Going to the Dogs, by Pierre Lemaitre.

Translated by Frank Wynne.

 

            What does one do when there are sure signs that one’s star staff member starts showing signs of losing her marbles?  And missing her targets.  And disposing of the wrong (Sacre Bleu!) targets?

            Such a fraught problem is presenting itself to the Commandant, head of a very shadowy organisation that specialises in removing obstacles (usually of the human kind) to certain people’s plans:  efficiency and accuracy in planning are always paramount, and if the Commandant does say it himself, there is always 100% satisfaction at the completion of each mission.  Until now.

            It is 1985 and Mathilde Perrin, now in her 60’s and a decorated wartime member of the French Resistance, has always been his most reliable assassin, fast, skilful and totally reliable – as is he, for he has the same decorations, shown the same bravery and resourcefulness, the difference being that Mathilde gets extra pleasure out of killing:  there is always an extra unnecessary shot or wound that demonstrates her sadism, and now she is starting to unravel.  And the Commandant is understandably worried that her deterioration will lead eventually to himself and his organisation:  she must be removed from his staff by someone cleverer than she. 

            And so begins Pierre Lemaitre’s sparkling, horrific Gallic satire on the subject of dementia, the disease that frightens us all as it waits in the wings and makes random stabs at its random victims:  even serial killers are not immune, no matter how efficient they are at their jobs.  As Mathilde’s condition deteriorates, she starts making dreadful errors, killing her cleaning lady who hasn’t even started the job yet, killing random people in a Mall carpark as she goes shopping for shoes, and slitting the throat of her faithful dog for no reason that anyone can see – except an observant police detective who interviews her just as a matter of course and finds the head of the dog under the hedge. 

            Lemaitre does a wonderful job building up suspense as to who will be the next victim, and the backstories he has for his great characters are fascinating;  as in real life it’s a lucky dip as to who will survive till the end of this superb little story and, as in real life, it’s always the last person one would suspect of finally bringing Mathilde to justice.  SIX STARS   

 

Three dogs, two murders and a cat, by Rodney Strong.

 

            Cosy Crime is now an established genre in TV series and books;  there’s always a satisfying ending that no-one saw coming and it can be guaranteed not to strain the brain too much about Life, the Universe and Everything.  Such a story is Three dogs etc. etc., but what is definitely and enormously entertaining about it is that it is set in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city:  for that reason alone, locals will love reading about all the novel’s improbable events with their city as the backdrop.

            And protagonist Nicolette Briggs is definitely a Private Detective with a difference:  she doesn’t do Humans. She investigates crimes against animals – sometimes with her fists if the need arises.  Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t make much money, but as we all know there are always plenty of cases of animal cruelty that need investigating, and she has a stellar reputation, eventually receiving a call from an aged member of the Silvermoon Retirement Village concerning a cat that is in a bad way:  according to the local vet it has been poisoned and, even though  no resident owns this feline friend, they don’t want anything to happen to her, and hope  that Nicolette can ferret out who officially owns her and if she was poisoned deliberately.

            Fair enough, Nicolette needs the money as her car requires urgent attention (a newer model would be great, but is an impossible dream, especially with a teenage daughter at a private school) so:  the first thing to find out is the identity of the true owner of the cat who, it transpires, lives (officially, anyway) in one of the properties adjoining the village, but true to form, everything gets very murky when the body of a young woman is found in the bath of the same property – then one of Nicolette’s rescue dogs is taken from her car, causing her to get very angry with the thief to the extent that she is witnessed assaulting him, which is not a  good look when he becomes the next murder victim:  the plot thickens!

            Rodney Strong states that this is the first of a series of books featuring Nicolette and her unorthodox and sometimes physical ways of fighting crime – which is just as well;  she comes from a very confusing group of relatives thanks to her mother’s several marriages and it’s hard to keep them all in their places – likewise his cavalier use of apostrophes:  they can be  tricky little things!  Having said that, it was great to travel around our lovely capital with Nicolette, unafraid to get physical when the defenceless can’t:  Cosy Crime can be fun!  FOUR STARS

 

 

     

 

Banquet of Beggars, by Chris Lloyd.

 

              This is the third book in Chris Lloyd’s series of the German Occupation of Paris during the Second World War.  Its Protagonist Inspector Eddie Giral is, like every other Parisian, surviving on very little with an ill-fitting and voluminous wardrobe to prove it – the only healthy-looking individuals in the City of Light are the German Occupiers;  the local Black Market doesn’t discriminate between Reichmarks and Francs:  whoever can pay the price-gouging sums will get the goods.  Naturally, the Germans are at an advantage here, having plenty of funds and not having to queue for hours for a loaf of bread, only to be turned away when meagre supplies have run out.

