I am delighted to welcome you to the unveiling of the cover for the brand new Blix and Ramm novel, Smoke Screen which is coming your way in e-book this December and in paperback in February 2021.
Regular readers will know that I am a fan of Jørn Lier Horst’s William Wisting series – where he uses painstaking, careful police work in his police procedural series to unravel the perpetrators of the crime. I’m also a huge Thomas Enger supporter; his prose is sublime and he has the capacity to infuse strong emotional resonance into strong, three dimensional characters and to couple this with acute observation of social issues.
So when two of my favourite Nordic writers join forces what would we get? The answer is both surprising and delightful, in a macabre way. Way more than the sum of their parts, that’s for sure. shadowrocket官网, the first Blix and Ramm book is a brilliantly paced, devastatingly plotted, crime fiction work with a contemporary slant, as a policeman and a blogger work together to unmask a lethal serial killer.
Now we have the second Blix and Ramm novel, SMOKE SCREEN on the way. I AM SO EXCITED!!!
So what is it about you ask?
Oslo, New Year’s Eve. The annual firework celebration is rocked by an explosion, and the city is put on terrorist alert.
Police officer Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm are on the scene, and when a severely injured survivor is pulled from the icy harbour, Blix instantly recognises her as the mother of two-year-old Patricia Semplass, who was kidnapped on her way home from kindergarten ten years earlier … and never found.
Blix and Ramm join forces to investigate the unsolved case, as public interest heightens, the terror threat is raised, and it becomes clear that Patricia’s disappearance is not all that it seems…
Doesn’t that sound AWESOME!!!??? You can pre-order here
Let’s find out a little more about these two authors…
Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger are the internationally bestselling Norwegian authors of the William Wisting and Henning Juul series respectively. Jørn Lier Horst first rose to literary fame with his No. 1 internationally bestselling William Wisting series. A former investigator in the Norwegian police, Horst imbues all his works with an unparalleled realism and suspense. Thomas Enger is the journalist-turned-author behind the internationally acclaimed and bestselling Henning Juul series. Enger’s trademark has become a darkly gritty voice paired with key social messages and tight plotting. Besides writing fiction for both adults and young adults, Enger also works as a music composer. Death Deserved is Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s first co-written thriller.
Smoke Screen is translated by Megan Turney.
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Now…are you ready for the cover of Smoke Screen???
She can’t tell her why she hates being back in her dead mother’s house, with its ivy-covered walls and its poisonous memories.
And she can’t tell her the truth about the school Robin’s set to start at – a school that doesn’t welcome newcomers.
Sadie just wants to get their lives back on track.
But even lies with the best intentions can have deadly consequences…
Meet Sadie Roper, a woman who has so many secrets; a woman who doesn’t want to talk about the past. She has recently moved back to London from Brooklyn with her pre-teenage daughter Robin, leaving Robin’s father, her husband Andrew, behind.
We don’t know why Sadie had such a terrible childhood; nor do we know why she has fled her marital home and travelled across the Atlantic to come back to a house she hates. But we do know that it has to be serious.
She only has one friend left here, and it is through those conversations that we learn a little of the reason Sadie left. Sadie enrols Robin in her own alma mater; finding to her surprise that there is a late vacancy and thanking her lucky stars that she had put Robin’s name down some time ago as a just in case measure.
But on the very first day she hits her first stumbling block. For the school gates are metaphorically guarded by a group of rather formidable women and their first sight of Sadie is not one that leaves them with a favourable impression. Tyce describes these women so well. Instantly unlikeable; territorial, competitive and remarkably snooty. Sadie feels at once out of place in the face of these coiffed, designer clad mums who clearly are not taken with the somewhat flustered and slightly rumpled Sadie.
And as Tyce makes deliciously clear, if the mummy’s face doesn’t fit, then the child is not going to enjoy an easy life. Tyce writes these women with something that feels like acidic glee – it’s almost as if she knows these women and is taking her revenge, for these are not likeable characters.
At the same time, though, it is quite difficult to get a grip on Sadie’s own character; there is so much that is hidden that we don’t know whether she is a reliable narrator. What is clear though is that she would do anything to protect Robin.
Keen to earn money and to have something of a life of her own, Sadie manages to use an old connection to find some legal work as a junior barrister on a high profile case of child abuse and grooming. Tyce excels when writing about the law. Her knowledge and experience, not just of the law and the jury system, but of the rampant sexism, bullying and snobbery that exists in the courtroom and behind the scenes in Chambers shines through and makes for a highly entertaining and enjoyable read.
