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Posts Tagged ‘thriller’

‘The Sudden Appearance of Hope’ by Claire North

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Hope Arden is a woman who everyone forgets – quite literally. Someone can meet her, have a conversation with her, sleep with her even, and when she goes away they have no recollection of her, so every time she meets someone it is the first time for them. This makes it hard for her to make friends, forge relationships or hold down a job, but it’s very useful tool for an international jewel thief, which is what Hope becomes. She then becomes embroiled in a plot to steal an app called Perfection. The app awards points to people for improving themselves or their lives, such as having the right cosmetic treatments, going to the right gym enough, or buying the right food; it tracks your every movement – and quite frankly sounds awful, and perilously close to where we are in real life.

There are some interesting ideas about what it means to be perfect, and what it means to be memorable, and there is no doubt that some of the writing is very beautiful and clever. However, this book did not really work for me – I did not like the stream of consciousness style of narrative (although I have previously written other books written in a similar way and enjoyed them) and I did not like the constant flying off at tangents.

I did think that for someone who is forgettable, Hope was a very fully fleshed out character who the reader got to know and essentially root for, even if she was not always likeable. But none of the other main players were ever really more than cardboard cutouts. I stayed up late to finish this book, which usually means one of two things; either I am loving a book and can’t put it down, or I want to get to the end of it, precisely so that I CAN put it down. This was a case of the latter. It’s not badly written, far from it, and I liked the two main threads – Hope’s forgettability and the Perfection app. But it never really worked and I didn’t feel any sort of connect. I do have another book by Claire North, and I will give it a go at some point.

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‘Don’t Let Go’ by Michel Bussi

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on June 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This is the first novel I have ever read by French writer Michel Bussi, and it certainly drew me in quickly. It’s a thriller that definitely kept me guessing…

Martial and Liane Bellion are on holiday in the French island of Reunion when Liane goes missing after leaving the hotel pool to go up to their room. All evidence points to Martial having murdered her, and when he goes on the run, an island-wide manhunt is set up by the police in order to catch him. Beyond that it is difficult to say much without giving away spoilers, and this is a book that really deserves to be read spoiler-free.

On the whole I enjoyed it, as the writing was fast-paced and almost every chapter ended in a cliffhanger. The initial mystery was very intriguing and well put together. I also enjoyed reading about Reunion, a place which I admit I had never heard of prior to reading this, but I felt that the island almost became one of the characters in the story.

However, I did not feel that the main characters were particularly well fleshed out; I did like the police officer Christos and his girlfriend Imelda, but other than that the characterisation was thin. Not altogether a bad thing, as this is definitely a plot driven story, but I would have liked to have had someone to really root for.

Although I was absorbed in the story right until the end, I did feel that the ending itself was a bit of a let-down. This is probably because the story had started off and carried along at high-octane pace so the conclusion felt like an anti-climax; just my opinion and I suspect lots of readers will disagree with me.

One thing to note – some of the characters are told in third person and some are told from different characters’ points of view. This wasn’t a problem, and I generally enjoy multiple narrators but some readers may not like it.

Essentially this was a quick and enjoyable read, and I look forward to reading more by Michel Bussi.

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‘The Perfect Couple’ by Jackie Kabler

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When Gemma O’Connor comes home after a work trip away, she is surprised to find her husband Danny isn’t there and when he hasn’t come back after a couple of days, she reports his disappearance to the police. She grows even more fearful when it turns out that two men who bear a striking resemblance to Danny and to each other, have been murdered and she is terrified that Danny may be a victim of the same killer.

As the police investigation moves forward, Gemma learns that Danny has been lying to her about all sorts of things and she starts to wonder how well she really knew her husband. And then she finds herself the chief suspect for the killings that have been taking place…

The premise of this book was great, although a book called The Perfect Couple could only be about a couple who are anything but! Unfortunately it became too silly for words, with a stupid protagonist doing stupid things, with a ridiculously incompetent police force investigating. The denouement when all was explained seemed to drag on and on and was almost like a farce. There was a also a lot of repetition in the early part of the story which bogged it down.

So overall, interesting idea but not a success for me.

