The Mind of a Murderer, by Michael Wood.

And it’s sequel, The Devil’s Code.

       

  

          I am enormously proud of myself.  I have finally started a book series off at # 1 – usually I discover after several pages that I have done my usual trick of starting after several books have already been written, then having to rely on the author being kind and filling in key information – well, this series is so obliging it even has the first chapter of the next story to refresh peoples’ minds and whet their appetite for more blood and gore - and this series is awash with it, for its main protagonist is a forensic psychologist who started off life as Olivia Button, a normal little child, content in the bosom of her loving family, until she came home from school one day to find her younger sister dead in her dying mother’s arms, blood pouring everywhere and urged by her fatally stabbed mum to ‘RUN!’

            Which she does – fleeing her father, of all people, who had decided that after killing several complete strangers, it was time to dispatch his family.  And he is nearly successful with Olivia, wounding her terribly before the police overpower him.  Fortunately she survives her injuries and is lovingly cared for  by her grandparents who provide as much love and normalcy as they can as she grows up, but you don’t have to be Einstein to know that she will always want to explore, study and understand why some people kill (especially serial killers), and what they actually enjoy about it.  From her own experience she knows that familial love means nothing;  the thrill of ending someone’s life is paramount so, on the positive side and after a name change, Olivia has made a substantial career out of travelling the world and studying the deeds and minds of serial killers;  she is such an authority that her advice is sought by Police authorities everywhere, especially in London where a killer has struck again:  how she eventually unmasks him is very well plotted and, in the best tradition of all superior crime novels one never knows who the baddy is until the last possible minute.

            Book Two starts in a similar vein;  Olivia is required to go to Newcastle-on-Tyne to offer advice and suggestions to the authorities after a car was stopped on a stormy night by police;  when the car boot was opened, a body was revealed, cut into twelve pieces.  The driver will only say ‘no comment’, even as he is sentenced to life imprisonment.  A search of his house reveals documents which appear to be in code, but how to break it? 

And underlying all the mystery and worry that more remains will be found is Olivia’s father, still contacting her from prison whether she wants to hear from him or not (she doesn’t).  But he has other bodies – and murders – up his sleeve, and wants to brag about them whether she likes it or not! 

            Michael Wood has created a flawed, damaged but courageous protagonist in Olivia;  she makes mighty mistakes but great inroads, too, in outwitting her villains – and her nightmares.  FOUR STARS EACH.   

 

 

 

 

The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey.

            

Typically, I have chanced upon #3 in David McCloskey’s series of Spy novels involving various colourful and driven members of the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency – why can’t I ever seem to start at #1!  He writes from experience, having worked for the CIA in another life – he knows how everything functions, especially the hierarchy on the seventh floor, Olympian home of Finn Armitage and Deborah Sweet, brand new leaders eager to make their mark on the organisation, which includes Artemis Proctor, a fearless – and tactless – leader of a subsection. The failure of an exercise against a Russian Source and the disappearance of handler Sam Joseph, captured and held by the Russians for three months until they swapped him for someone they needed more, provided Armitage and Sweet with the ammunition they need to boot her out of the only job she has ever really loved:  without her CIA job she is nothing:  ‘all your life you’re CIA.  Then you’re not.’

Working as an alligator wrangler at her cousin’s Florida theme park is no substitute, and the gators take exception to being rode twice a day;  they bite and will never be her pets.  Is this what her life will be like from now on?

Until Sam Joseph miraculously turns up bringing whiskey – and salvation in the form of explosive secret news that he hasn’t shared with anyone, including the various Psychologists and Medics he has seen since being released:  one of their number on the seventh floor has sold out and is providing the CIA’s most secret knowledge to the Russians.  A mole has been planted and that little critter is flourishing, absolutely bursting with information, and excellent at covering his tracks, having had so much training at doing just that at the CIA.

And how can a disgraced ex- section boss and an ex- undercover spy prisoner have any credibility with a leadership that wanted them gone anyway – no:  they will have to try to unravel and expose the traitor by themselves, the hard way, the dangerous, ‘they could kill-your-ass way.  Which is the only way.