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Meanwhile, after many false starts, Sadie is slowly being accepted into the mothers’ circle, but that acceptance comes at a hidden price that Sadie has no idea she will have to pay….
As the pace speeds up in the second half of the book, so the tension ramps up exponentially. The legal case, which has taken centre stage, falls into the background as the school story surges back to the foreground with a vengeance.
Tyce has created interlocking stories, each having some bearing on the other, either through reflected themes or having a causal relationship, but this isn’t always obvious as you read and this can make the novel seem disjointed at times. I’d have liked to have seen some elements more fully explored – Sadie’s own childhood and relationship with her mother if gone into a little more could have made her a slightly more rounded and sympathetic character. The relationship with the school mothers changed almost too rapidly for comfort and her relationship split with Andrew felt somewhat glibly tied up.
Verdict: The Lies You Told is an engrossing, dark and addictive read with moments of real tension and some cracking scenes. Harriet Tyce is a writer who can write really well about injustices and her legal background makes those scenes crackle as her clearly held passionate views come across on the page. The various plot strands could have stood a little more integration though and I found that the ending, while as tense and twisty as I’d like, still felt rushed.
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Harriet Tyce was born and grew up in Edinburgh. She did a degree in English Literature at Oxford University before a law conversion course at City University, following which she was a criminal barrister for nearly ten years.Having escaped law and early motherhood, she started writing, and completed the MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia. Blood Orange was her first novel, and The Lies You Told is published this month. She lives in north London with her husband and children, and two rather demanding pets, a cat and a dog.
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Last year saw the first ever shadowrocket使用方法, a festival that organisers wanted to be inclusive and with a strong sense of community, held in central London. They largely succeeded in that, I think. We’re all hoping that there will be a second festival in October and there’s a note about that at the end of this post, because of course, everything is up in the air with Co-Vid19 right now.
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Capital Crime has today announced the launch of the Capital Crime Book Club. The Capital Crime Book Club is an affordable monthly subscription service that will be a year-round, inclusive home for readers, and a regular link between authors and fans.
Each month, subscribers will receive two carefully curated paperbacks along with exclusive access to great author content and community activities. The Capital Crime Book Club offers away for authors and publishers to connect with readers, maintaining the ethos at the heart of the Capital Crime festival. It will provide readers with great value for money, and a greater sense of community.
Capital Crime co-founder Adam Hamdy, says “Capital Crime is an inclusive festival with a strong sense of community. It is in this spirit that we’re launching the Capital Crime Book Club, a home for all fans of crime fiction. With a monthly subscription fee in the region of £10 for two paperbacks and access to exclusive community content, we’re intent on offering a great value service that’s accessible to everyone.”
Capital Crime co-founder and Goldsboro Books Managing Director, David Headley, says: “Capital Crime has always been about connecting fans of crime fiction with their favourite writers. We see this as another string to our bow complementing our physical festival and capitalcrime.digital platform. We’re supporting authors and publishers and helping them connect with readers in celebration of this much-loved genre.”
The Capital Crime Book Club will officially launch on September 1st 2023. If you’d like to be among the first to experience The Capital Crime Book Club – register here.
NOTE: Capital Crime 2023 is due to take place on 1st – 3rd October 2023. Capital Crime organisers are monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic closely and while they are not yet able to take a decision on the 2023 festival, their priority is keeping their delegates and guests safe. The Capital Crime Book Club will run alongside the festival in the event it goes ahead, or act as a substitute if it gets cancelled. If the 2023 festival does not go ahead, existing Capital Crime 2023 pass holders will have the opportunity to convert to membership of the Capital Crime Book Club, transfer their purchase to a 2021 pass or get full refunds as they see fit. Capital Crime will be sharing more details with existing Capital Crime 2023 pass holders in the coming weeks.
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Source: Review copy Publication: 4th August 2023 from Headline PP: 304 ISBN-13: 978-1472273710
Beauregard “Bug” Montage: honest mechanic, loving husband, devoted parent. He’s no longer the criminal he once was – the sharpest wheelman on the east coast, infamous from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida.
