread evolving from a brief account of the Wright Brothers to focus on Pan American Airways and its cunning and ambitious boss, Juan Trippe. Like Eckener, Trippe was determined to create a network of international air travel and set about negotiating landing concessions and building airports across the Caribbean and Latin America, developing routes across the Pacific, and eventually the Atlantic. While airships initially had the advantage of better safety and passenger comfort, and longer fly times, they were expensive and required massive infrastructure. Despite Eckener’s dream, it would only be a matter of time as planes improved before the airship became obsolete for passenger travel. The story is a fascinating and engaging read, though it is somewhat misbalanced, especially in the context of its subtitle: “Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World”. It is basically a book about the rise and fall of passenger airships. Either the Pan Am material needed the same level of attention as the Zeppelin story, or it needed to be thinned out to keep the focus on the airship story. Nonetheless, an interesting account of early long-distance air passenger travel.

 

Review of The Killing Bay by Chris Ould (2017, Titan Books)

An international mix of anti-whalers have gathered in the Faroe Islands determined to stop the killing of pilot whales. The day after an unsuccessful attempt to save a pod of whales being driven by boats onto the shore the official photographer of the protest group is found murdered. The body has been arranged in a staged manner and evidence is directed to a local fisherman, who happens to be the son-in-law of a CID officer, Hjalti Hentze. Once a suspect is named Hentze absents himself from the case. The fisherman claims to be innocent but is generally uncooperative with the police. The man in charge is determined to follow the single line of inquiry despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence and clear indications of outside interference in the case. Sure that there is much more going on and unhappy with how their superiors are handling the murder case, Hentze and some of his like-minded colleagues pick away from the sidelines, ruffling a few feathers in the process. They are aided by Jan Reyna, a British police officer who is visiting the islands, looking into the early life of his mother.

The Killing Bay is the second book in the Faroes series featuring British police officer, Jan Reyna, and local detective Hjalti Hentze. This outing is set just a few days after the first, with Reyna still on the island, taking a break to try to find out more details about his mother’s life on the islands. One thread of the story follows Reyna’s family investigation, told in the first person. The other, told in the third person, follows the investigation into the death of an activist photographer, who had been a member of anti-whaling protest group. The chief suspect is Hentze’s son-in-law, who had met his former girlfriend on a number of occasions over the previous weeks and whose alibi does not stand up to scrutiny. Hentze absents himself from the case, but the way it is being managed and interference from outside authorities spurs him to take covert interest. While Hentze and a couple of colleagues do most of the running, they occasionally turn to Reyna for help. Ould creates a decent sense of place and both threads are intriguing, though the family inquiry is a little threadbare, and the murder a little drawn-out. There was no great surprise in the denouement, but that was fine as there’s nice character development and both threads were interesting journeys.

 

Review of The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan (2019, Sphere)

DS Cormac Reilly’s girlfriend Emma works in a privately funded biochemical lab at Galway University. Late one evening she discovers a young woman dead in the car park outside the lab. The first person on the scene is Reilly, who quickly takes charge. There’s no indication that Emma was involved in the death, but he’s well aware of a previous accusation of murder and a traumatic past. After a year of working cold cases he’s just been shuffled back into rotation. He knows he should absence himself from the case, but his instinct is to try to quickly clear Emma from the inquiry and move the investigation forward. However, it’s soon clear that it might be a high profile case when the ID of Carline Darcy, granddaughter of the founder of Darcy Therapeutics, a hugely successful pharmaceutical company and the sponsor of the lab, is found on the victim. The company is highly secretive and only willing to give the bare minimum of help to the police and office politics are not aiding the investigation either. 

