Book Review: STAY CLOSE BY HARLAN COBEN

Genre:  Thriller
Published:  29 March 2012  (Orion Books)
Pages:  387  (Hardback)
Source:  BookDagger RealReaders

About the Book:

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she's got two kids, a perfect husband, a house with a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at the age of forty he finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Broome is a detective who can't let go of a cold case - a local husband and father who disappeared seventeen years ago - and spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man's family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up any moment to step into them.

Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past never truly fades away. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realisation that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American Dream - the boredom of suburban life, the thrill of temptation, the desperation that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades - they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper thin as a heartbeat...

Harlan Coben is the 'master of the hook-and-twist' ... as the blurb says and this book does hook you and twist you till you don't know which turn it's going to take....which I love in a book!

The three main characters all seem to be living normal lives, seemingly unrelated to one another, but they all have secrets from their past which will just not stay hidden.  When a man goes missing, their memories are taken back to one night 17 years ago when another man went missing but is there a connection?

The writing is fast and slick, sometimes a little too complicated, and there are some unsavoury characters, including a couple of bible-bashers called Ken and Barbie who are definitely NOT like their namesakes!  

This is the kind of book where you have to keep turning the pages as there are so many cliffhangers and I didn't guess the ending which is all good.

Recommended for anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

Book Review: THE DETECTIVE BRANCH BY ANDREW PEPPER

Genre:  Historical Mystery
Published:  Orion Books  (Feb 2010) 
Pages:  372  (Paperback)
Source:  BookDagger RealReaders
My Rating:  8.5/10

About the Book:

Drury Lane, 1844. A robbery has been committed at a pawnbroker's, leaving three people dead. The man called in to investigate is Pyke, head of the Metropolitan Police's newly formed Detective Branch at Scotland Yard.
Pyke must find the culprit and quickly, especially as the identity of one of the victims threatens to expose his own criminal past. 
A valuable religious artefact appears to have motivated the robbery but when the main suspect commits suicide in police custody, the investigation falters. Then the rector of a wealthy parish is brutally murdered and Pyke spots a connection. His suspicions lead him to a dissolute former Catholic priest, rumours of devil worship, and an old case that no one wants him to investigate.
With time running out and the murderer threatening to kill again, Pyke must face up to forces within the police and the church who would prefer the secrets of the past to remain buried forever.
Pyke joins the newly formed Detective Bureau of the Metropolitan police in a tale of corruption and murder.

This is the 4th book in the Victorian mystery series featuring Detective Pyke.  I haven't read any of the first three so I can't compare this with the earlier ones.

Pyke had a chequered past, he had been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, only to escape and earn a full pardon, he had also served some time in the debtors prison.

He was certainly no goody goody but he was a good policeman and "as he looked down at the bodies.....it was his job to remain detached, to see things as they were, but it was hard work to look at the crime scene and not feel a twinge of excitement.  An abomination had been perpetrated and it was his job to find the man or men responsible.
At bottom, it was why he'd agreed to join the police force; because he loved the thrill of the chase."

He had a strained relationship with his 14 year old son, a strained relationship with his superiors and an equally strained relationship with his peers in the Detective Branch.  All in all, he's not very good with people.

What started off as a routine robbery/murder soon turned into a complicated story of a stolen church artefact, a man accused of murdering a child, past murders that may or may not be related to this murder investigation and other surprising turn of events.

This was a better than average mystery which seemed slow at the beginning, there were a lot of characters to remember but once the story had developed I became thoroughly engrossed and had no idea which way it was going to go.

Special Thanks to BookDagger RealReaders for sending it to me.

About the Author:


Andrew Pepper is a lecturer in American Writing and Contemporary Crime Fiction at Queen's University, Belfast. His first novel, THE LAST DAYS OF NEWGATE, was shortlisted for the CWA NEW BLOOD AWARD. He lives in Belfast with his partner and children.