Two severed hands were discovered beneath a waterside restaurant in Bristol by the police diving time. What starts out as a routine investigation soon delves into the world of African muti, witchcraft, superstition and belief which touches upon all levels of society – from middle class restaurant owners and academics through to the underworld of heroin addicts and council tenants. Jack Caffrey, Mo Hayder’s regular character, solves the case along with Flea Marley – a police diver with a tragic secret. The characters come together to solve the crime and in the process, start to deal with some of their own issues.

I do like books which you can fly through, like this one. I can forgive the shallowness and lack of character dimension because I understand these have to be sacrificed to produce a quick on-the-train read. As such, I try not to be too dismissive of these ‘factory’ produced novels which are churned out on schedule and sold in Tescos for £3.99. I don’t see this as saying the author isn’t talented or doesn’t have skill – she produces what the publishers ask her to produce and provides us with CSI or Law and Order in book form which we can use for a bit of escapism when the rest of the world seems a bit too tough to take.

Rating: 6/10
ISBN: 0553820435
Publisher: Bantam Books
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 19 December 2009
Pages: 560 (but it was pretty much large print!)

A single word came to my head when I finished this book.

Wow.

What a ride. This was a clever combination of graphic violence, black humour, thrills and empathy and it was a story which just kept you on the edge of your seat. For a first novel, it is an explosion from an author who has a fantastic way with words, the ability to craft strong characters and a knack for painting an image which is sometimes too much for the imagination to bear.

The story is about Peter Brown, a doctor working at a frenetically busy New York hospital. The book opens with him getting mugged. But his ability not just to stop the mugger but to literally put him in the hospital suggests that Peter isn’t just your average registrar. Despite verging on exhaustion from the demanding hours of his job, there is a sharpness about him which draws you in. It soon emerges that Peter’s past life is far darker than anyone he works with could have imagined. When he enters the room of a man with terminal cancer and realises that he is recognised, his cover starts to slip. As a hit man for the mob in his previous life, he is in the hospital on witness protection. This guy means certain death to Peter. If Peter allows him to die under his watch, the alarm will have rung and all of those shadows of his past who want to see him dead will be coming for him.

Thus begins a breathless story which jumps from Peter’s musings over the past and what got him to this point and the actual events he is trying to survive through. When put against the backdrop of a busy hospital, as a reader you feel swept along with the sheer pace of this novel. Page turner isn’t a fair description – I was almost ripping at them to see what happened next.

What Josh Bazell has achieved so well in my opinion is the creation of the character of Peter who had such a streak of evil through him and was nevertheless good and sympathetic. It didn’t seem to matter to me what he had done – I wanted him to survive. He was trapped in the moral dilemma of his life, but in it he had allowed himself to truly love someone, as well as question what was right and wrong with the purpose of protecting others from the evil under which he operated. He was the epitome of a hero, but one who was so completely human that his actions made all the more impact. This impression of Peter was made stronger by the fact the book was written in the first person, so you had an intimate relationship with Peter as he fought to keep what he had now gained. I asked Josh how he had managed to paint such a contrast of good an evil in Peter. Josh told me that Peter demonstrated how evil can come so easily to people – especially to Peter – and yet he still battled morally with what he was doing. Josh said that this was something which we could all relate to as humans – a point I completely agree with. Most of us may not exercise the level of evil that Peter was, but if we were pushed to it, how closely would we go? It is an interesting question.

The graphic descriptions in this book really made me cringe at times and stayed in my head even after I had put the book down. This level of violence could put off a reader who was faint at heart, but I felt it fitted with the whole theme and pace of the book. There is no painting over the violence of the mob. In fact, in another question I posed to Josh I asked him how much research he had done about the mob in writing this book and he replied

“I did a fair amount of research, but the thing that felt important to get right was the basis of the mob’s success, which is bone-simple willingness to do awful things to people who work for a living in order to take their money.  A lot of what I was seeing in fictional representations of the mob was victimless crimes and loyalty gained through beneficence.  I suspected the mafia wasn’t really into either of those things, and the facts are out there:  it isn’t.”

The criminal activity associated with the mob is neither romantic nor glamorous. The level of violence is very real, which once again gave this book the quality of a story which could have happened.

