Memorial Days is a memoir by award-winning, best-selling Australian author, Geraldine Brooks. When, in late May 2019, Geraldine learned of the sudden death of her husband of thirty-five years, Tony Horwitz, she didn’t get the chance to grieve. Four years on, in 2023, she travelled to Flinders Island where, in a remote little shack, she allowed herself to do so.

That first notification call to their Massachusetts home by the ER doctor at George Washington Hospital in DC was utterly devoid of any empathy, and a later call to the same ER offered a jaw-dropping lack of sensitivity. Geraldine experienced a roller-coaster of care: the DC policeman who spoke to her was considerate and gentle, as was the first person to find Tony, collapsed in the street, and neighbours in West Tisbury who would care for her horse and dogs.

In that immediate aftermath, there was so much pressure on legal and financial fronts, and on acknowledging a tsunami of condolences, she couldn’t permit herself the time and space to deeply grieve. Instead “I’ve moved around in public acting out a series of convincing scenes, one endless, exhausting performance.” That is what she went to Flinders Island to allow herself to do.

“I have only a loose notion of how I will spend my time here. I will walk and reflect, taking whatever solace nature cares to offer me. I will write down everything I can recall about Tony’s death and its aftermath. I will allow myself time and space to think about our marriage and to experience the emotions I’ve suppressed.”

Geraldine explores how the different cultures deal with death, noting how most faith traditions “put guardrails around the bereaved, rules for what to do in those days of massive confusion when the world has collapsed.”

She had a book to finish, but it wasn’t something that could happen with “the beast of grief clinging to me, claws as intractable as fish hooks”

Towards the end of the book, she begs for reform of the US medical-forensic establishment’s inhumane practices, which prevented her gaining comfort from being with Tony, and forced her to ID from a photo. And she implores the reader to write a guide to their household, to help those left behind after a sudden death.

Much of what Brooks writes about the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death can’t fail to have the reader choking up, tears welling, and it’s difficult to imagine that she wasn’t writing this with tears streaming down her face. Her grief will resonate with many readers, and her experience will shock and move. Beautifully told, full of love.

Michael Without Apology is a novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. Ever since a nasty firework accident when he was seven, Michael Woodbine has kept his scarred body covered. At nineteen, he’s an attractive young man with an interest in making films, and his first college film class is a revelation that has an unanticipated impact on his attitudes.

His teacher, Robert Dunning, has visible scarring which he doesn’t try to cover: “He tells people to look. He invites them to talk about it. He won’t be ashamed of it, and he won’t let anybody else be ashamed because of their reaction to it”.

The first assignment that Professor Dunning gives the class is a short film. Michael’s unusual idea, to film people talking about their body image problems, gets Dunning’s tick of approval, but he needs subjects to interview. The flier he puts on the college noticeboard is a little vague, with an unexpected result: people who call his number, interested in participating, aren’t scarred the way he is, but Dunning tells him “you can never go far wrong by following the direction in which the universe is pushing you.”

He learns a lot about life from his interview subjects, even though some of their problems seem less of a big deal; he decides he should listen to the other person’s reality, not mitigate it or minimize it or try to shape it in any way. “Our problems are our problems, and I think sometimes they get compared to other people’s problems in a way that makes us feel like we don’t have a right to feel the way we feel about them.”

Telling his own story: his parents giving up their eight-year-old son for adoption when they kept their older son, elicits from one subject, this insight “It must have made you feel like they thought you were damaged goods” and he sees that “it explains why I kept the scarring a secret. I guess I thought if people knew, they’d reject me”. She also offers “Sometimes people have scars. It’s not a deal-breaker for anyone who’s not shallow as hell. It just is.”

He makes his film, a powerful little piece, and what it has to say attracts the attention of others in the business. But including his own story, as it does, when it is more widely seen, it gets a reaction from those who knew him then, including his birth family. Can he confront this head on?

Again, his teacher has good advice: “almost without exception our regrets are made up of the things we didn’t do. Almost any mistake can be lived with, because you gave it a shot. But we regret the chances we let go by.”

As always, Ryan Hyde gives her characters wise words and insightful observations: “Whenever I hear anybody tell anybody else they’re too sensitive, all I hear is ‘I want to feel free to say offensive things to you and it really inconveniences me when you mind’” and “I don’t completely believe what I can’t prove, and I don’t completely rule out what I can’t disprove” merely two. Topical, thought-provoking and heart-warming: classic Catherine Ryan Hyde.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.

“Their father had never been a bad parent. He had always been attentive, loving and patient. He had only become a bad parent when he disappeared, when he ceased to be a part of their life.”

Run For The Hills is the fifth novel by award-winning American author, Kevin Wilson. When Reuben (Rube) Hill turns up at the successful organic Tennessee farm that she runs with her mother, claiming to be her older half-brother, Madeline (Mad) Hill struggles to see the father she knew, who left when she was ten, in the man Rube describes. Could the Boston insurance salesman and novelist who left Rube and his mom over three decades earlier possibly be the same man as the Tennessee farmer who claimed to be from Maine? And yet, and yet….

As if that’s not shocking enough, Rube tells her that Charles (Chuck) Hill went on to abandon at least two more partners with offspring. He’s following his father’s trail across America, intending meet the other half-siblings before he confronts the old man himself, now, according the investigator he hired, living in California. Will Mad come with him?

Mad’s mother encourages her to go, to connect with this new half-brother, and to get some answers about her father. Soon enough, they are driving, in Rube’s rented PT Cruiser, towards the next-in-line sibling in Oklahoma. Will they get to meet more of their half-siblings? Will those offspring of Charles Hill want to join their quest-of-sorts? Will they find their dad? How will it all turn out?

As she learns from her siblings, along the way, about the differences and similarities their father displayed in each iteration, what he did for each child, Mad muses that “Maybe every single moment of loving someone you helped make was connected to this low-level terror that hurt your heart,” and wonders “Is this why their father left them?” But is the truth perhaps less altruistic…?

