Book Review: A MEDAL FOR MURDER BY FRANCES BRODY

Genre:  Mystery

Published:  Piatkus Books  (Oct 2010)

Pages:  424  (Paperback)

Source:  From the Author

My Rating:  9.5/10

About the Book:

A pawn-shop robbery- It's no rest for the wicked as Kate Shackleton picks up her second professional sleuthing case. But exposing the culprit of a pawn-shop robbery turns sinister when her investigation takes her to Harrogate - and murder is only one step behind ...

A fatal stabbing- A night at the theatre should have been just what the doctor ordered, until Kate stumbles across a body in the doorway. The knife sticking out of its chest definitely suggests a killer in the theatre's midst. 

A ransom demand- Kate likes nothing better than a mystery - and nothing better than solving them. So when a ransom note demands GBP1,000 for the safe return of the play's leading lady, the refined streets of Harrogate play host to Kate's skills in piecing together clues - and luring criminals out of their lairs ...

This is the 2nd book in the Kate Shackleton Mysteries set in 1920's Yorkshire....the first of which, Dying in the Wool, I reviewed here.  Kate's husband is still missing, presumed dead, in WWI.  Even though I loved the 1st book I think this one is even better!

When Kate is asked to inform the robbed pawnshops customers of their stolen pledges she travels to the lovely spa town of Harrogate where, by coincidence, she also becomes involved in a murder mystery and is asked to look for the missing daughter of a Boer War hero (who served in the war with the murder victim) and who has received a ransom demand that doesn't quite ring true.  Are they connected in any way - if so, how and why?  

As Kate tries to find the answers, we are taken from the streets of Harrogate to the battlefields of the Boer War in 1900 and the relationship between Captain Wolfendale and his batman, which I found really informative as I knew very little of that particular conflict.

There is so much going on in this book that it is never boring and speeds along at a pace that's not too slow or too fast.  There are so many suspects and so many surprises that I just did not have a clue which way the story was going to go.  What more could you want in a mystery?

Kate is a really good judge of people and her observations are usually spot on, she is independent and observant and I really warmed to her, and I loved it when a little romance came into her life!

Highly enjoyable and ideal for cosy mystery readers.

Frances Brody's website can be found here.

An interview with the author can also be found at Bookchickcity.com

Special Thanks to Frances Brody for sending me this book.

Book Review: AS THE PIG TURNS BY M.C. BEATON

Genre:  Mystery

Published:  BBC Audiobooks: Unabridged  (20 Oct 2011)

Rating:  8/10

About the Book:

Winter Parva, a traditional Cotswolds village next door to Carsely, has decided to throw a celebratory hog roast to mark the beginning of the winter holiday festivities and Agatha Raisin has arrived with friend and rival in the sleuthing business, Toni, to enjoy the merriment. But as the spit pig is carried towards the bed of fiery charcoal Agatha - and the rest of the village - realise that things aren't what they seem... 

This was my introduction to the world of Agatha Raisin, a cantankerous, obstinate, opinionated busybody and, to be honest, not a very nice person overall!

Though she does have some good traits such as loyalty to her friends and employees.

She also has a knack of being in the right place at the right time, for instance when a pig is being roasted she is the only one to realise that it’s not a pig but a man …. she also discovers a body in an unusual place.

I really enjoyed listening to this story and I did come to like Agatha’s bustling nosiness and her vulnerabilities.  The story moves along at a steady pace, it was never boring and I found it easy to follow.

I shall be reading more of this entertaining series.

 

Book Review: BLOOD SISTERS BY ALESSANDRO PERISSINOTTO

Genre:  Mystery
Published by:  Hersilia Press  (Feb 2011)
Pages:  253  (Paperback)
Source:  Received from the publisher
My Rating:  8/10

About the Book:

The countryside around Milan is wrapped in eerie darkness as psychologist Anna Pavesi digs in the icy soil, looking for...what? Just over a week earlier, Anna had been approached with a request to investigate a fatal road accident and a missing body. Anna is no detective, but she was short of money and agreed to take on the assignment, leading her into a labyrinth of false clues and wilful deception in which nothing is as it seems. As she digs deeper, Anna realises that even her own life may be in danger...

