The Dirty South, by John Connolly.

  

          Private Detective Charlie Parker’s creator John Connolly has written a prequel set in 1997 to his famous and riveting series, starting just after the unspeakably sadistic murders of Parker’s wife and young daughter, and detailing the beginning of Parker’s search for their killer – and his overwhelming need for revenge.

            Charlie’s resignation from the NYPD notwithstanding, he is still able to call in many favours from former colleagues in his search for cold cases that resemble in any way the gruesome methods used to dispatch his beloved family;  he will travel anywhere and employ any means possible to find parallels between unsolved murders and those of his loved ones: Charlie’s grief is raw and terrible, and retribution is the only fitting response. 

            To that end, he finds himself in Burdon County, Arkansas, an impoverished part of the state that is hoping for a big economic injection from a huge international firm thinking of establishing itself in either Arkansas or Texas, bringing prosperity and hundreds of jobs – and the ripple effect – to whichever state it chooses.  But lately, Burdon County has been plagued by a series of sadistic murders of young black girls, each killed by multiple stab wounds, and as a final indignity, impaled at either end of their bodies by branches.  And even worse, the local sheriff, member of the premier family of the county was seen kicking the corpse of the first victim onto private land.  It had originally been dumped on federal land, which meant that the FBI would have investigated, but private land denoted just a local investigation, ensuring that the crimes would stay ‘local’ and under the radar of the prospective international investor;  negative publicity of any kind being anathema to those who would make a huge profit from the deal’s success.

            As always, the more Charlie finds out, the more secrets and corruption are exposed, not to mention the thriving business in methamphetamine in which all the local good ole boys are involved – but that’s a minor crime in the scheme of things as yet more bodies are discovered:  Burdon County has a terminal disease that Charlie can’t cure.

But he can find out its source, and does so with the aid of Angel and Louis, his two staunch friends who have his back, always.  And as always, Mr Connolly fills the book with wonderful characters, drawn with great detail and accuracy, and heart-stopping action that keep the pages turning well into the night.  And you’ll never guess whodunnit!  FIVE STARS.    

 

The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman.

 

            The Thursday Murder Club is Osman’s first, and so far, his best novel.  Well. You can’t say fairer than that.  And that statement alone will give readers a taste of what’s to come, all of which is a pure delight.  I’ve been wading through some pretty heavy stuff lately and it was an utter pleasure to sit back and enjoy that rare combination of excellent characters, a complex plot (you have to pay attention at all times!), and wonderful humour combined with shrewd observation on what to expect when we reach the wrong end of life.

            The residents of Coopers Chase retirement village have reached that stage of their existence, but a number of them are refusing to throw in the towel just yet, and have formed The Thursday Murder Club, held on that day in the Jigsaw Puzzle room and organised by Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron, all of whom had very interesting occupations before Old Age caught up and galloped past them:  Elizabeth was something mysterious and high up in law enforcement (she has influential 'friends’ seemingly everywhere);  Ibrahim is a retired psychiatrist with a huge, not to say alarmingly pedantic grasp of facts and statistics, and Ron – Red Ron is a famous Union stirrer and battler of legendary repute, the bane of every British Prime Minister for the last forty years until arthritis and his short-term memory did for him.  They are still intent on using their combined formidable intelligence to solve a Cold Case, and have just recruited Joyce as a new member.

            Joyce is practical, disarmingly cheerful and a prolific baker of excellent cakes – and she’s a nurse, providing necessary medical knowledge to the group – oh, they’re going to have great fun solving the cold-case murder of a young woman who died in the 70’s!

            Except that not one, but two ‘fresh’ murders occur within days of each other:  first, the builder of the retirement village is bludgeoned to death in his home, then the developer for whom he worked is poisoned with a massive overdose of Fentanyl.  Never mind that the police are on the scene with alacrity – the Thursday Murder Club will provide invaluable assistance, not least because they live On the Job.  And it’s great to have mysteries to solve, for it makes them feel young.

