Crime – Page 6 – My Good Reads

‘The Naturals’ series – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Naturals – finished 5th November 2016

Seventeen year old Cassie has a special talent for reading people. She has never thought it a particular skill, until the FBI come calling with the revelation that they are setting up a group to help profile cold cases – a group of teenagers with very unique skills.

Cassie has never really got over the death of her mother, and she is convinced that involvement in this process will allow her to gather clues as to the identity of her mother’s killer. It soon becomes clear that nobody in this program is quite what they seem, and when we receive information about a new killer it seems that this one might be closer to Cassie than was previously thought.

Admittedly the idea is quite preposterous, but it was highly engaging and has appealed to teen readers – both boys and girls – in school.

Killer Instinct – finished 22nd November 2016

Having already been caught up in some rather uncomfortable events, the Naturals hope to be focusing on cold cases. The teenagers are left reeling after the events of the first book, and it’s hardly surprising that they are worried about Locke’s replacement.

Agent Veronica Sterling is Briggs’s ex-wife and the FBI Director’s daughter. She was also one of Daniel Redding’s intended victims, and has a close relationship with Dean. From the off, she’s an intriguing character and her presence brings a little more to the characters.

This story focuses on a killer who seems to be copying Redding’s MO. The intercutting of the killer’s thoughts is quite unsettling, but this was a cracker of a story.

There was, for my liking, just a little too much angst over Cassie’s dilemma regarding whether she fancies Dean or Michael more. It was a bit of a distraction, but I suppose it made her seem a little more human.

All In – finished 2nd December 2016

Cassie and the other Naturals are called to Las Vegas after three bodies are discovered on three consecutive days. Initially thought to be accidental deaths, with the different killing methods it soon becomes evident that this bears the marks of a serial killer.

I loved how we got to learn a little more about Sloane and her background, and the other Naturals are developed clearly. Cassie is also dealing with issues arising from her past, but the group worked so well together as they tried to get to the bottom of this.

In a development from the earlier books we are told that these killings are linked to many others, and that a shadowy cult may well have a bigger part to play in this than anyone realised.

The story was well-plotted and I really was gripped as we started to get more background to the events. I’m just desperate to find out what happens in ‘Bad Blood’.

Bad Blood – finished 24th December 2016

Cassie’s journey with the FBI Naturals program is drawing to a close and, in this finale, we watch as Cassie and her companions try to work out exactly what is going on. Everything Cassie thought she knew about her mother’s disappearance is being called into question. There’s an awful lot going on behind the scenes, and it’s all too apparent that the Naturals themselves are being hunted.

We are led down one or two garden paths here-quite literally. Following their discovery that the deadly killer Nightshade is linked to the group known as the Masters, Cassie becomes convinced that this case could well be linked to her mother’s disappearance.

There remains a fascinating insight into the procedure of profiling, and the psychology behind a killer. What I particularly liked in this novel was the growing understanding that we see Cassie coming to of herself and her situation.
While the story itself reached what could be deemed a satisfying conclusion in many ways, I was totally unprepared for the shocks we were given regarding one or two characters. These revelations cast into doubt a lot of what had come beforehand, and lent a somewhat more creepy air to the earlier novels in the series.

My main gripe with this was that certain characters, who I’d come to have more than a little soft spot for, were slightly more in the background than I’d have expected. I also can’t help but wonder whether Barnes will be tempted to add to this series as we watch characters such as Laurel develop.

All in all this series was a surprise hit for me – and one that I wish had been around when I was younger.

‘Quantum Drop’ – Saci Lloyd

Quantum Drop

The front cover for ‘Quantum Drop’ suggests an explosive read, but I have to confess that I didn’t have quite that experience as I was reading.

Anthony Griffin (the name we know our main character by) is determined to find out who was responsible for the murder of his girlfriend, Tais. This prompts him to take his life in his hands and trail the Bettas in an attempt to find out exactly what happened.

Lloyd creates a world that has blended the real and the digital seamlessly – now virtual reality has become commonplace, with people entering the Drop in order to carry out a range of tasks. Corruption is rife, but with gangs controlling who is able to access all manner of resources it is inevitable that some miss out.

