Recommended Reads Blog
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Someone Is Lying
Someone Is Lying
Jenny Blackhurst
Back during the golden age of crime fiction, closed circle mysteries – mysteries set in an isolated country house, or a storm-lashed island, where it was impossible for suspects to arrive or leave – were extremely popular. There’s a lot of fun to be had when all the possible suspects are laid out within the first few pages of the book and the detective (and the reader) have to work their way through them all, until the culprit is unmasked. A well-crafted example will have the reader changing their mind repeatedly during the course of the investigation and the identity of the killer will often be a surprise when they are revealed. These days, crime fiction has so many different guises, that these books are a lot less prominent.
But they are still being written, and Jenny Blackhurst’s Someone Is Lying is a terrific example of the form, thoroughly updated for the 21st century.
The close-knit community necessary for such a story is a modern, gated, middle-class housing estate. The premise is simple. Ten months ago, Erica Spencer died in an accident at a Halloween party hosted by one of her neighbours. The police declared it an unfortunate accident, and everyone moved on with their lives.
But somebody is convinced it wasn’t an accident and, in a sign of the times, starts a podcast. Six episodes, each dedicated to the six “suspects” – those with the most to gain from Erica’s death.
The secret to a successful closed circle mystery is that everyone has at least one secret, the relationships between the suspects are multi-layered and of course, Someone Is Lying.
This book ticks all of those boxes and more. It’s also a great example of so-called ‘domestic noir’. The secrets kept by the residents of the street seem overwhelming to them, and one can see how they could perhaps lead to murder, yet to outsiders they would appear to be a poor excuse. But then aren’t the motives behind most murders?
The book is very well-crafted. The trick with these books is the careful weaving of the multiple narratives. It’s important to spend just enough time with each character to get to know them, before dropping in a twist and then cutting to a different person’s story. At the same time, Blackhurst expertly portrays the claustrophobic confines of such a community, with its petty hierarchies and unwritten social rules.
I changed my mind about what happened that fateful night repeatedly, so that when everything was finally revealed, it was a satisfying and well-earned conclusion.I heartily recommend this book.
Paul
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You Don’t Know Me
You Don’t Know Me
Imran Mahmood
Today’s #RecommendedRead is the fantastic You Don’t Know Me, the debut novel by barrister Imran Mahmood. Praised highly when it was first released, this is one of the most original takes on the crime genre that I have read in recent years.The entire book is a first-person narrative told as the closing speech by a defendant in a murder trial. The protagonist is a young black man from London accused of the murder of another young man, in what the prosecution are portraying as a feud between rival gang members. Against the advice of his barrister, the defendant takes to the stand to address the jury directly. Over the course of several days, he tries to convince those with his future in their hands that what they assume is just another killing is so much more.
A nervous and inexperienced defendant, he struggles at times to describe the world he lives in. A world with its own rules and hierarchies far different from that experienced by the judge, jury and lawyers (and by extension the reader).Mahmood is a barrister of many years experience and it shows. Unlike other courtroom dramas, there are no interjections by defence or prosecution counsel, the whole story is essentially a monologue, broken only by the natural breaks of the court’s timings.
By telling it in this way, Mahmood plays with the perceptions of the reader. My feelings toward this young man constantly switched from disbelief to sympathy, to frustration at his choices and empathy for his circumstances. At times I felt despair for those trapped in this world, at other times I admit to a degree of contempt for the way in which the culture he and his peers are part of ignore wider societal norms.
It’s not a comfortable read by any measure, yet it is compelling, and as his tale unfolds I found myself challenging some of my own preconceptions.
“You don’t know me” indeed!
A true #RecommendedRead.
Update: I’ve just heard it has been adapted for TV. This will be one to watch!
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The Curator
The Curator (Washington Poe 3)
M.W. Craven
#TeamPoe or #TeamTilly? It’s a question increasingly asked by the legions of fans of M.W. Craven’s award-winning Washington Poe series and it’s not hard to see why so many have fallen in love with Craven’s wonderfully taciturn Poe and the gloriously naïve, and delightfully quirky, Tilly Bradshaw.