What an original premise on which to build a story! Wilson gives each of the siblings a narrative voice, some to a greater degree, revealing four characters with depth and appeal with whom only the hardest of hearts won’t feel empathy. The dialogue is delightful, often laugh-out-loud (and occasionally, darkly) funny, and the ultimate resolution is realistic. The cover by Alan Fears is perfect. A tale full of hope and heart and humour.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Text Publishing.

“All we need to do is keep our mouths shut.”

Wild Dark Shore is the third stand-alone adult novel by Australian author, Charlotte McConaghy. When the woman washes up on the shore of Sheerwater Island, the first priority for the Salt family is to try to save her, however unlikely it may be that she’ll survive. But questions are already forming in Dominic Salt’s mind: How did she get here? And why come here?

Sheerwater is close to nothing except Antarctica; it’s only claim to fame is the Sheerwater Global Seed Vault and the research station attached to it, now deserted. They have a two-month wait before the ship comes for the seeds, now under threat of rising sea levels, and Dominic, the island’s caretaker is wary of anything that might threaten the safety of those seeds, but even moreso, that of his children.

When the woman regains consciousness, it’s to the voice of nine-year-old Orly Salt expounding on his favourite subject, plants and seeds. Rowan is stitched up and cared for, but has reasons to not reveal much more than her name. She is surprised to learn that the four Salts are the only people left on Sheerwater.

And as caring as they are, they are also a little strange: seventeen-year-old Fen spends all her free time on the shore with the seals and penguins, sleeping in the boatshed; eighteen-year-old Raff seems to carry a lot of grief and anger, which he tries to expend on the punching bag on the top floor of the lighthouse that is their home; Dominic, always busy checking and repairing, can be heard talking to his late wife when alone; Orly’s passion for all lifeforms is apparent, but he also hears the voices of the island’s dead animals on the wind.

Rowan is absorbed into the island routine, but her exploratory forays raise questions, and it becomes apparent that the Salts are hiding something…

Multiple not-necessarily-reliable narrators relate a story that takes place in a rugged, inhospitable setting where cold and rough weather are not the only threats to life. Occasional flashbacks fill out a tale that will keep the reader guessing and the pages turning right up to the dramatic climax. McConaghy’s gorgeous descriptive prose easily evokes her setting and the harsh conditions faced, even as she gives the reader characters with depth and appeal. A gripping, thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House Australia.

Life Hacks for a Little Alien is the first novel by British author, Alice Franklin. She has been raised by loving parents, but doesn’t quite fit in. Her late speech and strange little things she does have her mum worried. Between misunderstandings, and mischief by her classmates, she has spent more of her younger years being home schooled than in a classroom, a little unfortunate as her mum is, mentally, not the most stable. At school, when she does attend, teachers take her reticence for stupidity.

Reading others is a challenge and she’s “grateful for how explicitly Mike and Mark (a set of simple books) express their feelings. You would like it if everyone were like this. If you always knew when your dad was tetchy, you’d know to avoid him so he doesn’t snap at you. If you always knew when your mum was worried, you’d know when you needed to soothe her. And if you knew someone was lonely – maybe one of these human children that you are surrounded by every weekday – then you’d approach them and begin the long and tiresome process of befriending them. You could hang out with them every day if need be. You’d be their best friend, their constant companion, their sidekick, their pal.”

Not until she turns twelve, when insomnia has her viewing a late-night documentary about a mysterious untranslated document, does she begin to understand: “Until now, you didn’t realise that aliens existed, at least not for real. Until now, you didn’t realise they had their own language. To you, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense because sometimes you feel like your language isn’t your language. Other people say things and you don’t know what they mean. Other people do things and you don’t know what they mean either. There is a disconnect, something profoundly wrong. You feel this strongly, feel it in your bones.”

The Voynich Manuscript, as it is called, has her fascinated. The librarians at the town library are very helpful; she voraciously devours anything they can find for her; she dreams of being able to decipher it, certain it will provide the answers she seeks about life, a guide to life on earth for this little alien.

She accidentally(?) reconnects with former classmate, Bobby, onto whose pink shoes she threw up when she first encountered him. He has not only stood up for her previously, but now seems so taken by her interest in the Voynich Manuscript, he enthusiastically conducts his own research and encourages into a (perhaps ill-prepared) expedition that has a number of consequences, not all of them bad…

Franklin adopts a second person narrative, with an unnamed linguist relating significant events in our little alien’s life, and appends each chapter with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek Further Reading list, as well as providing the linguist’s helpful footnotes. The reader might need to don their disbelief suspenders for certain aspects of the story (the school, the teachers, the entry to the University library, the mental institution, the police…) but accepting them as entertaining will allow full enjoyment of this funny, quirky and insightful tale.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus/riverrun

“This is like the seconds between falling and landing, you know it’s going to end and you don’t want it to, all you can want now is for time to go more slowly than it does.”

The Fell is the eighth novel by best-selling British author, Sarah Moss. The audio version is narrated by Emma Lowndes. It’s November 2020 in England’s Peak District. Café waitress and single mum, Kate, and her son Matt are eight days into their two-week self-isolation due to exposure to a close contact. While Matt is happy to spend time on video games or vegging out, Kate, very much an outdoor person, has already exhausted the possibilities of decluttering, and is quickly going up the wall. But breaking quarantine would attract a huge fine that she definitely can’t afford.

In the garden late that afternoon, looking up at the fell: “It feels like another country up there, especially in winter when there’s no one around, when you can walk an hour or two before you see someone else, you and the wind and the sky. She can see from here there’s no one on the path, she’d actually be further from another soul there, less likely to pass on disease, than she is here not two meters from Alice’s garden”.

She changes into her boots, grabs a backpack and goes. “She couldn’t come within spitting distance of another person if she wanted to, out here. And she won’t be long, just an hour before sunset, she’ll be back before Matt even knows she’s gone.”

But up there “… the point is that single parents should stay alive if only to earn the money, not that she’s earning enough money, and if walking a few more minutes, another mile or so, over the darkening hill makes it easier to stay alive, what harm does it do?”