But when his respectable life begins to crumble, a shady associate comes calling with a clean, one-time job: a diamond heist promising a get-rich payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver’s seat – and haunted by the ghost of his outlaw father – Bug is yanked back into a savage world of bullets and betrayal, which soon endangers all he holds dear…
Hold on to your hats because this book is going to be HUGE. This is an amazing book from a brilliant voice whose prose is like liquid gold, so soft and viscous is it as it flows through your veins when you are reading.
A strong contender for Book of the Year, S.A. Cosby’s book is raw, painful and deeply empathetic. Beauregard Montague is a good man. He’s made mistakes in the past and he has paid for them. He loves his children and he loves his wife. He’s also devoted to his Duster car – all that’s now left of his daddy who left them when Bug was a child and never came back.
Bug and his family live in rural Southern America and are piss poor. He has an auto repair shop and he’s good at what he does, but he has completion undercutting him at every turn as well as the fact that they’re white and he’s black, so he’ll get fewer customers to begin with.
At once a heist thriller and a Southern noir novel with deep bite, Blacktop Wasteland is a portrait of a drugs raddled, poverty stricken America where even a good man earns a kick in the teeth and the struggle for survival is a daily battle.
Bug is an intelligent man. He can think and plan his way out of most things, but mounting debt and business problems leave him with no option but to consider one last job to get him out of the hole he is in. He knows that when destiny comes calling, it isn’t good news, but when she carries a shovel, he might as well pick it up and start digging.
Cosby’s writing is blissful. His rose elevates this from a strong, excellent heist story to a character study that excels in every respect. His phrasing is perfect, his emotional resonance shines out and the pain of Beauregard’s situation is as clear as a pole star in the black night sky. His rhythms and cadences are lyrical and seductive.
He shows us how systemic racism and poverty combine to make life impossible for Beauregard and how both of these issues affect the inner lives of individual men and women. Bug never did have a chance to make it. His life, his upbringing and his environment combine to reduce a fighting chance to virtually zero. Most of those around him bury their pain and their lack of hope in drugs and drink and petty scams interspersed with spells in jail for their crimes, but he’s really trying…it’s just that the deck is always going to be stacked against him, because that’s how life is. It’s how it was for his daddy, and it’s how it’s going to be for his children and he can’t see any way out of it for him, or for them. There are no good choices.
Cosby’s raw and painful observations of what it is like for whole communities of economically deprived black Americans is wrapped up in a brilliant, visceral storyline that draws you to Beauregard and his family even as you are watching his children learn things that no child should ever have to know about.
Verdict: This is a gritty story and a compelling one, brilliantly told with a voice that rings out loud and clear. It’s mature and thoughtful and it’s also full of complexity and painful truths and it comes bundled in a crime novel that is reminiscent of the best of Walter Mosley and James Sallis. An absolute must read.
Hive Books Waterstones Amazon
S. A. Cosby is a writer from Southeastern Virginia. He won the 2023 Anthony Award for Best Short Story for “The Grass Beneath My Feet”, and his previous books include Brotherhood of the Blade and My Darkest Prayer. He resides in Gloucester, Virginia. When not writing, he is an avid hiker and chess player.
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Source: Review copy Publication: 23 July 2023 from Simon & Schuster PP: 496 ISBN-13: 978-1471179570
Angela Wood wanted to teach the man a lesson. It was a bag, just like all the others.
But when she opens it, the worst nightmare of her life begins.
The Detective
A journal ends up at Robert Hunter’s desk. It soon becomes clear that there is a serial killer on the loose. And if he can’t stop him in time, more people will die.
If you have read it
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Chris Carter has not had an easy year, so it was with some trepidation that I approached his 11th Robert Hunter book, not sure how that would have impacted his writing. I need not have worried. This book is a cracker and the Robert Hunter series shows no signs of being other than top notch.
So when she sees a man in the bar she is in being aggressively rude to an elderly man, she decides to teach him her own brand of lesson. And that’s how she comes to be in possession of something that she wishes she had never seen…
And that’s enough to have the reader deep into the plot and raring to find out more. From that point, the pace never slows and the trail that leads to a deadly, devious serial killer is begun.
Part of Carter’s magic with the Hunter books is his ability to give us serious insight into the mind and method of the serial killer, all the while contrasting this with the minds of Hunter, his sidekick, Garcia and here, our unwitting potential victim, Angela.
Throughout the series, we see what a toll profiling and hunting down serial killers takes on Hunter and that makes us like him all the more. He’s given up his life – certainly any social life he might have dreamt of having, in the pursuit of such devastating but fiendishly clever killers.