If you’re looking for a story with non-stop action at a fast pace, with lots of blood and violence and a quick-witted detective, then this is not the book for you.  If you’re looking for a story that carries you along at a steady pace, building up the tension slowly, featuring an amateur (but not amateurish) sleuth and a plot that takes you down a different path to the one you were expecting, then this is for you!

Narrator and psychologist Anna Pavesi is unwilling at first to take on the job offered by the unfriendly Benedetta Vitali to look for her half-sister’s body which has gone missing from her coffin...... as she says “My job is to talk to people and try to understand them, which isn’t easy to do with someone who’s dead. I work with the living.”  But the offer of a large amount of money persuades her and soon she is investigating this mysterious disappearance.

The story starts in the present as Anna is digging in the gloomy undergrowth of the South Milan Agricultural Park late at night, and she looks back over the events of the past week which have brought her to this terrifying predicament.

She had travelled around the foggy surroundings of Milan taking to various people who came into contact with the dead woman, pretending to be her relation, from the doctors who treated her in the hospital, the prostitutes who she passed every day to work, to her employer.  As she tries to discover why anyone would want to steal a body she realises that the young woman was murdered and starts to suspect everyone of being implicated but they can't all be involved, can they?  And, if so, why?

Anna was a very likeable young woman, she’s insecure, pushing 40 and newly single, and I was interested in her life and the people around her who she talked about quite often.   I don’t know if this the first of a series featuring her but I hope so.

I liked the descriptions of the Italian countryside and the towns, I thought the overall story was original  and the writing flowed easily, and I didn’t guess the ending!  I also thought the translation from Italian by Howard Curtis was spot on.

My Thanks to Hersilia Press for sending me this book to review.  To download the first chapter please see their website.

Book Review: DYING IN THE WOOL BY FRANCES BRODY

Genre:  Mystery & Suspense
Published by:  Piatkus Books  (Oct 2009)
Pages:  356  (Paperback)

Source:  Library
My Rating:  9/10

About the Book:

Take one quiet Yorkshire Village, add a measure of mystery, a sprinkling of scandal and Kate Shackleton - amateur sleuth extraordinaire!
Bridgestead is a quiet village: a babbling brook, rolling hills and a working mill at its heart. Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens, except for the day when Joshua Braithwaite, goes missing in dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again. Now Joshua's daughter is getting married and wants one last attempt at finding her father. Has he run off with his mistress, or was he murdered for his mounting coffers?
Kate Shackleton has always loved solving puzzles. So who better to get to the bottom of Joshua's mysterious disappearance? But as Kate taps into the lives of the Bridgestead dwellers, she opens cracks that some would kill to keep closed …

First Lines:

My name’s Kate Shackleton.  I’m thirty one years old and hanging onto freedom by the skin of my teeth.  Because I’m a widow my mother wants me back by her side.  But I’ve tasted independence.  I’m not about to drown in polite society all over again.

Kate, who’s husband is missing, presumed dead in WW1, has a knack for finding people, but when asked to find her friend’s father in a sleepy little village, who disappeared 7 years ago, she discovers that not everyone is who they seem and some of them are downright dangerous!

As her investigations continue into finding the whereabouts of Joshua Braithwaite, an aggressive, narrow-minded womaniser who was also the pillar of the local chapel, she questions his wife, Evelyn who was not sorry to see the back of him; Tabitha, his daughter, who blamed herself for not being there when he disappeared; Hector, Tabitha’s fiance, who knew more than he admitted;  as well as many others who have their own reasons for being glad that he was gone.

When someone is murdered at the mill, Kate sets out to find out whether there was any connection to Joshua’s disappearance or if it was just a coincidence.

