JAIME RAVEN - THE MADAM (2016)

Synopsis/blurb….

Women always uncover the truth....

Three years and 11 months. That's how long Lizzie Wells has been banged up inside Holloway prison, serving time for a crime she didn't commit. Six months. That's how long it's taken Lizzie to fall in love with her fellow inmate, Scar.

Now they are both finally free, and together they are about to embark on a vengeful search to find those who framed Lizzie...and to make them pay.

The Business Man. The Copper. The Madam.

An enjoyable fast-paced read without being the best book ever.

Lizzie Wells was framed for murder and whilst away lost her young son to illness. Now she’s out, she’s embittered and she wants some answers and a lot of payback.

We have a tough female with attitude, a bit of romance and support from her old cellmate, a fractured family – her mum can’t get past Lizzie’s former lifestyle – escorting, drug use, general fecklessness and blames her for the loss of her grandson, surmising that if Lizzie had been around he would still be alive, a damaged brother – one who’s just had another beating, a brothel madam who told lies, and an untouchable businessman-cum- gangster in charge of prostitution in cahoots with some crooked police officers.

The man Lizzie allegedly killed was a journalist investigating our successful businessman. One of the investigating officers in Lizzie’s case committed suicide. She’s been out of clink 24 hours and she’s already being warned off. It all stinks.

I’m not usually a massive fan of the amateur sleuth bumbling around, but on this occasion it worked well for me. Lizzie is nothing if not determined. The police are dismissive and disinterested, what choices does she have?

Prostitution, prison, sex, nightclubs, family, investigative journalism, corruption, police, cover-ups and frame-ups, beatings, a disappeared foreign escort, a bit of violence and plenty of grit.

In the end we get a satisfying but in truth fairly predictable outcome, though there were a few twists in the leading up to it. Who exactly was the rogue in uniform? Who could be trusted if anyone?

4 from 5

Jaime Raven has written a couple of other novels – The Alibi and The Punishment which is due out later this year. As James Raven he has penned about a dozen novels. His websites are here and here.   

Read in January, 2017

Published - 2016

Page count - 330

Source - review copy received from author

Format - new paperback

BARBARA VINE - KING SOLOMON'S CARPET (1991)

Synopsis/blurb….

King Solomon's Carpet is a prize-winning crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine

Winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award

'The tension grows ... an overwhelming sense of foreboding ... when the unravelling takes place, it is brilliantly unexpected and original' The Times

Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives.

Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Underground . . .

I’m fairly sure I read something from Ruth Rendell back in my schooldays, so long ago in fact it probably doesn’t count even if I could recall what is was, which I can’t. King Solomon’s Carpet then is my first real taste of her writing.

Although this one won the Gold Dagger back in 1991, there probably isn’t an awful lot of crime within the pages. It’s more a novel of individual characters, including three generations of the one family, crossing paths with others against the backdrop of the London Underground and a former schoolhouse, which now serves as lodgings for some of the cast.

Interspersed in the narrative are facts regarding the Underground, its history and evolution and expansion, from its conception as one man’s idea - Charles Pearson, a Victorian visionary – “A poor man is chained to the spot. He has not the leisure to walk and he has not money to ride a distance to his work.”

I really liked this book, mainly for the characters and the development of the relationships between the main players, as well as the Underground history lesson.

Family;

A grandmother – Cecilia, affluent and a bit judgemental,

A daughter – Tina, carefree with a somewhat feckless attitude to life, easy come, easy go, easy with the men she crosses paths with,

Tina’s two children, one boy one girl;

The girl – Bienvida perceptive to her grandmother’s moods and considerate in her responses regarding her mother, both knowing what lies, both little white ones and those by omission are being told.

The boy – Jasper adventurous, a regular truant and addicted to the thrills of sledging on the London Underground. (Sledging – the art of riding on a tube train’s roof between stations. I’m curious to know if this is or was an actual phenomenon, and a childhood initiation rite, or if it is in fact something the author dreamt up? The only real references to it that I can find, send me back to this book!) Jasper’s a free spirit like his mother, a pre-teen with a tattoo!

Other significant characters;

Alice – a wife and mother who abandons her husband and young infant daughter to follow her dream of playing the violin.

Tom - a busker, slightly damaged and with an adjusted personality after a car accident.

