Tag: Thrillers

All The Dangerous Things – Stacy Willingham (Harper Collins 2023)

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Stacy Willingham impressed with her debut “A Flicker In The Dark” (2022), a twisty Louisiana-set thriller with skilful misdirections and careful plotting.  All this is evident in her second novel which I think I enjoyed even more than the debut.

Isabelle Drake, a freelance journalist, is facing a year since her three year old son was snatched from his bedroom by speaking at a true-crime convention in the hope that someone might come up with unforseen evidence.  On the way home she meets Waylon, who can provide the opportunity for new perspectives on the case.  Isabelle’s family has been shrouded in secrets, from her childhood and her relationship with the husband she separated from since her son’s disappearance.

This is an intense thriller with the author drip-feeding us information which shifts almost continually how we perceive events.  The author states she has written it as an acknowledgement of the weight of motherhood, having to go it alone with feelings that might not feel normal but are in terms of blame and guilt and responsibility. 

I like the Southern setting, the characterisation, the touches of gothic, neighbours who seem to appear out of nowhere, the stifling heat and the boggy marshes.  This is a strong second novel.

All The Dangerous Things will be published by Harper Collins on 2nd February 2023.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Darkness Falls – Robert Bryndza (2021)

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This is the third book in Robert Bryndza’s Kate Marshall series.  Last time round I praised what I saw developing into a high-quality crime series.  This standard has been maintained.

I do feel, however, that there is a distinct change of tone in this book.  First in the series, “Nine Elms” was (too?) grisly and I felt the author’s reining in on this a little for “Shadow Sands” made it stronger than the debut.  Third book in and we have a fairly standard mainstream crime work with little of what made the first two so unsettling.  Perhaps the author feels he has put Kate Marshall through the wringer enough and here places the focus on a well-structured highly readable whodunnit.

At the end of “Shadow Sands” Kate and colleague Tristan were contemplating starting a private detective agency.  This has come to pass but with jobs few and far between they are also running a camp site in their Devon location, assisted by Kate’s teenage son Jake.  A missing female journalist cold case could be their saviour and help her distraught mother get some closure.  It soon becomes clear that the journalist was working on a story which might have caused her demise and this may be linked to a serial killer preying on young gay men.

As in the previous novels the relationship between Kate and Tristan is very strong and the author is right to bring the young gay male research assistant into clearer focus in this.  There were a couple of questionable motives here which grated just slightly but the pace builds nicely for an exciting last third.

I liked the change of tone in this book, it makes both the author and the series unpredictable – we soon tire of series which become formulaic.  Maybe some who found the first novel too dark to get through might like to revisit this series at this point.  I don’t mind whether the author goes back along the darker routes of the predecessors for the 4th novel.  I just know I will be wanting to read it.

Darkness Falls was published in December 2021 by Sphere and will be published in paperback on 29th December 2022.  The next in the series “Devils Way” is due to be published in hardback/ebook editions on 12th January 2023.

Take It Back – Kia Abdullah (2019)

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I came into Kia Abdullah’s legal thrillers at Book 2 with “Truth Be Told” (2020) which blew me away and ended up in my Books Of The Year.  Stand-alone novel “Next Of Kin” (2021) made it two five star reads elevating Kia Abdullah, in my opinion, into the Premier League of contemporary crime-writers.

With a new novel not due until to the start of 2023 I thought I’d catch up with the one I missed out on which introduces Zara Kaleel, a Muslim woman who has given up her six figure lawyer’s post to work in counselling and support at Artemis House- a sexual assault referral centre.  Zara is struggling to adapt to all the changes in her life and one day Jodie arrives at the centre, 16 years old with the disfiguring disability of neurofibromatosis and tells Zara she has been raped by a group of four Muslim teenage boys.  This is a case which can only be explosive- with disability, faith and consent being the triggers and is one which places Zara into great conflict with the Muslim community and her family.  Justice for Jodie takes over Zara’s life but doesn’t reduce any of her demons.

The case does not feel quite as central stage as it is in the other two books.  The author takes time to establish Zara’s character as a strong determined woman who has defied expectations in terms of her career, faith and relationships which adds fuel to the fires of the rape case.  This focus does actually make it feel a little less intense than the subsequent novels but you can really appreciate the author is here honing the skills to knock readers for six in the future.

There’s twists and turns, some anticipated and some I certainly didn’t see coming and the court case is as engrossing as always.  I’m not sure if it felt totally resolved this time round which may grate on some crime readers.  I notice in my reviews of the other two books of hers I’ve read I cannot even bring myself to reveal any details of the cases and I have here because just the bare bones would open up a raft of ramifications whereas the cases in the follow-up books are more complex and you need to be within the narrative to get the full horrors of the implications.