This is a good old-fashioned mystery, set in the 1920’s, the writing has the feel of that era, and I loved how Kate’s car driving caused so much surprise (what, a woman driver!!).  I enjoyed the slow pace of life which mirrored the slow pace of the build up to the ending.

Also, I warmed to Kate straight away, she was a lovely, friendly person, who valued her independence but who was also desperately missing her husband. It was a little sad that she could find other missing people but not her own husband. 

If you’re a fan of the cozy mystery genre I would add this to your list!

This is the first in the Kate Shackleton Crime Series - the second book, A Medal for Murder, is out now and the third, Murder in the Afternoon, is out in September 2011.  Frances Brody’s website can be found here

Book Review: THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG BY ALAN BRADLEY

Genre:  Historical Murder Mystery/Cosy Mystery
Published by:  Orion  (April 2010)
Pages:  342  (Hardback)
My Rating:  9/10

About the Book:

The story opens with the immortal words 'I was lying dead in the churchyard' (spoken, astonishingly, by Flavia herself) and ends with a funeral watched by the De Luce family on a newly-installed television set.  Inbetween, Alan Bradley weaves a hauntingly nightmarish tale that involves Punch & Judy and a hitherto unexplored corner of Bishop's Lacey known as Gibbet's Wood.  The plot, beginning with the arrival in Bishop's Lacey of a travelling puppet show, features a grisly murder during a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk in the village hall and reaches back to an earlier, even nastier crime centring on an ancient, rotting gibbet that has lain like a shadow over the village for years.

The second book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series set in a small village in 1950’s England is every bit as good as the first one!

Flavia’s two older sisters -- Orphelia, obsessed with her looks and Daphne, obsessed with her books -- are still being horrible to her, telling her that she was adopted and nobody wants her.  Her father is still obsessed with his stamp collection and just wants a quiet life, which leaves Flavia plenty of time to go wandering around the village and surrounding countryside trying to ascertain who murdered Rupert Porson while he was in the middle of a puppet show......and after all, who would suspect an eleven year old girl of doing a better job than the police!

This time we are also introduced to Aunt Felicity (Flavia’s father’s eccentric sister) who comes to stay at the crumbling Buckshaw House to try and sort out the family’s ailing finances.  As we see life through eleven year old Flavia’s eyes we don’t know the exact details  but the villagers are full of gossip about whether her father will have to sell the family home.

I enjoyed reading Alan Bradley’s descriptions of the area --

Above me, Gibbet Wood clung to the top of Gibbet Hill like a green skullcap.  As I approached, and then entered beneath the branches of this ancient forest, it was like stepping into a painting by Arthur Rackham.  Here, in the dim green gloom, the air was sharp with the smell of decay: of funguses and leaf mould, of black humus, of slithering muck, and of bark gnawed away to dust by beetles.  Bright cobwebs hung suspended like little portcullises of light between the rotted tree stumps.

You almost feel as if you’re right there walking beside Flavia.  I really like Flavia and I also love the fact that she is obsessed with chemistry and even has her own magnificent Victorian chemistry laboratory at the south-west corner of her house.

This is a lovely gentle mystery which takes you along at a nice and steady pace, not rushing or hurrying to get to the reveal but all the ends are tied neatly up and you get a wonderful feeling of satisfaction that all is right with the world.  

The third book in this series is out now and is called A Red Herring Without Mustard.
The first book is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and my review is here.

For more on Flavia de Luce the official website is here

Book Review: Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Genre:  Mystery,Suspense,Crime,Psychological Thriller
Published by:  Corgi  (2009)
Pages:  348  (Paperback)
My Rating:  9/10

BLACKLANDS BY BELINDA BAUER

About the Book
A psychological thriller about the cat-and-mouse game between a boy desperately seeking the truth about this uncle's murder and the murderer himself.