This was an audiobook narrated by Elaine Claxton and Hattie Ladbury. One narrated Gemma’s story in the first person and the other described the police investigation from a third person point of view. Both narrators did a good job.

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‘Come A Little Closer’ by Rachel Abbott

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on February 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This was an audiobook narrated by Lisa Coleman, and is the seventh book in the DCI Tom Douglas series. I have previously listened to another book which is later in the series than this one, and while there are personal aspects of Tom’s life included in the storyline, it is easy enough to follow as a standalone novel, or if you do the same as me and read/listen out of order.

Tom and his team are called in to investigate when a young woman is found dead at a frozen lonely scene. Who is she, and how did she get there? Did she commit suicide or was she murdered? None of these questions are easily answerable.

Meanwhile, a young woman named Callie is trapped in a miserable relationship with an abusive and parasitic boyfriend. When she decides to travel to Myanmar to honour a promise to her grandfather, she befriends an older couple who take her under her wing, and help her realise that she needs to end things with Ian. But when she tries to do so, things take a sinister turn.

And in a lonely kitchen, two women sit and eat their meals in almost complete silence, trapped as they are in a prison of their own making. What are their stories and how did they arrive at this low point?

Slowly all the threads of the stories come together…

I’ll start with the good parts of this audiobook, including the narration. Lisa Coleman did an excellent job, and managed to distinctly voice all of the characters.

I also really like the character of Tom and all of his colleagues. They are believable and likeable – and deserve a better storyline than the one they had here.

Unfortunately the twists and turns in this book were so well signposted that the characters – Callie mainly as large parts of the book are told from her point of view – just end up coming across as unutterably stupid and naive. Without giving anything away, I wanted to shake her for putting up with her awful boyfriend, and then for her subsequent actions, which I won’t reveal here. Many of the characters apart from the officers – and maybe this is because the police characters have had several books through which to develop their characters – were like cardboard cut outs, and never easy to invest in. And there was a huge dollop of coincidence, which never rang true. I did listen to the end, but found myself underwhelmed by the conclusion, which left some strands of storyline hanging.

Despite all of the above, I would consider listening to more in the series, because the investigators were great, and according to other reviewers who have read the whole series, this is a particularly weak book compared to others. So maybe at some point I will pay another visit to Tom Douglas and co.

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‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Having previously enjoyed Tartt’s ‘The Goldfinch’ and bearing in mind the myriad of excellent reviews for ‘The Secret History’, I was looking forward to reading this, and I’m pleased to say that it didn’t disappoint.

The book is narrated by Richard Papen, a young man who leaves his dead end town in California to become a Classic Greek student at Hampden College in Vermont. He quickly becomes drawn into the friendship group of the five other students in his class. However, on the very first page of the book, before the story proper even really begins, we learn that things have taken a very sinister turn and five of the group have murdered one of their own.

Richard tells the story of what happened and why, from an undetermined time in the future, and in doing so describes the intricacies of the group’s relationships, everybody’s character flaws, and how their actions affect them all differently. It’s a murder mystery of sorts, but instead of being a whodunnit, it’s a whydunnit.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, especially the first half. At that point I thought that although it is only the first book I have read this year, it’s certain to be one of the best. I still feel that way, because even though things did slow down somewhat in the second half, I was still fascinated by it and looked forward to coming back to it each evening.

I’m somewhat surprised that this hasn’t been adapted into a film, as I could easily see it translating to the screen – if it ever is, I shall be in line to watch it. Meanwhile, if you haven’t read this yet, I highly recommend it.

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‘Dead Lions’ by Mick Herron

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on October 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This is the second Jackson Lamb thriller, set in the world of MI5 and espionage. In truth, Lamb is just the head of an ensemble cast, each of whom has their own role to play in these novels.

Lamb’s team are affectionately nicknamed Slow Horses by the powers that be at MI5. Partly because it’s a play on the name of the building called Slough House where they work, and partly it’s because they are all considered subpar – for differing reasons – and are put into this team to quietly spend the remainder of their career carrying out mundane and unimportant tasks, being no trouble to anyone or anything.

