Category: Mystery

‘How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House’ – Cherie Jones

In this debut we learn that life in a tropical paradise is definitely not quite the picture-perfect idyll tourists might imagine.

The story focuses on a selection of characters living in a tourist resort in Barbados. Each character is very different, but is united in some way. Some of the stories are brutal, most are deeply upsetting but I loved the determination of each character to make the most of what life was giving them.

I found it a little disorientating initially, switching from character to character. But as we learned of their backstories and saw how they were interwoven over time it was an absorbing read.

The conflict between tourist and local, their interdependency and the bonds established over time were presented honestly. While the separate strands of the stories were bleak, there was a sense of optimism in some aspects that I found offset the potential negativity.

 

‘Lies Like Wildfire’ – Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

Lies Like Wildfire was an interesting concept, and I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication (due September 2021).

The story focuses, initially, on a horrendous wildfire that is started by the reckless behaviour of sheriff’s daughter, Hannah, and her close group of friends. Not being familiar with such an experience, I was surprised by the punishments meted out to anyone causing a fire though given how potentially damaging it is this makes sense. Given such a penalty hanging over them, perhaps it’s more understandable why they do all they can to cover up their involvement.

The ‘monsters’ as her group of friends are affectionately known (after their involvement in a childhood play) are not going to come out of this experience unscathed. Part one of the book focuses on the fire and its immediate aftermath. The police – including Hannah’s father – are drawing closer so it’s understandable that it appears someone is going to crack. However, part two focuses on the disappearance and subsequent search for Violet.

We know these kids are prepared to lie to protect one another. Their relationships are founded on bonds formed years earlier, but they have secrets and are not all keen on protecting themselves. The question becomes who is more desperate to preserve the status quo?

The initial fire story really hooked me. However, it quickly blew up into a more melodramatic story. Hannah – for no obvious reason – got herself into a weird situation with a man who should have known better. Her father was clearly prepared to uphold the law, whatever the personal cost, but we never really saw beyond the surface so don’t know what he suspected. The group were fractured from the off, and their selfishness irritated me. These elements made it hard to sustain the engagement of the beginning, and the open-ended moral ambiguity was frustrating.

‘The Girls I’ve Been’ – Tess Sharpe

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this before publication in exchange for my thoughts. The Girls I’ve Been is a hard-hitting story exploring some awful crimes…but from the perspective of a young girl you can’t help but support (even though she’s had to do some awful things).

Nora O’Malley is waiting in line in her local bank to deposit some fund-raising money. She’s with her ex, Wes, and her girlfriend, Iris. Things are normal for them…until they are almost at the front of the line and the man in front of them pulls a gun. They find themselves caught up in a robbery – which would be a dramatic story of its own – but it becomes the perfect catalyst for us to learn the truth about Nora. She is not what her friends think.

During the course of the dramatic few hours they are held captive in the bank, Nora’s insight into the minds of the men holding them hostage reveals she’s got a lot more in common with them than you might think. Nora has been raised by her mother to con people…to read them carefully, to find the perfect mark, to exploit their weakness and then move on.

As their drama in the bank unfolds, we learn the truth about Nora. She has been many girls – each with a particular characteristic – in order to help her mother get the end result. But what we soon learn is that Nora is hiding a bigger secret…the last ‘mark’ was a seriously dangerous man, her mother fell in love with him and Nora did what she had to in order to escape.

There’s so much going on here, but it never felt messy as I was reading. The background to the characters was fascinating, and I really liked the dynamics between the main three characters. I can’t help but feel there’s more we could have been told, and the way the story ends really could be the start of a whole new story. Great fun!

 

‘The Box in the Woods’ – Maureen Johnson

The Box in the Woods sees us back with Stevie and her friends, with Stevie doing what she does best.

In this fourth instalment we see Stevie away from Ellingham Academy and heading to a remote summer camp, home to a series of brutal murders in 1978. Of course, we are watching Stevie as she solves this cold case, but we also get to see a little more of what happened on the night in question.

The town of Barlow Corners is a small town, where everyone knows everyone else and nobody’s business is safe from prying eyes. Barlow Corners is a town where people have their secrets and will do whatever is needed to maintain their security. So, it’s clearly going to be a place that Stevie finds fascinating due to it being the site of such a well-known horror story.