Verdict: A class act in a superior series. The Hunter books keep delivering in spades. Thrilling, heart-pounding and nerve-wracking all in one delicious plot filled bundle. Highly recommended.
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Born in Brazil of Italian origin, Chris Carter studied psychology and criminal behaviour at the University of Michigan. As a member of the Michigan State District Attorney’s Criminal Psychology team, he interviewed and studied many criminals, including serial and multiple homicide offenders with life imprisonment convictions. He now lives in London.
The nail embedded in his chest proves it wasn’t suicide. But when the police go to his flat, a further puzzle awaits: a four-year-old boy has been left there. He doesn’t seem to have any link with the victim, his parents cannot be found, and his drawings show he witnessed something terrible.
As detective Huldar hunts the killer, and child psychologist Freyja looks for the boy’s parents, the mystery unfolds: a story of violence, entitlement, and revenge.
There are cliffs known as Gallows Cliffs or Hanging Rocks in Iceland. According to an old folk story these were used to execute thieves captured from their hideout in a ravine. Now these are a tourist attraction and this is where Helgi Fredrikkson is found hanged, with a nail from a nail gun embedded in his chest, though the message that had been attached is nowhere to be found.
Not long afterwards, a young boy, Siggi, is found alone in a smart city apartment, following an anonymous complaint. The boy, who is in good health, only knows his own name and the first names of his parents…but has no idea what his address is or whose apartment he is in – or how he got there. When it transpires that the flat belongs to the murdered man, nothing is any clearer.
Freya from the Children’s House takes charge of Siggi as Huldar leads the investigation into Helgi’s death, with his boss Erla breathing down his neck as the pressure piles on to get this case solved. As ever with Sigurdardottir’s books, this is immaculately plotted with lots of smart thinking and a number of clever twisty details which add to the overall enjoyment.
Though in this book the key player is Huldar, there is still a frisson between him and Freya, or at least Huldar thinks so and he uses what charm he has on her to try and get her to thaw a little towards him.He takes every opportunity to try and recover some of the ground that he opened up between them in previous books, as they consult over Siggi.
Freya, meantime is looking for new accommodation and what her brother comes up with has the potential to create all sorts of mayhem in future books!
Gallows Rock touches on some very dark themes (though less gory than in previous books – I still haven’t got over those first murders in The Legacy) as we begin to see how the two story lines are linked and the whole picture painted for us is a sorry tale of violence, masculine entitlement and depravity.
The pace is slow and methodical as the investigation begins, but gathers pace as new developments occur and the tension is palpable as each lead offers a new glimpse into the case. I was completely engrossed in the story and in awe of the way that it unfolded as layer after layer was revealed, leaving a chilling and authentic trail to the exciting conclusion.
Verdict: A truly impressive and deeply chilling plot with many layers set alongside lots of interplay and development which adds depth and emotional investment to characters whom we already have grown to know and like. Highly recommended.
Hive Books Waterstones Amazon
Author of the bestselling Thora Gudmundsdottir crime series and several stand-alone thrillers, Yrsa Sigurdardottir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1963 and works as a civil engineer. She made her crime fiction debut in 2005 with LAST RITUALS, the first instalment in the Thora Gudmundsdottir series, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Her work stands ‘comparison with the finest contemporary crime writing anywhere in the world’ according to the Times Literary Supplement. The second instalment in the Thora Gudmundsdottir series, MY SOUL TO TAKE, was shortlisted for the 2010 Shamus Award. In 2011 her stand-alone horror novel I REMEMBER YOU was awarded the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award and was nominated for The Glass Key, and has been made into a film starring Jóhannes Haukur by ZikZak Filmworks. In 2015 THE SILENCE OF THE SEA won the Petrona Award for the year’s best Scandinavian crime novel, and THE LEGACY, the first novel in the Freyja and Huldar series, was nominated for The Glass Key and won the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award. All of her books have been European bestsellers.
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Source: Review copy Publication: Out in e-book on 17 July 2023 from Orenda Books and paperback in Sept. PP: 300 ISBN-13: 978-1913193362
Film star Amelie Hart is the darling of the silver screen, appearing on the front pages of every newspaper. But at the peak of her fame she throws it all away for a regular guy with an ordinary job. The gossip columns are aghast: what happened to the woman who turned heads wherever she went?
