The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

As happens every time I get to the end of a Kelly Rimmer novel, I am taking some time out to reflect on what I have just read. It is easy to become deeply, personally involved in her characters’ lives and the plots of her stories.

The Paris Agent is about the OAS, a group spying against the Nazis in German occupied France, and in particular two women who were not only brave and heroic against a brutal enemy; they also knew great love in their personal lives.

This is a story of contrasting emotions: love and heartbreak; tenderness and brutality; trust and betrayal. Please, let us not forget the sacrifices that have been made by so many courageous people so that we can enjoy peace and freedom in our lifetime.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Published by Hachette Australia

Everything to Hide by K V Martins

 

The night was dark and stormy …

The year was 1933. Guests had assembled in Roland Cuthbert Barry’s mansion on his private island in the Hawkesbury River for his sixtieth-birthday dinner.  On the outside, back in the real world, Australia’s ordinary citizens were struggling to survive the Great Depression while the Barry family lived on their island like kings and Roland, impresario, entrepreneur and amateur Egyptologist was free to indulge his passion for the study of mummification.

Detective Senior Sergeant Harold Chesterfield was attending the party incognito to investigate the source of a series of death threats which Roland Barry had received.

Everything to Hide is a hugely entertaining novel. K V Martins has created a suitably eerie atmosphere: heavy rain and lightning strikes cutting off electric power to the island, and the Hawkesbury River flooding, preventing guests from getting back to the mainland. The guests are all beautifully illustrated, in several cases by comparing their likenesses to film stars of the day. DS Chesterfield narrates the story and, to my delight, he shares his thoughts on the proceedings with Ben, an English Pointer whose spotty coat makes him look like a Dalmatian, and whom he is minding while Ben’s owner is overseas.

A crime is committed and the detective interviews each suspect separately. The interviews are all enlightening and I very much enjoyed getting to each one, although the endless cups of tea were making me feel waterlogged. Ben the dog sleeping by the fire through all the interviews added a cosy touch to an otherwise bleak day. Fortunately, the mansion had a large stock of candles, awaiting the restoration of electric power.

Congratulations on a terrific read, K V Martins! I’ll have to go back now and try to find Detective Chesterfield’s earlier adventures.

Published by Aroona Group Press.

Vincent & Sien by Silvia Kwon

 

This exquisite cover sets the mood perfectly for reading the story of Vincent Van Gogh and Sien Hoornik. I was completely transported into the world of Vincent and Sien by Silvia Kwon’s sensitive, painstakingly researched imagining of their lives as they might have lived them.

Vincent was an artistic genius whose self-belief  wouldn’t allow him to follow any other path than the one he was on, spending years perfecting his drawing skills with pencils and charcoal before he considered himself ready to use paint.  This novel begins on the night Vincent finds Sien, pregnant and starving and having collapsed on the street next to her sleeping little daughter. He gives them shelter for the night and soon asks her to come back and pose for him. 

Sien’s world has until now been one of extreme poverty; Vincent is living on an allowance sent to him by his younger brother, Theo, a seller of paintings by successful artists. All of this has been well documented over the years, and admirers of Vincent Van Gogh are all well acquainted with the bare facts of his life story. How exciting, then, to read it as it might have happened. 

I was so overcome by the loveliness of this book that I was often close to tears while reading it. I don’t mean to imply that Silvia Kwon has prettied up the world of a destitute street walker and a driven artist who, earning no money himself,  is usually poverty stricken from spending most of his brother’s allowance on art materials and paying people to pose for him. Rather, it was the contrast with Vincent’s life then and how he is now acknowledged as a grand master of stupendous brilliance. There is nothing more heart stopping than to look at his paintings in person, making perfect sense of stories of his struggles to achieve perfection in his art. 

This is a truly beautiful, unforgettable book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Published by Pan Macmillan.

A Curious Daughter

 

Thank you Pan Macmillan for my review copy.

I love family sagas and A Curious Daughter is the second book in the Montdidier/Meredith saga, although it can be read, and enjoyed, as a standalone.

Joy Meredith is the daughter of Avril (née Montdidier) and Tim Meredith. A Curious Daughter follows Joy’s life from her eighteenth birthday. Joy has grown up on Monaghan station, a beautiful property which has been owned by the Meredith family, true members of the Australian squattocracy, for generations, in the Darling Downs in southern Queensland. 

Joy has inherited her French mother’s strong, independent nature and her father’s love of the land. This fabulous book takes her from Australia  to England and to the beautiful French vineyard in the Tours region of her mother’s childhood. She approaches each new stage in her life, including her romantic involvements, with honesty and, always, self-awareness. 

The story is set mainly in the 1970s, and the fashions, music and attitudes of that time are vividly represented, as are the vastly differing backdrops of Australia, England and France. Jules Van Mil is a brilliant story teller and this book kept me in its thrall for the whole two days it took me to read it.

