Someone in the Attic by Andrea Mara

 

Julia’s young daughter, Isla, has been following the latest craze on her phone where, through the wonders of photoshop (or some such), it appears that a black clad figure can emerge from the attic into the living area of a specific house, when one day Isla realises the house she is looking at is the same one she and her family have moved into after their arrival in Ireland from America.

There have been lots of books with a stranger in the attic theme, they are always creepy, and this one is no exception. It has the usual elements of fear and suspense but also explores making evidence fit a narrative. When videos keep coming showing more of the interior of the house and they have obviously not been made from copies of Isla’s  earlier posts, Julia has to try and work out who is targeting the house and why, and this involves delving into her past before she left Ireland.

There are some great red herrings and I did lots of second guessing which made this a most enjoyable book for me. I am a rusted-on Andrea Mara fan, and Someone in the Attic did it for me, as always.

Published by Penguin

The Piano Woman by Rozzi Bazzani

 

The Piano Woman by Rozzi Bazzani is a dual timeline story, one of my favourite genres. Maddison, a successful novelist living in Melbourne, is surprised to receive a letter from a solicitor in England informing her that she is the last surviving female relative of Lady Rose Hampton of Hebden in Kent, and it has taken many ears to find her. As such, Maddie reads, she has inherited an antique grand piano.

Maddie has been going through a troubling time, having discovered the man she loved had been pretty much a serial betrayer; to make matters worse, she is experiencing writer’s block for the first time, and the deadline for her new book is looming. Maddie has been an orphan since she was eighteen when her mother died, and has only vague memories of her grandmother, Abigail, who had died years before then. She makes a decision to go to Kent to claim her inheritance and, hopefully, learn about her family background.

This is a beautiful story which, as Maddie is finding connections to her English relatives in the present day, switches to the early twentieth century. The main characters are easy to keep track of because of each one’s individuality and it was easy to picture them and become lost in the drama, mystery and romance they were all part of. It is a very different book to the Detective Bec Harpin series, and just as engrossing. I read it in a day because I couldn’t put it down!

Top marks, Rozzi.

Published by S & B Books

A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by M K Oliver

Lalla Rook is a sociopath who will destroy (sometimes literally) anyone who gets in her way. She is very good at committing the most heinous crimes, blaming them on other people and getting away with them. The secret to Lalla’s success is that she is able to convince herself that the stories she comes up with in covering up her crimes are true, and sticking by them causes her no problems at all.

Lalla is the fascinating, mesmerising creation of M K Oliver, a man who has taken the brave step of writing in the first person from a woman’s point of view. Of course, Lalla, having no moral compass, is not your average woman and her innermost thoughts are up for grabs.

Although Lalla is incapable of loving other humans, I was pleased to see she has a degree of fondness for her cat.  Being a cat lady myself, I understand this perfectly. This book is great fun in a thieving, conniving, murderous kind of way and I’ve got to say I loved it.

Top marks, Mr Oliver!

Published by Harper Collins

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson

 

Jamie has been working for a year on her dissertation: “All’s Fair in Love and Gore: The Intersection of Romantic Comedies and Slasher Films in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries”, towards her PhD in Cinema Studies at NYU. She takes a break from her studies to have a night out with her best friend, Laurie. They are going speed dating.

After a promising start to the evening it becomes apparent to Jamie  that life is imitating art as she and Laurie find themselves in the middle of a slasher-movie scenario. Fortunately, Jamie has memorised a list of ten ways to survive a slasher, and the book then follows the story of the rest of the evening.

Wild and wacky, weird and wonderful and all that sort of thing, this is an immensely entertaining book, and like nothing I have ever read before. The rom-com bits are sweet and touching amongst all the gore and had me hoping desperately for a happy ending; I mean, I’ve watched lots of rom-coms but my only experiences of slasher movies have been accidental glimpses as I leave a room where someone else is watching one, so I didn’t know how it would end.

It was a riotous read, and great fun, and I would recommend it to anyone whose sense of humour has no set boundaries! Top marks, Shailee Thompson.

Published by Simon & Schuster.

Angels of Clay by Madeleine Eskedahl

 

Angels of Clay, the third book in Madeleine Eskedahl’s Matakana series, begins with what appears to be an attempt to scam a young Lotto winner. As usual, the beautiful country north of Auckland is a major player in the story, with Bill and Annika Granger taking the leads.

Sergeant Bill Granger and hunky Dwayne Johnson look-alike Constable Niko Sopoaga are called to the scene of what appears to be a murder, where the victim’s body has been shaped like a snow angel albeit in a clay pit.  Apart from this shocking discovery there is a lot going on in Matakana in the lead up to Christmas, not the least of which is the worrying email Bill has received from police head office in Wellington that they are considering closing the Matakana police station; and, as well, Bill’s family tree appears to have sprouted an added wing.

Bill hands the murder case over to Orewa CIB, and he and Niko carry on with finding the gang of kids who are terrorising local shop keepers and who are now wanted for assault. Then comes a phone call which sees them tearing out of the station again.

There are a couple of troubled marriages in Matakana this Christmas, and memories are being revived of the American marines who were stationed in Matakana during the Second World War. In short, lots of interesting threads to the story, and tons of atmospheric background.

Angels of Clay is sure to be another winner for Madeleine Eskedahl. Madeleine in some ways reminds me of Minette Walters while at the same time having a style which is all her own.

Published by Matheson Bay Press

Once We Were Lovers by RJ Gould

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Once We Were Lovers is the latest book in Richard Gould’s Dream Cafe series. Georgie and Peter were lovers back in the 1970s in their university days. A catastrophic mistake was made which tore them apart, until now, in the present day, when Georgie has a reason for trying to reconcile with Peter.

There are many obstacles along Georgie’s way and it does seem as if she and Peter are never going to reconnect in any meaningful way. They have both been through some difficult, to say the least, times over the past fifty years and Peter doesn’t want to try again. The two of them could have done with some mystical sliding doors way back then.

While I sympathised with Georgie I found it hard to like her; I’m allowed to say that because I was around in her day and I’m probably judging her from my twenty-something perspective. Both she and Peter had been self-absorbed (as was I!) and Peter was a male chauvinist pig before anyone realised that that’s what they were. None of this makes them any less interesting though and RJ Gould examines their lives and their motives very well.

The Dream Cafe is a pivotal feature again with David, the owner, and his daughter, Rachel, both playing important roles. This is probably the grittiest story yet in the Dream Cafe series.

Published by Vinci Press

Missing by E A Jackson

 

Missing by E A Jackson is a stunning crime thriller with twists and turns right up to its last pages. 

London, 1990. Detective Inspector Martha Allen receives a phone call that a baby has been abducted from a hotel in Pimlico where her parents had taken her while they took a short holiday. Martha is feeling the need to establish her credentials in a male-dominated police force and is determined to solve this case. When the baby is handed in to a police station, after days of intensive investigations by Martha and her team, and it doesn’t seem possible that they can trace the person who handed her in, Martha is ordered to close the case; however, she knows there is something not quite right about the whole thing and never gives up wondering about what might be the truth behind the baby’s disappearance and miraculous return. Then, thirty years later, something happens that makes Martha decide to try again, albeit on her own time, to get to the bottom of the Baby Bella story.

 E A Jackson is a brilliant writer as she painstakingly presents everyone Martha encounters and all the situations she gets into. I loved the way the book was different in so many ways from traditional crime thrillers; I loved all the character studies, and Martha’s way of coping with how her personal life had turned out differently to what she had expected. Highly recommended!

Published by Faber & Faber Limited