The details of the original crime are pretty grim. A group of four teens are murdered when they sneak out of camp one night. Everyone has an opinion of what might have taken place, but the crimes have never been solved. The story of the four teens found murdered and posed in the woods is certainly of its time, but it was interesting to see how modern readers react to the tale and how they attempt to maintain the facade.

 

‘As Good as Dead’ – Holly Jackson

When I finished Book Two in the series I was struck by the shift into darkness – perhaps inevitable for a true crime focus – but nothing prepared me for the developments we see in As Good as Dead. In this stunning finale to the trilogy (and, boy, does that pain me to write) Pip is thrust into a position it’s hard to imagine…and nobody could come out of that unscathed.

When the book opens, Pip is preparing for her new life at Cambridge. Superficially, her life is good, but the signs are there that events have taken their toll. Pip is far from alright. She’s not sleeping, her nerves are shredded and she seems to be developing a sense of paranoia when she is convinced that the little chalk figures appearing on her driveway, the online death threats and the nuisance phone calls she is receiving are connected. In spite of promises to her parents, Pip needs something to take her mind off things…so she turns to what she knows best. Murders.

 

Pip starts looking into the stalking incidents that the police refuse to take seriously. They share an alarming link with the profile attributed to the DT killer, a recent case where five young women were found murdered. But the DT killer has been behind bars for six years. He confessed, so it can’t be him.

If someone were in this situation they might be reassured, but not Pip. She is unsettled by the links and digs deeper. What if the confession was, as the killer’s mother is convinced, given under duress? Could the real DT killer still be at large? Could Pip be the killer’s intended sixth victim?

This is the point that I give no more details, as the enjoyment of this story really does come from following Pip on her journey and being given access to her thought process as the events she has started to investigate take an incredibly personal – and increasingly sinister – turn. I was – on more than one occasion – stunned by what I was reading. It is haunting, and made me review my thoughts on certain characters and even the events covered in the previous books in the series. When this is published in August I cannot wait to see the reactions…

Holly Jackson, I never imagined you’d go there…what a character you have made us come to love (which makes the events of this book even more difficult to process) and I am so grateful to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this prior to publication.

 

‘That Weekend’ – Kara Thomas

That Weekend hooked me from the outset…Claire wakes up, bloodied, in a wood, with no recollection of recent days. She is rescued, taken to hospital and we immediately wonder what happened. It’s clear she has suffered, but the fragments of memory she has of the night suggest there is more to this. Of course there is!

Claire was with her best friends, Kat and Jesse. They are nowhere to be found, and soon things head into what feels like a fairly typical mystery. The FBI are called to search…wealthy family are desperate for news, and the media whip up a frenzy to suggest Claire knows more than she lets on.

Before long we are getting flashbacks so we learn a little more of the dynamic between these three, and what might have happened. The book is split into clearly defined sections and – at least initially – we are led into fraught scenarios, desperate to piece things together.

I found it quite frustrating to be in the position of not knowing more than Claire, waiting to learn what had happened.

There were so many possibilities, and I think I was convinced of the guilt of at least three characters. The truth was more complex than I imagined, and though this was interesting it did feel somewhat skimmed over in order to move the story on. However, it was a great story with characters who were easy to empathise with, even if they weren’t particularly likeable..

 

‘None Shall Sleep’ – Ellie Marney

None Shall Sleep was an unexpected read, and one that I am amazed I’ve not heard more about. It’s dark, rather terrifying in its entirety but utterly compelling.

Emma Lewis and Travis Bell are teens recruited into a new FBI program. This has been done before, but the characters of Emma and Travis were quite different. Emma is the one that got away…the ‘final bride’ of a serial killer. Travis is the son of a US Marshall who was killed in the line of duty, by a teenage serial killer. They are both – naturally – affected by their experiences but determined to play their part in protecting others.

Under the care of Agent Cooper they are tasked with interviewing teenage serial killers who have not complied with previous FBI profiling attempts. This leads them to Simon Gutmunsson, the Artist, and the young man who took the life of Travis’s father. Beguiling, but one to watch, Simon is intrigued by Emma and what she has endured. He drops hints about the profile and behaviour of the killer who has come to be known as the Butcher…and, very quickly, it becomes clear that Emma and Travis are getting results.