I do hope instalment number three of this saga is already being worked on or, at least, contemplated by Jules Van Mil. It was a terrific read and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to follow a good, strong story line.

Published by Macmillan 

Vendetta by Tony Park

 

Disclaimer: Tony Park is my son. Thank you Pan Macmillan for my review copy.

In Tony’s twenty-first novel he once again uses his brilliant powers of observation to bring the African continent to life. Vendetta ranges over South Africa, Namibia and Angola. 

Detective Captain Sannie van Rensburg is back, now a widow whose children have all left home. Sannie has taken up a post in Kwa-Zulu-Natal. Mia Greenaway is back too, working as a safari guide for a lodge in the Kalahari Desert, Namibia. New to this book is Adam Kruger, part-time car guard at a shopping mall, surfer, dive boat handler, shark researcher and PHD candidate.  He is also a veteran of the 1987 Angolan war. Sannie and Adam meet when Sannie gets a call to investigate a shooting incident in which Adam was involved at the mall where he works, and they strike up a casual friendship. Tony Ferri, also a war veteran, is a politician who looks like he could be the one to sort out South Africa’s many and varied problems, if he can stay on track, firstly, to become leader of his party.

Adam hears of the death of a veteran he served with in Angola and who has been working with Mia at the lodge in Namibia. Adam wants to go to the memorial service at the lodge but is not keen to meet up with former comrades whom he suspects will be there.

The story is told in two time lines: 1987 in Angola, and the present in South Africa and Namibia.

There are Tony’s usual concerns for Africa’s precious animals, both on land and in the sea, and in particular for the abhorrent trade in shark fins. New relationships develop and old memories are dragged up. There is loads of action and, of course, a bit of romance thrown in to balance out an absolutely riveting thriller read.

I know it is difficult but try not to read this book at break neck pace, like I always do, because it will all be over too quickly and leave you wanting more. Top marks, Tony! Well done!

Published by Pan Macmillan

All Of Us are Broken by Fiona Cummins

 

Thank you Pan Macmillan for my review copy.

This novel, to put it mildly, packs a punch! Missy and Fox are two individuals who should never have gotten together. They have both had horrific childhoods which have left them hating the world and seeking relevance. They embark on a killing spree with the end goal of going out in a blaze of glory, just like Bonnie and Clyde. Of course, Bonnie and Clyde’s notoriety came from robbing banks, not wholesale murder for murder’s sake, but Missy and Fox aren’t going to become famous for anything else.

The brilliance of Fiona Cummins is in delving deep into the psyche of each of her characters. DC Saul Anguish and forensic linguist Dr Clover March, known as Blue, have a deep connection, the intensity of which almost sets the pages on fire with just a few well chosen words. They also share a moral code and the belief that justice should be seen to be delivered.

Also central to the story are Christine Hardwicke and her children. They are heading for Scotland to The Lodge on the Loch, a beautiful hotel in a remote area where 13 year-old Galen is hoping to see dolphins in Loch Tummell. She has told her little brother, Tommy, about dolphins, and the mother and children are all starting to feel their constant blanket of sadness beginning to lift as they get closer to their destination. Their detailed background story had me wishing for some happiness for them, but it’s no spoiler to say the prologue puts that in doubt.

This is a dark, superbly dramatic, thrilling, shocking story. Having been put through the emotional mill over the two days it took to read it, I have come out the other side desperately trying to find words to do it justice. I don’t think my usual cor blimey is going to cut it. It’s a fantastic book and no one who reads it looking for superior crime fiction will be disappointed. 

The book’s title is perfect! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Published by Pan Macmillan

When One of us Hurts by Monica Vuu

 

Alfred Hitchcock would have loved to get his hands on this book. Livvy, one of the narrators of the story, tells of how she and her step-brother, Johnny, loved Hitchcock movies, especially The Birds which they often watched together. This had me imagining the town which was the backdrop for that movie as Port Brighton, the remote Tasmanian coastal town in this story. Livvy’s co-narrator is Marie, Johnny’s mother.

Port Brighton is not usually visited by anyone once the tourist season is over and, indeed, people who appear in the town for the rest of the year are known as Outsiders. The wealthy Lewis family have come to make Port Brighton their home with their children, Sebastian and Audrey. Sebastian becomes Johnny’s best friend, and Audrey his girlfriend.

Marie narrates her story from Lacey House which doubles as a rehabilitation centre for psychologically disturbed patients and a hospital for the criminally insane.

Twists and turns and shocking revelations abound. As fourteen-year-old Livvy’s story unfolded icy fingers began their climb up my spine. Marie’s narration is constantly interrupted by flashbacks which is a perfect way to picture how she has come to be in her present situation.

The shocks keep coming, right up to the end. Who needs other worldly monsters, ghosts and space invaders when you’ve got a town full of truly scary human beings. The birds have got nothing on this lot.

Fabulous book! I loved it!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Published by Pan Macmillan