Dying Truth

I'm working my way up the numbers in Angie Marsons' brilliant Kim Stone series. This
is number 8.

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Book description How far would you go to protect your darkest secrets?

When teenager Sadie Winter jumps from the roof of her school, her death is ruled as suicide – a final devastating act from a troubled girl. But then the broken body of a young boy is discovered at the same school and it’s clear to Detective Kim Stone that these deaths are not tragic accidents.

As Kim and her team begin to unravel a dark web of secrets, one of the teachers could hold the key to the truth. Yet just as she is about to break her silence, she is found dead. 

With more children’s lives at risk, Kim has to consider the unthinkable - whether a fellow pupil could be responsible for the murders. Investigating the psychology of children that kill brings the detective into contact with her former adversary, Dr Alex Thorne – the sociopath who has made it her life’s work to destroy Kim. 

Desperate to catch the killer, Kim finds a link between the recent murders and an initiation prank that happened at the school decades earlier. But saving these innocent lives comes at a cost – and one of Kim’s own might pay the ultimate price.

My review - 

A child at an exclusive public school dies in tragic circumstances. Kim’s team start turning some stones and find nasty things under them. The case begins to tie up old and new deaths at the school but everyone there is in denial. I found the book exciting and scary with its almost conspiracy-theory story about those with wealth and power. Kim’s team have come from very different backgrounds to those at the school but there’s no end to what they will do for the people who need their help. Emotional, exciting, another cracking book in the Kim Stone series.

About the author

Angela lives in the Black Country with her partner, their cheeky Golden Retriever and a swearing parrot.

She first discovered her love of writing at Junior School when actual lessons came second to watching other people and quietly making up her own stories about them. Her report card invariably read "Angela would do well if she minded her own business as well as she minds other people's".

After years of writing relationship based stories (The Forgotten Woman and Dear Mother) Angela turned to Crime, fictionally speaking of course, and developed a character that refused to go away.

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Just a thought - I love the way that each book—any book—is its own journey. You open it, and off you go….  ― Sharon Creech

Curious Men

Short stories on a theme! These are most unusual, some sad, some funny - and one or two comments from women sneak in.

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About the book 

The curious men now have their say...or at least they try to, between invasive female comments. 
A collection of unusual short stories, sober, bizarre or cunningly funny, featuring men of different ages and stages and eras. Each story reveals a differently curious man. Who doesn't have curious habits, weaknesses, features, beliefs—even feelings? Men tend to keep these to themselves, or not to be aware of them. These stories delve into their secrets. One or two are bleak. More are blissfully weird.
The first man is passionate about the inanimate. The next takes his curiosity to the farthest geographic extremes. Brian can't choke out essential news everyone is hanging on for. Sidney wends his desolate way towards a secret retribution.
If Hugh had kept his parts secret he might appeal more to women. The therapist has a serial secret-keeper on his hands. 
These are some of the stories you'll read in Curious Men but then the stories are invaded by the mature women! Men know how this feels.

My review -

This book of short stories follows on from Me-Time Tales, stories told from the point of view of women. I haven’t read Me-Time but you can read Curious Men as a stand-alone collection. This one, as the title suggests, deals with men – their foibles, their points of view. It’s full of fantastically quirky tales, from the sad one of the damaged soldier returning from war, to funny ones, like the man obsessed with mowers. They’re all different, all great reads. I heartily recommend this book.

About the author

Rosalind trained as a dancer, but grew to love acting more. She gained a place at RADA, but took parental advice and let academic life take over. She gained a B.A. Cert. Ed and Ph.D then became a psychologist working with both children and adults. If she hadn’t, she would have spent her life interpreting characters that dramatists and scriptwriters had created instead of working with real people. Now, later, she very happily creates them herself especially their quirks. In her career, she met and worked with a wealth of characters whose characteristics she can draw upon. However, she does not write biographically, much preferring to work from imagination. 

Not surprisingly, it is the inner life of her characters that determines their fate in her stories, whether humorous, historical or criminal. Whatever the genre, Rosalind's stories always have a keen touch of humour and a dark edge. This is evident in her first short story collection "Me-time Tales: tea breaks for mature women and curious men", quirky and satirical. 