Jarvis Stringer – landlord and fervent Underground enthusiast. He is to trains, what Jeremy Clarkson is to cars (albeit without the right-wing rhetoric and polemic utterings).

Axel Jonas – a bit of a mystery man, charming when he wants to be, aloof, indifferent, sometimes cruel – not a man to be trusted.

The connections and evolving relationships drive the narrative, though we do have a man with a plan that delivers a fairly explosive climax.

4 from 5

Very enjoyable, definitely I want to read more from Ruth Rendell, both writing as Ruth (but probably not Inspector Wexford) and as Barbara Vine.

Read in January, 2017

Published – 1991

Page count – 358

Source – owned copy

Format – second hand paperback.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH CATRIONA McPHERSON

Catriona McPherson, author of The Child Garden - on the blog yesterday - and the Dandy Gilver historical mystery series was kind enough to humour me when I sent her some questions on her reading and writing habits.

I’m guessing the writing is full-time? What were you in your pre-writing life?

I was a university lecturer. Loved the subject (linguistics) and the students were a blast but I couldn't hack the politics of university life. 

What’s been the most satisfying moment of you writing career so far?

Holding the very first copy of my very first book in my hands felt pretty great. And every other copy of every book since has been much the same. Opening it up and seeing those words I wrote and rewrote makes my heart flip just a wee bit. 

What’s your typical writing schedule?

2000 words a day every day until the first draft is done. It's great to be able to do that in the morning and then do all the other things  - email, edits of the last book, blogs etc - in the afternoon, but sometimes the 2K gets pushed back and back and then I have to go to a coffeeshop without wifi and without my phone and just sit there till it's done. 

Do you insert family, friends, and colleagues into your characters?

Not usually, but Miss Drumm in THE CHILD GARDEN is based on my late and beloved step-grandmother-in-law, Laura. She was a splendid old trout and I miss her. Writing her was a  good way to visit her again.

I’ve looked up your books and you’ve 11 published Dandy Gilver series books and 5 standalone novels to your name, is Dandy going to be with readers for the considerable future, or do you see yourself moving away from her and focussing more on individual novels or perhaps a new series?

That's a good question. How do you know when a series is done? I'm hoping that I'll recognise the moment when it comes. I know I've got an idea for Dandy Gilver that takes place in 1936, in Galloway, and I know what the last book will be too. 

How long does a book usually take from conception to completion?

An idea might be bobbing around for years before it bumps into another idea and turns into a book idea. Then the first draft takes ten weeks of writing - with some days of long walks, fretting and talking to myself. If there are too many fretting days in a row it gets a bit scary but there's always a solution up the next hill or round the next bend. When the first draft is done, I leave it for a few weeks, then read it through and make notes. That's a week. 2nd draft. A fortnight. Leave it. Read it. 3rd draft. Leave it . . . It's like making bread. It takes a lot of time but not all of it is *my* time. The book (or bread) needs its own time too.

Are you a plotter, or do you make it up as you go along?

You've probably guessed from the last answer, but I'm a total seat-of-the-pantser. Hence all the long walks and fretting. And the re-drafting. It's not efficient but it's the only way I know.

Are there any subjects off limits?

I don't think so. There are subjects I'm not interested in or not knowledgeable enough about  - anything very technological, for instance - but if a story pops up, you kind of have to write it.

Any unpublished gems in your bottom drawer?

There was for fifteen years. The first thing I ever wrote got 40 rejections before I put it away. when I looked at it again after 12 of those years, I was horrified by the over-writing and clunkiness. But I still loved the characters and wanted to do a better job by them. so I re-wrote it and it came out (US only so far) last year.

Is there one of your books you’re more proud of that any of the others? Which and why?

Hmmmmmm. I'm not sure "proud" is the right word, but I've got a soft spot for THE CHILD GARDEN. It's set in the house I lived in for ten years before I left Galloway to move to California, and it helped me get over my homesickness. Also, just when I was starting it, my oldest sister died - very unexpectedly and, for her family, unbelievably, unbearably - and I worked through the first six months of grief while I was writing this book. And it really is work, as anyone who's done it will know. I was a long way from my family and it was Gloria who held my hand. 

What are the last five books you have read?