Any hope the furore will die down are crushed when Amelie’s boyfriend Dave is arrested on charges of child sexual abuse. Dave strongly asserts his innocence, and when Amelie refuses to denounce him, the press witch hunt quickly turns into physical violence, and she has to flee the country.
While Dave is locked up with the most depraved men in the country and Amelie is hiding on the continent, Damaris, the victim at the centre of the story, is isolated – a child trying to make sense of an adult world.
Breathtakingly brutal, dark and immensely moving, A Song of Isolation looks beneath the magpie glimmer of celebrity to uncover a sinister world dominated by greed and lies, and the unfathomable destruction of innocent lives … in an instant.
I’m delighted to review Michael Malone’s A Song of Isolation and to wish him the best and happiest of publication days for his superb novel. My thanks to the publisher for an early review copy.
There’s one overwhelming question in my head when I finish this outstanding novel. Why isn’t Michael Malone better known? Why has he not been showered with awards and nominations? It isn’t anything to do with the quality of his prose which is, as it is here, delicate, nuanced, finely crafted and in places, quite lyrical.
In A Song of Isolation, Michael J. Malone uses his unconventional approach to look at the crime from the perspective of the girlfriend of a man accused of one of the very worst crimes; child sexual abuse.
Amelie Hart has been keeping a low profile for years, ever since she was subjected to intense stalking and a nightmare experience that left her unwilling to ever again be in the public eye. She’s settled now with her boyfriend Dave and though she loves him, there’s a bit of her, she knows, that will forever hold back. Trust is such a hard thing to recover once it has been lost and Amelie lost hers the night she was attacked.
Malone tackles his subject sensitively but there is no escaping the devastating impact on this couple of an accusation of child sexual abuse. Swiftly and without compunction, Amelie’s boyfriend Dave is taken away by the police and locked up. She realises that he may not be allowed back into their home, even if he is granted bail.
The papers, who were only too keen to speculate about her disappearance from the acting world are now hot on Amelie’s trail again….digging into her private life, asking lurid questions and speculating on what she knew and when.
Meanwhile, the child, an innocent in the midst of a ferment of lies, greed, manipulation and breath-taking selfishness is left. Damaris wants only to be loved; to have human contact, friendship and companions but is a lonely soul caught up in a whirlwind that is none of her making – isolated and confused.
As Dave negotiates a brutal and uncompromising prison system which assumes his guilt before a trial is initiated, the only question is whether he lives long enough to make to trial.
Malone’s humanity shines through in these characters, he has developed rounded and believable individuals whose feelings and emotions are so tangible that you can feel them, too – which makes their experiences stand out all the more.
Each of these three characters – Dave, Damaris and Amalie has their own song of isolation as the charm and innocence of their early lives is lost in a welter of poison, accusations and counter claims in which no-one comes out unscathed.
For Amelie, who escapes to France, the answer lies in a simpler life, but not even in France can she be truly untouched by what has gone before. Malone’s emotive and beautiful writing strikes a poetic note as he shows us Amelie struggling to understand how she might find a way to again experience an unfiltered joy in human relationships.
Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country, just a stone’s throw from the great man’s cottage in Ayr. Well, a stone thrown by a catapult.He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. His career as a poet has also included a (very) brief stint as the Poet-In- Residence for an adult gift shop.Blood Tears, his bestselling debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers. Other published work includes: Carnegie’s Call (a non-fiction work about successful modern-day Scots); A Taste for Malice; The Guillotine Choice; Beyond the Rage and The Bad Samaritan. His psychological thriller, A Suitable Lie, was a number one bestseller. Michael is a regular reviewer for the hugely popular crime fiction website http://www.crimesquad.com. A former Regional Sales Manager (Faber & Faber) he has also worked as an IFA and a bookseller.
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Source: Review copy Publication: 9th July 2023 from Head of Zeus PP: 320 ISBN-13: 978-1789544077
It was meant to be your daughter’s first sleepover. Now it’s an abduction.
Lucia Blix went home from school for a playdate with her new friend Josie. Later that evening, Lucia’s mother Elisa dropped her overnight things round and kissed her little girl goodnight.
That was the last time she saw her daughter.
The next morning, when Lucia’s dad arrived to pick her up, the house was empty. No furniture, no family, no Lucia.
In Playdate, Alex Dahl puts a microscope on a seemingly average, seemingly happy family plunged into a life-altering situation. Who has taken their daughter, and why?