            Mr Osman successfully negotiates the fine line between pathos and bathos by treating his great characters with utter respect, and giving them – and the reader – myriad opportunities to laugh;  at themselves, at each other, and at life.  SIX STARS!    

 

Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith. (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling)

         

        

  The welcome reappearance of ex-soldier, amputee and private detective Cormoran Strike and his attractive, resourceful and secret love Robin Ellacott is hardly helped by the size and weight of their latest adventure together, ‘Troubled Blood’, nearly 1000 pages of myriad characters, mind-taxing detail – and first-class storytelling.  Yep, you’ll have to do plenty of wristy push-ups to manage its weight, especially when trying to hoist it up to read in bed.  I speak from experience!

            But, as usual, weight and size count for nothing from the very first chapter:  the reader is as hooked as Strike when a woman approaches him in a Cornwall bar – he is visiting his beloved Aunt Joan, who has terminal cancer, and he’s having a necessary break with a friend – and asks if he would like to take on a 40 year-old Cold Case, specifically that of her mother, a respected doctor in general practice, who went out for a drink with a friend after work one night, never to return – and never to have left any trace of herself anywhere from that day to this.  Her daughter has no memory of her mother, being only a year old when she disappeared, but her desire to know what happened is overwhelming – as it eventually becomes for Strike and Robin.

            There begins the meticulous ‘no stone unturned’ poring over old evidence, made more difficult by the fact that the original supervising police detective had a huge nervous collapse when he started bringing in Astrology and the Occult into his investigation, but his replacement couldn’t have been more different – a by-the-book copper with no belief in intuition or hunches.  And zero imagination.

            There are red herrings galore, dead ends for Africa, and the wrenching loss of Strike’s beloved Aunt Joan, not to mention approaches from Strike’s Rock Star father, with whom he wants no contact at all – and tells him so:  why should this man who is world-famous anyway, want to claim kinship with Strike, because he is now a famous detective?  He didn’t want to know Strike as a child;  now Strike is returning the ‘interest’.

            And Robin’s divorce from her self-centred husband is progressing at a snail’s pace:  anything that he can do to cost her extra time and expense is worth a try – even though he was the one caught in adultery, everything is still all her fault.  In the meantime, Strike’s ex Great Love Charlotte, society Belle, mother of twins and sender of texts announcing suicide attempts is busily doing just that:  no peace of mind for HIM.

            Robert Galbraith drags us into Strike’s complicated world yet again with no effort whatsoever – beautifully plotted, unforgettable characters and dialogue, and still no Declarations of Love!  The  Robin/Strike love affair has to happen, but when???  FI VE STARS.      

 

The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue.

 

  

          Influenza - ‘The Pull of the Stars’:  Italians believed that the influence of the constellations could indeed make them sick, and in November, 1918, the whole world is slave to Influenza.  As if an earth-shattering world war hadn’t caused enough suffering, the Flu, the Grippe – call it what you will, had invaded every home, especially those of the poor.

            Emma Donoghue’s latest novel was started in November, 2018, the centenary of the disease that wiped out between 3 and 6% of the human race, and was rushed into print to coincide with the latest threat to humanity:  COVID 19.  It describes the events of just three days in the maternity/fever ward of a catholic hospital in Dublin, severely understaffed as more nurses and doctors succumb to the illness, leading to ‘promotions in the field’ of staffers who have previously kept strictly to their allotted tasks.  Such a worker is Nurse Julia Power, suddenly in charge of three patients, all of whom are infected, and all in danger of going into labour as a symptom of the disease.

            The Night Nurse, a nun, arranges an assistant from the Mother House, a catholic orphanage just around the corner, and Bridie Murphy enters Julia’s life:  semi-literate, half-starved, and the owner of mysterious scars, she is still a breath of fresh, clean air in the ward, heartbreakingly willing to please, a natural nurse and the possessor of a memory that forgets nothing, good or bad:  together, she and Julia quickly weld themselves into an inseparable team – even the sadness Julia has waiting at home in the shape of her mute brother (wounded in the war, in his spirit.  He no longer talks.) can dim the satisfaction of a job well done.