So, whereas this is a really impressive legal thriller I think this author upped a level with Books 2, where Zara supports another case and Book 3, a stand-alone.  Here she is learning to write the crime novel masterpiece which she hits home with next time round.

Take It Back was published by HQ in 2019.

The Black- Eyed Stranger – Charlotte Armstrong (1955)

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I encountered US novelist Charlotte Armstrong (1905-69) within the pages of Christopher Fowler’s “The Book Of Forgotten Authors”.  With some 29 novels under her own name and as Jo Valentine her speciality was “to portray women locked in psychological warfare with the members of their extended families and male-dominated workforces” which sounds as if her work should still be commercial and relevant today.

The title I chose to read feels more like she is following a male style of writing and so not typical of what might be expected from her. I associate the clipped dry tones with the hardboiled crime fiction of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and the type of film that might have starred Humphrey Bogart but she does do it with a lighter touch and many of her turns of phrase are appealing; “But it would be better if he took the car.  It couldn’t answer questions three days later.” “It was like watching a petal spin on the skin of a wave, a pretty petal that could never sink.”

There’s a lot of dialogue and it is a fast-paced novel that can be polished off in a couple of sittings.  I can’t help but think it could be faster-paced if characters said what they actually meant rather than talking in riddles to one another.  Kay Salisbury meets this black-eyed stranger at a party.  He is crime reporter Sam Lynch, who mixes with certain undesirables including the vengeful Ambielli and his muscle-mountain henchman Baby Hohenbaum.  When Lynch hears of a plan to hold Kay to ransom he takes matter into his own hands.

All the characters here become confused as to each other’s motives.  It really isn’t that deep in terms of characterisation, plot or themes but Armstrong weaves an involving enough tale.  From what Christopher Fowler says of her I would imagine that the more typical work would have more resonant characters and relationships but this is an example of a technically proficient, tightly-written short novel.

The Black-Eyed Stranger was first published in the UK in 1955.  I read the Head Of Zeus ebook edition from 2012.  

Pursuit- Joyce Carol Oates (2019)

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My introduction to the work of this prolific American novelist was the five star rated “Blonde” (2000) which just missed out on my Top 10 Books Of The Year when I read it in 2020.  This fictionalised account of the life of Marilyn Monroe may soon see a boost in sales as a film adaptation is currently in post-production and due for release by the end of 2022.

Nineteen years on from “Blonde” and after publishing another 26 works in her own name (and a few under pseudonyms) came this literary thriller.  Unwordly Abby is hit by a bus the day after her wedding to Willem.  As she slowly recovers questions are asked if this was an accident.  Abby is haunted by dreams from her past, when she was known as Miriam, and her parents had disappeared.  Do these dream have any bearing on her encounter with the bus?

This is a quick read which I polished off in a couple of days.  The whole thing has a nightmarish quality which clouds the characters and left me unsure of what is going on.  Insight into proceedings tends to come and go and this had an almost soporific effect on this reader.  I felt very tired whilst reading it and yet I wasn’t bored, it was caused by the hypnotic effect of the tale Oates weaves here.  It is tantalising as the author pulls us in, moving the plot forward and then holds us back without revealing all the mysteries.  The trouble with this is that despite this manipulation of us as readers it means that I felt it is not particularly memorable.  I don’t think this is a book which will stay with me for long and this is a marked difference to how I felt about “Blonde”.  What is undeniable is that Joyce Carol Oates is a writer unafraid of experimentation with style and genre which has sustained her well during a long career.  Because of this diversity I can’t imagine that many readers would be blown away by her every publication. I feel that on this occasion I wasn’t totally on board but I am sure that I would find other books by her that would enthral me as much as “Blonde”.

Pursuit was published by Head Of Zeus in the UK in 2019.

This Might Hurt – Stephanie Wrobel (Michael Joseph 2022)

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Stephanie Wrobel’s 2020 debut known in the UK as “The Recovery Of Rose Gold” was a 5 star little gem of a novel.  Its Munchausen By Proxy theme (although never actually specified in the book) fascinated me and it had an “under the surface darkness” which I loved.  It just missed out on my Top 10 Books Of The Year.

So, naturally, I was keen to read the author’s second novel although I must admit that when I heard the main setting was an island retreat for those who want to be fearless I didn’t experience the same anticipation as I did for the debut but I was keen to add the name of Stephanie Wrobel to my list of authors with two or more 5* reviews on this site (and because I am so stingy with my top rating she would have been only the 10th author to achieve this).