Lying on the mountain with a broken leg and other injuries, delirious, Kate’s subconscious, in the form of a snarky raven brilliantly rendered by Emma Lowndes, batters her with criticism: “What poor decisions, Kate, what ill-advised acts, set you on this path? At what point in your life, Kate, would you say it became inevitable that you would end up a criminal, alone and injured on a mountain in the dark?”

Spanning less than twenty-four hours, the story is carried by three other narratives besides Kate’s: Rob, part of the Mountain Rescue Team, leaves his teenaged daughter at home on his access weekend, much to her chagrin, to help look for Kate; Kate’s neighbor, Alice sees her pass on the path and later alerts the police when Matt, concerned for his mother, asks for help; Matt sits at home, trying to dismiss, as he waits for news from the searchers, the questions about Kate’s mental state, because his mother would never take her own life. Would she?

Moss doesn’t use quote marks for speech. Instead, each narrative reads like a stream of consciousness, making it almost forgivable. She does give the reader some gorgeous descriptive prose: “There’s no summit, exactly, just a great expanse of moorland under the sky where you can walk for hours using the rocks and lonely rowan trees for landmarks. It’s like walking on water, like walking over ocean swell, and the wind ruffling the heather and the bog cotton the way it ruffles the sea.” Topical, evocative and moving.

The Impossible Thing is the second book in the Rubbernecker series by award-winning British journalist, screenwriter and author, Belinda Bauer. Immediately post-WW1, making a living on a small-holding farm in Yorkshire isn’t easy; even harder for Enid Sheppard when her husband takes one look at their new baby daughter and abandons the family.

Tiny Celie Sheppard is given to the care of eight-year-old farm boy, Robert, but turns the family’s fortunes, and perhaps their sentiments about her, when at six years old, she shows a talent for climming. In a makeshift harness fashioned by Robert, she returns from under the overhang on the edge of her family’s holding, Metland Farm, with an extremely rare red guillemot egg. Egg Broker George Ambler is beside himself: what won’t a collector pay for such a beauty!

Almost a century on, Patrick Fort has been washing dishes at the Rorke’s Drift for three years and not yet tired of it. Returning home one winters evening, he discovers his friend and neighbour, Weird Nick, and Nick’s mum Jen gagged and bound in their unlit house. Two men in ski masks (it’s not even snowing!) with cable ties to secure the residents of Ty Newydd have ransacked the place. The only thing missing is a red egg in a fancy carved box.

Belatedly, Nick has discovered it’s illegal to sell, or even own, wild bird eggs, but the fleeting listing on Facebook Marketplace was sufficient, it seems, to make their little Welsh cottage a target. Legal or no, he wants the egg back. Patrick’s brilliant deductive work leads them to the probable thief, and Nick ropes in his unwilling friend to confront eggman456.

That doesn’t end well: “Before Nick could open his mouth, the big man grabbed him by the front of his jumper, yanked him forward, headbutted him, then withdrew and slammed the door. It all happened so fast that Patrick was left open-mouthed with amazement, already replaying it in his head. The door, the arm, the fist, the head, the door. It was like a very violent cuckoo clock.”

Before they finally locate the egg, and several more like it, there’s a courtroom scene with lots of shouting, a visit to a museum with thousands of eggs, and a jaw-droppingly vindictive destruction of a felon’s collection.

Patrick has a too-close encounter with dog droppings, is an accidental stowaway in the car of a nasty, violent man, and has to climb through a toilet window. A balaclava and a potato masher play significant roles. At one point, Nick asks where his sense of adventure is: “Patrick didn’t answer. He’d already accidentally had one adventure in his life and it had been very stressful. He didn’t really fancy another.”

Told through multiple narratives and a dual timeline, Bauer gradually reveals the path that the Metland egg takes from 1920’s Yorkshire to modern-day Wales and beyond. She gives the reader some wonderful descriptive prose “…barristers in yellowing wigs and black cloaks flitted between them like giant bats”, and only the hardest hearts won’t have a lump in the throat at the poor guillemot’s ordeal. There’s plenty of action drama which, together with the dialogue, offers some very black humour. Fans can only hope this isn’t the last we’ll see of Patrick Fort. Utterly brilliant.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by the publisher

The Rose Arbor is a novel by award-winning, best-selling British-born author, Rhys Bowen. With barely two weeks’ notice, in October 1943, the lord of the manor and tenants of Tydeham are told to pack up and move out: their Dorset village is now under the control of the army, for the purposes of invasion drills. They can only take what will fit in their temporary accommodation, and are given the bare minimum of assistance: there’s a war on, you know! And even the lord is unaware that the army will be using live rounds: there’s nothing of historical significance to be saved, is the army’s attitude.

Twenty-five years later, trying to emerge from the punishment of writing obits for treading on the wrong toes, twenty-seven-year-old Daily Express journalist, Liz Houghton has accompanied, to the chagrin of DI Jones, her best friend DC Marisa Young to Dorset. There’s been a possible sighting of a missing five-year-old, Lucy Fareham that needs to be checked out, and their last potential location is the now-closed village of Tydeham.

DI Jones has shared that he was part of the case of three young girls who went missing during the war. The body of one was found; of the other two, not a trace. Both Liz and Marisa wonder if Lucy’s disappearance could be linked to these cold cases; Jones is dismissive.

Bizarrely, when they arrive in Tydeham, with an army corporal in tow, the place feels familiar to Liz. But she was only two years old when the village was emptied. Her father, a former army brigadier, discounts any possibility that she could ever have been there. Intrigued, Liz decides to revisit the hamlet on her own: perhaps the grave stones will provide a clue.

In the deserted village, she encounters the lord of the manor’s son, an attractive young man scavenging for mementoes for his elderly father. While she’s with him, she experiences a strong feeling of dread, and is convinced that she once witnessed someone being buried near the rose arbor, surely not possible? Is Liz suddenly psychic, or is she going crazy?

What a marvelous piece of historical fiction Bowen gives the reader. The depth of her research is apparent on every page and the attitudes and social mores of each era are particularly well-rendered. Bowen’s characters are appealing and several elements of mystery keep the reader guessing and the pages turning.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.