The Scholar, the second book in the DS Cormac Reilly series set in Galway, charts Reilly’s quest to clear his girlfriend’s name and catch the killer. It’s a relatively straightforward police procedural, with one major thread focusing on the young woman murdered outside of the lab, and a secondary thread concerned with tying up the loose ends of a father’s attempt to kill his family. The two intrigue points on the major thread are the involvement of Reilly’s girlfriend as the discoverer of the victim and initial suspect, and the link to Carline Darcy, whose grandfather owns Darcy Therapeutics, which sponsors the lab. Reilly should absent himself from the case but doesn’t, and Darcy Therapeutics is obstructionist and has the police and university management tip-toing around the case. It makes for some intrigue and tension, though the story is quite linear and in the end quite quickly and easily wrapped up with little sense of mystery. Instead, the tale seemed designed to provide a window onto Reilly, his relationship to Emma and her past, and fill out some of their backstory. That works fine to a point, especially since it is told in an engaging voice, but also makes the story a somewhat staged. Overall, a fairly decent second instalment to the series.

Review of Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter (2013, Mariner)

While the West places the start of the Second World War as September 1939, for China their fight with the Japanese started in 1937 with a skirmish that led to a full-scale assault followed by 8 years of continuous battle. Arguably the conflict started earlier with the invasion and occupation of Northern China in 1931, though an uneasy peace followed. Rana Mitter tells the story of China’s war concentrating on the period 1937 to 1945, though bookending the main narrative with the context and lead-up to the war and the civil war between nationalists and communists that immediately followed. At the start of the twentieth century China was a divided nation, with several large states ruled by various warlords and regimes, and weak on the international stage. The Nationalist Party had started to try and create a more unified nation, though forming political alliances among rivals was difficult. When the Japanese launched their assault on Eastern China, these divisions undermined the coordination of armies and the Chinese experienced a succession of defeats, the advance being halted when the Yellow River dykes were breached killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Nationalist China turned to America for help, especially for political support and war supplies, while the communists turned to Russia. The US aid came with the condition that an American general act as the military chief-of-staff; a decision that would have long-term consequences. What followed was a war of attrition, with up to 100 million refugees, famine, between 16-20 million deaths, followed by civil war. By 1949 China was unified under the Communist Party and its geopolitical position on the world stage has been transformed. It had been a major theatre of the war and a key member of the allies, yet its contribution was also largely airbrushed from accounts of the Second World War.

Forgotten Ally seeks to set the record straight and make a case for how the events during those years shaped, and continues to influence, China’s relationship with other post-war powers. While providing an over-arching history, Mitter tells the tale by focusing on four key figures: Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Nationalist government; Mao Zedong, the head of the Chinese Communist Party; Wang Jingwei, who defected from Nationalist Party to form a puppet government in occupied China; and ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell, the American appointed as Chiang’s chief of staff. In addition, he focuses on a number of key events, such as Rape of Nanking, the bombing of China’s wartime capital, Chongqing, and the ill-fated campaigns in Burma, drawing on a range of archival and personal testimony material. It makes for a fascinating read, providing a synoptic overview of what took place and key actors and decisions. However, because it is covering a number of years and many events it also quite sketchy, sacrificing depth for breadth. This is inevitable, but at times it does feel a little too sketchy. In particular, the Japanese side of the conflict is barely touched upon. Nonetheless, it’s an informative and engaging read, it does a good job of providing a balanced view, and makes a reasonable argument concerning how the war shaped China’s post-war geopolitical relations.  

 

Review of The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill (2009, Quercus)

Laos, 1978. A government official with a license to travel the country is wooing, marrying, then killing young virgins in remote rural areas. Most of the victims simply disappear, but one ends up on the mortuary slab of Dr Siri Paiboun, the national coroner. Appalled at the manner of her death, Siri decides to investigate, teaming up with the detective married to his nurse. As well as hunt a serial killer is also fighting a personal battle with the housing department and searching for an itinerant Indian man who has disappeared from the streets of the capital. 

The Merry Misogynist is the sixth instalment of the Siri Paiboun series following the investigations and adventures of the Laos state pathologist, who after a lifetime of revolutionary service is rewarded with work rather than retirement. In this outing, Siri seeks to halt the work of a serial killer preying on naïve, young rural women and find a missing Indian man who he’d usually encounter near to his work. In my view it’s probably the weakest of the series so far. While Siri is his usual affable, engaging self, the plot threads felt weak and tired. Each thread was very linear with no twists and turns. The serial killer thread was cliché and the missing Indian made little sense when pressed (he’d left a set of clues leading to where he was, but logically wouldn’t have been able to leave them). And Siri’s spiritual side didn’t surface at all, when it would have made sense to be present. The real saving grace was Siri and his interactions with his close circle of friends and the light humour. I’m hoping the series picks up again as the last couple have been a bit lacklustre, though Siri really is a delightful character.