I’ve enjoyed Alex Dahl’s previous two books so picking up Playdate was an obvious choice for me. Though I would not necessarily lean towards storylines that seem more family oriented (just my quirk) this one certainly held my attention well throughout.
The premise is a good one. Elise Blix an airline steward, meets a rather good looking woman called Line and her daughter Josie as she is dropping off her own daughter, Lucia at school. Josie and Lucia are clearly good friends, so when Josie’s mum offers to have Lucia over for a playdate, Elisa is happy to agree and drops her off at a rather swish house. When Lucia’s mum calls to say the pair are having a great time, confirmed by Lucia, Elisa agrees to extend the playdate to a sleepover. But when Lucia’s dad goes to pick her up…there’s no trace of the child or of the family she was staying with.
Now this storyline immediately starts to remind you of cases of children who have been abducted in real life, but the emphasis of this story is much more on the characters involved. Fredrik and Lucia have a happy marriage, but each keeps secrets from the other. And one of them is keeping a secret that may make the difference as to whether they see Lucia again. What is more important than finding her, the reader is constantly asking, as that secret threatens the whole fabric of their marriage.
As the police launch a massive manhunt, recently redundant journalist Selma is trying to get her career back on track, and she thinks she has found a lead that no-one else has spotted. The reader is able to follow the plot through the perspectives of three characters and Lucia herself and we are treated to the inner thoughts of these characters as the narrative arc develops. It is this psychological insight that makes the book special for me and allows you to understand what is going on in the minds of the principal protagonists.
There are quite a few plot twists and in the last third of the book the pace of the action picks up to allow for a rather dramatic and intense finale that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Half American, half Norwegian, Alex Dahl was born in Oslo. She graduated with a BA in Russian and German Linguistics with International studies and went on to complete an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, followed by an MSc in Business Management at Bath University. Alex currently lives between London and Sandefjord in Norway which is also the setting of her first novel, the international bestseller and award-shortlisted psychological suspense thriller, THE BOY AT THE DOOR. She has followed up this success with THE HEART KEEPER and PLAYDATE, also ‘Scandi noirs’, and also acclaimed and translated around the world. Photo: copyright Nina Rangoy
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Source: Review copy Publication: 16 July 2023 from Viper PP: 320 ISBN-13: 978-1788164344
THERE’S A SERIAL KILLER ON THE RUN
AND HE’S HIDING IN YOUR HOUSE
Thomas Brogan is a serial killer. With a trail of bodies in his wake and the police hot on his heels, it seems like Thomas has nowhere left to hide. That is until he breaks into an abandoned house at the end of a terrace on a quiet street. And when he climbs up into the loft, he realises that he can drop down into all the other houses through the shared attic space.
That’s when the real fun begins. Because the one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims – the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet…
Do you fear The Resident? Soon you’ll be dying to meet him.
This is only my second David Jackson book, and I see that when I read shadowrocket小火箭apk I was excited by the potential for a new author whose style fits my sense of what a creepy thriller should be. I do like a book where everything the reader knows is seen from the perspective of the killer, and this is just the right vehicle for David Jackson’s disturbed serial killer, Thomas Brogan.
Now, I have to admit, somewhat shockingly, that I enjoyed this book. Whether that says something about me, I don’t know, but it is mildly disturbing that I can feel so warmly towards a novel that is creepy, involves unpleasant murders, rotting corpses and a killer who has conversations with the voices in his head. Yet, I do feel kindly towards it and I was thoroughly entertained by it.
We see the other residents through the eyes of Brogan as a voyeur and visitor to their houses when they occupants are out, or in Elsie’s case, in bed. The focus of his attention is the couple in the end house. Young and attractive, he enjoys playing games by finding out their secrets and using them to conduct a form of psychological warfare on them.
It helps that all is not perfect in their marriage and Brogan enjoys exploiting those flaws and creating a rift between them, all the while waiting for his moment to alert them to his presence.
As the reader spends time with him in the attic, we get a sense of why he is as disturbed, what his background has been and it is hard not to feel some sympathy for this disturbed human being whose sense of humanity still lurks somewhere inside, deeply repressed and in constant argument with his other self.
Even as he creeps around the houses, helping himself to food, taking showers, rifling their drawers, you sense that playing with the objects of his attention is all part of the enjoyment for this sadistic killer.