However, and as the title states, “this might hurt”, for me this book fell quite a bit short of my top rating and compared to her last book I felt so disappointed that I contemplated a two star but then appreciated that I had set the bar so high in my mind for this particular author and that 3 stars was the most fitting for this work.

Firstly, I found the narrative structure confusing.  I read enough books not to be confused by characters, but here I was, I thought maybe I was being misdirected on purpose and expected some big reveal but it never happened, I had just got characters confused.  I also love a bit of darkness but here I couldn’t get to grips with the sadistic nature of fearlessness or why these particular characters saw it as desirable.

There’s a number of first-person narratives here.  A child is being bullied into her father’s vision of reaching her full potential, being made to score “positive” and “negative” achievements and facing punishment if her score does not make his grade.  A young woman is at an island retreat getting her life back together when her sister receives a “I know what you did” type email and she goes to the island to confess a family secret.

The plot did not have enough to really hold me and unfortunately and surprisingly, considering how I felt about “Rose Gold”, the characters did not come alive  for me.

There are pluses, however, I liked the sense of isolation on the island and the not knowing whether anything was what it seemed was done very well.  It is another accessible, commercial read.  It is in comparison with Stephanie Wrobel’s previous work that this, for me, feels a little flat.

This Might Hurt is published in the UK by Michael Joseph on 3rd March 2022.  Many thanks to the author and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Mouth To Mouth – Antoine Wilson (Atlantic 2022)

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Here’s a title I flagged up as one of the potential highlights of 2022 in my Looking Back Looking Forward post.  The narrator, a writer en-route to Berlin is delayed at JFK Airport and meets a man he vaguely knew twenty years before.  They share drinks in the lounge and this man, Jeff, regales the narrator with what has happened to him in the intervening time. 

It centres around an occasion when he reluctantly saved a man from drowning and his interest in the man he saved verges on the obsessive as he inveigles his way into his life.  This theme reminded me slightly of Ian McEwan’s impressive “Enduring Love” but the subject matter is handled differently here.

There’s an element of suspension of disbelief required for Jeff’s story forms virtually the whole of the book suggesting this is one long flight delay, for his account is so detailed, our narrator must hardly have got a word in.  It is a recounting of a tale told second-hand which seems a brave narrative style for a whole novel as that distance means characters are not fleshed out in the way that they could have been.

It is an interesting conceit but to be honest it didn’t really blow me away and whilst involved, and it is undeniably well-handled by Wilson, I didn’t feel that once-remove really pulled me into the actual narrative.

I can see why some readers would really like this book and I can also see why it might leave some unconvinced.  Unusually for me, I’m somewhat stuck in the middle.  I wonder if it might just be one of those books that do not completely win me over but leaves an impression which lingers hauntingly, lasting longer in my imagination than books which I had a stronger immediate response to.  Time will tell….

Mouth To Mouth is published in the UK by Atlantic Books on March 3rd 2022.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

A Good Day To Die – Amen Alonge (Quercus 2022)

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Here is a series debut I highlighted as one I wanted to read this year and a title which has appeared on at least a couple of forthcoming publications recommended reads lists.  Lagos born trainee London solicitor Amen Alonge has written a very commercial novel which may attract those who do not regularly read fiction.  It’s a day in the life of a young black man known only as “Pretty Boy” by some other characters who arrives back in London with a clear desire for revenge but who, by accepting a piece of jewellery as part payment for a debt provokes a lot of unforeseen circumstances.

It’s violent, it’s brash and unsentimental and both visually and aurally strong, as the author soundtracks many scenes by mentioning what music is being listened to.  It is branded well, especially with regards to cars and weaponry and at times is gripping and always involving.

It’s not easy to write violence and Alonge does a good job focusing on the details leading up to an attack and then dispatching characters quickly.  A couple of scenes are overwritten which gives a cartoonish quality and that is one of the inherent dangers of reading such scenes as compared to watching them on-screen.

It is hard to get into the mindset of these characters which can make them seem inconsistent.  The author uses a mixture of first-person narrative from “Pretty Boy” (which is strong) and a third person narrative which at times I felt slightly confusing.  There is a need to give the main character a back story which features mainly in a chunk in the last quarter of the book but I don’t know whether it helped in fully fleshing him out. 

Indeed, this may not matter as this is Book 1 of a projected series so there is plenty of time for “Pretty Boy” to grow as a character.  There is a freshness to this which I find invigorating but I don’t think the comparisons I’d seen to “The Wire” US TV series are helpful as that is one of TV’s modern greats and a masterclass in writing and crafting a narrative and these comparisons may have built up expectations for me which I do not feel were fully delivered.

