It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara

 

Susan thought she was sending a text to her sisters but  by mistake it went out to the entire neighbourhood WhatsApp group. The big problem here is that Susan was letting loose about bossy Celeste who had reprimanded Susan, although obliquely, on the group.  Obviously hurt, Susan thought she was telling her sisters things privately about Celeste and her husband and children which could be extremely damaging if they were made public … et voila!

The octopus that is social media grabbed Susan’s words in its tentacles and spread them far and wide.  Consequences piled on consequences and more damage was done than could have been imagined.

I won’t even try to limit my adjectives about this book: suspenseful, twisty, exciting, nail biting, nerve wracking and much more. The story is complex but never becomes confusing, even as more characters are introduced. Although it covers many aspects of life in 21st century Irish suburbia it is basically a murder mystery which kept me guessing up to the end. It is, quite simply, masterful storytelling. This was my first Andrea Mara book and I am going to have a wonderful time searching out her others.

Published by Bantam

The House of Burning Bones by Stuart MacBride

 

In The House of Burning Bones, Stuart MacBride’s Aberdeen coppers have to face daily a prejudicial, disapproving public whipped up by a harshly critical press churning out sensational headline grabbing half-truths; said coppers all the while expressing themselves in their own richly colourful ways.

Because of an epidemic of the Dreaded Lurgie sweeping the city, depleting police numbers, Detective Inspector Logan McRae is becoming overwhelmed with the number of cases he has to deal with, together with countless meetings, on top of a murder investigation and now the disappearance of a media mogul. To quote from the book’s blurb, Logan has been left with “…a skeleton staff of misfits, idiots and malingerers…” whose lineup includes Logan’s wannabe sidekick, PC Tufty Quirrel, and the ever repulsive, now demoted Roberta Steel.  Making matters even worse, they are experiencing a heatwave, as they go through some hair-raising chases, weighed down with heavy gear,  all crammed into a police van.

This is a big book, 627 pages, and every one of them filled with Stuart MacBride’s smart, funny, cynical style. Serious issues like immigration, racism, and the media’s influence on the general public’s attitudes, as well as the horrific crimes of arson, murder and sexual assault, are all part of the story. For all the pressures and stresses of his working life, however, Logan McRae is very fortunate to have his lovely partner, Tara, and daughter, Lizzie, at home.

To read a Stuart MacBride book is to listen to a story being told in a Scottish accent with subtitles in front of you. This was a terrific read, filled with vivid imagery and lots of colourful characters. Thank you Pan Macmillan for my copy.

Published by Pan Macmillan 

The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan

 

This is a nicely complex murder mystery with a plot and two sub-plots. Detective Cormac Reilly is investigating the death of a school headmaster who had gone missing and whose preserved body was found in a bog which has thrown up many similar corpses over the centuries. Carl Rigney is a computer genius who works for the national lottery and believes he has come up with a way to beat the system. Cormac’s former partner, Emma, enlists Cormac’s help in finding her missing husband.

Ireland’s wet, misty weather is the backdrop to the story and I shuddered for poor Cormac, stepping ankle deep into the mud while the rain was beating down on him. I loved the way the investigation uncovered clues when it looked like there weren’t any to be found, and how the three parts of the story fitted together.

Dervla McTiernan’s Cormac Reilly is a great character and it’s always good to read of his latest case, the politics around his career with the police force, and, of course, the latest developments in his private life. This one was a lovely, twisty mystery which made a perfect Mother’s Day weekend read.

Published by Harper Collinsl

Homecoming by Kate Morton

 

Homecoming is an absolutely magnificent book by Kate Morton. It is a mystery, and is set in stunning locations: a mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, overlooking the harbour, and a stately home in the Adelaide hills, on acres of land next to a river.

Nora has lived in Sydney all her life; her dashing brother, Thomas, a World War Two veteran, has come home with an English bride, Isabel. Thomas buys a country house in the Adelaide hills and takes Isabel there to live and raise their children.

This is a dual timeline story, a favourite genre of mine. The times are 1959/60 and 2018. On realising early on that it was going to become a great mystery, I started looking for clues. I found a few which I filed away for future reference but it was a brilliantly plotted story, and how the clues fitted together kept slipping out of my grasp.