            Until Day Three dawns, and with it the re-arrest at the hospital of Dr Kathleen Lynn, a Sinn Feiner and dangerous rebel, released early to attend to the appalling numbers of flu sufferers;  her second incarceration coincides with new exhortations from the Government pasted on city walls:  EAT AN ONION A DAY.  LIE DOWN FOR A FORTNIGHT.  ‘WOULD THEY BE DEAD IF THEY’D STAYED IN BED?’ Julia is living in a nightmare which continues with no respite throughout the day:  young lives cease without warning – youth is no insurance against this disease, especially with poverty and malnutrition as a base:  the stars are pulling strongly indeed.

            Ms Donoghue, acclaimed author of ‘Room’ and ‘Akin’ to name just two of her great stories, recreates superbly the terror and fear of a century ago when our world was held hostage to an unknown, all-powerful enemy, an illness that we didn’t know how to vanquish:  she draws the obvious parallels to the corona virus, but surely – surely – we can beat it this time around – can we? -  can’t we?  SIX STARS!!

 

                     

 

The Girl in the Mirror, by Rose Carlyle.

 

            Sibling rivalry takes a horrible new twist in Rose Carlyle’s debut novel:  main protagonists are identical ‘mirror’ twins Summer and Iris Carmichael, who were born with several unusual quirks – Iris’s heart is on the right side of her chest  for example;  she ‘mirrors’ Summer in every way, except where it counts:  Summer is the good twin, the popular, radiant twin.  The one with all the luck.  And the whole family certainly needs some, for the twins’ despotic, philandering, very rich father has unexpectedly died and, instead of bequeathing his estate of one hundred million dollars fairly to his warring, various families he has instructed that the first of his daughters to produce a child shall inherit all of it.

            Naturally, this does nothing to bring all the siblings closer together;  instead of being united by grief, the opposite occurs.  Iris enters into a disastrous marriage which fails to produce the desired baby, but Summer marries for love, declaring that she doesn’t care about the money – she has been put on this earth to help people, as seen by her choice of career (nursing) where she met her wonderful husband, bereft after the tragic death of his first wife who left a little baby boy to be cared for.  No, money doesn’t mean a thing to Summer – besides, her husband Adam runs a chain of successful travel agencies established in the Seychelles by his family, so they are quite secure, in fact so secure that they are currently cruising on dear old dead dad’s ocean-going yacht Bathsheba in Thailand, but -  they’ve run into a bit of bother with the Thai authorities;  they have to sneak out of Thailand and sail to the Seychelles because their yacht paperwork is no longer valid, due to the baby’s unexpected illness and hospitalisation:  would Iris like to come and help Summer sail Bathsheba across the Indian Ocean, their old stamping ground?

            How could Iris possibly refuse?  She has always been a great sailor, much better than Summer, and to be back on Bathsheba, her favourite place in all the world, sailing her favourite ocean is finally a sign that her luck might be changing, even temporarily.  She hopes.

            And it goes without saying that that the worst does happen:  Summer is lost at sea and Iris, traumatised and grieving, sails Bathsheba  to the Seychelles, there to enter into a deception so overwhelming that she doesn’t know how to sustain it.  Iris, the bad twin, finally has everything her good twin had – but does she want it?

            Ms Carlyle is a smart and observant writer;  all her characters are chillingly credible and the plotting is first-class, but there’s a shocking twist to the tale at the end that leaves a bitter taste:  one hopes there will be a sequel so that someone will get what they deserve!  FOUR STARS

 

The Sound of Stars, by Alechia Dow.              Young Adults

 

            The Aliens have landed!  In Alechia Dow’s hugely entertaining debut novel, the Ilori have taken over planet earth and enslaved the population – not in a bad way so far (and they wouldn’t have been forced to kill huge swathes of the world population if a certain power-crazy president hadn’t attacked them first, destroying a number of their space ships), but with a view to eventually feeding everyone a vaccine which will disable their minds, thus leaving their bodies ‘a perfect husk’ for rich, planet-hopping true Ilori to inhabit so that they can enjoy touring the world and its beauty in style and comfort.  All true Ilori are fabulously rich and continually looking for new places to amuse them;  earth is the latest planet to be added to their ‘to-do’ list.