Three Days in June is the twenty-fifth novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Anne Tyler. When it is suggested to not-quite-sixty-two-year-old assistant headmistress Gail Baines that she might retire, or seek a different career path, she walks out the door of Baltimore’s Ashton High School. It’s a June Friday morning in 2023, the day of her daughter Debbie’s wedding rehearsal dinner, and she has better things to do than be informed that she lacks people skills.

Back at her compact little house, she is aware that Debbie, her prospective mother-in-law and the bridal attendants are at a Day of Beauty to which Gail wasn’t invited: is she feeling left out? It’s not her really sort of thing, anyway. But still.

A knock on the door heralds the unexpected arrival of her ex-husband, Max, complete with cat carrier containing the elderly, homeless cat he is fostering. His expected accommodation at Debbie’s is vetoed because the groom, Kenneth is severely allergic.

It's not ideal, but he can stay in her spare room, if there’s no alternative. But Max can quickly disabuse himself of the idea that she might adopt the nameless cat: not happening.

To Gail’s surprise, though, Max isn’t quite as messy or irritating as she remembers; in fact, is he more considerate and caring than he used to be? More than she expects, certainly. And if she is initially a bit dismissive of some of his ideas for her future, she finds them turning over in her mind anyway.

Later in the day, a distraught Debbie is on her doorstep, having learned something about Kenneth that puts the whole idea of a wedding in jeopardy. Indignant on her daughter’s behalf, Gail is ready to help cancel the event, but Max’s reaction is more circumspect: shouldn’t Kenneth get the chance to explain? Debbie draws conclusions from this about her parents’ marriage, but is she right?

What will the next two days bring?

It is always such a pleasure to read a book by Anne Tyler, and this one has you smiling all the way through, unless you are laughing out loud or saying “oh, dear” or “oh, my”. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, but Tyler’s special talent is making ordinary lives shine.

Tyler’s characters are ordinary people with flaws and believable quirks; their dialogue is just as ordinary and everyday; and yet, they are endearing, each in their own way. Her descriptive prose is marvellous: “Everything Sophie said, as a rule, was about three degrees too vivacious. It seemed that she lived on some other level than ours, someplace louder and more brightly lit.”

She gives them insightful observations like: “Anger feels so much better than sadness. Cleaner, somehow, and more definite. But then when the anger fades, the sadness comes right back again the same as ever.” At times Tyler’s writing, and her treatment of topics, is reminiscent of that of Elizabeth Strout, and some aspects of Gail’s inner monologue might remind readers of Olive Kitteridge.

Unusually for Tyler, there’s a twist, and it’s an excellent one. This wonderful little volume can easily be read in one sitting, and another reviewer summarises Anne Tyler’s work perfectly when she says “No one writes the small moments of everyday lives better.” With Anne Tyler, you’re always in safe hands, and this is a little, but perfect dose of her magic.

Model Home is the fourth novel by award-winning American author, Rivers Solomon. When Ezri Washington Maxwell gets a text from their Mama’s phone that reads “Children, I miss your screams. Come play.” they know it’s from the Nightmare Mother, the Ghost Mother, the woman without a face in the attic, the reason they left the family’s north Dallas gated community, where they were the only Black family, eighteen years earlier and fled to England. They share the message with their sisters back in Texas, Eve and Emmanuelle.

Ezri already understands that “It’s stupid to run from pain instead of to it because pain always comes, and if I could just accept that, life would not be a constant fluctuation between numbness and fear.”

Calls and texts to their parents have gone unanswered, and Eve comes straight back with a demand that they return home. Soon Ezri is on a plane with their fourteen-year-old daughter, Elijah. It’s Ezri who is sent to 677 Acacia Drive in Oak Creek Estates to do a welfare check on their Mama and Pop. They’re not in the house, but they are on the property, deceased, and while it looks like a murder/suicide, Ezri knows it isn’t: the house killed them, the house that terrorised them all throughout their childhood.

“A family hurts. It does. We are born in its noose.” How they came to live there, what happened to them, and why their parents didn’t pack up their family and leave, is gradually revealed in discussions between the siblings, extracts of Ezri’s therapy sessions and the flashbacks to the siblings’ childhoods, which are distinguished by the irritating feature of lacking quote marks for speech.

Solomon includes some dark themes in the story and their protagonist makes some puzzling choices, indulging in risky behaviour, and their care of Elijah comes under critical scrutiny. Most of the narrative is carried by Ezri, with Elijah taking a minor role, and it becomes gradually apparent that Ezri’s might not be entirely reliable. There are a few twists and surprises before the resolution. A thought-provoking and challenging read.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone

The Case of the Love Commandos is the fourth book in the Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator series by British journalist and author, Tarquin Hall. Troubled by a robbery case that isn’t presenting a solution, Vish Puri is reluctant to head off on a planned pilgrimage with the family in Jammu. His reprieve is a call from one of his operatives, Facecream, who moonlights as Love Commando, Laxmi. She urgently needs Puri’s help.

Making his apologies to family on the Jammu train before he heads off to Lucknow, Puri’s pocket is expertly picked, his wallet missing. From his own train carriage, he calls to enlist Rumpi to track down the thief but, against his express orders, she involves Mummy-ji who undertakes the task with alacrity. But even though the wallet is recovered, Mummy-ji is suspicious of what else the culprit might be up to: is he planning to get rid of his loudly-critical, obese wife? To rob the shrine? Definitely something…

The Love Commandos exist to help couples from different caste overcome obstacles to their marriage and, this time, the prospective bride, Tulsi Mishra has been plucked from her disapproving Brahmin father’s grasp only for her Dalit groom to be missing from the safe house. Has her father made good on his threat to kill Ram Sunder? Puri is a firm believer in the virtues of arranged marriage, so the Love Commandos’ raison d’etre goes against his grain, but an innocent young man’s life is at stake, and that takes priority.

Puri rushes to Ram’s village, where all is not as expected: a drunken father in a brick home he couldn’t possibly afford, Ram’s mother missing, and evidence of violence from outsiders. When the local police arrest Vishnu Mishra for the murder of Kamlesh Sunder, despite his cast-iron alibi, Puri knows something underhand is going on. Facecream sets up as a relief teacher in the village to find out what really happened to Ram’s mother, but soon finds herself fighting village-level corruption.

