Marianne V

The News From Dublin is a collection of nine stories by award-winning, bestselling Irish author, Colm Toibin. The stories vary in length from five pages to ninety-six pages, but each has the hallmark of a writer appointed Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024.

In Journey To Galway, it is decided that his mother is the person most appropriate to deliver to his wife the telegram announcing the death of fighter pilot, Robert, during a war fought in a British uniform. Is their grief tempered by his poor behaviour?

In Summer of ’38, in the Pyrenees village of Sort, widowed Marta is alerted by her youngest daughter that a man from the electric company wants to talk to her. He is charting the events of the war in their valley, and hopes she will lunch with a retired General who remembers her from the summer of ’38. She manages to sidestep the lunch by insisting on a visit from her eldest daughter, delighting in the near-miss proximity of father and daughter who have never, and will never, meet.

In Five Bridges, after thirty years in California on a tourist visa, Paul, now almost fifty, works as a talented but unlicensed plumber. When the new POTUS touts draconian immigration laws, he understands he will need to return to Ireland, leaving behind a twelve-year-old daughter whom, he hopes, her mother (his now-married ex-girlfriend) will allow to visit Dublin. It’s clear he will never be able to return.

In Sleep, an Irish New Yorker is told by his Jewish lover that his disturbed sleep is a deal-breaker for their relationship. The younger man suggests that, until he sees a therapist, advisedly Irish, they need to take a break. It requires a trip to Dublin.

In The News From Dublin, when a radical new treatment for TB is mentioned in The Irish Times, high-school teacher Maurice is asked to go to Dublin on behalf of his quickly-deteriorating younger brother. Their father having been in Frongoch prison with the now Minister for Health, the family feels this will give him some leverage to fast-track treatment. The family hopes the news from Dublin will be favourable.

In Barton Springs, a man traveling to Austin, Texas recalls an encounter at a swimming pool soon after his brother’s death, and vows he and his companion will revisit the place of their meeting.

In A Sum Of Money, having watched his father open a lockbox without a key, Dan decides this knowledge will be handy when he returns to boarding school. He’s only there by the grace of his Liverpool uncle, his family being very poor farmers with no cash to spare for pocket money. He carefully and successfully steals from fellow students until one day he gets greedy.

In A Free Man, after ten years in Arbour Hill prison, a high-school maths teacher is finally free and quits Ireland to live in Barcelona. His family severed all ties because of the nature of his crime, and he chooses Barcelona because another man who quit the same seminary years earlier and didn’t reject him outright, has settled there. Denis offers him a few pointers, but Joe makes every effort to stay under the radar, especially of Irish tourists. Is he safe, though?

In The Catalan Girls, fifty years after their mother brought them to Argentina, Montse and her older sisters learn of the death of a family member and travel back to the Catalan village where their mother grew up. And while Nuria and Conxita have satisfactory lives in Argentina, Montse is happy to leave, but doesn’t share her intention not to return until they have been in the Pyrenees for some time.

Toibin is another author who writes the everyday moments of ordinary life exceptionally well. This is a collection of beautifully told tales that often leave the reader wanting more.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Picador.

3.5?s
My Ex-husband’s Ex-husband is a novel by award-winning, bestselling American authors, Rachel Cohn and Melissa de la Cruz. Audrey Krishnan-Meyer is back in Vienna, this time for the occasion of her daughter, Isadora’s wedding. It’s where her ex-husband Beau has settled, but also where she and her then best friend, Ian Harvey first encountered, and both fell for, the charismatic and promiscuous Beau Williamson, during their study-abroad year.

Now Audrey is back, with her younger daughter Max organising the wedding, the happy couple enjoying the preamble to Christmas in Vienna, Beau’s implacable mother, Georgia nastily critical of every aspect and, much to Audrey’s chagrin, Ian has been invited. Conspicuously absent is the father of the bride. Beau isn’t answering calls or texts, and to save heartbreak for Izzy, Audrey and Ian find themselves teaming up to locate him.

Their search takes them to a day-rave at a club, various favourite spots from their study-abroad year, and they catch up with another American acquaintance resident in Vienna, Colin Villan. Ian is distracted by non-stop calls from his agent, Damien, who is trying to repair the damage that Ian’s rant against publishers at his book event is causing, while Audrey flirts with Colin.