            True Ilori have created minor versions of themselves, Labmade Ilori, to do the hard yards and unpleasant chores, like keeping humans in check, keeping them fed, housed and occupied until the mind-killing vaccine is perfected, and in New York City, 16 year old Janelle ‘Ellie’ Baker lives with her parents, neither of whom are handling the occupation well:  Mum has hit the booze and Dad has already been injected with a substance that has turned him into a stranger, a guard loyal only to the Ilori.  Ellie finds comfort and refuge in nothing but her forbidden, hidden library of books, wonderful stories of life as it used to be in all its imperfection – and freedom.  She lends these books secretly to others who need the succour and relief of escapism from their terrible situation;  she has a collection of music too (also forbidden, for the true Ilori don’t feel emotion.  They are neither happy nor sad.).  Music gladdens her heart;  she will survive with these treasures until the vaccine ends her life.

            Until an Ilori finds one of her books and reads it, makes contact and blackmails her into giving him some music to enjoy:  HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN???  Ilori don’t care for human pursuits, but M0Rr1S does – he has been programmed by his powerful mother to be a labmade Ilori with a difference:  he has feelings, and his secret mission is to instigate a rebellion against the true Ilori.  But he never expected to feel the overwhelming happiness of falling in love, or the terrible heartache of loss:  M0Rr1S and Ellie are truly star-crossed lovers.

Ms Dow tackles many age-old questions here:  racism (Ellie is black) greed, apathy, NIMBYism – all the usual human failings, versus trust, loyalty, love – and music and stories.  Her story is mighty!  SIX STARS.          

 

Call your Daughter Home, by Deb Spera.

 

 

           This is Deb Spera’s debut novel, though one would never tell from the accomplished ease with which she tells her lovely story, that of three very different women who are known to each other but live vastly different lives in Branchville, South Carolina in the 1920’s:  Anne Coles, educated, aristocratic – and rich, thanks to inherited money from her father, but in danger of losing it all because of the failure of the cotton crop, and her husband’s desperate venture into tobacco:  woman of colour Oretta Bootles, Anne’s renowned cook and lifelong nursemaid to Anne’s children.  Oretta and her beloved husband Odell had a daughter of their own who died of fever, as so many did at that time, but Oretta has the Sight, and hopes one day – knows one day that she and her darling will be reunited.  In the meantime, she battles on, holding the Cole’s lives together with her practicality and huge goodwill, for the Cole’s children have been blighted and damaged by life:  two daughters have left home, one son committed suicide, and the other two sons are in thrall to their tyrannical father.  It is not a happy home.

            Enter Gertrude Pardee, in desperate need of employment:  she has heard from her brother that there is employment with Mrs Cole, and is desperate to find a home for herself and her four daughters, for her life with Alvin,  the drunken lout her daddy married her off to has grown unimaginably worse since he lost his regular job and moved them all out to a swamp hut owned by his brutal father:  it’s up to her to support them, because Alvin won’t – particularly now, after the latest beating, because Gertrude shot him with her Mama’s gun:  he ain’t gonna beat any of them, ever again.  Gertrude is on the run and hoping that the swamp alligators will enjoy Alvin for supper so that there is no evidence of her crime.  Which doesn’t stop her conscience prodding her something fierce, especially when she attends the local church.

            And God hasn’t grown bored with these three singular women:  He still flings up barriers and issues impossible challenges in the shape of an early Depression and a terrible Diphtheria epidemic.  Loved ones will die and starvation will take up residence in Branchville, but all have their own ways of surviving, and it is inspiring to read how they do it.  Ms Spera based her wonderful characters on memories of her own family, and what a great family it was.  SIX STARS.