Something the villagers tell Facecream lead to Puri checking out a genome research lab, where he learns of the death of one of their scientists: he’s not convinced it’s accidental. And, to his chagrin, he hears that his rival PI, Hari Kumar is also on the case. On the road back to Delhi, a car following worries Puri enough for him to cock his pistol, and back in town, he learns his office has been bugged.

While he is not a superstitious person, his stubborn theft case, the pickpocketing and Hari Kumar’s involvement have Puri wondering if his usual boastful attitude about his successes has attracted the evil eye. He makes an offering to Shiva, and vows to do less bragging. Will he manage to solve this most challenging case?

As always, Hall provides a handy glossary, and as a bonus, some delicious-sounding recipes. The dialogue is always a delight, there are twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, and fans will look forward to the next in the series, The Case of the Reincarnated Client. Or they might like to peruse The Delhi Detective’s Handbook. Indian cosy crime at its best.

3.5?s
The World After Alice is the first novel by Lauren Aliza Green. On an icy February night, twelve years ago, sixteen-year-old Alce Weil went missing. CCTV from a nearby store showed that she stepped off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River. No trace of her was ever found. After the tragedy, her parents’ marriage broke up.

Now, Alice’s younger brother, Benjamin, and her best friend, Morgan Hensley have invited family and friends to their wedding, revealing that they have been seeing each other for three years. The news gets quite a mixed reaction from their families.

Morgan’s mother Sequoia isn’t even coming, instead staying at her ashram in Goa; her father, Peter strongly feels it’s not a good idea (the Weil family aren’t over their grief), but he is a little nervous about seeing Benji’s mother, intending to reveal his true feelings for her; Benji’s dad, Nick acts like he’s happy about it, but paying his share of the wedding on top of supporting a much younger wife and their daughter is a problem now that he’s lost his job, a state of affairs about which he’s told no-one.

After divorcing Nick, Linnie went back to her maiden name of Olsen, and she’s a bit anxious about her plus-one, the college philosophy lecturer she’s been dating; Ezra Newman has told Linnie he knew Alice when he was teaching at Manhattan Tech, but hasn’t been entirely honest about that relationship; and most people there will remember what happened at the memorial service held two weeks after Alice disappeared.

And the happy couple? Benji is always upbeat, optimistic, but is he ignoring the potentially tense interactions between them all? Morgan is a bit concerned about the fact that Benji still searches online for his sister. She’s also disturbed to see Ezra Newman here. And Benji’s grandmother, Judith, with her dementia can be a bit unpredictable, often candid and sometimes unpleasant.

All bar Judith and Sequoia contribute to the narrative and their concerns, past and ongoing, are gradually revealed in musings and flashbacks. Each adds some insight that may help understand the troubled teen who stepped off the bridge, and what may have contributed to such a desperate act.

Green paints a very realistic picture of the effects on those left behind of a teen suicide: grief, guilt, blame and, maybe, eventually, recovery. Her characters have depth and her descriptive prose is evocative: “the long years when each hour was tendrilled by an ache so intense, she feared it would strangle her in her sleep” is an example. The epilogue is good, but something is still lacking in the resolution. A worthy debut.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin Group/Viking

The Case Of The Deadly Butter Chicken is the third book in the Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator series by British journalist and author, Tarquin Hall. At a celebration dinner for a nephew’s cricketing success, Vish Puri is enjoying some illicit Butter Chicken on the terrace when he witnesses an exchange between the father of up-coming Pakistani fast bowler, Kamran Khan, and a man with an envelope. And he’s not the only one to observe it. A short time later, having enjoyed a plate of the same delicious dish, Faheem Khan suddenly collapses: his Butter Chicken was poisoned.

Puri is furious to be summarily excluded from the investigation by Delhi’s Police Chief, but then finds that English former Deputy Police Commissioner (recently departed from an investigative role with the International Cricket Federation) James Scott wants him to investigate on behalf of a new body, Clean Up Cricket. He’ll have to tread carefully: amongst the obvious suspects at Faheem’s table, there are some powerful individuals.

Some efficient legwork allows him to strike a few names from the list, but he is leaning towards a motive involving match-fixing: the envelope in Faheem’s pocket contained a lot of cash. In the interests of investigation, Puri has to place a bunch of losing bets on a cricket match at the home of a Syndicate bookie but, despite Facecream’s brilliant acting skills as his young girlfriend, his disguise isn’t sufficient. Were it not for an aconite-laced paan his host chewed, a sticky end had been in store for them; Mohib Alam was the second Syndicate bookie to meet this fate.

Worrying is Mummy-ji’s strange behaviour after meeting Kamran Khan and his father: is it because they are Pakistani? Before the partition, his mother grew up in Rawalpindi, so might she have known Faheem Khan? And distracting Puri from it all is the case he wishes he hadn’t agreed to take: record-length moustaches are being shaved off without the wearer’s consent. And, of course, there’s Puri’s ongoing battle with his weight…

Puri somehow manages to tie in a dog that dies in the middle of a cricket match, a lost expensive earring, and a slip of coded numbers with which his father-in-law, Brigadier Mattu might be able to help. Puri is forced to go to Pakistan to learn more, something he initially dreads, until he finds the people are friendlier than expected and the kadai gosht is as delicious as it was described. Over the course of his investigations, he is abducted, shot at, and threatened, but also gets to enjoy the luxury of the VVIP stand at Kotla Stadium.

As always, the stereotypically-Indian dialogue is a delight. When asked will she have a meal, Mummy-ji replies “Some hunger is there. I’ll be joining you shortly, na. Just I’ll take a bath. Ten minutes only is required.” In this instalment, Hall’s protagonist manages to expose an illegal betting syndicate, solve the moustache-theft mystery, and learn some surprising facts about Mummy-ji’s past. Once again, entertaining Indian cosy crime fiction. Bring on #4, The Case of the Love Commandos.