Twelve year old Steven is lonely and feels unloved by his family.  His nan spends most of her days staring out of her window waiting for a son who will never come home and he knows his mother loves his little brother more than him; he rarely experiences praise and he can never do anything right in her eyes.
19 years ago his Uncle Billy (who was only 11 at the time) disappeared just 200 yards from his home and the family's anguish and suffering began and has never ended.
Every afternoon Steven goes digging on the moors convinced that if he found his Uncle Billy's body his nan would notice and love him and everyone would be pleased and Steven would feel happy.
The digging had given his life a purpose.
He then decides to write to a convicted child serial killer, Arnold Avery, who was the main suspect for Billy's disappearance, thus a chilling game of cat and mouse begins. Steven was writing to the Devil and asking for mercy.
The slow build up in suspense creates an atmosphere of tension and fear as the letters go back and forth and I felt very uncomfortable reading the serial killer's thoughts as he recalled some of the children he'd abducted.  Bauer does not, thankfully, go into too much detail here but what is left unsaid is probably more chilling.
I did feel that the prison part of the book took up too much of the story and I found myself feeling a little bored and was glad when the story returned to Steven.
The descriptions of the wild and desolate moors added to the chilling feel throughout the novel and I could almost see the mist and feel the icy wind blowing across the pages.
This is such an original plotline which I found difficult to put down.


Belinda Bauer's debut novel won the CWA Gold Dagger for the crime novel of 2010.  Her official website can be found here
Her new novel 'Darkside' is out now.

This is my 2nd book in the Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge

1st Book in The Great Transworld Crime Caper

BOOK REVIEW: THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE BY ALAN BRADLEY

Genre: Mystery

Published by: Orion (Feb 2010)

Pages: 358 (Paperback)

My Rating: 9.5/10

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE BY ALAN BRADLEY

About the Book:

For very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, the discovery of a dead snipe on the doorstep of Buckshaw, the crumbling de Luce country seat, was a marvellous mystery - especially since this particular snipe had a rather rare stamp neatly impaled on its beak. Soon Flavia discovers something even more shocking in the cucumber patch and it's clear that the snipe was a bird of very ill omen indeed. As the police descend on Buckshaw, Flavia decides it is up to her to piece together the clues and solve the puzzle. Who was the man she heard her father arguing with? What was the snipe doing in England at all? Who or what is the Ulster Avenger? And, most peculiar of all, who took a slice of Mrs Mullet's unspeakable custard pie that had been cooling by the window...?

My Thoughts:

I absolutely loved this book, it has all the ingredients of a typical English cozy mystery: set in the 1950's, an old crumbling country house in a small village, quirky characters, a mysterious dead body, strange happenings and an amateur sleuth who stumbles upon the clues right under the noses of the local police. Wonderful stuff!

Flavia is a most unusual little girl in some ways; obsessed with chemistry (she has her own lab on the top floor of the old house), she has acute hearing, is old beyond her years, has 2 horrible older sisters who treat her with disdain, and upon whom she likes to conduct experiments without their knowledge!

Her curiosity is first aroused when a dead bird is found on the doorstep and she wonders why her father is so horrified by it, and then a stranger's dead body is found in the cucumber patch, gasping his last words to her, all of which 'sets her mind into a tailspin' and which leads her into danger and excitement by unravelling the clues little by little.

I loved her vivid imagination --

'Fingers of friendship,' he said, whatever that meant.

Fingers of friendship? Had I just been given the secret handshake of some rustic brotherhood that met in moonlit churchyards and hidden copses? Was I now inducted, and would I be expected to take part in unspeakably bloody midnight rituals in the hedgerows? It seemed like an interesting possibility.

Alan Bradley's novel brings perfectly to life an era just after the War when life seemed simpler and slower with his acute observations of people. I laughed, I smiled, I sympathised, I was horrified, I cared about the characters. I was immersed in the story and didn't want it to end.

This is the first in the Flavia de Luce Mysteries and the website with lots more information is here

The 2nd book is called 'The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag' which I shall be reading and reviewing shortly.

The 3rd book in the series is called 'A Red Herring Without Mustard' and is published later this year.