Along the way, Audrey is roofied, she and Ian withstand Georgia’s acid tongue, and they discover something about Beau’s poor behaviour while each of them was married to him. A major flaw in Max’s organisation threatened the nuptials, the bride gets cold feet, there’s a lot of drinking and quite a bit of disagreement in the close quarters of their sub-par Air-BnB.

While the alternating narratives, Audrey and Ian, are well marked, both are first-person narratives and the voices are quite similar, so can be confusing. A lot of drama and a good dose of humour before several predictable HEAs. The right readers will find it entertaining.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Little A.

The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective is the first book in The Marigold Cottages Murders series by American writing duo Joel Ross and Lee Nichols writing as Jo Nichols. For forty years, Golda Bakofsky has looked after her tenants at the Marigold Cottages near State Street in Santa Barbara. They’re a weird bunch, eccentric, needy, broken, but they’re hers.

But one March Saturday morning, there’s a dead body in their midst, a man hit on the head with a blunt instrument, lying under the bushes. And DS Vernon Enible, typically wearing blinders, detains the man whom he sees as the most likely killer. His extensive tattoos making him look exactly like the convicted felon he is, Anthony Lambert was invited by Mrs B to rent the tiny studio behind Ocean’s cottage, after she met him at the bus stop.

To all her tenants, Mrs B insists that Anthony is innocent of the murder: there’s no evidence or motive, he didn’t know the victim; they need to find out who did it to get him released. One of their number sets up a group chat, calling it the Marigold Cottages Murder Collective, and they meet in Lawrence Hamilton’s cottage, mostly in consideration for his agoraphobia.

Each of them, except for Nicholas, who works in the local government planning department and avoids them all, has a different take on the situation: sculptor Ocean had worried about Anthony’s proximity to her children, but will do anything for Mrs B, the woman she sees as a surrogate mother; Lily-Ann, whose perfectionist workaholic tendencies broke her marriage, sees it as an exercise in lists and goals.

Hamilton’s habit of spouting non-sequitur facts may irritate, but he has a gaming friend in the police, and a novel way of getting information; and aspiring playwright Sophie notes it all down as potential material for a new work. But none really believes they can affect Anthony’s fate, until some evidence emerges that has Mrs B worried enough to present herself at the police station with a confession and a murder weapon. Now they really do need to do something!

Pre-book a chiropractic appointment before reading: this has twists and turns that even the most astute reader won’t see coming. The authors give the reader a wonderfully quirky set of characters and easily evoke the setting. This is an intriguing murder mystery with a generous helping of feel-good, and more of this cast will be most welcome. An entertaining and enjoyable cosy.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Allison & Busby.

4.5
The Sunset Years Of Agnes Sharp is the first book in the Miss Sharp Investigates series by award-winning, bestselling German-born author, Leonie Swann. It is translated from German by Amy Bojang. The capacious house outside the village of Duck End was where Agnes Sharp grew up. Now it’s called Sunset Hall, a share house for like-minded elderly people who want to escape the restrictions that family and society want to put on them.

In the beginning, sparks flew, but once they got used to each other’s quirks, and set down a few rules, things have been fairly harmonious. But now, one of their number lies dead in the garden shed. So when PC Tom Wink comes to notify them of the death of their neighbor, shot by a burglar, it’s actually quite convenient: they can blame Lillith’s shooting on that burglar: problem solved!

But when Agnes goes to offer her condolences to the surviving twin at the mansion next door, she quickly realizes it was no burglar: Mildred Puck’s murder was personal. And to complicate things further, the distinctive WW2 pistol that went missing after Lillith was shot mysteriously turns up on the kitchen table.

The housemates may be elderly now, but outsiders tend to forget that they had careers, some of which might surprise. With unexpected expertise at their fingertips, the housemates try to work out who had the opportunity, and with what possible motive. Agnes comes up with some rather crazy theories about the murders, and has the wrong end of the stick most times.

Before matters are resolved: there are two more murders; an opportunistic thief is given lessons; a policeman is locked in the cellar; Agnes poses as a charity collector; Agnes sneaks into a secure Care Facility, then tries to escape; an identity is stolen; a boy is kidnapped; and a housefire is started.

With the Sunset Hall residents second guessing themselves and each other, worried about the mental state of their housemates, not to mention, sometimes, their own, the reader will be inclined to wonder if any of the narratives, except that of Hettie the tortoise, Brexit the wolfhound, and Nathan the grandson, are at all reliable. With shades of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club and Tess Gerritsen’s Martini Club, this is a very entertaining read.