N S Ford

Tag: crime fiction

  • Review of ‘Future Crimes: Mysteries and Detection Through Time and Space’ edited by Mike Ashley

    Do you like classic crime fiction? Do you like classic sci-fi? Then this book might be your cup of tea, as the stories are a merger of the two genres. This is the 3rd of the British Library Science Fiction Classics I’ve read and again I found this collection to be a mixed bag. Only the story by P D James really wowed me. The rest of them were clever and sometimes enjoyable but I’d never want to re-read.

    I liked the general introduction and the mini introduction to each story, which were spoiler-free and quite interesting. Some of the stories are by authors best known for crime fiction, others are known for science fiction. As always the authors are a selection of the famous and the obscure. I hadn’t previously read any of the 10 stories.

    ‘Elsewhen’ by Anthony Boucher – the impossibility of solving a murder where the suspect uses a time machine to provide his own alibi.

    ‘Puzzle for Spacemen’ by John Brunner is a very detailed murder investigation set in space but which didn’t grip me.

    ‘Legwork’ by Eric Frank Russell – a long story of a bank robbery by an alien, which became less interesting a few pages in.

    ‘Mirror Image’ by Isaac Asimov considers whether robots can lie to protect their masters, a typical Asimov robot story.

    ‘The Flying Eye’ by Jacques Futrelle is a humorous story about a giant eye which appears in the sky.

    ‘Nonentity’ by E C Tubb – a grim and clever murder mystery about survivors stranded in space.

    ‘Death of a Telepath’ by George Chailey examines how it’s possible for a telepath to be murdered, as they can read the murderer’s thoughts.

    ‘Murder, 1986’ by P D James is a brilliantly crafted story set in a frightening dystopia 16 years in the future.

    ‘Apple’ by Anne McCaffrey – in a society of people with psychic talents, police are chasing a woman who uses telekinetic powers to commit crime.

    ‘The Absolutely Perfect Murder’ by Miriam Allen deFord is an amusing warning against using time travel to attempt to remove your spouse from existence.

    Published in 2021.

  • Review of ‘The Heights’ by Louise Candlish

    A complex and emotional drama which I had mixed feelings about. I wasn’t planning to read any more of Louise Candlish’s books after being disappointed with Our House but I’ve been seeing The Heights everywhere so I decided to give her another chance.

    The story is about a well-heeled middle-class London family who are devastated by the loss of their son. The protagonist, Ellen, is convinced that it wasn’t an accident and directs her anger towards the other boy involved, who is from a disadvantaged background. She’s prepared to commit a crime to see justice done.

    One interesting point in this book is the perspective. Ellen is writing a book about what happened and occasionally appealing to the reader, trying to justify her actions and getting us on her side. The chapters are interspersed with journalism extracts from an article written about her.

    I was intrigued by the premise and quickly got through the book until the halfway point… when I found the pace dragging and there was too much detail about the characters’ careers. I wouldn’t call this book a thriller. There was nothing thrilling about it. There were few twists. I became bored with it and puzzled about the hype. Certainly it’s a sophisticated book, well-structured and with attention to detail. As a study of what grief will lead people to do, it’s commendable. I just felt that it didn’t match the ‘nail-biting’ ‘edge-of-your-seat thriller’ marketing.

    Why do the middle-aged characters all use the word ‘gen’ (as in ‘generation’)? I’ve never heard anyone say that without appending a Z or other letter to it. Another odd thing is the use of American educational terms such as freshman and kindergarten. I wouldn’t expect to find those in a book set in Britain.

    Published in 2021.

  • Review of ‘A Line to Kill’ by Anthony Horowitz

    Although I enjoyed The Word is Murder, I wasn’t really into The Sentence is Death. I doubted that I’d read the 3rd book in this series but I was intrigued by the setting of Alderney, so I decided to give it a go anyway. It doesn’t work as a standalone book, so you need to have read the previous ones.

    The premise is that the author (a fictionalised Anthony Horowitz) and mysterious rogue detective Hawthorne are invited to a literature festival on Alderney in the Channel Islands. They find themselves caught up in a murder case and there are quite a lot of suspects. It’s cleverly plotted, with some rather implausible details. The best elements are the setting, the pace, the twists and the blending of real life with fiction. The ending leaves the possibility for another sequel, which I may read, just to find out the truth about Hawthorne. I’m not usually a fan of detective fiction but I make an exception for Horowitz. It’s not one of his best, in my opinion, but there’s nothing I really disliked about it. Just not my genre and perhaps the concept of him being a character in his own story is getting a little stale for me.

