Jamie Sinclair

A departure from the usual style for Jamie Sinclair and it's a very successful one.

FEAR

Amazon.com

My review - 

Suppose you had been one of a gang of four young, happy lads who were celebrating leaving school, and you’d done something, collectively, which had resulted in a death. How would you live with it? This is the question posed in this unusual tale in which Vic Gossard, speaking into a digital recorder in his car in the middle of the night, wrestles with his demons. He is telling the tale of his despair, his friends, his family, and, just as it would if you were in that position, it comes out haphazardly in a stream-of-consciousness narrative which is so compelling it’s hard to stop reading. Because it’s told to the reader in the first person it has an intimacy about it.

This is a departure from Jamie Sinclair’s usual stories and a daring and worthwhile experiment. I really enjoyed it and it brought home how one uncharacteristic act by people who have previously led good lives, can devastate not only the victim and her family but the lives and families of the boys concerned. A very good read indeed.

Jamie Sinclair

This latest book from Jamie Sinclair is another gripping story.  He's excellent at at plotting!

The Trust

Amazon.com  The Trust

My review - 

This is a complex web of a story which centres on a North West of England hospital trust. An old mental hospital site is being redeveloped and corpses are turning up in quantity. One of the police on the case, and a young woman working for the Trust in the equipment store become involved with one another. They both have issues and back stories which make the relationship a rather dynamic one! Her mother was once a patient at this hospital. Young women in the town have been going missing over a period of a year or more. Police suspect a serial killer. As you can see, there’s a huge amount going on in this story and it’s well handled so that you aren’t sinking into a morass of loose ends but their stories weave in and out of one another in a very engaging way.

Jamie Sinclair has a gift for creating characters you feel involved with. Love or detest them, there’s a lot going on in their lives and you want to know more. I very much enjoyed reading this story. It was well paced and full of intrigue. I did actually guess the identity of the serial killer before the end but I admit I’d had several other candidates in mind before that one and I enjoyed seeing how and why he had turned out that way. The ending was great too. A five star read if ever there was one.

Jamie Sinclair

The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe

Amazon.com   The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe


This great story starts with a death by natural causes. It’s the sad death of Emily, a young, musically talented woman and we meet Mitch and Rupert, the two men who loved her. We also discover the sleaze and corruption of small town life, with the council, the police and local businessmen all partaking in, or turning a blind eye to, bribery, indecency and all manner of nastiness. Mitch and Rupert decide to try to get justice. Mitch, an outcast all his life due to his ability to glimpse future happenings, foresees a murder and Rupert, his only friend from schooldays, joins him in trying to avert it.

The characters in this story are very well drawn. We have oily toads of council members who think they are untouchable, a keen, thorough and likable female police inspector chasing justice and the two friends, both grieving for their lost love. The plot is well constructed and story lines interwoven together. I felt the initial part, although it came in with a bang with Emily’s death, built slowly but not tediously, until we realised the depth of corruption and the way justice seemed to be in favour of those with deep pockets – or nasty secrets they could spill if they didn’t get their own way. This is a story of love, friendship, people battling against the disadvantages of childhood influences; it flags up so many questions. It’s a thoroughly gripping read and I enjoyed it very much.

Jamie Sinclair

Jamie writes a good story with great characters and uses some inspired language to do so.

All the Fun of the Fair

Amazon.com  All the Fun of the Fair

My review -

This is my first Jamie Sinclair book and I was mightily impressed. It begins by introducing us to a selection of dysfunctional characters, living lives on the edge of society - social misfits. Gradually as their stories unfold to us, their lives touch each other tangentially, coalesce in some cases, and I found myself fascinated. It is a difficult book to stop reading!

I enjoyed the style, the dipping in and out of lives, the eventual realisation that many were interlinked. I also loved Jamie Sinclair's use of vocabulary. We have so many nuances in our language - we are lucky and should use them. Each apparent synonym conveys a different shade of meaning and I love to see the language used more extensively. The denoument of the book is wonderful. Some of the characters 'came good' and reached within themselves for the sake of others. Some managed, through finding each other, to excise the poison of their past relationships. (Slime balls still remain slimeballs though, but we relish their downfall!) This is altogether a satisfying and enjoyable read and I thoroughly recommend it.