Amen Alonge is a vibrant new voice in crime fiction and I would be interested to see where he goes with this character next.

A Good Day To Die is published by Quercus on 17th February 2022.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Jet- Russell Blake (2012)

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This is a very different read for me.  I’ve had it on my Kindle for a long time and can only assume it was a free title I’d picked up at some time.  I thought I would give it a go but didn’t have a lot of positive expectations.  In a “From The Author” at the start, American born now Mexican resident Blake states; “It’s unapologetically over-blown and strives to be a non-stop adrenaline rush, an action thriller that breaks the mold and tramples convention.” He does deliver on that statement.

We start off in Trinidad on Festival evening where hitmen turn up at the internet café Maya is working in.  Dealing with this pretty effectively we learn that Maya had previously been Jet, working as a hitwoman for the Israeli Secret Service, a highly trained killing machine now seeking a quieter life.  Only this doesn’t happen as she realises her identity has been blown and sets off to seek answers.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with a ruthless assassin as a main character but Blake gradually lets her humanity come through without compromising on her toughness.  I found myself rooting for her when I was expecting to feel distanced from a potentially preposterous narrative.  I was also pleased that it wasn’t exactly a non-stop adrenaline rush aimed at a video-games market but that the author had put in some light and shade and welcomingly varied the pace. 

Wanting to know about Russell Blake I discovered that this was the first in this (so far) 16 book series featuring Jet and he has got it off to a roaring start and has developed the main character enough to get the reader to want to read more.  Whether he can sustain this over another 15 titles is another matter.

He’s not an author I would have thought would have been on my radar.  He has written a lot of titles and a number of series but he has actually got into the top division as co-author of a couple of books with action/adventure legend Clive Cussler in his best-selling Sam and Remi Fargo series.  This was where I had seen his name before, I haven’t read these titles but I have shelved them often enough at work in the library.  So this is an author who can operate at the top levels of his genre.  It wouldn’t be one of my usual reading choices and I felt I might get lost in the globetrotting, weapon hardware and espionage aspects of the novel but I felt well supported and guided by Blake (in the same Author’s Note I quoted earlier he explains there will be flashbacks.  “Don’t be alarmed when it jumps around a bit.  It will all make sense as you get further into the book, I promise” ). I wasn’t and it did.

If you like this kind of title then this is a treat and although it won’t feature in my end of year Top 10 it kept me reading, I did experience tension as it built to a strong plot climax and the author certainly delivered his intentions.  I might need to read more.

Jet was first published in 2012. A paperback edition is available through the Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. I read a Kindle edition.

Girl In The Walls -A J Gnuse (4th Estate 2021)

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This debut is an unusual and highly effective thriller.  There’s been good buzz about it pre-publication.  This was one of the titles I highlighted to watch out for in my Looking Back Looking Forward post.  We were promised a Gothic spooky house novel with comparisons made to Shirley Jackson.  I’m not sure I am on board with the comparison although it was this which attracted me to the title.  It is, however, highly enjoyable with a more original feel than the comparison might suggest.

Set in 2005 (judging by songs mentioned playing on the radio) just south of New Orleans, main character 11 year old Elise, having lost both her parents in an accident, escapes from her foster carers to return to a house her family formerly lived in now owned by the Mason family with two teenage boys.  There, unbeknownst to them she resides in the house, within gaps between walls, in hidden chutes and in the attic emerging when the family are not around or otherwise occupied.  This is working chillingly well until a younger boy turns up unannounced at the house and the teenagers in the family begin to have suspicions about the things going bump in the night.

I found the premise fascinating but did struggle with the geography of the house which would allow such a thing to be possible.  The tension is cranked up incredibly well when the boys begin to act on their suspicions and then environmental factors, particular to the region, begin to play a part.

As I was reading it I was aware of an easy option Texan author Gnuse could have taken and I was hoping he wouldn’t (he doesn’t) which means the story-telling is satisfactory throughout.  There are lots of unusual touches, including Elise’s fondness for Norse mythology and the characters of the neighbourhood boy and Eddie, the younger of the teenagers both give the novel a quirky feel (as does one character I don’t even want to talk about here in the interest of not revealing too much plot).  I was pulled in to the story, rather like Elise being pulled into the walls, found some section breath-takingly tense and all in all this ends up a quality commercial thriller with good literary touches which could also work splendidly as a TV or film adaptation.

Girl In The Walls will be published by 4th Estate in the UK on 18th March 2021.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.