Now, this isn't going to be a very varied answer, because I've been  preparing to interview Craig Robertson, as international guest of honour at Bouchercon (US crimewriting convention) in New Orleans, but honestly: RANDOM by Craig Robertson; IN PLACE OF DEATH by Craig Robertson, THE DAUGHTER OF TIME by Josephine Tey (I heard her biographer interviewed by Val McDermid at Bloody Scotland last week and reckoned I was the only one in an audience of 300 that hadn't read this, so I bought it at the airport and read it on the plane); the first 60 pages of MURDERABILIA by Craig Robertson (I only got it last night and the interview's tomorrow); and before that . . . it was . . . Oh yes! I've remembered. THE PLEA by Steve Cavanagh, because I was moderating a panel he was on, at Bloody Scotland (UK crimewriting festival). This is the life of a writer. You don't get to choose what you read. But every one of these books was absolutely marvellous. (I love my job.) 

Who do you read and enjoy?

Four weeks every year I *do* read exactly what I want, with no expectation that I'm going to write a cover quote, do an interview or chair a panel. Christmas hols and summer hols I just wallow. And the books I save up for those weeks? Stephen King, Charlaine Harris, Kate Atkinson, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Haddon, Val McDermid, Lisa Scottoline . . .

Is there any one book you wish you had written?

I wish I had written I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith. It's just a perfect book to me. 

Favourite activity when not working (writing?)

Reading! After that, gardening and cooking what I've grown, especially cooking it for a long lazy table of friends who'll sit and yak for eight hours until the sun goes down (or comes up). 

What’s the current project in progress? How’s it going?

You have caught me at a very strange moment. I am not writing anything. I handed a book in July and another one two weeks ago and until I get back from my holiday at the end of September, my desk is clear. Well, I got back the edits on the July hand-in, but I haven't opened the email yet.  

What’s the best thing about writing?

Almost everything. Getting to sit and make up imaginary people, direct their adventures and call it working? Come on! Then getting to read other people's novels and it and chat with them and call it working? How jammy can you get? 

The worst?

Trying to think up titles. I'm not great at that. They have to describe the story, be catchy, never have been used before and  not set off any unwanted associations. It's tough. But it's not psychiatric nursing, right? Or mining. Whenever a writer says "writing is hard" I wonder what else they've tried.

In a couple of years’ time…

Ha! Great question. In a couple of years' time, I'll be at Bouchercon in a different US city, with a different book waiting to be edited and a different pair of ideas bumping into each other in the back of my brain. (But I'll be fitter, leaner, more organised and with an empty ironing basket. Even the tablecloths. You've got to have a dream.)

Catriona's website is here, if you want some more information on her and her books.

Catch her on Twitter - @CatrionaMcP

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Many thanks to Catriona for her time and for Helen Upton at Little Brown Book Group for putting us in touch.

Apologies are due to both - Catriona was kind enough to answer my questions back in September, 2016. Tardy reader, blogger, reviewer that I am I'm more than a little late posting!

CATRIONA McPHERSON - THE CHILD GARDEN (2015)

Synopsis/blurb…..

A long-lost friend is a stranger you think you know

Eden was its name. "An alternative school for happy children," said the brochure. "A load of hippies running wild in the woods," said the locals. After a suicide it closed its doors and the children scattered.

Thirty years later, it's a care home; its grounds neglected and overgrown, its only neighbour Gloria Harkness, who acts as tenant-caretaker in a rundown farmhouse to be close to her son. Nicky lives in the home, lighting up Gloria's life and breaking her heart every day.

Nicky and a ragbag of animals aren't enough to keep loneliness at bay, and when Gloria's childhood friend and secret sweetheart, Stephen "Stig" Tarrant, turns up at her door one night, all she can see is the boy she knew. She lets him in.

Stig's being stalked by an Eden girl, he says. She has goaded him into meeting her at the site of the suicide. Except that suddenly, after all these years, the dead are beginning to speak and suicide is not what they say.

When the children of Eden were sent out into the world they took a secret with them. And someone is making sure they take it to the grave.

Initially a stop-start kind of read for me, read 30 pages in October then stopped. Left it a month, restarted at the beginning, read 40 pages, put it aside then picked it back up at the end of January. All of which might lead you to believe I didn’t really enjoy it. Quash that notion, as once I got into it properly, I enjoyed the story and mystery, more so than the characters.  