However, Lamb is not as acquiescent as they would like, and cannot resist when he gets a sniff of a mystery. When he hears that a former colleague and spy, named Dickie Bow (really!) has died, he thinks there is more to it and this sets him and his team on a trail leading back to the Cold War.

I’m not sure what it is about these novels that I enjoy so much. I generally do not like spy novels because they almost always seem to have unnecessarily convoluted plots and it’s not a genre that interests me. However, Mick Herron’s writing is such a pleasure to read, and his characters are all so real and believable, that I thoroughly enjoyed this book as well as it’s predecessor Slow Horses, which is the first in the series.

It is a fairly complicated story with lots of strands, but they are all explained well without patronising the reader. The characters, including the overweight, chain smoking, heavy drinking, farting belching and insulting Jackson Lamb are a pleasure to spend time with, and there are a few big surprises along the way.

Although you don’t need to have read Slow Horses to understand and enjoy this book, I would recommend it as it gives background to some of the characters on the team. As for myself, I look forward to reading the next ones in the series.

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‘I See You’ by Clare Mackintosh

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on October 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

After reading Clare Mackintosh’s debut novel, ‘I Let You Go’, I was really looking forward to the this follow up. I had enjoyed the first book, thought it was well written with a super twist that, unusually, came halfway through. Unfortunately, I See You was nowhere near the calibre of it’s predecessor, and ultimately I was disappointed.

The story is narrated by mother of two Zoe Walker, another unknown narrator, and in the third person from the point of view of police officer Kelly Swift.

Zoe is horrified when she spots her own photo in an advert in the classified section of a free newspaper – there’s nothing there other than her picture, a phone number and a website address, but when she goes to the website she cannot gain entry. The next day the advert has a photo of a different woman, and she soon realises that there is a different woman shown each day. When she realises that crimes are being committed against some of the women in the pictures, Zoe starts to worry about her own safety. Who is printing these adverts and what kind of danger is she in?

Meanwhile PC Kelly Swift, still recovering from disciplinary action taken against her a few years before, becomes involved in the investigation into the advertisements and subsequent attacks on the women featured. It’s a race against time to discover who is behind the pictures and stop the crimes before more women are hurt.

Okay – so here’s the good part: the writing is well paced, and the characters are fairly well drawn (at least Zoe, her daughter Katie, and PC Swift are all easy to relate to). The idea behind the mystery is an intriguing one, and so far so good.

However…the final reveal, which I won’t give away here, almost made me throw the book against the wall in disgust. I can suspend my disbelief to an extent but this was ridiculous. Also, and I don’t think this is too spoilery, Zoe was not able to access the website because a password was required and she couldn’t figure it out. Fair enough – by her own admission, she was not particularly computer savvy. However, when the police are investigating and also cannot work out how to get in for some time, it didn’t make sense that the people who the advert was aimed at were miraculously able to figure out the password.

Anyway, it’s a quick read and undemanding if you don’t think too deeply about it. After the brilliance of I Let You Go, though, I can’t help feeling that this may have been rushed in order to capitalise on the success of that book. I’ve read worse for sure, but I’ve also read a LOT better.

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‘The October List’ by Jeffery Deaver

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on August 31, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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This audiobook, narrated by Todd Boyce, follows an unusual format, in that it starts at the end of the story and then goes backwards in time, with each chapter being set earlier than the previous one. It’s an interesting idea, and I’m not sure that it completely worked. The ending (or the beginning, as it were) was very satisfying and provided lots of ‘aha!’ and ‘wow!’ moments, but for the first few chapters (or indeed the last few!) it was confusing and somewhat frustrating. Jeffery Deaver has written some excellent books, and I don’t think this is one of them. It was good in the end, but I was tempted to give up on it after listening for the first hour or so.

Anyhow, the story revolves around a woman named Gabriella MacKenzie, sitting in a room with a man who is obviously there to look after her, while she anxiously awaits to hear if her kidnapped daughter Sarah has been rescued. Sarah was taken by a mysterious man named Joseph, who demands a huge sum of money and a mysterious document called The October List, which Gabriella’s boss has ownership of, and which contains details of people he had been dealing with in criminal financial activity. The boss has disappeared with the list and with Joseph’s – and several other people’s money – and Joseph wants it back. The story covers Gabriella and her new boyfriend Daniel’s attempts to retrieve the mysterious list and get it to Joseph before her daughter comes to any harm.

