It’s a Green morning in more ways than one. Most of our snow has melted so you can see the (mostly brown) grass. You can also feel that Spring is in the air. And it’s St Patrick’s Day! I’m celebrating all of these things with a steaming cup of chai tea and a double treat of delicious Date Bar and freshly baked Date Bread… yum!
I finished reading Sophie Hannah’s latest novel, The Next To Die, and it lived up to her reputation for writing smart and sassy psychological thrillers. This novel, the tenth in the “Spilling CID” series, focuses on a serial killer dubbed “Billy Dead Mates”, because he seems to be killing best friends. So far four individuals have been murdered, not in pairs but separately, shot in the head in their homes after seemingly inviting the killer inside. Each individual had received a little white handmade book filled with blank pages, except for one line of poetry, shortly before they died. Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck is in the corridor of the cancer ward in the hospital, waiting for her grandmother to die, when she learns of this and realizes that she also received a little book like this at one of her gigs, but that was at least a year ago. When she discovers another of these books after her grandmother’s death, she goes to the police for help, wondering if she will be the next to die, despite the fact that she doesn’t have a best friend. If the killer is not targeting best friends, what could the motivation behind these murders be? And is Kim, in fact, going to be the next to die? This psychological thriller, featuring brilliant, quirky Detective Simon Waterhouse and his wife, ex-detective Charlie Zailer, as well as the cast of characters on the Spilling CID team, is characteristically wry and smart, with a plot that twists and turns, and there are plenty of red herrings. I found the ending a bit weak, but otherwise, it was a real page-turner. I liked that it focused more on the development of the case and the people involved in it, particularly Kim, than on the investigating team and their relationships. I haven’t read all of Hannah’s books, but I think I should start reading this series from the beginning. If you like smart British suspense thrillers, this might be the next book for you!
And I finished my book club book for tomorrow night’s discussion, The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware. I read this last year and blogged about it. Here’s what I said about it then:
I wasn’t sure how I would feel about Ruth Ware’s latest book… but I think she’s found her niche in gothic novels because this was her best yet! Borrowing heavily from Daphne Du Maurier’s classic, Rebecca, this novel tells the story of Harriet “Hal” Westaway, a young woman whose mother passed away when she was eighteen and who has been trying to make her own way in life for the past three years by taking over her mother’s stall on the pier, reading tarot cards and telling fortunes. And she almost manages to stay ahead of the game, except that she’s gotten into debt with a loan shark who wants repayment NOW. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the money, so when she gets threatening letters and a visit from an enforcer, she doesn’t quite know where to turn. Then a letter arrives from a solicitor informing her that her grandmother, Mrs Hester Westaway, has passed away and she, Harriet, has been named in the will as a beneficiary to her estate. She is requested to come up to Trepassen House, the mansion where Mrs Westarway lived, for further instruction. Now Harriet knows her grandmother and grandfather passed away many years before, but fearing for her life has made the idea of pretending to be this woman’s granddaughter very appealing. If only she could wipe out her debt and start fresh, her life would be so different. So, scraping together her last few coins, she boards a train to Cornwall, where she manages to get to the funeral of this woman and to make it out to isolated Trepassen House to find out how she might benefit from this mistake. What she finds, however, is anything but clear, and as she becomes more deeply embroiled in the family dynamics that make up the Westaway family, she begins to uncover decades’ old family secrets, which lead her to fear for her life in an entirely different way. I don’t want to give anything away, but I’ll just say that I couldn’t put this book down. It ticked off all the boxes for gothic novels, gloomy, isolated setting, family secrets, ghostly presence, damsel in distress, family curse… you get the idea. But while borrowing heavily from other novels, especially Rebecca, this novel still managed to feel fresh and original, and while the “past” in this book is just in the 1990s, the tone of the writing gives the actions from this period the sepia-soaked atmosphere of some long-ago time, faintly remembered by the living and mostly inhabited by the deceased. It was suspenseful and complex and atmospheric, and the story, while farfetched, was not beyond the realm of possibility for this genre. I loved this book, and would highly recommend it to fans of gothic novels. (it was so interesting, I even went out and bought myself a deck of tarot cards - now I just have to learn to use them!)
I not only bought tarot cards, I bought a copy of the book! So I was thrilled when this one was chosen as our next book club book and could just pull it off my shelf. I still enjoyed it, and was able to follow the plot twists even better this time, as I kind of remembered the twisty ending, though not all the details. It was awesome, and I’m so curious to hear what others have to say about it.
And I finished listening to an audio edition of what I think is a Young Adult book, As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway, which was pretty good, considering I was expecting an adult novel. It is told from the point of view of an unnamed high school student who is bland and leads a boring life. He is singled out by mysterious, exotic new Goth girl Anastasia/Anna Cayne, who changes his life forever. Through postcards, shortwave radio broadcasts, and references to obscure music, films and writers, she brings our narrator to life by encouraging him to take an interest in the things in which she herself is interested. A week before Valentine’s Day, she goes missing, leaving only her dress and a hole in the ice, and the narrator, along with the reader, are given clues in the form of puzzles to help us find out where she has gone. It was well-narrated and interesting, although a bit over-the-top, but I enjoyed it. It really made me think about my own experiences as a teenager, and wonder if there was one individual who changed my life. I don’t know if I would necessarily recommend this book, but I found it interesting, so if you like to read books about teenagers finding themselves, teen obsessions, quirky characters, and missing persons, then this might be a good one for you to check out.
That’s all for today. Happy St Patrick’s Day! Hmmm… maybe my next book should be by an Irish author!
Bye for now…Julie
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