The Story Collector is the third novel by Irish author, Evie Gaughan who also writes as Evie Woods. Just before Christmas in 2010, Sarah Harper finally decides to quit her failing marriage but, at the airport, instead of flying to her sister in Boston, she impulsively gets on a plane to Shannon, in Ireland. This late in the day, when she arrives, there’s “no room at the inn” and she ends up in a cozy little cottage in Thornwood.

Still trying to ward off panic attacks after The Big Bad Thing that happened two years earlier, her somewhat ill-advised outdoor run leads to the discovery of the hundred-year-old diary of Anna Butler. Sarah finds it a fascinating read, as does Hazel Sweeney, the granddaughter of her cottage landlord.

Living with her family in a cottage in the County Clare village of Thornwood, eighteen-year-old Anna Butler stays busy with farm chores and lace-making, and wishing that George Hawley, the Lord’s sone at Thornwood Hall, would notice her. They do say “Be careful what you wish for”

When, in late 1910, Harold Griffin-Krauss, a serious Californian student of anthropology turns up needing a go-between for his research into fairy beliefs in the community, Anna is glad to help: it will be a change of scene, quite a number in the village have interesting stories to tell, and perhaps she’ll even share with him her own experience with the Good People.

When Harold is introduced to the Hawley twins, he’s less impressed by them than Anna expects, even though George’s twin, Olivia seems to have taken a liking to Harold. Amongst all the stories Anna and Harold hear, there’s a tragic one about the Hawley twins and their mother, talk of changelings. And there are rumours about George’s behaviour, but he’s such a charming gentleman, surely they can’t be true?

Woods puts a few nice parallels in her dual time line story, and gives her characters wise words and insightful observations. When a couple is grieving: “you end up saying what you think they want to hear. There’s a fear in all of us, that we’ll lose the relationship. But I suppose we end up losing ourselves instead.” However, the characters are not instantly relatable, and the style of the diary is unrealistic. A sweet little novel that will appeal to lovers of fairy folklore.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins UK/One More Chapter.

The Case Of The Man Who Died Laughing is the second book in the Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator series by British journalist and author, Tarquin Hall. Very occasionally, Inspector Jagat Prakesh Singh of the Delhi Police asks for Vish Puri’s assistance on a case, and this time, it’s an extraordinarily puzzling one.

Dr Suresh Jha, retired mathematician and founder of DIRE (the Delhi Institute for Rationalism and Education), also known as the Guru Buster, has been stabbed with a disappearing knife by the goddess Kali whilst partaking of his morning exercise with the Rajpath Laughing Club. A French tourist has even captured it all on his phone.

Jha had recently insulted Maharaj Swami on national TV, and been told to await a miracle by the Swami. He’d also received a threatening letter the day before. Thus many believe it’s the Swami who has conjured this. Of course, Puri is convinced it’s all a trick of some sort and, having previously helped Jha to debunk the acts of various charlatans, will do his utmost to find a logical explanation.

Meanwhile, Vish’s Mummy-ji has joined her daughter-in-law, Rumpi’s kitty club and is incensed when the ladies are robbed at gunpoint during her first meeting. She’s determined to find the thieves, and is dragging a very reluctant Rumpi into the investigation, while staying under Puri’s radar: he would surely object. The police aren’t interested in the fingerprints and samples of the gunman’s DNA she cleverly obtained during the incident, but a few little things indicate to her that it’s an inside job.

Discovering just how it was done involves Puri visiting several of India’s greatest magicians, but to learn the truth he needs to infiltrate Maharaj Swami’s ashram, where Facecream, posing as his rebellious daughter, may find answers.

This instalment has quite a few twists, and before Puri identifies the culprit, he suffers a blow to the head, has to intervene when his brother-in-law heads for a bad investment, and has to grudgingly admit to being fooled by a clever bluff. Does he ever find out just what Mummy-ji and Rumpi got up to?

Hall’s protagonist does like to eat: “The idea that Vish Puri could resist getting involved in such a tantalising murder was preposterous. There was as much chance of him going without his lunch”. The mention of all the dishes he consumes is bound to stimulate the reader’s own appetite. At the end of the book there’s a handy glossary of Indian terms, and the dialogue is authentic and entertaining. The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken is eagerly awaited.

The Case Of The Missing Servant is the first book in the Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator series by British journalist and author, Tarquin Hall. The usual fare of Most Private Investigators Ltd. in Delhi is marriage: vetting prospective spouses. Vish Puri and his talented employees are good at what they do, and he takes pride in his inevitable successes.

The request from a Jaipur lawyer who believes himself under threat of prosecution is a surprise, but Ajay Kasliwal is an acquaintance of a friend, so Vish accepts the case. The Jaipur police want Kasliwal to produce Mary, the maid who disappeared in August, four months earlier, or face a charge of rape and murder. Kasliwal maintains his innocence: yes, he might not be completely faithful to his wife of twenty-nine years, but no, never with the staff.

Kasliwal is known for trying to clean up corruption in his city, and is convinced those he targets are trying to ruin his reputation. The badly beaten body of a young woman was found at the time Mary disappeared, but Vish finds it telling that police are only now pursuing her employer. The Inspector in charge of the case, though, believes he has found the killer and determined to make an example of Kasliwal.

Vish conducts interviews with the household but also arranged surveillance and infiltration to find out what really happened. Distracting him from the Jaipur case, Brigadier Bagga Kapoor who has taken against his granddaughter’s fiancé, unfairly, Vish believes: the young man may not have served India in war, but he is hardworking, teetotal, doesn’t use drugs or visit prostitutes. Does the Brigadier have a case?

Also, someone has emptied a six-shooter in Vish’s direction one morning while he attends to his roof-top garden. The police aren’t really interested, beyond saying the Puri houseboy is their main suspect, but Vish has examined the shooter’s likely position, and he has people on the case. He’s not at all happy that Mummy has decided to investigate. It’s true that she had occasionally assisted his late policeman father, but he really wishes she would keep out of this: he has it in hand.

Hall gives the reader plots with plenty of intrigue and a generous helping of humour; and a clever and likeable protagonist in this portly, persistent, Punjabi PI, with his quirkily-nicknamed team: Tubelight, Flush, Facecream and Handbrake.