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Just a thought - When I discovered libraries, it was like having Christmas every day.

― Jean Fritz

The Shape of Lies

I'll buy a Rachel Abbott book without reading the blurb! There are just a few authors in whom I have so much confidence.

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Book description

Scott was Anna’s boyfriend. She loved him, but he ruined her life. When he died, she should have been free, but today Scott is on the radio, threatening to spill her secrets.

Anna is a mother, a wife, and head teacher of a primary school.
And she’s a good liar.

She made one mistake, and now she is having to pay for it. Scott is the only person who knows the truth about her past, but how can he be alive?

Soon, DCI Tom Douglas is going to knock on her door looking for answers. But Anna is already running scared: from the man she loved; the man she watched die; the man who has come back to life.

She has one week to find him. One week to stop him. 

My review - 

Another ‘nose to the book’ novel by Rachel Abbott. It deals with the snowballing of one lie that Anna told to help someone she loved. Her current, happy and successful life is all built on this lie. There are present day scenes in which people are murdered and Anna feels under severe threat. There are past scenes in which we see her student days unfolding. The finale is terrific – exciting and shocking, but credible, in the circumstances. Rachel Abbott is one of the few authors whose books I will buy without reading the blurb. I know I’m in for a great read.

About the author

In 2015 Amazon celebrated the first five years of the Kindle in the UK, and announced that Rachel was the #1 bestselling independent author over the five-year period. She was also placed #14 in the chart of all authors. Stranger Child was the most borrowed novel for the Kindle in the first half of 2015.

Rachel splits her time between Alderney - a beautiful island off the coast of France - and the Le Marche region of Italy, where she is able to devote all her time to writing fiction. For more information, see Rachel's website, or follow her on Twitter.

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Just a thought - 

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.― Anna Quindlen

The Secret Mother

Shalini Boland always writes a good psychological thriller and this is no exception.

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Book description -

'Are you my mummy?’

Tessa Markham returns home to find a child in her kitchen. He thinks she’s his mother. But Tessa doesn’t have any children. 

Not anymore.

She doesn’t know who the little boy is or how he got there. 

After contacting the police, Tessa is suspected of taking the mystery child. Her whole life is turned upside down. And then her husband reveals a secret of his own…

Tessa isn’t sure what to believe or who to trust. Because someone is lying. To find out who, she must confront her painful past. But is the truth more dangerous than Tessa realises? 

My review - 

Shalini Boland gets deep into the mind of Tessa, a woman who seems to have lost everything. Both her children, her husband and her self-belief. She finds a child in her kitchen when she arrives home. He says she is his mummy and an angel brought him there. She’s accused of child abduction and is hounded by the press. This story is in parts poignant, exciting and frustrating. I wanted to shake a couple of the characters! It’s a really good psychological thriller from a writer who excels in the genre. Thoroughly recommended. About the author - Shalini lives in Dorset, England with her husband, two children and their cheeky terrier cross. Before kids, she was signed to Universal Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter, but now she spends her days writing psychological thrillers (in between school runs and hanging out endless baskets of laundry). ~~~ Just a thought - If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Foundling

First in a new series by Angie Smith. It has all the pace and action you'd expect!

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Book description

By agreeing to work for a new client, who claims she’s a police detective, Jonathan Miller sets in motion a sequence of catastrophic events which result in devastating consequences, both for himself and his family.

He joins forces with an old adversary. A man he’s terrified of, yet, when you’re backed in to a corner, this man can always find a way to get you out alive. Together they attempt to solve the brutal assassination of a young woman. In doing so they uncover secrets which have been hidden away for decades. Secrets involving some of the most powerful people in the world.

My review -

Jonathan Miller leads a double life. He acts as an escort in the evenings, which his wife is quite happy about. The man he works for is effectively a gangster and Miller would like to get out of the business and settle down to a more law-abiding life – but his boss won’t let him quit without some payback. The story is steeped in murky business but the top layer of Miller’s life is glitzy and glamorous. It’s a hard thing to give up. Although he’s mixed up in some nasty business, you can’t help rooting for Miller and hoping things work out for him. It’s an exciting story and packed with action, as all Angie Smith’s books are, and I enjoyed it.