The narration was fine and the story was clever, but as mentioned above I’m not sure I would read something else written in this format. Normally when people are introduced into a story, there is some background or information provided about them which gives the reader an idea of the role they are going to play. Not so here however; characters are introduced with no explanation of how they fit into this story. It’s kind of like piecing together a jigsaw without ever having seen the picture you’re trying to make.

So a bit of a mixed bag. If you manage to get halfway through then it’s definitely worth sticking with it, but be prepared to be a bit lost at first.

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‘Career of Evil’ by Robert Galbraith

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on May 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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This is the third book in the Cormoran Strike series, and they just keep getting better and better!

This one dives straight into the story when Strike’s partner Robin has a severed girl’s leg delivered to the office. Strike immediately and correctly deduces that whoever sent it is trying to send him a message and four suspects come to mind. While the police believe they know which one it is and concentrate all their efforts on that person, Strike is convinced it is one of the other three, and he and Robin focus their investigation on those. Meanwhile, the killer – whose identity is not revealed until the end, but who does narrate certain chapters of the book – is committing other horrendous crimes in London, attacking and mutilating women, leaving a trail of bloodshed in his wake.

As Strike and Robin get drawn further into their investigation, they soon find themselves heading towards real danger.

Considering these books were written by the same mind that created the Harry Potter series, Robert Galbraith aka J K Rowling, takes the reader to some very dark places. This has been a theme in all of the Strike novels, especially this one and the preceding book ‘Silkworm’. If very gory scenes are not your thing, then be warned that this might not be a book for you. However, she writes a great story, and is very capable of springing surprises on the reader and maintaining tension throughout. The relationship between Strike and Robin kicks up a notch in this book, despite remaining platonic, and Robin is still with the odious Matthew.

Strike himself has always been a fascinating character despite his somewhat questionable social skills, and Robin has always been immensely likeable – this is maintained in this third instalment of their work. I’m reluctant to reveal more about the plot for fear of revealing any spoilers, but if you like thrillers, and/or have enjoyed the previous Strike novels, I would definitely recommend this one.

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The Two Faces of January (2014)

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on January 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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I recorded this film months and months ago, because something about it intrigued me. I’m not sure what and it took ages for me to get around to watching it – somehow whenever I was trying to pick a film I fancied, I passed this one by. But finally I settled down to watch it, and wow! It FAR exceeded my expectations (and if you will allow me to be shallow for a moment, it also awakened me to the fact that Viggo Mortensen is a beautiful man!)

The story revolves around Chester McFarland and his wife Colette (Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst), who are holidaying in Athens. They meet up with Rydal (Oscar Isaac), an American tour guide, and hire him to show them around. Rydal is something of a con artist, but as the audience quickly learns, so is Chester. This fact catches up with Chester when some disgruntled victims of his hire a private detective to track him down and Chester accidentally kills him. Rydal stumbles upon Chester trying to hide the body (don’t worry, this all happens very early on, so there are no spoilers here) and not realising the other man is actually dead, helps Chester.

The two men are then inextricably bound to one another – both has the means to get the other into trouble, and also the motive – Rydal is clearly attracted to Colette, and the feeling seems mutual.

An uneasy alliance forms as the three of them are forced to stay together – I won’t say more as there are lots of twists and turns and the storyline deserves not to be spoiled for first time viewers.

I really liked this film – it’s basically an old fashioned thriller, done extremely well, with great actors. The main three are all excellent, with Mortensen and Isaac competing for who steals each scene (Dunst is also fantastic, but I think she was given less to work with). Fans of Alfred Hitchcock will like this; I feel sure that if Hitchcock were making movies today, this is the kind of thing he would come up with. It also looks stunning, the locations and the lighting were beautiful, and the music was reminiscent of thrillers from the 50s and 60s.

I was entirely unsurprised to discover after I had finished the film that it is based on a  book by Patricia Highsmith. It is undershot with just the right amount of tension, and you are never quite sure who if anyone will come out on top.

I highly recommend this film, and will also add the book to my reading list.

 

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