David McCloskey’s superb prose takes no prisoners;  his character—building is second to none and, despite the demise of one of his main protagonists there are still enough great identities for the series to keep going, and going – and going!  Do you hear me, Mr McCloskey?!  SIX STARS. 

                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Riveter, by Jack Wang.

 

            After his father’s untimely accidental death, young Canadian forestry  worker Josiah Chang decides to enlist in the Canadian Army;  it is 1942 and Josiah wants to prove himself as a  loyal  citizen, ready to fight for his country in the Second World War.  The ‘only’ problem that he can see is that even though he was born and raised in Canada and has never been to  China, he cannot fight for Canada because of the possibility that he would demand Canadian Citizenship – which would not be tolerated.

            So!  Josiah does the next-best thing:  he finds a job as a riveter at Vancouver’s shipyards where shipbuilding is proceeding apace to make up for the many cargo ships being sunk by the Germans.  ‘Every Rivet A Bullet’ and, because he is strong, fit and healthy Josiah does well in his new position – except for those of his workmates who don’t believe that Chinamen know what they’re doing.  He proves them wrong many times but it still takes a long time to fit in, especially after he meets and with almost indecent haste, falls in love with Poppy, a girl named after Flanders Fields where her father was wounded in the First World War – she loves being a rebel and upsetting her staid, conventional parents but quickly finds that her feelings for Josiah become much more than just a casual liaison:  this is the real thing.

            Jack Wang leads us expertly through this love affair that was so unexpected and thrilling for both – and so forbidden, especially when Poppy’s father visits Josiah to inform him that if they decide to get married, Poppy will lose her Canadian Citizenship.  What’s a man to do against such Draconian policy?  Well, he’ll show them:  if he travels to Toronto he may have a chance to join up with the Canadian Parachute Battalion and this time, luck (?) is on his side:  with his fellow paratroopers he jumps into Normandy on D-Day 1944:  at last he will be able to prove his worth as a Canadian, a citizen and a man.

            Jack Wang’s battle scenes are thrilling, written with such verve that one would swear that he was with Josiah every step of the way, not to mention the friendships forged in valour and heartbreak, and the civilians – friends and enemies alike, who were all too human – and humane.  Yes, Josiah survives and returns home to a hero’s welcome, but nothing has changed; those laws are still the same:  Chinese are Aliens.  This is a beautiful story.  SIX STARS.    

                              

 

 

 

 

Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, by James Lee Burke.

 

   

       James Lee Burke is very proud of this book.  He’s an old man now, but doesn’t care a bit, for his memories are of a Texas and real-life characters that dominated the landscape of his youth, and age (he is 89) cannot dim his wonderful artistry with words.  Burke has written several series, including those featuring fearless Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland;  now he would like to introduce us to Bessie Holland, Hackberry’s 14 year-old daughter when this story begins.  It is also the start of the 1914-1918 War, so world-wide trouble is brewing, even though America’s President has kept them out of it so far.

            Such lofty worries are beyond Bessie’s experience or interest at the moment;  after her mother’s death her father Hackberry has hit the booze and owes money everywhere:  she is faced with problems she is too young and ill-equipped to handle – BUT!  She refuses to be daunted by the fact that her father is a drunk, her brother will run away from home, leaving her entirely alone, but not before White-trash Jubal Fowler wrecks one of his eyes with a slingshot.  No, her attempts to  gain an education at the tiny local school have been ruined because the gifted teacher whom she adores has been sacked ‘for lewd behaviour with another woman’.

            Bessie is outraged – women’s rights are non-existent anyway;  they are no more than servants in every capacity.  Well, she’ll follow her brother Cody’s example and leave home too:  she’ll follow him to New York and the Lower East Side (whatever that may be);  anything would be better than her current location.  She thinks.

            True to form, she finds that her good looks generate plenty of attention, even from a ‘gentleman’ by the name of Anthony Vale who, after courting her perfectly (he seems to have lots of money) rapes her most cruelly, then makes sure she loses her employment.  He likes playing with people, but he has reckoned without good Baptist Bessie’s outrage at her treatment, or her father Hackberry’s thirst for revenge.  Anthony Vale’s days are numbered.