Verdict: Fast-paced, creepy and nicely twisty. There is a lot of dark comedy built into this book, which saves it from being unremittingly bleak. It is written with a light and easy hand. I was completely absorbed by it and thoroughly enjoyed it. A stonking good read!
Hive Books Waterstones Amazon
David Jackson is the bestselling author of Cry Baby and Don’t Make A Sound. His debut novel, Pariah, was Highly Commended in the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Daggers Awards. Since then he has written several more crime thrillers, including two series set in New York and his birth city of Liverpool. His day job is in Liverpool as a university academic, but he now lives on the Wirral with his wife, two daughters and a British Shorthair cat called Mr Tumnus.
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Source: Review copy Publication: 9th July 2023 from Hodder Paperbacks PP: 368 ISBN-13: 978-1444797305
A lifetime ago, a patient escaped Nazareth mental asylum. They covered their tracks carefully. Or so they thought.
Thirty years ago, Marianne Smy committed a crime then fled from her home to leave the past behind. Or so she thought.
Now, Marianne has been forced to return. Nazareth asylum has been converted to luxury flats, but its terrible hold on her is still strong. A successful academic, a loving mother and a loyal wife, she fears her secret being revealed and her world shattering.
She is right to be scared.
There are many things that draw me to an author. I admire good plotting, enjoy dark mysteries and love a good thriller, but nothing puts me more in awe of an author than the ability to make characters live and breathe on the page. Erin Kelly has that ability in spades and it is what draws me back to her books every time. She is an understated writer, but her books are full of nuance, layered and complex with characters whose lives you feel you understand because they are so well drawn.
So it is with We Know You Know (previously in hardback as Stone Mothers). Marianne Smy came from a small town, Nusstead, in Suffolk,which depended on the work offered by the gothic building that was the old Nazareth mental asylum. When it was shut down in a campaign led by Helen Greenlaw, then the Chair of the Health Board, despite the protestations of all those who knew its closure brought poverty, she and her boyfriend Jesse would go there for romantic trysts and to explore the ramshackle structure. What they discovered one night would change their lives and destroy their relationship.
Marianne left soon after. She left in body and in spirit to become a very different person. Now she is an History of Architecture lecturer and has returned to spend time with her ailing mother. To her horror she finds that her husband has surprised her by buying her a flat in the very building that has never left her troubled dreams.
Not only that, but Jesse, who has never left and never made anything of himself, has never got over his wounded pride and is using their shared secret to force her into an action she doesn’t want to take. For so long she has kept her secret from her husband and their daughter and now everything she has is in jeopardy if she doesn’t agree.
The story begins in the present but flits back from time to time to Marianne’s childhood and to the 1950’s when the Asylum was fully operational. Erin Kelly beautifully evokes the deeply troubling times of the 1950’s when attitudes to mental health among the medical profession could be nothing short of barbaric and when women were concerned, the slightest indication of wayward behaviour would be sufficient to have them committed.
Mental health is a theme throughout this story but nowhere does it hit as hard as we learn what terrible treatment young Helen receives at the hands of the Nazareth doctors for the crime of having heartless parents who knew nothing about dealing with an independently minded young woman.
Kelly’s prose is compelling. She shows us how the three main characters became inextricably linked at the same time as she draws a picture of social inequality, social mobility and searing injustice towards women. As she traces the lives of Marianne, Jesse and Helen, she peels back the layers to show us how they became the people that we see today. Not always the most popular, certainly not always likeable, but formed from one extraordinary experience that links them forever and makes us understand that this experience was utterly real.
Verdict: I liked the storyline and found it gripping, but it is the beauty of the characters; their nuanced thoughts and actions that really spoke to me and made this an enthralling, emotive and beautifully realised read. Highly recommended
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Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Poison Tree, The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, The Ties That Bind, He Said/She Said, Stone Mothers and Broadchurch: The Novel, inspired by the mega-hit TV series. In 2013, The Poison Tree became a major ITV drama and was a Richard & Judy Summer Read in 2011. He Said/She Said spent six weeks in the top ten in both hardback and paperback, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime novel of the year award, and selected for both the Simon Mayo Radio 2 and Richard & Judy Book Clubs. She has worked as a freelance journalist since 1998 and written for the Guardian, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, New Statesman, Red, Elle, Cosmopolitan and The Pool. Born in London in 1976, she lives in north London with her husband and daughters.
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