To Die For by David Baldacci

 

Travis Devine is a Homeland Security agent. Ellen Saxby is an FBI agent. Betsy Odom is a twelve year old girl whose parents have died. Danny Glass is a criminal kingpin. Devine has been assigned to accompany Saxby and Betsy to a court hearing at which Glass is petitioning to adopt Betsy who is his niece.

Devine soon becomes aware that this assignment is going to be loaded with danger when a man who has offered to sell him information about the deceased Odoms is murdered.  Devine is already on the alert for a mysterious stranger, ‘The Girl on the Train’, who is obviously tracking him with the intention of killing him.

This is fast moving, thrill-a-minute action. Danny Glass is of special interest to the FBI, while Devine uncovers a huge home grown terrorism threat. There are some very bad people and some very good people and the trick is to find out who falls into which camp.

Travis Devine is one of my favourite recurring Baldacci characters. He is noble and heroic, and a symbol of hope. Just what the doctor ordered for gloomy old 2024!

Published by Pan Macmillan

The Ghosts of August by Peter Watt

 

Peter Watt’s historical novel, The Ghosts of August, covers the years from 1914 to 1916. The settings are Sydney, Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, France, Germany and the Middle East.

David and Ben Steele, brothers from a wealthy Sydney family, join the Australian army to fight in the First World War. David is sent to France and Ben to the Middle East. David was in Germany visiting a friend before the War began and Ben was in Rabaul pursuing the family’s interests there. Peter Watt is one of those writers in the Michener mould who entertain while enlightening, and for me, having lived in Papua New Guinea but never having been to Rabaul, I was especially interested in that part of the book.

The fighting scenes in the two theatres of war, France and the Middle East, are graphic and at the same time gripping. War in any form, of course, is horrible, disgusting, terrifying, but hand to hand close combat between young men who in other circumstances would have no animosity towards each other is dehumanising as well as heartbreaking. That is how a lot of that war was fought and Peter Watt is unflinching in his representation of it.

The perfect balance for the horrifying reality of the brothers’ experiences in fighting for their country is the telling of the individual stories of their personal lives as well as those of their family and friends and the women they loved. There is equal depth and power in all aspects of the book.

This quote stayed with me: “It was ironic to think that the Kaiser was a cousin of the British King and Russian Czar. This was truly a war between royal European families that was dragging millions of men to their deaths…”

Well done, Mr Watt.

Published by Pan Macmillan

Love Lay Down Beside Me and We Wept by Helen Murray Taylor

 

This is a memoir as moving, as powerful and as beautifully written as the best novel. Helen Murray Taylor was a brilliant student who became a doctor working punishingly long hours in a hospital, and from there she went on to work in medical research.

Helen had a loving husband, Mark, as well as a loving family and she adored her nieces and nephews. When Helen and Mark decided it was time to have a baby of their own they did not envisage the problems they were going to encounter.

Helen’s honesty is heartbreaking. She had reached all of her academic goals with ease, she loved playing sport and she was in a loving relationship, but the one thing she now wanted was becoming harder to reach. She goes on to tell of the traumatic consequences she suffered and she does it so clearly, even saying she checked some of her facts with Mark while writing this memoir, that she was able to project her emotions off the page directly on to me, as she will to any reader. I  wanted to take her under my wing but the best part of this is she always had the love of her husband, family and friends throughout her painful and at times rather terrifying struggle.

Although I want to talk about Helen’s story in detail I have been deliberately vague here because it is her story to tell and I want everyone to be as captured by it as I have been. I do want to mention, though, Helen’s cat. Animals know when people need them. They are great givers of comfort and sympathy.

I love psychological studies and this is one of the best I have read. Helen wants to pursue writing and I am sure she will be a wonderful novelist, if that is the path she wants to take.

Published by Unbound.