Ominously, they are drawn into a dark and tangled web. People are killed. They are in danger, and yet they are doggedly determined to do what they believe to be right – even it means working closely with someone they feel unable to trust.
There’s a deeply unpleasant level of detail in the crimes featured. We know we’re dealing with some incredibly dangerous people…but there’s something mesmerising about their behaviour too.

This will not be for everyone. Some scenes played straight out of the Lecter/Starling moments in The Silence of the Lambs but it always felt as if we were getting something a little different. I loved the presentation of our key characters and our closing scenes were deeply affecting. While I’m unsettled by how much I enjoyed this, I am genuinely keen to see what others make of it.

 

‘When You Are Mine’ – Michael Robotham

Intense, full of twists, and definitely a book I found hard to put down. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.
Philomena McCarthy comes from a background that she is keen to escape. Her father, Eddie, was a criminal who was well-known for his exploits before turning ‘good’ and she recalls visiting her uncles in prison. While she has fond memories of him, Phil has turned her back on her family in order to train and serve as a police officer. This struck me as unlikely, but she has an exemplary record and things are looking good for her.
Until the day she is called to investigate a disturbance. She finds a young woman, beaten and bleeding. She arrests the man believed to be responsible…only he is a decorated police officer. From that moment on, Phil cannot let it lie. She pursues Goodall, convinced he is a serial abuser, even though it puts her at risk.
You really could not predict how bad things get. Suspended from work, at risk from the stifling presence of the woman she rescued, Phil ends up in a very dangerous situation. Though she resisted it, determined to uphold the law, she finds herself making use of her family connections to try and rescue herself from the depths.
From start to finish I was struck by the recklessness of this young woman. She does things for the right reasons, and you want her to succeed, but she is the proverbial bull in a China shop. Caught in a situation not entirely of her own making this has explosive consequences for her.

‘True Crime Story’ by Joseph Knox

 

True Crime Story is a relatively familiar story – about the disappearance of a young female student at Manchester University – but its execution was clever, and certainly had me convinced its origins were in truth.

The book begins with a rather strange note from the publishers to Joseph Knox, the author, indicating that this book is problematic. Of course you want to know why.

We then hear about Evelyn Mitchell, the actual writer, and how she meets Knox. Both are trying to think of a great idea for their difficult next book and Evelyn thinks she’s hit upon a gem of a story…the disappearance of Zoe Nolan.

Last seen on the night of a party at Owens Park, Zoe went missing and has not been seen since. Police say her case remains open but they have no clue what happened to her. Family and friends of Zoe were interviewed at the time but to no avail.

After some years Evelyn decided this case is worth re-examining. Her interviews have, she insists, thrown up new information and suggest some aspects of the police investigation were not as thorough as they might have been.

From the outset I found myself invested in this. Having studied in Manchester it was a bit of a trip down memory lane to be reading about places that were so familiar…but what really endeared this book to me was its sense of self-awareness.

Knox inserts himself wholeheartedly into the story and this offered us something a little different in what was a story that, at its heart, moved forward little.

From start to finish we are offered insight into the Nolan family and the dynamics between the new group of friends starting their lives at Manchester University. Some of the characters are quite unlikeable. All of them have things they’d rather stay hidden, and I was constantly looking for clues as to what the missing pieces of the story might be.

I genuinely did not want to stop reading this once I’d started. There are twists and turns, and not all the scenarios are (if we’re being honest) wholly credible, but with the villains of the piece hiding in plain sight it was a lesson in keeping your eyes open and not trusting everything you’re told.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication.

‘The Ivies’ – Alexa Donne

Getting accepted into one of the Ivy League colleges is hard work, and this book exposes just how brutal the system is.

Olivia has a place at Claflin Academy on a scholarship. For reasons she’s not sure of she has been befriended by a group known as the Ivies…girls from wealthy backgrounds who will do whatever is needed to get into the college of their choice, and not worry about who they trample in the process.

When Olivia gets early acceptance into Harvard she should be screaming it from the rooftops. However, in the world she’s part of the Harvard spot was meant for Avery…and when she’s rejected it sets in place a truly scary sequence of events.

We have the death of a student, and Olivia is convinced one of her friends could be behind it. We follow her attempts to investigate what happened…and though it is quite ridiculous it is just on the edge of credibility. There’s intrigue and scandal aplenty, and I imagine readers will lap it up.