Source: Borrowed from the local library

BOOK REVIEW: JUBILEE BY ELIZA GRAHAM

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: Pan Books (June 2010)

Pages: 327 (Paperback)

My Rating: 8.5/10

JUBILEE BY ELIZA GRAHAM

About the Book:

It's the Queen's Golden Jubilee, and Rachel and her aunt Evie are celebrating with the crowds on the village green. The scene is tranquil, but Rachel and her aunt can never forget what happened exactly twenty-five years ago. On that day, Evie's young daughter Jessamy vanished. She hasn't been seen since. Soon after, news comes of Evie's sudden death, and Rachel must return to the village to deal with her aunt's estate. The extraordinary story she uncovers there will change everything. It is a story of departure and return, of atrocity and betrayal, of unrequited love and the dreadful legacy of war.

My Thoughts:

First Line

By the time the kitchen clock struck seven I knew that my cousin wouldn't be coming back

After reading and loving the first two Eliza Graham novels -- Playing with the Moon and Restitution -- I was eagerly looking forward to another mystery with the backdrop of the War and I think she has once again come up with another excellent and compelling story!

The story starts with the now grown up Rachel reminiscing about the day of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 when she was aged 9 and her 10 year old cousin Jessamy seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, there were no signs of a struggle, no reports of a child being dragged off, she was happy and had no problems, so what could possibly have happened to her?

We are taken back and forth in time throughout the book, from the prison camps of the second World War , the Queen's Coronation in 1953, the Queen's Silver and Golden Jubilees, through to the present day, as we are slowly building up a picture of Jessamy and her family and of the secrets they hold. Indeed, on the day Jessamy vanished she said to Rachel that she hated keeping secrets.

Evie (Jessamy's mother) and her twin brother were evacuated to the Winters family farm in the country during WWII and I loved how we were given snippets of the letters that Robert Winter wrote, but never sent, to a young Evie while he was in a prisoner of war camp. It gave us an insight into not only the terrible conditions but also of the slowly deteriorating mind of a young man who struggles to live a normal life after the War has ended and he comes back to work on the family farm.

I enjoyed this book and was engrossed in the story from start to finish, I thought the prisoner of war camp was handled sensitively and knowledgeably, the characters both main and on the periphery were strong and believable, and overall a thoroughly good mystery.

Eliza Graham's website is here -- to whom I must thank for sending me her book to review.

BOOK REVIEW: THE BLACK MADONNA BY PETER MILLAR

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Published by: Arcadia Books (September 2010)

Pages: 315 (Paperback)

My Rating: 9/10

THE BLACK MADONNA BY PETER MILLAR

About the Book:

In ruins on the outskirts of Gaza, the war-torn Palestinian city that had been a metropolis since the times of the pharaohs, a plucky young female archaeologist has made a remarkable find: possibly the earliest known image of the Virgin Mary, created during her lifetime. But before she can reveal it to the world, it is stolen from her in a brutal personal assault amidst the chaos of an Israeli airstrike. But who has stolen it and why? What dark hidden secret did it conceal? With her former lover, an Oxford professor of comparative historiography – the science of comparing alternative versions of the past – she sets out on a dangerous quest to some of the holiest sites in Christendom.

In a tale of murder, treason, intrigue and geopolitics, they uncover a web of conspiracy, cover-ups, confused mythology and interlinked religion that dates back to the last pagan Roman emperor, and maybe even to the very origins of life on earth.

My Thoughts:

Peter Millar has been compared to Dan Brown, though having read 'Angels and Demons' I think that Peter Millar's storyline is more believable and exciting and is much better written overall.

When Nazreem Hashrawi, Museum Curator, discovers "one of the most important, semi-legendary items in Christian lore" her life is instantly in danger from people who are not averse to brutally torturing and murdering people who get in their way. But just why these people would want the Madonna and why they would want to kill Nazreem is revealed slowly and tantalisingly in this very compelling story with twists and turns that I found hard to put down.

The tension built up steadily as Nazreem and her ex-lover Marcus Frey, an Oxford Professor, travel to Spain and Bavaria in an effort to seek out other similar idols while meeting people such as the devout Sister Galina in Germany who mysteriously vanishes after speaking to them.