Review of The Dead House by Harry Bingham (2016, Orion)

A young woman is found laid out in an old ‘dead house’, a small building close to a chapel in which bodies were housed prior to burial. For Detective Sergeant Fiona Griffiths how she came to be there is a puzzle worth solving. Even when the autopsy reveals she died of natural causes, Griffiths finds a way to keep the case open so she can assuage her curiosity. She has two lines of inquiry, some very expensive, high-end plastic surgery that will hopefully reveal who she is, and some trace barley remains that might reveal where she lived or died prior to being laid out. She doggedly pursues both leads and soon has a proper case; though as usual she spots connections that no-one else can see and her headstrong approach is bound to lead her into big trouble. 

The Dead House is the fifth book in the Fiona Griffiths police procedural series set in South Wales. In this outing, Fiona is investigating the death of a young woman laid out in a chapel dead house. The first challenge is identifying her given no-one appears to know who she is and her expensive plastic surgery suggests she is not local. The second is work out how she came to be there and her movements prior to death. Having spent the night in the dead house with ‘Carlotta’, as Fiona names the corpse, she has formed a special bond given her own odd relationship with death, vowing to solve the mystery. Bingham spins out a taut, twisting tale from this premise, with Fiona in fine, singular form. Undoubtedly the joy of this series is Fiona, who is one of the quirkiest, interesting and smart police officers in fiction and a pleasure to spend time with, despite all her foibles and vices that must drive most of her colleagues mad. Added to this is a strong sense of place, a captivating plot, along with the longer plot arc of the series, and engaging narrative. While it became somewhat unbelievable towards the end, the story was a gripping page turner (the scenes underground had my heart in my mouth and put me off caving for life). Another very entertaining addition to what has become my favourite UK-set series.

Review of The Plotters by Un-su Kim (2019, Fourth Estate; 2010 Korean)

As a small child Reseng was adopted by Old Raccoon, the keeper of the Doghouse Library. While it seems like an ordinary library, it has few visitors and actually serves as a hub for organized crime, especially contract killings. Reseng was groomed to be an assassin and has grown-up to become one of the best in the business. A secret group of plotters devise who should be killed and how; the library organizes the execution. But it’s a business that eats its own. The Old Raccoon is under pressure from a younger rival and Reseng is also under threat after deviating from a plot. And the opposition have the best killer in the business.

The Plotters is a noir tale set in South Korea. Pulling strings behind the scenes, a shadowy group of plotters orchestrate contract killings in which targets are eliminated and their bodies vanish. Reseng operates at the sharp-end, undertaking the kills and transferring the bodies to a pet crematorium. It’s a competitive business, where a deviation from a plot can place the assassin on the death list. Which is where Reseng finds himself. Only there appears to be more than one plotter at work, as well as rivalry in the underworld, unsettling the usual order. Trying to seize the initiative and save himself and his mentor, Reseng takes matters into his own hands, leading to a bloody set of encounters. Un-su Kim creates a dark, reflexive tale of a young assassin trying to survive in a cut-throat world. He does a nice job of constructing the world of the plotters, their actors and the Korean underworld. In many ways, Reseng is the least colourful character in a book populated by larger-than-life, quirky low-lives, but he has an interesting backstory and pursues his own strategy. The storytelling nicely blends pathos with dark humour, and is told in a literary voice. And while it is a little uneven in its pacing, mixing thoughtful description and reflection with action sequences, there’s never a dull moment in the narrative. Overall, an engaging, entertaining read and I’ll be looking out for other books by the author.