        The people of Paris are seething, so it comes as no surprise when Eddie is sent to investigate the murder of a local Black Marketeer, found trussed up in a miniature bath with a big lump of precious butter jammed in his mouth.  Death by suffocation, and good riddance. According to all the locals;  if ever someone deserved their fate it was THAT oily little scum.

            Fair enough, thinks Eddie, until his interviews and digging reveal more than just a passing involvement of the despised victim with various German factions of their armed forces – which brings him again into reluctant contact with Intelligence Officer Major Hochstetter, whose interest in Parisian crime is more involved and comprehensive than it needs to be:  once again Eddie has an investigation which has more skins than an onion, and all of it centred around the deprived and starving population of a beleaguered city hugely disappointed and crushed by their useless government.

            Hochstetter, too, has secrets to hide which Eddie unwittingly discovers, but what at first seems to be a bargaining chip turns once again into potential blackmail concerning Eddie’s estranged son Jean-Luc:  there are several compelling reasons for Jean-Luc’s silence, all of them having the ring of truth – but which one is the RIGHT one?

            Chris Lloyd brings to horrifying life a city under siege, a city full of desperate people calling for help which never arrives, and what they are forced to do to survive.  His minor characters are unforgettable, world-weary, cynical – and starving, and his day-to-day accounts of Paris under Occupation made this reader a whole lot more appreciative of the food which we put so regularly on our table.  FIVE STARS.  

           

           

 

 

Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros.                                              

         

          Here is the third riveting book in Ms Yarros’s series of five fantasy novels about the mythical world of the Empyrean and the love affair between little, deceptively frail Violet Sorrengail and Xaden Riorson, flawed but irresistible (not to mention impossibly handsome) man of shadows, who in book two has just been converted to the Dark Side in order to save her life, which means that they spend most of book three trying to find a cure for him so that he can defeat their toxic and supremely malevolent enemies, the Venin.  So far, because of his great love for Violet and his superhuman willpower he has been able to resist the terrible call of supreme and evil addiction, but Violet knows what a struggle it is for him but loves him the more because he has endangered himself for her. 

            The problem is that the rest of the Continent in which they live and study depends on them too, to prevent the entire population from being annihilated by the Venin, and to make matters worse, Violet herself is being pursued by an ex-highpriestess of Dunne (don’t ask. Oh, OK then:  God of War).  Theophanie is evil incarnate but is confident of winning Violet over to evil:  she just has to find the right trigger.  Xaden is the obvious prize along with them both being rulers of the Empyrean world forever – or could it be her second dragon, adolescent Andarna? 

            Once again, the dragons have won my  heart:  they are such great characters, especially Andarna, who has a mind of her own – talk about the impetuosity of youth!  I have to admit that I got a bit bogged down and confused at the warfare plans and the introduction of a whole swag of new characters as Violet and Xaden travel to far-off corners of the Empyrean to try to recruit allies and converts;  fortunately Ms Yarros knows what she’s doing and keeps the whole show on the road at its usual break-neck pace – and thank the Gods that someone is still in the driver’s seat for, once again, she saves the biggest shocks for the last page.  Which is hell on the nerves, especially as it’s going to take a while for book four to present itself: do your best, Ms Yarros, and I’ll still dream of a jolly nice little dragon choosing me for a pet!  FIVE STARS    

         

 

Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros.                                              

         

    
      Here is the third riveting book in Ms Yarros’s series of five fantasy novels about the mythical world of the Empyrean and the love affair between little, deceptively frail Violet Sorrengail and Xaden Riorson, flawed but irresistible (not to mention impossibly handsome) man of shadows, who in book two has just been converted to the Dark Side in order to save her life, which means that they spend most of book three trying to find a cure for him so that he can defeat their toxic and supremely malevolent enemies, the Venin.  So far, because of his great love for Violet and his superhuman willpower he has been able to resist the terrible call of supreme and evil addiction, but Violet knows what a struggle it is for him but loves him the more because he has endangered himself for her. 

            The problem is that the rest of the Continent in which they live and study depends on them too, to prevent the entire population from being annihilated by the Venin, and to make matters worse, Violet herself is being pursued by an ex-highpriestess of Dunne (don’t ask. Oh, OK then:  God of War).  Theophanie is evil incarnate but is confident of winning Violet over to evil:  she just has to find the right trigger.  Xaden is the obvious prize along with them both being rulers of the Empyrean world forever – or could it be her second dragon, adolescent Andarna? 

            Once again, the dragons have won my  heart:  they are such great characters, especially Andarna, who has a mind of her own – talk about the impetuosity of youth!  I have to admit that I got a bit bogged down and confused at the warfare plans and the introduction of a whole swag of new characters as Violet and Xaden travel to far-off corners of the Empyrean to try to recruit allies and converts;  fortunately Ms Yarros knows what she’s doing and keeps the whole show on the road at its usual break-neck pace – and thank the Gods that someone is still in the driver’s seat for, once again, she saves the biggest shocks for the last page.  Which is hell on the nerves, especially as it’s going to take a while for book four to present itself: do your best, Ms Yarros, and I’ll still dream of a jolly nice little dragon choosing me for a pet!  FIVE STARS    

         

 

 Frankie, by Graham Norton.