    Thank you to the publisher Century for the advance copy via NetGalley. The book will be published in a few days’ time.

  • Review of ‘The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu’ by Tom Vater

    A drug-fuelled adventure, this thriller set on the hippie trail to Kathmandu is set in 1976 and 2000. While there were some aspects of the book that I liked, I became impatient with the story two-thirds through and didn’t care enough about how it would be resolved.

    The story follows Dan and his hippie friends as they travel by bus for a drug deal which will make them a lot of money. It doesn’t go according to plan. Years later, Dan and his son Robbie re-visit Kathmandu to meet up with some old friends, or possibly enemies, and recover the money. I have trouble summarising the story because I feel that there wasn’t a lot of it. Evocative and detailed descriptions, however, are a main feature of the book and are very impressive. You definitely feel you are there.

    I had some issues with the book. There were several pages I had to skip because they described the tattooing process and I can’t deal with that. The male gaze was very evident as every female character was described in terms of how beautiful or skinny she was. Moreover, I had little sense of the personalities of Dan and Robbie, other than that they appreciate recreational drugs and travelling in Asia. If those are your interests too, the book should be on your TBR. I did find it quite readable and pacy, until I lost interest in the plot.

    First published in 2006. Now available as an ebook. Thank you to the author Tom Vater and Henry Roi PR for the review copy.

  • Review of ‘The Sentence is Death’ by Anthony Horowitz

    This is the second book to feature Anthony Horowitz himself as the narrator, drawn into a murder investigation by the mysterious ex-police detective Hawthorne. As in the previous book, The Word is Murder, the brilliance of the concept is that real lives and locations are blended with fictional situations (or at least, I assume they’re fictional).

    I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as the first one. I think it’s probably because the novelty of the concept wasn’t fresh this time around and also I’m not usually a fan of this genre. I’m sure it’s just as well-written though and it did keep me guessing. There were some hilarious digs at the publishing industry. Hawthorne is proving to be a very interesting character and he attempts to conceal his own past from Horowitz, who is intrigued as of course he is writing a book about the case.

    I would recommend reading The Word is Murder before this one, but it’s not essential. I can’t think of anything else to say about this book, as it’s the same kind of thing as before. I’m likely to read the next one, but probably wouldn’t go beyond that, if there are any more planned for the series.

    First published in 2018.

  • Review of ‘Final Girls’ by Riley Sager

    This is a good example of a crime thriller which keeps you guessing. Although I wasn’t as gripped by it as Lock Every Door (which is the first book I read by this author), I was impressed by the details in the plot. Every sentence reads like a clue which may or may not be significant later. However, I wouldn’t say it’s ‘unputdownable’, as it took me three days to finish.

    The story is focused on Quincy Carpenter, popularised by the media as one of three ‘Final Girls’; young women who are the sole survivors of murder sprees. Quincy remembers little about the night that her friends at Pine Cottage were killed and does her best to move on with her life. Her carefully arranged, Xanax-dependent New York existence is turned upside down when one of the Final Girls is found dead and the other one turns up on Quincy’s doorstep.

    I liked the distinctive, flawed characters, the settings and the snappy dialogue. It’s quite a paranoid kind of narrative, as no one can be trusted. I prefer my thrillers a little less bloody, though.

    First published in 2017.

     

  • Review of ‘In a Dark, Dark Wood’ by Ruth Ware

    My expectations of this book were too high. I hadn’t read any of Ruth Ware’s other books but I know a lot of readers enjoy them. In a Dark, Dark Wood was praised as ‘gripping’, ‘chilling’ and a ‘page-turner’ but that wasn’t the case for me.

    The story revolves around a group of mismatched friends who are invited to a hen party in a remote house in a wood. The protagonist, Nora, hasn’t seen the bride, Clare, for ten years. Yet she still goes to what the reader already knows will be no ordinary gathering. This story is interspersed with scenes of Nora in hospital, where she knows that someone is dead but is struggling to remember what happened. Although the concept sounds promising, I found everything else to be disappointing. I put the book down when I was halfway through and didn’t pick it up for a day. The writing style didn’t persuade me to keep turning those pages. I would categorise the book as a crime novel but not a thriller.