  

Review of Deep as Death by Katja Ivar (2020, Bitter Lemon Press)

Winter, Helsinki, 1953. Hella Mauzer, the first woman to serve in the city's homicide unit, has been forced out and prosecuted for injuring a suspect. She’s set herself up as a private investigator, but her run of bad luck continues as she’s given a large fine to pay in a short time-frame and her relationship with a radio presenter has run aground. When a prostitute is found floating in the harbour, the brothel’s madam turns to Mauzer to help. The brothel is known to have catered to the city’s elite and the head of homicide is reluctant to investigate given the role of chief of police is up for grabs. However, an ambitious inspector in the unit is reluctant to toe-the-line. Mauzer thus finds herself competing with her old boss to solve the case and as other’s start to perish, the stakes are raised. 

Deep as Death is the second book in the Hella Mauzer series set in 1950s Finland. In this outing, Mauzer has been forced out of the homicide unit and has set herself up as a private investigator. She is hired to investigate the death of a prostitute by a madam who is aware the police are dragging their heels, afraid of upsetting political leaders. As she starts to make some progress, forces seem to conspire to thwart Hella’s efforts. At the same time, a young inspector spots an opportunity to move his career forward, running with the case against his bosses wishes. Ivar tells the story from the point of view of Hella and the inspector. It works reasonably well, providing two perspectives on the case, and creating a sense of competition between the two, and there’s a good sense of place and context. The story unfolds as a who-dunnit, with a rising body count and some twists-and-turns. The denouement, however, seemed to fall apart a bit, being somewhat unconvincing, and was wrapped up very quickly leaving the story without adequate closure.

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 The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu (2017, Constable)

1936, Singapore. Sixteen year old Su Lin is coming to the end of her time at a mission school. She has ambitions to be a reporter, but her first step to achieving that goal is to avoid being married off to a much older man selected by her uncle. Her teacher has arranged for her to be the housekeeper for Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy. At their initial meeting LeFroy is called away to investigate a suspicious death at the residence of the Acting Governor of the colony, taking Su Lin with him. The nanny has fallen to her death from a second floor balcony. Su Lin quickly spots some oddities with the death and persuades LeFroy to let her offer to replace the nanny, stay at the residence, and try to see what she can find out. He reluctantly agrees, though his enthusiasm dips when a second death occurs. Su Lin though is determined to protect the daughter she is minding and solve the case.

This is the first in a cosy series set in Singapore in the late 1930s. The story is a traditional big house mystery in the vein of the golden age of crime transplanted to the colony, with the majority of the tale taking place in the Acting Governor’s residence investigating the suspicious death of the nanny. Although the police are involved, the primary investigator is Su Lin Chen, a teenager who is asked to temporarily replace the nanny until another can be hired. Su Lin is observant, smart, quick-witted, and kind and is not going to let her polio-crippled leg hold her back. Grand-daughter of a major trader and money-lender, she’s determined not be married off to an associate of her uncle, and has ambitions to make something of her life. Despite the colonial attitudes and racism of the governor’s family she quickly fits into the household as she hunts for clues and uncovers secrets. Yu spins an engaging, well paced whodunit tale that has several twists and turns and leads to tense, though not overly surprising denouement. There’s a reasonable sense of place, though the focus on the residence and domestic relations means the colonial context and island society is somewhat in the background. The charm of the story, however, is Su Lin and the golden age feel of the tale. Definitely a series I’ll be continuing with.

Review of Sicily ‘43 by James Holland (2020, Bantam Press)

The invasion of Sicily by Allied troops in July 1943 was the first major assault on Fortress Europe. It remains the largest amphibious landing in a single day, with 160,000 troops coming ashore on D-Day, and involved a vast armada, aerial skirmishes, and British and American-led armies taking on Italian and German troops. While the Western half of the island was quickly over-run, the Eastern half involved a bloody series of battles. After 38 days it was all over with most of the Italians surrendering and the Germans withdrawn over the Messina Straits. James Holland provides an overarching description of the invasion and key battles, drawing on the testimony of combatants on both sides and civilians. Unlike other accounts that tend to disparage the Allied efforts, Holland makes the case that Sicily was a major success despite mistakes being made (notably the use of airborne troops and gliders which suffered major losses, including via Allied guns). He argues that the mountainous terrain that favoured defenders and hardened German opponents slowed progress despite total aerial dominance and uncontested sea support, rather than incompetence, poor planning and weak tactics. His contention is well made. In general, one gets a reasonable sense of how the campaign unfolded. However, trying the cram dozens of battles and encounters into a single volume using multiple personal narratives makes for a somewhat bitty and narrow narrative. On the plus side, there’s a sense of what Holland’s main characters went through. On the negative, there’s a lot of jumping about and less sense of how particular actions and the overall campaign unfolded. It’s a difficult balance to achieve and it felt a little out of kilter. It might have helped if the relevant maps were embedded in the text at the appropriate points and there was more of them. Overall, though an interesting account of gaining a key foothold on Axis territory.