Hall really has the measure of his setting: “Outside Jaipur’s District and Sessions Court, rows of male typists sat at small wooden desks bashing away at manual typewriters. The tapping of tiny hammers on paper punctuated by the pings of carriage bells was constant – the very sound of the great, self-perpetuating industry of Indian red tape” and the dialogue is authentic and entertaining. More of this cast is most welcome and, luckily there are at least another five novels in the series to be enjoyed.

“Sticking together, no matter what, is perhaps the family’s great blessing, but it’s also its greatest curse.”

Blood Ties is the second book in the Kingdom series by best-selling Norwegian musician, songwriter, economist and author, Jo Nesbo. It is translated from Norwegian by Robert Ferguson. Carl Opgard may be the acknowledged King of Os, but it’s his brother, Roy who goes to the geologist commissioned to report on the viability of the Todde tunnel to offer a bribe of twelve million kroner.

The tunnel would bypass the highway going through Os, adversely affecting all of their interests, including the Os Spa hotel, about to add an extra wing, and the rollercoaster Roy plans to build. The tunnel can’t go ahead, and Roy knows how to persuade, which buttons to press. Murder isn’t out of the question: between them, he and Carl have already killed seven.

Before the news of the tunnel’s demise goes public, Roy needs to buy the land for his amusement park at the right price, and then, once it is known that the highway will be upgraded, press the bank for the loan he needs to build the rollercoaster. Meanwhile, Carl needs to keep the French hotel group interested in their investment.

But Roy is a little distracted. Before the Highways Department constructs the crash barrier at the dangerous turn on Geitesvingen leading to their home, for which the Opgards have agitated, KRIPOS going to retrieve the three vehicles that went over the edge and 100m down into the Huken ravine, cars that didn’t actually get there by accident, and it’s hard not to worry what the police lab might find, even after all these years. Os Sheriff, Kurt Olsen is determined to pin a few murders on the brothers, including that of his father, then Sheriff Sigmund Olsen.

Another distraction is the return of Natalie Moe, the teenager whom he saved from domestic abuse, now an enchanting young woman employed by Carl to look after the Spa’s marketing. And perhaps to help promote the rollercoaster? Meanwhile, Carl has a few things on his mind as well: should he make things official with his married lover, the mother of his child? Progress on the palace he’s building himself is slow; and Os Spa’s incomings aren’t covering its debts.

Carl Opgard may be the one who went to America on a scholarship and spent fifteen years there, but Roy, without formal education, is far from stupid. He has street smarts, is quick-thinking, clever and creative, all talents he will need as things ramp up in their small town. Roy has multiple reasons to hate his brother but, up till now, the fact that they are brothers has always ranked over any other relationship. Has Carl pushed that too far, this time?

While this is a sequel to The Kingdom, it can easily be read stand-alone without confusion, although there are major spoilers for the first book. The blurb says that “the body count in Os is about to get higher” but is actually only increases by two, with a third in Oslo that is not by the Opgard brothers’ direct hand. A certain bathroom scene is blackly funny, while there’s also a particular dark humour in the climactic barn scene. This Scandi crime fiction is hard to put down.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK Vintage Harvill Secker

Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series by best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton and her ex-husband Willian Gerhardt have been in Crosby, Maine for two years now, having quit New York City at the start of the pandemic. They have a house, Lucy does some volunteer work and writes in her little studio in town, and William works on developing potato varieties resistant to climate change.

Lucy has a close friendship with Bob Burgess, himself returned to Maine from New York City some fifteen years earlier. Bob also does some volunteer work, caring for solitary elders, and a bit of legal work from his office in Shirley Falls, but each looks forward to their regular walks by the river where they talk, Bob smokes an illicit cigarette, and they understand each other very well. All manner of topics are covered: envy, knowing one’s partner, grief, the meaning of life. And about some things: “’Don’t think about it.’ And she smiled at him to indicate their joke about how they both thought of things too much.”

Now ninety, Olive Kitteridge is a resident of the Maple Tree Apartments where she makes sure to daily visit her best friend, Isabelle Goodrow, over the bridge in higher care. She’s heard about the author newly come to Crosby, make a point of reading her books, and decides she may have a story that would interest Lucy Barton. She’s initially unimpressed by this mousy-looking little woman, is a little sharp, but that changes as they spend time together.

Lucy and Olive begin exchanging stories of what they call unrecorded lives. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they seem to lack a point, but Lucy says “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.” There are stories of family members, townspeople, and acquaintances whose lives contain thwarted love, cruelty, devotion, heartbreak, abuse, harassment, alcoholism, infidelity, sadness, and loneliness, but also beauty.

Somewhat in the background of life in Crosby, a woman who notoriously terrified the children when she was on school canteen duty, Gloria Beach goes missing while her youngest son Matthew is out getting groceries. A thorough search yields nothing, and investigations uncover a car hired with a stolen licence and credit card, the owner of which has a very strong alibi. The case goes cold.

When a body is found, months later, suspicion hangs over Matthew Beach. His sister, Diana begs Bob to take the case. When the woman’s will is located, it gives Matthew a motive, and it doesn’t help his case that Bob hears several women remark that they couldn’t blame him if he had killed her. Matthew is an enigmatic figure, a talented artist lacking social skills, but Bob is determined to help the man, even if he’s not telling the whole truth.

As always, Strout gives the reader a wonderful cast of characters with palpable emotions. Big-hearted Bob Burgess, unaware of his worth, excels at absorbing the suffering of others. In the course of the year, he loses a member of his extended family, almost loses another, tries to broker peace between a father and son, gives over and above care to a needy client, and, almost unwittingly, saves a good friendship from irreparable damage that acting on a crush would have wrought.

Lucy is now a grandmother but worries that she has become inconsequential to her daughters, while ageing Olive has lost little of her acerbic wit. Their chats are full of wisdom and insightful observations. Some people depend on a linchpin “I wonder how many people out there are able to be strong—or strong enough— because of the person they’re married to.”