This is the third outing for this brilliant duo, and if you are wondering why I am only just reviewing the third in the series, when the fourth has already been released to such acclaim, it is because I have forced myself to ration this genuine pleasure.
For many writers, just creating such a compelling cast of characters would be enough. You could place these two in the centre of an average thriller and they would be good enough to carry the book, even if other aspects of the story failed to excite. Yet Craven has resisted the temptation to take the easy route. The Curator, like The Puppet Show and Black Summer before it, features an intricate and clever plot that is both shocking and ingenious. Marry it with Poe and Tilly, and you have an absolute winner. If you haven’t yet read any of this series, I recommend you start at the beginning with The Puppet Show; not because you need to – you can easily read The Curator as a standalone – but why deprive yourself of getting to know them from the beginning of their journey, and watching them evolve?In this outing, National Crime Agency detective, Washington Poe and his analyst side-kick, Tilly Bradshaw, are called back to Cumbria to investigate a serial killer. His signature is the placing of body parts in unusual places that defy explanation, along with the cryptic code #BSC6. The opening of chapter one will ensure you think twice about taking part in the office secret Santa this year.
I’m not going to recap the plot here, to do so would deprive you of the pleasure of discovering it for yourself. Suffice to say, it is wonderfully complex, creepy and shocking. Several times Craven leads us to what appears to be the final solution, before spinning on a sixpence and showing us that, despite appearances, we’ve got it all wrong. When it finally comes, the answer is satisfying, unexpected and upsetting in equal measure.Part of what makes these books such a pleasure to read is the interaction between the characters, but that would be nothing without Craven’s wry and humorous prose. He’s not afraid to place some of the best lines into the mouth of the narrator, rather than the characters, and you’ll find yourself laughing out loud at his witty turns of phrase. In addition, Craven has a real love for Cumbria and its breath-taking scenery (and weather). If ever there was a series that deserved to be adapted for the screen, this is it.
As to whether I am #TeamTilly or #TeamPoe – well I’m neither. They are two halves of a whole and to separate them wouldn’t work.I can’t recommend this highly enough, and it will take all of my will-power not to go out read the next in the series, Dead Ground, immediately – maybe I’ll fill the void with a couple of the short stories, from Cut Short?
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Fair Warning
Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy 3)
Michael Connelly
I am a huge Michael Connelly fan. But with all the praise heaped upon his Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series, and their high profile from their TV and film outings, it’s easy to forget sometimes that Connelly also writes other characters.
Fair Warning is the third solo outing for Jack McEvoy, the investigative reporter that first appeared in 1996’s The Poet, Connelly’s fifth book. He made a second appearance 2009’s The Scarecrow. There are no cameos by Bosch or Haller, but McEvoy’s long-time associate Rachel Walling plays a key role. She’s popped up in the occasional Bosch and Haller book (as has McEvoy), so the book is still part of the LA-based “Connelly-verse”.
The “Fair Warning” of the title refers to the online consumer rights website that McEvoy now works for, using his skills as an investigative journalist to uncover safety violations and scams. Previously, he’s built a track record for capturing killers, but the opening of this novel sees him being accused of being one himself, after a woman he went on a single date with turns up dead.
I’m not going to detail the plot anymore; I’ll leave that for you to enjoy. Suffice to say, the plotting is meticulous, with the pacing spot-on, and the premise ingenious and scarily prescient. Unlike most of Connelly’s novels. This is primarily told from a first-person point of view. I read a recent review of another author’s work, where the person claimed that they automatically gave such books one star. I will try to remain professional and merely say that not only is this one of the dumbest statements I have ever read, it also robs them of brilliant stories such as this. The first-person narrative gives an intimacy to the prose that would be missing in a third person telling, and works tremendously well.