Personally, I felt that in this novel we never got enough opportunity to know the characters in the detail needed to get me to care about what was happening to them. There was plenty of action, but I felt it came at the expense of detail that would have made certain events a lot clearer.

‘Darktown’ – Thomas Mullen

Darktown

Due for publication on 13th September 2016, I was excited to be approved by publishers Little, Brown Book Group via NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel.

Described as a “riveting and elegant police procedural” I was keen to see how Mullen would link the context of race relations in 1948 Atlanta with the demands of a crime story. While it took me a while to really get into the feel of the characters and how they were linked, as far as the action goes I was hooked from the opening pages.

When we first meet Boggs and his partner Smith we are efficiently shown just how helpless the first eight coloured police officers in Atlanta actually were. They are given no cars with which to patrol, they are not allowed to carry a gun, their contact cards have to be paid for from their own pockets and they are not actually allowed to arrest anyone without a white officer being present. Throughout the novel I admit to feeling an element of seething frustration on behalf of these characters who were treated so poorly solely because of the colour of their skin.

As we are shown Dunlow, a bigoted cop who has grown used to people doing things his way, lock horns with Boggs it is clear that things are not going to go smoothly. I could not believe some of the details we are given in the novel – but however upsetting they might have been to read, I think they were vital. This was a compelling read that I can’t wait to see people’s reaction to. The news that this novel is due to be adapted by Sony Pictures Television and Jamie Foxx is exciting stuff, and I can’t wait to see how such a gritty read translates to the screen.

‘All These Perfect Strangers’ – Aoife Clifford

All These Perfect Strangers

You don’t have to believe in ghosts for the dead to haunt you.

You don’t have to be a murderer to be guilty.

Within six months of Pen Sheppard starting university, three of her new friends are dead. Only Pen knows the reason why.

With a sell like that, it was always inevitable that I’d read this and I’m just grateful to NetGalley for sending me a digital copy in advance of publication in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

In this debut novel we meet Pen as she is heading to university to start a law degree. She is on a scholarship, and we know her background is quite different to that of many of her peers. University offers the perfect opportunity to start anew and reinvent yourself. This is important for Pen as we know she has a secret, one that she doesn’t want anyone to know. We don’t know what that secret is, but we’re told it involved murder.

Pen Sheppard is one of those narrators that you simply cannot trust. She manipulates the truth to suit whoever she is talking to, and there’s a definite sense that she is also lying to herself. Her voice is intimate, and draws us in before spitting us out at the moment it suits her to!

Clifford recreates the heady excitement of first year university life in detail, and we watch as Pen befriends a number of characters. Some become friends; others seem to fulfil a function in Pen’s story (though quite what this is doesn’t become clear until Pen chooses for it to).

Knowing from quite early on that Pen is recounting these events to her psychiatrist made me quite mistrusting of her. Learning that Pen has been questioned by the police as a 15 year old for her involvement in the shooting of a policeman, and that she got off though many in her hometown are still convinced of her guilt, means we are never entirely sure what truth we are being told.
This novel twists and turns, and I found myself gripped by the unfolding events.

As Pen’s friends are injured and killed I was second-guessing exactly what had happened. Just as I thought I’d made a link, Clifford had Pen drop in another detail that alters our interpretation of events yet again.

I loved the moment when Frank, her psychiatrist, talks of how convenient it is for Pen that she has ‘all these perfect strangers’ come into her life at just the right moment. The comment encapsulated Pen’s attitude to people, and her detachment.

This is a book that will stay with me, and I’m certain that on reading it again there will be details I’ll notice that will alter my response. Highly recommended.

‘Murder’ – Sarah Pinborough

Some time after the events of ‘Mayhem’ we return to London. Many of the characters we met in that novel return, and we can see the impact of those events on their lives.

Following the loss of her husband Juliana has become an over-protective mother to her young son James. She is a husk of her former self, but she remains friends with Dr Bond – unaware of the role he played in James’s death. The three men involved in that evening have kept quiet about their involvement, and Dr Bond even dares to hope that he might one day marry Juliana.

