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

Double Edged, by Marina Auer

 

Like the author who created her, Dr Erin Taylor is a surgeon living near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Erin seems in control of her life, juggling a busy operating schedule, looking after two teenagers, staying fit, and working on keeping her marriage to fellow doctor Oliver on an even keel. But a reunion of friends from her university days brings a troubled past to the fore when one of their gang doesn't show up.

In their varsity days Erin and her friends were known as 'The Furies', and fought to stem a tide of sexual assaults against female students whose drinks had been spiked.

When Erin goes missing a heart-stopping rollercoaster ride of perils and pitfalls begins. This book kept me up TOO LATE for a couple of nights.

Marina Auer delivers twist after twist in this fast-paced, nail-biting story which is well and truly deserving of the title, 'thriller'.

There are some nice insider observations of life in modern South Africa and the characters are all well-rounded and believable, such as Todd, the likabley unlikeable anaesthetist who seems to like his Land Rover more than people. Auer also draws heavily on her own medical knowledge, interspersing interesting biological facts that help to differentiate Double Edged from the rest of the crime fiction pack. 

I can't wait to read Auer's other two books.

Five from five!

Published Kwela, South Africa

Reviewed by Tony Park

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

 

Elsie Fitzpatrick is 81 years old; she lives on Kenny Lane; “…a peculiar little cobbled street on the periphery of central Melbourne”. She wasn’t always Elsie Fitzpatrick: in 1959 at the age of 15 she was Mabel Waller, the youngest Australian ever to be convicted of murder. She became known world wide as “Mad Mabel”. Elsie tends her beautiful rose garden and keeps her distance from her neighbours, although “enfant terrible” Persephone, aged 7, who lives next door with her mother, Roxanne, is determined to be Elsie’s friend. Elsie already has a friend, Daphne, who is the only one she wants or needs.

Elsie’s peaceful existence is shattered when something happens which draws attention to her true identity and the stories, real and imagined, about her past begin to surface. Reporters begin hounding her wanting what they hope will be all the gory details, until she reaches the point where she feels she has no choice but to trust two podcasters with the story of her life.

This is a brilliant book, written as only Sally Hepworth can write. Elsie speaks with raw honesty which makes this page turner impossible to put down. I’ve never read a Sally Hepworth book I didn’t like and this is one of her very best.

Published by Pan Macmillan