I was pleased to discover that Josh is in the midst of writing his next novel, and that Peter will figure in it again. I found myself wanting so much to know what happened to him after the events in Beat the Reaper were over that I couldn’t help but ask. You know an author has done something good when you keep returning to a character and wondering over them in your mind, days or weeks after you have put the book down. I will be glad to see him again.

The final question of Josh was to ask what his plans for the future were. His answer? “Get a life”.

Actually, Josh, I would rather you didn’t if it means you can keep producing novels as good as this one. You can get a life after that.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 9780434019236
Publisher: William Heinemann
Date: 2009
Date Finished: 6 March 2009
Pages: 307

Combine an unusual plot with a beautifully written book, and you are sure to have a winning combination. Jeffrey Ford managed to achieve that in The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque with only a few minor flaws. This was a book exploring madness and obsession, mystery and unhappiness, all put together in a nineteenth century setting that was completely believable and completely gorgeous.

This is the story of an artist who starts to question his own motives in creating art. His work as a portraitist in New York at the turn of the nineteenth century dawns on him as being a ’sell out’. Painting artificial portraits for money may ensure a comfortable lifestyle, but it doesn’t help to further one’s sense of art, and Piero Piambo, the hero of the novel, is feeling the ensuing emptiness. On the way home from yet another semi-successful portrait unveiling, Piambo is stopped by a mysterious blind man with an even more mysterious message. It is a message inviting him to attend to the house of a new patron, who has offered Piambo more money than he could possibly wish for to paint her portrait. With the money, Piambo begins to imagine the freedom of expression he could enjoy, without having to worry about paying the bills, and in no time he decides to take the commission.

The unusual thing about the commission is that the sitter, Mrs Charbuque, remains behind a screen and Piambo must paint her based solely on the questions he asks her and the answers she gives. This heralds a bizarre tale of the woman’s childhood and marriage, which drag the artist deeper and deeper into the commission and the story behind it.

Simultaneously, however, some unusual things are happening in New York. There appears to be an unusual disease in the air which causes an unspeakable death to the sufferer from bleeding from their eyes. Piambo doesn’t link this strangeness with his own predicament at first, but when someone close to him is afflicted and dies, he begins to realise that the more obsessed with Mrs Charbuque he becomes, the more danger he is in and the more he stands to lose.

It is difficult to say more without giving away the ending, but it would be wrong of me if I did, as the ending is both exciting and surprising. Following Piambo as he becomes more and more captivated by the hidden woman, and then as he gathers the strength to overcome his obsession, achieve his goals and repair his life is rewarding for the reader. My criticism lies in the bizarre about-face of Mrs Charbuque’s servant towards the end which seems somewhat out of character. I felt that some inkling of that perhaps should have been felt as the story progressed and so it seemed a little ‘convenient’. Irrespective, I thought the portrait of insanity was painted in a manner both thrilling and believable and also felt satiated by the final pages which hint at a happily ever after conclusion. When a protagonist has gone through the changes and events that he had, it seems important for things to work out in the end.

I found the writing style attractive and true to the period, and the pace was rapid without being shallow. All in all it was a good read.

Rating: 8/10
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Year: 2002
Date Finished: 28 December 2008
Pages: 307

Hmmm. I wanted a light read which I could easily get finished before I headed back home to Australia for Christmas next week. There is nothing worse than being halfway through a book and then agonising over whether you take it (and risk finishing it halfway across the  world, leaving you with nothing to read) or whether you wait for three weeks until your return so you can take a new book especially for the flight. I had started Killing Me Softly and it was on my unofficial ‘Finish What You Started’ challenge for 2009 (i.e. actually finish all of the books I started and then put down over 2008) so it seemed like the perfect candidate. But unfortunately, I know why I put it down.

The quotes on the cover go along the lines of ‘A real frightener’, ‘highly addictive’ and ‘a nail-biting tale of love…’ Did I bite my nails? Not really. Was I frightened? Irritated, but not frightened. And was it addictive? Perhaps, but that just heightened the disappointment for me.

The storyline in a nutshell: Alice, settled and content, meets Adam. They fall madly and passionately in love, but as time goes on she realises he has a dark side, becomes obsessive about finding out about it, all reaching a climax (which was a little predictable) and ending suddenly. Problem is, I found it incredibly difficult to suspend my disbelief. Firstly, Alice walks across a road and catches eyes with Adam and within hours they are in bed together.