Initially, everything seems rather dull. Everyone is going about their business and nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens (which, in light of what was happening at the time, is no bad thing). Then the battered body of a woman is found in a train carriage and it gets Bond thinking about the events of previous years.

In this novel we are introduced to Edward Kane, an old friend of James, and he asks Bond to look into some letters that James sent. In these letters, James talks of the Upir and the awful things it made him do. Bond appeases Kane’s curiosity with plausible explanations for these comments – but the information included within the letters’ pages opens up new questions for Bond.

Suddenly we are plunged into a horrific tale- where Bond learns of the extent to which those closest to him were caught up in the impact of the Upir’s existence. Unable to let this go, Bond continues to seek answers to his questions – with devastating consequences.

This novel was more focused on the personal decline of Bond, and it had less interest in some ways. There were minor irritations because of poor editing, but the story was a fascinating example of horror.

‘Mayhem’ – Sarah Pinborough

After reading ’13 Minutes’ on a friend’s recommendation and enjoying it so much, I wanted to try other books by Pinborough. It’s at moments like this that I’m tremendously grateful for public libraries!

What has impressed me with Pinborough’s writing so far has been the versatility she demonstrates. Common to the novels I’ve read so far is great characterisation, and this is no exception.

It’s very unlikely that you won’t know something of Jack the Ripper and his awful crimes. This is, indeed, part of the focus of ‘Mayhem’, but it is so much more than that. At the same time as the police were being taunted by the infamous Ripper, there was another murderer on the loose. Dubbed the Thames Torso Murderer, his modus operandi was to butcher the victims’ bodies and leave parcels of dismembered limbs for the police to discover. However, the heads were never discovered.

While this lesser-known story would have been interesting in itself, Pinborough adds in a fascinating supernatural element.

Initially I found the shifting viewpoints a little hard to follow, but as it becomes clearer how the characters link this became less of an issue. The main character of Dr Thomas Bond was intriguing. Initially sceptical of the potential for something ‘other’, I found his story absorbing. Following him around the opium dens of London, and getting caught up with some rather unusual characters, it was never totally clear how much of what he described was real, and how much was the imaginings of a mind overweight with tiredness and increasingly addicted to opium. As events draw to their thrilling conclusion I found myself trying to read more slowly to draw the experience out a little longer.

I can’t wait to see how Pinborough carries this story on in ‘Murder’.

‘Dead Silent’ – Sharon Jones

The second in the series focusing on Poppy Sinclair, a teenage detective, but this worked for me as a stand-alone book.

Not having read the first in the series I don’t know if that offers us a little more background to Poppy and her situation – I imagine so. If that is the case, I imagine I would be more invested in what happens to her in this adventure.

Poppy thinks she’s heading off to Cambridge to see her father, and to support her boyfriend while he attends an interview. Stumbling across her father crouched over a dead body the morning after her arrival means her plans go somewhat awry. Poppy decides to investigate the murder – and the rapid succession of bodies that seem to follow hot on its heels – but has to deal with the possibility that her father might be involved.

There’s a lot of background information about Cambridge woven in, and our focus is on a rather stereotypical secret society and its members. The stock ‘privileged elite’ characters who are linked to the society are killed in increasingly gruesome ways, and it’s obvious that Poppy is in danger as the killer becomes more unhinged.

Throughout the reading of this I felt rather detached from the experience. I wasn’t encouraged to particularly feel anything for those that were murdered, and the climax seemed like an exaggerated dream scene. I’m sure there will be readers that will love this; I can see the good bits, but it left me rather unmoved.

’13 Minutes’ – Sarah Pinborough

Sarah Pinborough is a new author to me, and on the basis of my response to this I think I will have to try and get my hands on some of her other novels. Quickly!

’13 Minutes’ starts with an arresting image of a teenage girl being dragged, unconscious, from the water. Despite being technically dead for thirteen minutes, Natasha survives. We then cut immediately to a number of different perspectives which alert us to the fact that there is more to Natasha’s accident than we at first thought.

