Robert B Parker’s Buried Secrets by Christopher Farnsworth

  

I used to love Robert B Parker’s Jesse Stone novels, as well as watching the movie series with Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone. Buried Secrets is the first Jesse Stone I’ve tried by a substitute author since Robert B Parker’s death, and I have to say I liked it very much.

A man is found dead inside his house in Paradise, surrounded by stacks of old newspapers and a heap of photographs, all of dead people, most with bullet wounds in their heads. So begins a new case for Jesse, Suit, Molly and Gabe.

This was a read-in-one-day book, in true Robert B Parker tradition. There is nothing like a good cops-and-robbers story on a cold winter’s day to get you going.

Published by Bedford Square Publishers UK.

Red Lake by Jason Summers

 

Just a moment please, while I recover from the powerful, dramatic and ultimately heart wrenching conclusion to Red Lake, a brilliant new Australian crime novel by Jason Summers. 

The town of Koorinda in the Riverina district of New South Wales skirts Lake Koorinda, or Red Lake as it is known because the red brown earth and red clay loam of the area make the water in the lake look red. The town’s big attraction is a water park, with dips and slides and especially one huge slide which tests the bravery of the local children. It is there, one day in 1989, that Harper goes with her little brother, Nick, to the top of the tower while their parents wait below for them to emerge from the slide. 

So begins a story which has consequences that are still being felt thirty seven years later, by which time Harper and her husband, Darren, are the parents of an eighteen-year-old son, Will. Harper had been a well respected detective in Sydney before she decided to come back to Koorinda with Darren and Will. She is happy with her job as a sergeant with the local police, Darren is doing well as a builder and Will is in his last year at high school. Will has a 19-year-old girlfriend, Camilla, who is a junior reporter at the local newspaper. When a murder is discovered at Red Lake Harper is considered too close to the case and is asked to step back and make way for detectives from Sydney.

I love murder mysteries and Red Lake is a stunning addition to the genre. Momentum builds slowly and by the end of the book I was emotionally engaged, to say the least. But wait: that wasn’t quite the end of the book, and by the real end my emotions (tears) came spilling out and, as I said at the start of this review, I had to take some time out to recover.

 It really is that good.

Published by Pan Macmillan 

Whistler by Ann Patchett

 

The themes of Ann Patchett’s books over the years have been many and varied. I started with Bel Canto, which I loved, and I think I’ve read most of them since then, favouring, naturally, some more than others. Whistler goes in the highly favoured column.

Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, are walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York when Jonathan notices an older man who appears to be following them. This is the beginning of the story of Daphne’s reunion with Eddie, her beloved former stepfather.

Through Ann Patchett’s magic all the characters in Whistler in no time became heartbreakingly real to me. It’s just a lovely book!

Published by Bloomsbury.

The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese

 

In his second memoir Abraham Verghese writes about living in El Paso; the deterioration of his marriage; his work as an internal medicine specialist and mentor of medical students at Texas Tech School of Medicine, and, central to all of this, his friendship with David Smith, his tennis partner.

David was an Australian who went to America straight from high school on a university tennis scholarship, later joining the junior pro tennis circuit.  By the time Abraham met him David had left the pro circuit and was an ‘extern’, which was the term  for fourth-year medical students who were given almost as much responsibility as interns. Tennis had been a passion of Abraham’s since childhood and he was thrilled when David agreed to playing a few games after work.

Abraham Verghese’s memoirs are as beautifully literary and soulful as his novels. He was a kind, compassionate, loving friend to David and he writes about him with his usual clear-eyed, non-judgmental intensity. While Abraham’s main concern was keeping his two little sons happy when he and his wife separated, he could only stand by, watch and hope as David tried to work through his own life’s struggles.

The Tennis Partner is a deeply moving, sensitive memoir from a uniquely gifted writer.  No pressure, Dr Verghese, but is there another masterpiece in the works, after Cutting for Stone and The Covenant of Water?

Published by Vintage