A shocking event takes place in 1959; repercussions are beginning to be felt in 2018. Jess, Nora’s granddaughter, is back in Sydney after living in London for twenty years. Jess begins to learn things that will alter her perception of life as she, her mother and grandmother have lived it.

I borrowed this long book from Parkes library’s online Borrow Box. I imagine that since its publication it must have sold a lot of copies and been read by a lot of people but it was new to me and I am very pleased to have found it.

Published by Allen & Unwin

In Pieces by Sally Field

 

In Pieces is Sally Field’s autobiography. Sally’s mother was in movies as was her stepfather, Jock Mahoney whom I remember from the couple of films in which he played Tarzan. I had read previously about Mahoney’s offences against the child Sally but it is chilling that Sally in her searingly honest way is able to interpret her memories of him as she saw him then.

Hollywood is all illusion, of course, that’s the point of it; but reading how Sally felt about some of her roles still caught me by surprise. I remember re-runs of Gidget delighting my little boys and me and we liked The Flying Nun too. I think now they showed her worth as an actress because she projected brightness and happiness when she wasn’t always feeling that way at all. As well as not liking what she was doing she had to face the supercilious barbs of certain envious individuals. (I see now that I was justified in my assessment of those smarmy little creeps, the actors who played the Monkees). Yes, I know, I used to watch a lot of child-friendly television, just like today’s parents watch Bluey, maybe.

Sally was driven to be taken seriously as an actress and, of course, she has achieved that goal many times. She was a caring daughter to her mother even though they went through some rough patches; she cares for and has stayed close to her siblings, and she is a proud and loving mother to her three sons and their families.

I was looking forward to reading about Burt Reynolds and what kind of man Sally found him to be. I’m not going to elaborate about that in this review except to say it made extremely interesting reading.

This is an honest, no holds barred autobiography. Sally Field has worked hard to be at the top of her profession, just as her brother is a world leader in his field of science. I was totally absorbed in Sally’s story. It’s hard to believe she is 78 years old! How did that happen?

Published by Simon & Schuster

This is What Happened by Mick Herron

 

While waiting for the latest edition in Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series to come out I came upon this standalone.

Maggie is alone and lonely, living in a dingy flat in London and working in the mail room of Quilp House. She has ended a horrible relationship, is estranged from her only sister after an argument at their parents’ funeral two years ago, and can’t even find friends on Facebook or Twitter. It is in this vulnerable state that she is joined at her table in her usual cafe by a rather unattractive man who introduces himself as Harvey Wells.

From this beginning the Master, Mick Herron, weaves a story that is wonderfully creepy, scary and ultimately almost unbearably suspenseful. I was trying to finish reading it this morning when the plumber arrived, ruining the tension-filled moment; but I got back to it as soon as I could and made it to the end without further interruption, whew!!

If you’re a Mick Herron fan impatiently waiting for September and you haven’t read This is What Happened, do yourself a favour (in the words of the great man) and find a copy.

Published by John Murray

The Forsaken by Matt Rogers

 

Well! That got the adrenaline going! Matt Rogers’ writing is so good, so fluid, that I happily devoured pages of extreme violence without batting an eye! Logan Booth is an assassin with a pure heart; this is not an oxymoron as becomes clear in the early pages of The Forsaken. He has been duped into believing his handler for the last ten years, and the consequences for that are the subject of this amazing book.

Logan takes inspiration from philosophers he has read since his days at NYU, although his degrees were in the sciences. He sees corruption in high places, and exploitation of vulnerable people all around him from his one-bedroom apartment in Brownsville, an area of New York “…ravaged by the consequences of the crack epidemic.”

Logan joins up with Alice, a crack-addicted witness he sees as needing his protection, although she has reached the point of self- destruction. Don’t start reading this in bed if you are planning on getting any sleep that night.

Logan Booth is going to be a memorable literary character, and it looks like this book is going to be the first in a series which I will definitely be wanting to follow.

I read The Forsaken in one day. Great book!

Published by Simon & Schuster