Er…hello? Sorry, but who in their right mind would do that? OK, I guess it is supposed to be ‘passionate’ and ’spontaneous’, but this was during her lunchbreak. I could tell there was something wrong about Adam from the instant she locked eyes with him. Maybe I am more cynical or worldly than Alice, but to not realise that he was trouble was just a little too naive. When it turns out he is a dark obsessive I was sitting there thinking ‘yeah? so tell me something I didn’t know’.  The fact that Alice throws in everything she has for him seems pretty silly. She must have been a pretty insecure woman beforehand to think that what this guy was offering was worth giving her life up for.

The story is supposed to be one long descent into obsession and the border of madness, but I just found myself thinking ‘wake up, Alice.’ Adam, however, represented everything in a man I don’t like – and his hero status made it even worse. Perhaps there are women like Alice who found that compulsive and sexy. I just found him unpleasant. I am sad to say that I struggled to feel any empathy for Alice. I don’t wish bad on anyone, but I couldn’t help the feeling that with a little more thought and consideration for herself she would never have landed in the situation. She just wasn’t strong enough for me.

The reason I was disappointed at the end was that the crime just didn’t pull together for me. I never really understood why and how it all happened, and although Alice ‘figured it out’, all of the conclusions she came to seemed pretty tenuous (even though they turned out to be true). The final scenes of her in the police station were less scary than irritating, but I was kind of glad we had got there. I don’t think I could have taken much more of the somewhat drawn out descriptions of their sex life and his glowering and pretty nasty personality.

My overall impression of this book? It was churned out because the publisher demanded it, and not given the time and thought that it could have been. It is a commuter read, which apparently reduces the need for depth. I am sure the author is an excellent writer, but I do believe that sometimes writers sell out to the demands of the market and their publishers.

Rating: 3/10
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0141034195
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 3 December 2008
Pages: 343

Not long after Dan Brown skyrocketed to success with The Da Vinci Code, there arose a plethora of “Da Vinci Code clones”. You can always tell them because the reviewers comments on the front or back cover usually say something like “a rival to Dan Brown” which suggests that the book is going to involved some kind of ancient religious tradition and a page turning thriller. The Righteous Men was one of these. I am not dismissing it outright, because it wasn’t that bad, but the thriller aspect didn’t quite take my breath away, and the end of the world cataclysm didn’t have me wondering whether it could really be true. It was more a pleasant romp than a breathless race.

The main character is Will, a Brit and a journalist for the New York Times who stumbles on to a series of murders which seem at first to be completely unrelated. When his wife is kidnapped, he finds himself on a two day roller coaster ride through the depths of orthodox Judaism and Christian cults, accompanied by his trusty ex-girlfriend, TC, and a penchant for ignoring advice and getting into trouble. You can start to see the formula already. Of course, the thrilling climax supposedly surprises everyone (I unfortunately had figured it out quite a while before then) and, in true Dan Brown fashion they all live happily ever after.

Yes, it was interesting to find out some of the ancient Jewish traditions around which the whole story is based, but I still wasn’t that excited by it. Oh, how spoilt I have all become! Although I understand why publishers like formulas, and I do love my crime fiction (which is about as formulaic as they come), I do think this theme has run its course. Brown was a phenomenon. Most of those books coming after his feel like they have just jumped on his bandwagon – which sadly has already left.

Rating: 5/10
ISBN: 0007203306
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2006
Date finished: 18 June 2008
Pages: 576
Challenges: B in the A-Z Challenge

Child 44 is Tom Rob Smith’s first novel, and it is an incredible way to launch one’s career as a suspense writer. Set in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and connected with real events, the book is intensely disturbing and totally gripping at the same time. What struck me most was how terrible the life was for every citizen of the Soviet Union under Stalin. It was like a different world and it was a wonder that people survived through it.