I thought the plot was fascinating overall and Peter Millar has obviously done an amazing amount of research; it seemed that every character had an encyclopaedic memory of historical events and which sometimes seemed too much and I couldn't always take in all the facts and figures, though I could follow the story (just!) without it spoiling my enjoyment.

Even though it is a complicated plot at no time did I feel that I didn't know what was going on, the style of writing was very readable, most of the characters were believable (with a couple of exceptions) and I liked the way that an intelligent headstrong young Muslim woman was one of the lead characters.

Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys a thriller with a historical lesson - the authors notes at the back of the book make for interesting reading too.

My Thanks go to Arcadia Books for sending me this book to review.

Peter Millar's website can be found here

Read my Q and A with Peter Millar here

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Book Review: Face of Betrayal by Lis Wiehl

Genre: (Christian) Mystery Thriller
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers (2009)
Pages: 284 (Hardback)
ISBN-10: 1595547053
ISBN-13: 978-1595547057









First Lines:

"Come on, Jalapeno!"
Katie Converse jerked the dog's leash.

My Thoughts:

Katie, a 17 year old student goes missing before Christmas.
With no clues to go on, the police and her family are baffled by her disappearance.

In Lis Wiehl's debut novel we are introduced to the 3 members of the 'Triple Threat' Club, who are Allison - a Federal Prosecutor, Cassidy - a TV Reporter and Nicole - an FBI Special Agent, all friends from way back.

As they all get involved in the case, we learn about any new developments from each different angle, from Nicole interviewing the distraught parents to Allison grilling the main suspect to Cassidy's nightly TV news reports of her 'scoops', all of which I found very compelling.

As each of the women did have such different roles, I was about half way through the book before I could remember exactly who each of them was, e.g. when Allison was mentioned, I had to keep checking the blurb on the book to jog my memory of who she was! Maybe my brain just couldn't cope with remembering 3 main characters.

But, overall, I thought this was a very intelligent thriller, with just enough twists and turns to keep my interest going till the end.

Recommended for anyone who enjoys crime thrillers.

At the end of the book you can read the first two chapters of Lis Wiehl's next book Hand of Fate which is out in April 2010 - the 2nd in the 'Triple Threat' series.



For Lis Wiehl's website click here.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson Publishers - this book was part of their Book Review Bloggers program.

Audio Book Review: B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton

Genre: Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
ISBN-10: 1405091355
ISBN-13: 978-1405091350









This is a short review of the abridged audio book version.

Kinsey Milhone, Private Investigator, is asked to find a missing sister. It sounds a fairly straightforward case - she should be easy to find, but, of course, nothing is straightforward in Kinsey's world.

This is the 2nd in Sue Grafton's popular alphabet crime series. If you've read the first one you'll know what to expect, it's more of the same. Kinsey Milhone is a very likeable, funny, lady.

A good plot, pacy, easy to listen to, and I didn't guess whodunnit.

Recommended for fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum crime books.




Book 21 U is for Undertow will be available from December 2009.



If you want to know more about Sue Grafton click here.

Book Review: Fallen Idols by Neil White

Genre: Crime Fiction
Published by: AVON, a division of HarperCollins (2007)
Pages: 500
ISBN-10: 1847560075
ISBN-13: 978-1847560070









Synopsis:

A Premiership footballer is murdered on a busy London street, and a country is gripped by terror. Who lies behind this apparently motiveless killing - and who's next?

Crime-beat reporter Jack Garrett is convinced that this is no celebrity stalker. Aided by DC Laura McGanity, desperately trying to juggle police life with motherhood, the trail leads them to Turners Fold, Lancashire - Jack's home town.

What's the connection between the recent assassination and the murder of a young girl there ten years before? Could it be that people are not all they seem - and will do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame?

First Line:
"Sunny afternoons in London shouldn't happen this way."


This was Neil White's debut novel and it is the best crime fiction I've read this year.