            I am sure anyone would agree that we are living at the moment in very uncertain times;  the world is undergoing great change politically and physically and ordinary people (thee and me) are reluctant witnesses, it seems,  to many international injustices both large and small so we must look for any form of escapism that works – and reading, the art of the story, still features hugely with the majority of us:  we need something elevating and heartwarming to remind us that the world is still a good place., and such a story is Graham Norton’s ‘Frankie’.

            In Ireland, Frances Howe’s parents died in a car accident when she was ten years old;  Frances was an only child and her care was taken over by her mother’s sister who was married to an Anglican minister who tended to address everyone in biblical phrases, always careful to stress how charitable her aunt and he were being in providing her a home.  Frances’s only happiness at this time was her schoolfriend Norah’s home in which she was always welcomed by Norah’s refreshingly normal parents;  sadly, this situation changed when Frances was seventeen:  her Uncle married her off to another clergyman who was much older than she and when her new life commenced, Frances found that the reality of being a Canon’s wife was vastly different from what she’d imagined – including the marital bed, the mysteries of which remained as opaque as ever.  Until Frances, delivering eggs to needy parishioners as part of her wifely duties, met one of the flock whose very presence ignited an eroticism with which Frances was entirely unfamiliar:  needless to say, there was no happy outcome for Frances;  her sham marriage was over, she was ‘cast out’ by her anything-but-saintly husband, and exiled to London, to share a flat with Norah.

            And Norah had been having adventures of her own, deciding that the company of women was infinitely more preferable than men, but she was instrumental in ‘retraining’ Frances in the secretarial arts – shorthand and typing, filing etc – to an efficiency that earned Frances a trip to New York with her new Boss, a woman of ‘that’ persuasion hoping to change her new secretary’s mind as to her sexual preferences – which didn’t happen, and after a disasterous start to her time in The Big Apple, Frances becomes Frankie and her real life, with its stratospheric highs and dismal lows, finally begins.

            Graham Norton in his Acknowledgements pages says that his editor always makes him feel like a novelist rather than a chat-show host with notions.  Well, the wonderful protagonist he has created is a shining example of his talent at story-telling on the grand scale:  I defy anyone to say that they were not fully engaged with Frankie’s adventures, from her sad beginnings to her loving end, for this is a story of love in all its colours and stripes, and that is what the world certainly needs at this troubling time.  FIVE STARS. 

              

 

 

 

 

 

The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyer.

            Penny Coyne (yes, really!) is a very elderly librarian from a small Scottish village:  what makes her notable is that she has highly reputable skills as an amateur detective, solving numerous cases that have foiled many police, and forcing them to call on her services more than they would wish to.  Eat your heart out, Miss Marple!

            She is about to meet Johnny Hawke, typical burnt-out LA detective, with a reputation not only for putting away the bad guys (some of them in a very permanent fashion) but also for inadvertently causing the demise of every partner he has had so far:  in light of that fact, are Ms Coyne’s days numbered?

And why would they ever meet except for both receiving invitations to an impossibly High Society wedding at a very grand Scottish Mansion now being run as a hotel – neither of them know either bride nor groom.  Which is enough to prick anyone’s curiosity, so here they are, Penny in tweed skirt and twinset, and Johnny, trying not to look like an LA cop in a very cheap suit.

            The stage is set for one of the cleverest Whodunnits I have read for years, and the Big Reveal doesn’t happen to the very last page – and even then presents more questions than answers.  Johnny has ended up in Scotland because he’s on suspension for being the cause of death yet again of his latest hapless partner and has been told by his boss to ‘get out of town and stay out’.

The wedding invitation arrives at a very welcome time though he is worried as to how the bank account will survive the experience, especially in light of the Great and the Good arriving for the wedding;  they have no such financial worries.  The bride and groom, too, seem madly in love – until the bride reveals to Penny last-minute cold feet, then she disappears just before the ceremony is to begin – and is found dead, a presumed suicide, in a similar fashion to the circumstances of the crime Johnny was investigating in which his new partner died, and further investigation reveals that this is the third similar death in similar circumstances. 

            It is not long before the brawny brainy gumshoe recognises a kindred spirit in the woollen-clad, keen observer of human behaviour  -  ‘there are always consequences when you break any rule, Johnny’ – and they combine to make a formidable team.  Until , further into this dazzling story, the reader is aghast to realise that Johnny and Penny are not bona fide protagonists, (spoiler alert) but characters in a  brilliant video game:  no-one is what they seem and Chris Brookmyre has tricked us all with his marvellously inventive characterisations and plotting:  what a booki!  What a writer!  What a game!  SIX STARS