            Father and daughter return to Texas and find that their 200 acres have lots of oil waiting to be pumped from the ground – which presents its own problems for a good Baptist and a Texas Ranger who has given up the Demon Drink;  the tension never lifts and the Baddies never stop coming, from corrupt sheriffs and old enemies like Mexican Joe, a sadist who cuts up people because ‘he feels like it’.  And he feels like getting rid of Bessie by the nastiest of means;  she’s in his way.

            Fortunately for us, Bessie narrates the story so she’s still there at the end of this brilliant, almost unbearably suspenseful chronicle of a young State in an old country.  James Lee Burke can be justifiably proud of his work, which teems with unforgettable and authentic characters.  He just better live forever!  SIX STARS.    

Julia's 2025 Top Reads

Once Again, I Have a Little List – and this time, it is so late I really must apologise!

 

Time has run away with me this Festive Season, but it won’t stop the Staff, Friends and Volunteers of our beautiful library Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-po from wishing all of you Great Readers the very best New Year this worrisome world can offer us, with Goodwill to All a compulsory requirement – we hope!

 

1.    The Things We Didn’t Know, by Elba Iris Perez. 

2.    Sea Change, by Jenny Pattrick. 

3.    The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre

4.    Frankie, by Graham Norton.

5.    Going to the Dogs, by Pierre le Maitre.

6.    Fangs for Nothing, by Steffie Holmes.

7.    In a Place of Darkness, by StuartMacBride.

8.    King of Ashes, by S. A. Cosby.

9.    A Beautiful Family, by JenniferTrevelyan.

10. Lucky Thing, by Tom Baragwanath.

11.   The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths.

12.   An Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman.

13.   The Spy Coast, by Tess Gerritsen.

14.    The Summer Guests, by Tess Gerritsen

15.   Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler

And there's the list, everyone - Te Takere's First Fifteen waiting for you to take your pick. 

Happy New Year to every dedicated reader in Aotearoa and around the globe.

 

 

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler.

 

            Anne Tyler is a  treasure.  She has been nominated for or has received every prestigious literary prize the world has to offer, and her genius comes not from telling great sagas about world-shattering subjects, but the everyday dramas that beset us all – which is another reason why she’s so popular:  she writes about thee and me.

            Starting with Gail Baines, assistant headmistress at an elite Girls’ Private school in Baltimore, Maryland:  she is having a bad day because her Boss has just informed her that she will no longer be needed as her assistant for various reasons, not least of which is that her people-skills are lacking;  sometimes, telling a parent that ‘Good God, their daughter will never have the slightest chance of getting into Princeton on those marks’ is not what they want, or need to hear:  the Boss has found a replacement for Gail, necessitating in the last, desperate grand gesture from the person with no people-skills:  ‘I quit!’

            Which gives Gail a certain bitter satisfaction, but she’s 61 years old.  What’s she going to do for income?  And it is her daughter Debbie’s wedding rehearsal and dinner tonight, followed by the wedding and reception tomorrow – what should be Gail’s proudest day for her daughter has been blighted.

            And the situation does not improve with the arrival of her ex-husband Max, looking like a bundle of old clothes – he doesn’t even have a suit for his daughter’s wedding! – and a request to stay at her house for the three days of festivities.  He has also brought with him an elderly cat ‘which he thought she might like’ for he has been working in an animal shelter and the cat’s ancient owner has just died. Could this day get any worse?

            Of course it could, with her daughter’s revelation in a phone call to her mum that a secret has been inadvertently been revealed by the Groom’s sister that very morning, necessitating in much soul-searching about cancelling the whole thing or bravely going ahead. What advice to give, and would anyone listen?  The only one seemingly unaffected is the cat, who has found Gail’s bed and is not giving it up.  She is silent on the subject, but she (and Max) are ever hopeful,

            Yet again Anne Tyler delights and charms us in this lovely little novella of relationships old and new, showing thee and me that face value sometimes doesn’t have that much worth, and that taking a risk (sometimes!) can achieve the contentment to which we all aspire.  FIVE STARS.