Strout nails it on grief: “He was silently catapulted into an entirely new country, one he had never known existed, and it was a country of quietness and solitariness in a way that he could not—quite seriously—believe. A terrible silence seemed to surround him, he could not feel himself fully present in the world… And he understood then that this was a private club, and a quiet one, and no stranger passing him on the street would know that he was a member, just as he would not know if they were a member. He wanted to stop people he saw, older people especially who were walking alone, he wanted to say— Did your spouse die?”

Her writing, its quality, style and subject matter, is reminiscent of Sebastian Barry with shades of Anne Tyler. Strout writes about ordinary people leading what they believe are ordinary lives (although there are definitely some quirky ones doing strange things amongst them, like the vet giving a demented dog acupuncture) and she does it with exquisite yet succinct prose. Another moving, powerful read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin UK Viking.

4.5 stars
We Solve Murders is the first book in the We Solve Murders series by British TV presenter, producer, director, and novelist, Richard Osman. By the time the third client of Maximum Impact Solutions has been murdered and left on display, Amy Wheeler and her boss, Jeff Nolan are concerned: Jeff because it’s losing him his remaining clients; Amy because she was in the vicinity when each murder occurred. There’s the distinct possibility someone is trying to frame her.

Amy is currently on duty guarding renowned fiction author, Rosie D’Antonio, whose last novel made her a target for a Russian chemicals oligarch. They’re on a yacht off the coast of South Carolina, with an ex-Navy SEAL who is doubling as chef, as their back-up. Relaxing, but it’s hard not to get bored. Amy misses the adrenaline, but she makes sure not to miss her daily calls to her recently-widowed father-in-law, Steve, back in the village of Axley, near the New Forest. She worries about him, he worries about her, they try to reassure each other everything’s OK.

After twenty-five years with the Met, Steve has taken to retirement a lot better than he expected to, not missing the excitement, working locally as a PI, enjoying pub quiz evenings, chatting to the regulars, and watching TV with his cat, Trouble, on his lap, although he can’t turn off his habit of noting down anything, even the smallest detail, out of the ordinary. His Dictaphone also serves to share his day with now-sadly-absent Debbie.

The murder of that Instagram influencer on the yacht, the one shot, then tied to a rope and thrown in for the sharks, leaving behind a million dollars in cash, that has piqued his interest a little, mostly because it’s near where Amy is looking after that author, but not his affair, so, well, “You don’t have to play with every ball of string that rolls your way.” As long as Amy is safe…

But then it turns out she isn’t. she and Rosie are on the run from a murderer; there’s a lot of blood in Jeff’s car, so he might be dead; and Amy needs someone she can trust to help out. Steve very reluctantly agrees to fly over, as long as he’ll be back for pub quiz on Wednesday.

It turns out that Steve hasn’t lot his touch and manages to learn something useful. Rosie’s private plane comes in handy for flights to St Lucia and Cork, and she’s got some hidden talents for thwarting assassins. But still, learning the identity of the mastermind, the money smuggler behind it all, is proving a challenge, although the astute reader will have the culprit in their sights from first appearance.

While some plot points are a little sloppily executed, and the scene with the cable ties requires the reader to don their disbelief suspenders, the bulk of the novel is such fun that these are almost forgiven. The dialogue is delightful, often laugh-out-loud funny, and readers will recognise many of the characters as people who populate their own village or town. More of this cast is definitely welcome. Very entertaining!

All The Light We Cannot See is the Pulitzer prize-winning second novel by Anthony Doerr. The audio version is narrated by Julie Teal. In 1934, six-year-old Marie-Laure LeBlanc is going blind, and her widowed father, Daniel, principal locksmith at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, spends his spare time crafting intricate models of their part of the city so that she will be able to find her way when her sight is gone. She spends her days interrogating the scientists, technicians and warders at the museum about their expert subjects, or reading and rereading the Braille novels her father gives her on her birthdays.

Also at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, hidden behind many locked doors, is the Sea of Flames, a pear-cut diamond that, according to legend, is cursed, preventing the person who has it from dying, while bringing bad luck and even peril to those around them. When the war begins, the director of the museum understands just how coveted it might be, and takes action. He’s not wrong: it’s on Adolf Hitler’s wishlist.

In a home for the orphans of coal miners in Zollverein, Germany, seven-year-old Werner Pfennig and his younger sister Jutta are under the care of French House directress, Frau Elena. Werner is small, with a shock of white hair, resourceful, a talented scavenger, and ever curious, always, always reading, and when they find a discarded radio, he is able to make it work, even improve its function. Educational programs from who-knows-where have Jutta’s fervent attention while the other children love the music.

But while Werner is absorbed in his textbook, Jutta hears news from foreign countries, and is dismayed and disturbed by what she hears her country is doing (bombing Paris!)

All the boys in the home are destined for the mine where his father died; it’s Werner’s reputation for radio repair, and his aptitude for mathematics that puts him on a different course. At General Heissmeyer’s famous school, he joins other German boys of the right appearance, some smart, some the offspring of influential people. It’s not a kind place but Werner’s genius puts him under Dr Hauptmann’s protection.

With the threat of occupation by German forces, the Museum director sends Daniel LeBlanc away: he and Marie-Laure end up in the Saint Malo home of his uncle, Maire-Laure’s seventy-six per cent crazy Great Uncle Etienne.

How the boy, the blind girl, and the diamond end up in Saint Malo on August 8th, 1944 as the Americans bomb the city and a Nazi gemmologist searches for the elusive stone, is the story Doerr tells, over two time-lines, via multiple narratives (even the city gets a turn or two), and letters between family members.

With gorgeous descriptive prose, Doerr easily evokes his setting and era even as he describes the subtleties of the German propaganda machine, the instances, both large and small, of indoctrination, the mindset that led to collaboration with the enemy, the cruelty of those in power and the atrocities they commit or condone; but also the tiny acts of resistance that will have the reader cheering on the Malouins.

Like Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, it tells the story of ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances, and Doerr gives the reader characters who repay emotional investment. Marie-Laure’s descriptions come from her unique perspective: “Madame seems like a great moving wall of rosebushes, thorny and fragrant and crackling with bees.” It's war, so there are no unrealistic happy endings, but there are lots of moving moments and one or two very satisfying ones. A deserving prize-winner.