Review of Crimson Lake by Candice Fox (2017, Penguin)

Ted Conkaffey’s life has been turned upside down. The last known person to see a girl at a bus stop before she was abducted and raped, he’s accused of the crime. The case is withdrawn halfway through the trial leaving him neither acquitted nor convicted, but his reputation and marriage in ruins. His lawyer drives him north from Sydney to the wetlands of Crimson Lake, near to Cairns, and introduces him to Amanda Pharrell, a private investigator who has served time for killing another girl when she was a teenager. With the local community and cops starting to make Ted’s life a misery, he throws himself into investigating the disappearance of a local celebrity author with his new partner. At the same time he starts to dig into Amanda’s past, convinced there was more to her case than what’s on the public record. He’s pretty much given up on trying to prove his own innocence; the question is whether he’ll be able to stay in Crimson Creek long enough to solve the cases he’s working on before the locals force him to leave.

Crimson Lake is the first in a private investigator series set near to Cairns in North East Australia, featuring ex-detective Ted Conkaffey, a man wrongly suspected of kidnapping and raping a teenage girl, and Amanda Pharrell, an ex-con, who served time for murdering a fellow teenager. Ted has fled north to try and rebuild his life, knowing that he’ll never be able to shake-off the accusation unless the real culprit is caught. Amanda is all sharp angles, awkward, brazen, and with her own way of doing things. They make an odd pairing, but their circumstances enable them to form a working relationship. Their first case together is to investigate the disappearance of a local author who has gained fame and fans for Christian fiction, but whose lifestyle is far removed from pastiche of Old and New Testament he writes. As they hunt for clues and track down leads, the local community start to harass Ted and the cops threaten him with the aim of moving him on. Then the media track him down. Relatively tense from the start, Fox slowly ramps up the tension to create a taunt psychological thriller that interweaves three cases – Ted’s abduction, Amanda’s murder, and the author’s disappearance. Although somewhat unsettling and uncomfortable at times, there is strong character development, a good sense of place, and a nicely crafted plot that propels the story along with some good hidden twists leading to an enthralling denouement. And I was certainly left with a desire to see how Ted and Amanda’s lives develop in the next book in the series.

Review of Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson (1996, Vintage)

Belfast in the early 1990s. The Troubles are still on-going. Friends Jake Jackson and Chuckie Lurgan don’t care too much for the sectarian divisions and violence. Jake is a lapsed Catholic with a disdain for republicanism and its violence who works as a repo-man. Chuckie is an over-weight, poor Protestant living with his mother. As they reach thirty, change is in the air. Jake’s English girlfriend leaves him and he’s had enough of repossessing property. Chuckie has decided he’s going to make money and he’s discovered a cunning way to get his initial investment. And a cease-fire seems possible. As Chuckie’s empire rapidly grows and he finds love with good-looking American, Jake struggles to move-on, finding himself working as a builder.

I first read Eureka Street when living in Belfast in the late 1990s and much of the story takes place within a mile of where I was working in the area just to the south of the city centre. And in many ways the novel is a kind of love story for the city and its people. It has a wonderful sense of place and is full of pathos and humour as Chuckie and Jake try to navigate being poor, working-class friends from different religions in a city still riven with sectarian tension and violence. Wilson does a fantastic job of developing the two characters as their lives transform over the course of a year and deal with various situations. It’s beautifully written and has a strong emotional resonance, with the story switching from laugh-out loud moments to deep melancholy and tears. It has as much relevance for understanding Northern Ireland now, as it did then. Definitely one of my favourite novels.