    I didn’t like any of the characters. The ‘dark, dark wood’ should have been a creepy setting but it wasn’t really exploited as such. There weren’t any decent twists. The best I can say for the book is that the dialogue is realistic and a lot of the details seem well-researched and authentic.

    Should I give Ruth Ware a second chance? Which of her books would you recommend?

    First published in 2015.

     

  • Review of ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite

    This was a fun read, in a twisted way. I enjoyed the writing style, the pace, the settings and the characterisation. It’s also fairly short for a novel, which ensures you can whizz through it in one day.

    The story is narrated by Korede, a hospital nurse from a middle class family in Lagos, Nigeria. She’s a precise, efficient type. This comes in handy whenever her younger sister, Ayoola, murders someone. Blood is thicker than water, as people say. Korede helps her sister to clean up, dispose of the bodies and lie to the police. This isn’t a spoiler, it’s clear from the start that this is the premise of the book – and an unusual one, I think. You already know who the serial killer is. What you’re keen to find out is, what will be the result of Korede covering up for Ayoola? There is obviously tension between them. The elder sister is always under pressure to look after the younger one. The character of Ayoola is one of those attention-seekers who feel a sense of entitlement for being young and beautiful. She attracts (and murders) one boyfriend after another. Meanwhile, Korede is unattractive and stern. There is only one man she desires, but unfortunately her sister is going to steal him. Will that change Korede’s attitude towards her sister?

    Interweaved with this story are flashbacks to the girls’ childhoods, where their dominating and abusive father held absolute power in the household. There are clues as to why Ayoola acts the way she does. Their warm-hearted but ineffectual mother blames the elder sister when the younger one does anything wrong. My only criticism of this book is that the ‘house girl’, the family’s servant, should have had a better role in the story. She’s mentioned quite often and I thought she’d become involved in the plot, but she really is just a servant without a name.

    A brilliant debut novel and I look forward to reading more from Oyinkan Braithwaite in the future.

    First published in 2018. Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019.

  • Review of ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton

    Reading this over-hyped 500+ page book was like being trapped in a lengthy game of Cluedo where everyone gets drugged and beaten up.

    I’d been looking forward to this winner of the Costa First Novel Award and many reviewers’ top book of 2018. However, I found it disappointing and an effort to finish. The concept itself is interesting. A country house murder mystery where the same day is replayed over and over, with our protagonist inhabiting the bodies of different characters in order to solve a murder. Only then will he be freed. I liked how the author explored what it’s like to see the world from other people’s perspectives and also the beginning of the story was intriguing. Unfortunately I had some issues with the book.

    The author’s writing style was my main problem. Over-descriptive. Clichés all over the place. Repetition. Clunky sentences. Characters were always hissing, growling or narrowing their eyes. It made me hiss, growl and narrow my eyes in frustration.

    For such a drama-filled story the pace seemed to be slow. And how convenient that most of the info-dumping takes place when the protagonist just happens to be a policeman with the authority and the right kind of brain to work everything out. I didn’t care about any of the characters either. There were so many of them, two-dimensional and dull.

    No doubt the plot is clever but if I gave ratings this would be a two-star review.

  • Review of ‘Let Me Lie’ by Clare Mackintosh

    Clare Mackintosh’s third novel has everything you’d expect from her: pace, twists, skilful plotting and good characterisation. However, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d anticipated. Maybe I’ve read too many thrillers lately, but I found this one to be quite predictable. I guessed the main revelation early on in the novel and I was hoping to be proved wrong.

    The story follows Anna, a twenty-something who lost her parents to suicide. She’s also recently had an unplanned baby with her fairly new partner, Mark – her counsellor after her parents died. Hints appear that her parents did not willingly end their own lives. Anna convinces a retired police detective, Murray Mackenzie, to look into the case again. Murray’s wife Sarah, who is in poor mental health and is regularly in hospital, helps him to investigate.

    I liked the author’s handling of some serious topics: grief, suicide, mental health, family bonds, lies. I also appreciated the details of police procedure, although I did find the repetition of information a little dull, as different characters discuss things we already know about. The sense of place was excellent and I could see everything so clearly, with the level of description being just right. I did find the novel to be slightly too long, but bear in mind that I say this about most novels.

    In summary, I think Let Me Lie is a well-written page turner but it’s no match for I See You.

    Many thanks to the publisher Little, Brown Group for the review copy via NetGalley.