Natasha is reminiscent of Regina in ‘Mean Girls’ or Alison in ‘Pretty Little Liars’. She is the girl who tells her small circle of friends what is in and what is not. Everyone wants to be her. Yet she is not liked, and under the surface she is not quite what everyone thinks she is.

Once Natasha has been rescued we follow a fairly small circle of characters as the police, and Natasha’s ex-best-friend Becca, try to work out who is responsible for what happened to Natasha. Pinborough gives us a range of perspectives, and the undercurrent of menace is crackling from the start. We think we’ve got it, and then a new detail is revealed and we’re back to the drawing board.

I really did not want to put this down once I’d started. This is a tale set in a murky world of half-truths and deception, that sucks you in. Fairly late on there is a startling revelation which, for me, felt a little disappointing. It worked, but I felt there should have been more to it. There was! Swiftly following on from this was another development that took this book from the simply good to the absolutely amazing.

A masterful piece of storytelling.

‘All The Missing Girls’ – Megan Miranda

Touted as another ‘Girl On The Train’ thriller, don’t let the comparisons sway you. Yes, this is a thriller and there are crimes involved, but this is not simply another attempt to jump on a plot-twist bandwagon.

In this novel, Miranda focuses on telling us the story of two girls who disappear – a decade apart – but once we’ve been introduced to the key players, we have a daring structural device to contend with. At the point in time that the second girl disappears, the story is then told backwards…it sounds odd, and does make for a little confusion initially, but it was a fascinating idea to take us back through the investigation from the present to the point in time at which it started.

I can imagine that for crime/thriller aficionados this structural technique could be a turn-off. Initially, the story is a little slow. The characters aren’t particularly likeable and their relationships are not clearly delineated. There is a very real sense of people hiding things, but it becomes clear why they are doing this as we read on.

The action takes place in and around Cooley Ridge, a fairly claustrophobic setting complete with mysterious woods. Nic, one of our main protagonists, returns home to help her ailing father and to try and tie up loose ends. She has not been back for a while and her return brings back memories of the time of the original disappearance, that of her best friend Corinne. Those who were under suspicion at the time – Nic’s brother, Daniel, her boyfriend, Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend, Jackson – are all still living in the town. With the disappearance of Annaleise Carter, the groups’ original alibi, it becomes clear that they all have something to hide.

Nic is determined to find out what happened to Annaleise and her investigation ensures that we slowly unravel some hidden secrets and desires. Not all the details are relevant to the modern investigation, but trying to piece together the details of the original disappearance was a great puzzle. Who actually committed the crimes does not, actually, seem to be at the fore of the writer’s concerns. She seems more interested in unpicking the level of culpability that a number of characters have, and exploring how they come to terms with their involvement.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy of this novel. There’s a definite buzz about this and I can completely see why.

‘Blood Of My Blood (Jasper Dent Trilogy 3)’ – Barry Lyga

The final part of the trilogy picks up where book two left off. We get to see what happens to our trio…although, at times, we might wish we didn’t.

I’ve read some reviews that criticise Lyga for just giving us more of the same here. I would have to disagree with those comments. Yes, there are some unpleasant details – and elements of the activity go beyond sadistic – but there didn’t seem to be quite the level of detail given simply to shock us. Here, if we’re being given graphic detail, it makes sense. This book focuses far more on the psychological elements again and I found this very difficult to put down.

Some readers criticise Lyga for boring us with Jasper’s fears that he’ll become his father’s son. With the revelations we get in this book I’d be more concerned if Jasper weren’t questioning his upbringing, mental state and ability to make socially acceptable decisions!

There are some great moments in this novel. Howie and Connie get to play pivotal roles, and though they are less involved than in previous books, they’ve got Jasper’s back and provide a semblance of much-needed normality for him.

I do think that, in reality, a lot of what transpires during the hunt would never happen. However, Lyga creates truly creepy characters and this was a chilling read.

I might discourage younger readers from picking this series up, for reasons that become obvious as we work our way through this. Overall, though the subject matter is deeply unpleasant it is a fascinating story, well-handled and resolved in such a way that we can sleep at night (albeit with the light on).