From the first page to the last I was swept along on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns, with the odd red herring here and there for good measure. We were introduced to freelance journalist Jack Garrett who I liked straight away, and his 'girlfriend' DC Laura McGanity, who I felt wasn't very developed as a character throughout the novel, maybe in subsequent stories we learn more about her.


This is an excerpt from near the beginning when the murderer is getting ready to shoot the footballer -

"She closed her eyes and prayed as she listened to the rifle being assembled, the soft clicks joined by Ben's deep breaths and the chatter and movement of Old Compton Street, the soundtrack to a glorious afternoon in Soho".

It really was a book that I just couldn't put down, every few pages was a cliffhanger, and just when I thought Neil White was taking the story one way he turns and takes it in a completely different direction.

He has been compared to crime writers such as Mark Billingham which is high praise indeed. If you're looking for someone new I would definitely recommend him, I don't think you will be disappointed.

Extras:
Neil White's other novels :
Lost Souls (2008)
Last Rites (2009)




I'm looking forward to hearing him talk when he appears at our local Library next month.

Book Review: The Conjuror's Bird by Martin Davies

Genre: Historical FictionPublished by: Hodder & Stoughton (2005)Pages: 306







Synopsis: It seems a long time ago that Fitz and Gabby were together, with his work on extinct species about to make him world-famous. Now, it's his career that is almost extinct. Suddenly, though, the beautiful Gabby reappears in his life. She wants his help in tracing the history of The Mysterious Bird of Ulieta, a creature once owned by the great 18th Century naturalist Joseph Banks. It soon becomes clear that Fitz is getting involved in something more complicated - and dangerous - than the search for a stuffed bird. To solve the puzzle, he must uncover the identity of the amazing woman Banks loved - a woman who has disappeared from history as effectively as the specimen he is hunting.

The book has two parallel stories, separated by almost 300 years. The 1700's story gave you a real feel of how difficult and different life was for a young woman with no prospects at that time, and how dependent they were on men looking after them. This contrasts sharply with both Katya and Gabby, the two very independent women in the present time who face no such problems.

Alternate chapters effortlessly blended into each time line with ease so you didn't feel as if you were getting confused.

Combined with an usual mystery about a stuffed bird this is a lovely mix of history (Captain Cook's voyages) with a little romance........who was the mysterious woman in the woods that Joseph Banks becomes captivated by? And how is she connected to the missing bird?

Martin Davies slowly and tantalisingly reveals the connection between the different eras without giving too much away too soon.

This is an enjoyable mystery with a difference - not just for ornithologists!

First Line: "That Thursday evening I was working late, removing the skull of a dead owl"

Favourite Line: "The cage-reared bird will always partly fear the sky"

What I Liked about this book: How Martin Davies skilfully ended each chapter on a cliff-hanger

What I didn't Like: It was a little slow in the middle

8/10

Book Review: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 416
Publisher: Transworld Publishers

Synopsis:

Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - lost on the left, found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, he attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected...

At the beginning of the book the first 3 chapters each describe an event - the first one is of a missing little girl, the second is of a seemingly random murder of a teenage girl and the third is of a wife murdering her husband with an axe. All the events happen in different years.

In the present time, Jackson Brodie is approached by the missing girl's two elder sisters to enlist his help in finding her - the axe murderer's sister also asks Jackson to look for her niece - and the teenage girl's father contacts him to find his daughter's murder.

As the story unfolds we learn of family secrets and of friendships and liaisons in the past and the present. As Jackson attempts to track people down he also realises that someone is trying to kill him...........is this all connected to his work?

Who is the random woman we are introduced to in one chapter after another that seems to have no connection with anyone?

Most of the questions are answered and neatly tied up at the end. It all comes together in an interesting and well-written novel.

I do like the way that Kate Atkinson writes her stories......some with humour and tongue in cheek. This is the second book of hers that I've read after Behind the Scenes at the Museum and I look forward to reading more in the future.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery with a few twists and turns.

8/10