As with all Connelly novels, he really gets under the skin of Los Angeles. I’ve never visited the city, yet through the eyes of Bosch, Haller and McEvoy, I feel as though I have walked its streets. The characters are well-drawn, and the villain is excellent.
Something worthy of note, without giving too much away, is how accurate the science in this book is. This overlaps with my own field of expertise and not only is he technically correct, his use of the associated language is precise, yet comfortable. This can be rather difficult to pull off. The concepts dealt with can be hard for a non-specialist to render into meaningful prose. I confess to wincing whenever this is dealt with in fiction or on the screen; all too often writers throw a few appropriate phrases and words at the page and kind of hope they make enough sense to the casual reader to get their point across. To paraphrase Eric Morecombe “I am using all the correct vocabulary, but not necessarily in the correct order”. In Fair Warning he avoids this trap and any extrapolation that he does for story-telling purposes is seamless. All praise to his editors and beta readers.This is another Connelly classic – which is in itself a recommendation – and the welcome return of one of his lesser-known characters.
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Black River
Black River (Tuva Moodyson 3)
Will Dean
There are certain series that I like to ration – saving them as little treats and eking out the pleasure as long as possible.
The moment I finished reading Will Dean’s Dark Pines, the first in his Swedish-set Tuva Moodyson series, I knew this was going to be one of them. I downloaded Red Snow and Black River immediately, but let them lurk on my Kindle, practising self-discipline worthy of a monk.
In this, the third entry, Tuva, the investigative reporter that his books centre on, is living away from Gavrik, the isolated town in northern Sweden where the previous books are set. But she is called back when her best friend Tammy goes missing.
Unlike the previous two outings, which were set in the depths of a Swedish winter, rendered so well by Dean that you found yourself wanting to put another layer on, this one is set at the height of summer. A hot, sticky, tick-ridden affair, where the days are almost endless. As before, the town of Gavrik, with its strange, creepy inhabitants, centred around a liquorice factory and bounded by near impenetrable woodland, is the back drop. The town is riddled with secrets and eccentric characters, and frankly you can see why it’s not a tourist Mecca!The central protagonist is Tuva Moodyson, one of the most original characters in crime fiction, and the book benefits from being told from a strictly first-person perspective. An investigative reporter, she is also bisexual and hearing-impaired, reliant on hearing aids. These last two facts could easily be a gimmick, but in Dean’s hands are simply a part of what makes her an interesting individual.
He has taken great care to ensure that the manuscripts are read by a hearing-impaired beta reader and so the books give a real insight into the ways in which society still treats the hearing-impaired differently. Yet all three books are balanced in its portrayal; they aren’t polemics about equal rights, but they do make you stop and consider if there are small changes that you could make to make interactions with deaf people more easy. We also gain an insight into the remarkable technology in modern hearing aids – such as Bluetooth connectivity for mobile phone use – as well as their shortcomings, such as how sensitive they are to moisture, including sweat on a hot summer’s day. He’s not afraid to use them as a plot device, but again it’s not overdone – rather a case of ‘well obviously, if that was happening then she would find that difficult to deal with’.
As an aside, I don’t know how much hearing aid batteries cost, but if they aren’t available for free then they should be! Tuva gets through dozens!One of the strengths about the books is the unique perspective of its author. Will Dean is from the English east Midlands originally, before moving to Sweden where he built a house in the middle of a swamp-infested forest. You literally could not make this up. This not only gives his books an authenticity that few others can match, he also has an outsider’s eye that even the most accomplished native Swedish writers can’t replicate. A great example in this book is the festival of Midsommar, a uniquely Swedish celebration of the longest day of the year. He is able to highlight those traditions that to Swedish people seem commonplace, yet will fascinate those outside the country. It’s a little like the first time you celebrate Christmas with your partner’s family; you notice all the tiny differences from the Christmases that you are used to, that seem obvious and inconsequential to them.
All in all, I can’t recommend this series highly enough. Although you can read them as standalones, in any order, I recommend starting with Dark Pines, so that by the time you reach Black River you will have a greater appreciation.