Events of the past - a child’s death at a hippy-style, knit your own yoghurt while hugging a tree school – resurface in the present day. One of the children involved twenty-eight years ago, Stephen turns up at the remote dwelling of Gloria on a dark, filthy night in rural Scotland.

Gloria wasn’t involved in the incident years ago, but in spite of a few issues of her own, she decides to help Stephen. Gloria’s troubles revolve around her severely disabled son, Nicky. Nicky is housed up the road at a care home, the site of the former hippy school. Gloria is constantly fearful of his continued welfare particularly in the future, should Miss Drumm, another resident at the home and her benefactor of sorts pass on. She’s on her own. Her former husband, Duggie had difficulty accepting Nicky’s condition and the marriage didn’t survive.

Stephen has been in contact with another former pupil at the school, April Cowan and is due to meet up with her. With Gloria in tow they descend on the meeting place and discover April’s corpse. Panicking they flee and don’t inform the police. When Gloria returns later, the body has been moved and Stephen is soon named as the prime suspect in April’s murder.

Who is trying to set up Stephen and why? Gloria, while Stephen plays house, starts trying to track down the former pupils in an effort to understand what is going on.

Amateur sleuthing, loneliness, issues of trust, concern for family, a bit of an adventure, secrets, more deaths (mainly historic) involving the former pupils of the school, and a solution.

Our main character, Gloria was a surprise. Initially I had the impression she was timid and insular, but as the story progressed she became more confident and assertive, not above a bit of subterfuge and deception in an effort to get some answers, and a lot less of a shrinking violet than I expected.

Enjoyable in the main, though I kind of found the whole raison d’etre for events a tad of a stretch. The author did have me guessing as to the identity of our guilty party, I had two candidates penciled in along the way, but was hopelessly wrong-footed.

4 from 5

Scottish author, Catriona McPherson has written the Dandy Gilver series of historical mysteries, as well as about six standalone novels. Her website is here.

Read in January, 2017

Published 2015 (my copy 2016)

Page count – 294

Source – review copy from Little Brown Book Group (thanks Helen)

Format - paperback

Blog friend Moira @ Clothes in Books, reviewed this one here.

GEORGES SIMENON - MAIGRET'S DEAD MAN (1948)

Synopsis/blurb.....

That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private.... It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe, which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away. 

A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector Maigret through the Paris streets towards a man out of his depth amid a network of merciless criminals.

Maigret's Dead Man was my first taste of prolific Belgian author, Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret in what was his 29th case. It was enjoyable, not least because of its overall length and is hopefully not my last encounter with the Parisian detective.

An unidentified man has been murdered on the streets, a man who had been phoning Maigret throughout the afternoon of his death. Maigret directing operations has to identify the man and discover his killer, all while placating or ignoring the magistrate with overall responsibility for the case.

Quite the challenge, but slowly Maigret builds up a portrait of the man. A careful analysis of his clothing, determining what work he may have performed; the contents of his stomach informing his social status and the type of establishments which he might frequent and enjoy his meals.

We have a few underlings ready to do Maigret's bidding without question, phone here, stake-out there, some door knocking elsewhere. Not especially fast-paced, but not pedestrian either, just a really enjoyable read. Maigret logically gathering information, turning supposition and guesswork into fact.

We identify the victim, we get a break in the case, again after some patient police work, cause some panic in the ranks of those responsible and after a few more mini-adventures close out the case. (I doubt I'm spoiling this for anyone by disclosing this.)

Plenty of applied logic, a bit of action, a surprising bit of graphic detail when interrogating a suspect and a satisfactory conclusion. Where's Simenon and his main man been all my reading life?

4.5 from 5

Originally published in 1948, Penguin Classics reissued this one last year. Part of a project to bring all 75 Maigret's give or take to a modern readership.

Read in February, 2017
Published -1948 (and 2016)
Page count - 240
Source - review copy from Penguin Classics team.
Format - paperback

PATRICK E. McLEAN - THE LUCKY DIME (2017)

Synopsis/blurb…..

Hobbs is a professional thief who takes on a heist even though the money doesn't match the risk....but the woman behind the job does. It's a bad play that blows his world apart.

This novella is a prequel to THE SOAK, a searing crime novel that introduces an exhilarating new voice in noir fiction that’s as sharp, cruel, and relentless as the story’s unforgettable hero.