The story follows the fall of Leo Demidov, who holds a high ranking position in the MGB but becomes the object of hatred of one of his subordinates. His fall from grace finds him investigating a murder in a country where officially murder did not exist. Crime was an aberration which was generally ignored or brushed aside without even the semblance of justice, for fear that its presence would question the perfection of the Communist ideal, where because everyone was equal, crime was unnecessary and therefore was naturally eliminated. But idealistic Communism is an impossible proposition when faced with the worst aspects of human nature, and the crimes Leo finds himself faced with are callous, horrific and terrifyingly regular.

This book oozes paranoia and suspicion, which is why it is so disturbing. It seems that within Soviet Russia, there was no such thing as trust, friendship or love because a simple word to the authorities spelt doom for anyone, irrespective of innocence or guilt. The state apparatus apportioned guilt to anyone who did anything even slightly suspicious. If you looked the wrong way at the wrong person, it could mean death. If you treated a pet belonging to a foreigner, you were a spy. If you even thought negative thoughts about the regime, or were indiscreet enough to mutter them, your future generally comprised of hard labour in a gulag, or execution.

Irrespective of the bravery of Leo and his wife beneath such a hostile regime, the message that stood out so strongly for me in this book is that without trust, without care of another and for another, without confidence, then human life is simply a shadow. It is almost not worth existing, when your entire life is spent wondering whether a misplaced word would result in your arrest. This story is the tale of the absolute worst of human nature. It is brutishness, selfishness, paranoia, hatred, fear and vindictiveness laid bare. I am only pleased that as the story progressed, some of the better sides of human nature began to show out otherwise it would have made for grim reading indeed.

I had to suspend my disbelief a little for the ending. After the man hunt mounted to catch Leo and Raisa, I felt it ended a little suddenly and a little more tamely than I would have thought. I can see that the author has left a couple of hanging threads for the next novel in the series which is fine, but after the pace and excitement of the whole novel, without giving a spoiler, the final pages fell a little bit flat for me. Also, I found myself a little irritated by the style of the dialogue. Rather than

“putting conversation in inverted commas, as is normal”

the conversation was written

- In italics and not marked in inverted commas

Just like uppercase letters are generally read as shouting, in my mind the dialogue throughout felt like it was being whispered or spoken a long distance away. Although perhaps that was the intention.

This is not to detract from an incredibly exciting book and a fantastic first novel. I’ll be on the lookout for this author in the future.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-1-84737-127-0
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 23 April 2008 (at 3.00am!)
Pages: 469
Challenges: 4/8 Category 1 of the 888 Challenge: Crime Fiction; S from the A-Z Challenge; 2/8 from The Pub Challenge

Related articles by Zemanta

• Review: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• Tom Alderman: Book Review: “Child 44″

If you’ve ever seen From Dusk Till Dawn and loved it, then you are going to love this book. Of course, it will probably only have that fantastic effect of complete surprise the first time you read it, but once you have finished you will keep thinking back and smiling. And no, before you ask, it has nothing to do with vampires…

Harry Ricks has fallen on some difficult times. Actually, difficult is probably an understatement – he has experiencd so much bad luck and been the victim of some seriously conniving and narrow-minded people that it is little wonder he runs away to Paris to try and escape from the misery of a life back in the US. Unfortunately for the story, Harry was a bit ‘wet’ for my liking. Perhaps it is more an indication of my own personality, but if he had been treated so unspeakably badly by his wife and her clandestine boyfriend, why on earth would he still try to be nice to her?! Paris, however, introduces a new life – with a job as night watchman for a mysterious business, a life in a less than salubrious part of the city, and a strange Hungarian beauty who comes into his life but keeps him at rigid arms length.

However, soon, Harry discovers that bad things start to happen to the people who have wronged him. And as the pace of the story picks up, it starts to become evident as to where that bad is emanating from. But the perpetrator is not all that they seem and Harry is finally caught in a situation which solves all of his subconscious desires but finds him more trapped than ever.

I really enjoyed the twist to this story. It is the first Douglas Kennedy book I have read and I thought his storyline was great. I have read a lot of pretty negative reviews about this book, but it appears that that is because it is a departure from Kennedy’s normal style. Being my first, I had nothing to compare it to and no preconceptions or expectations. Of that I am glad, because I really gained a lot out of this book. I would have been sad to have missed that pleasure because I had expected it to be like something else.

Rating: 7/10
ISBN: 978-0-09-179959-5
Publisher: Hutchinson
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 24 December 2007