A quick and exciting 29 page read from a new-to-me author courtesy of Brash Books (and my wife – who is signed up to receive the publishers’ newsletter. The Lucky Dime being a February FREEBIE.)

I do like novels and stories featuring thieves and Patrick McLean’s man Hobbs is an interesting addition to my gang of favourites – Max Allan Collins and his character Nolan, Garry Disher’s Wyatt, Westlake/Stark’s Dortmunder and Parker to mention a few.

Hobbs has a sidekick here Brogna, who provides a bit of muscle and some solid back-up. The job itself is a take-down of a family laundry business, planned by one of the owners. Teddy Ida is dissatisfied with his sibling, Ervin and his running of the chain of laundries. Teddy’s fed-up being ignored and fancies a bit of pay back.

Add Grace, Teddy’s current floozy to the mix – a floozy he pinched from Ervin and who within half an hour of meeting Hobbs is get down and dirty with our thief and Teddy might be regretting getting some ideas above his station. Hobbs takes what he wants from who he wants, especially if they’re weak.

Sexual tension, violence, confrontation, a bit of safe blowing, a plan thwarted and a twist in the tale. Book buying embargo or not, I’m tempted to check out The Soak a bit later in the year.

Hobbs is my kind of character and Patrick E. McLean an author I reckon I’d enjoy in the longer format.

4.5 from 5

Patrick McLean has his website here. Not too sure where he originally hails from which is a bit frustrating for my OCD reading stats.

Read in February, 2017

Source - Brash Books Freebie

Published - 2017

Length – 29 pages

Format - Kindle

JOHN MURRAY (as told to SHARON MURRAY with ABBY JONES) - CODE NAME: PAPA (2015)

Synopsis/blurb.....

Who’d have thought a bright, but fairly ordinary young man from middle class America who got just above average grades, dated the same girl throughout high school and went to church most Sundays, would grow up to eventually head a very secretive band of brave individuals-both men and women-who regularly put their lives on the line because they wanted to protect the rest of you. Yet that’s what we did, often sacrificing our personal lives (four marriages for me, all in the book) and our health (countless broken bones, major surgeries, even death) to do it.

Meanwhile you’re just going to have to call me “Papa” like everyone else around the globe has through most of those wildly unpredictable and dangerous years.

Not a memorable read by any stretch of the imagination, I'm afraid. Code Name: Boring would be a fitting alternate title in my opinion.

"Papa" went to Vietnam, made a couple of life-long friends in combat and was recruited along with them to a shadowy, secretive organisation which set about eliminating threats to Joe Public's well-being all around the globe.

Corrupt American Generals, dodgy politicians, Mafioso types, drug-runners, human traffickers......BOOM, because with Papa and his trusty crew on the case......they're going down!

In between our missions, we have chapters spent training, recruiting, planning and living a far from normal family life.........dull, dull, dull.

Early on - maybe chapter 5 from a total of 43, I knew I wasn't going to be thrilled by this book, but was still minded to complete - albeit at a pace of a couple of chapters a day while enjoying a couple of more entertaining reads.

Missions described were vague and sometimes seemed a bit too fanciful to be true. Conversations recalled and reported seemed incredibly wooden......

He said, "Very good sir, would you like me to have the kitchen fix you anything to take with you?" I declined.

"You do know the plane has been waiting for you for approximately an hour?"

I replied I knew.

He said, "Sir, we will miss him also, but we understand you are our primary concern from now on. We will do our best to meet your needs."

I softly thanked him. After he closed the doors, I walked over and picked up my briefcase. I opened it, checked my revolver, and put it back, along with some papers I needed.

True - false? Who cares? Memoirs or fantasy? I'm not sure, at times it read like The Man Who Saved The World meets The X-Files.

Disappointing and 2 stars from 5.
(In fairness, a few folk over on Amazon.com seemed to enjoy this a lot more than me....24 reviews - 14 @ 5 STARS, only 1 @ 2!)

After finishing chapter 43, page 313, I softly closed the book.....plucked the skewer from my eyeball - implanted around 200 pages earlier, so I could experience a different kind of pain while reading, whispered "thank fuck" to myself and went off to make a sandwich.... (turn the page to discover just what type of lunch I made for myself)......yawnsville.

Read in February, 2017
Source - Book Publicity Services review copy. (Cheers Kelsey)
Published - 2015
Length - 326 pages
Format - trade paperback