Author info

Angie Smith was born in Doncaster and educated at Huddersfield University where she graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Education and Training. After a long career in adult education, training and performance management she retired early to pursue other ventures.

She travels extensively, and was nominated for an award on her knowledge transfer partnerships work, during which she co-produced and presented a journal article at the International Social Work Conference in Durban.

In 2013 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and, following a year of extensive and gruelling treatment, her desire to write was rekindled. Her highly acclaimed CXVI Trilogy and The Spy Who Chipped The China Teacup inspired the creation of her fifth novel The Foundling – Sex lies and Swimming Naked. 

She currently lives in West Yorkshire with her husband, youngest son, two dogs and horse.

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Just a thought - If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.

J K Rowling

The Quaker

New-to-me author Liam McIlvanney has written a complex and satisfying book about a true story of 1960s Glasgow.

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Book description

A city torn apart.
It is 1969 and Glasgow has been brought to its knees by a serial killer spreading fear throughout the city. The Quaker has taken three women from the same nightclub and brutally murdered them in the backstreets.

A detective with everything to prove.
Now, six months later, the police are left chasing a ghost, with no new leads and no hope of catching their prey. They call in DI McCormack, a talented young detective from the Highlands. But his arrival is met with anger from a group of officers on the brink of despair.

A killer who hunts in the shadows.
Soon another woman is found murdered in a run-down tenement flat. And McCormack follows a trail of secrets that will change the city – and his life – forever…

My review - 

A new detective, McCormack, is brought in when the Glasgow police fail to find a serial killer, known as The Quaker. This story, based on truth, is set on the 1960s and has a strong sense of time and place. McCormack’s frustration with lack of progress and with the antipathy of the team he has joined is evident to the reader. Another murder, an apparent breakthrough, draws him to a different conclusion form that of the team. I really enjoyed his through processes and the way he arrived at his own conclusion. Nothing in this story was simple. People who knew things were in too deep and his own background worked against him. So many dilemmas. Sometimes doing the right thing is not good for you personally. This is an exceptional crime story with so much more than plain right and wrong on the table. Highly recommended.

About the author

Professor Liam McIlvanney, the son of novelist William McIlvanney, was born in Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, and studied at Glasgow and Oxford Universities. After ten years lecturing in Scottish and Irish literature at the University of Aberdeen, he moved to Dunedin in New Zealand to teach at the University of Otago. He lectures in Scottish literature, culture and history, and on Irish-Scottish literary connections, and holds the Stuart Professor of Scottish Studies chair at the University.

He won a Saltire Award for his first book, Burns the Radical, in 2002. A chance meeting with an editor for Faber and Faber persuaded him to turn to fiction, and his first novel, All the Colours of the Town, was published in 2009 to great acclaim. His second thriller, Where The Dead Men Go, which saw the return of journalist Gerry Conway, won the prestigious Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel in 2014. 

He has also written reviews and criticism for the London Review of Books, The Guardian, and others. He lives in Dunedin with his wife and three children.

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Just a thought - Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.

Hilary Mantel

Mutilated

Second in a series by Will Patching. Not for the squeamish, but if you like your crime gritty and nasty, this is the book for you!

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Book description

A serial killer challenges criminal profiler, Doctor Colin Powers, to solve several cold case mutilation murders, while Detective Inspector Jack Carver investigates a newly dismembered victim.
An unlikely coincidence?
Is a vicious psychopath from Doc’s past somehow involved, despite having been incarcerated for two decades?
And most importantly to Doc, where is his lover, Judy Finch, who went missing several months ago..?

Find out in Mutilated - the second 'stand alone' novel in this dark, gritty, British Crime Thriller trilogy.

My review -

Second in a series, this is not for the squeamish. In a complex story, Will Patching shows us the work of an evil genius who uses others for his own ends. He uses punishment by mutilation, but pulls others into his orbit to taunt DI Carver and his consultant, Doctor Powers. It’s a graphic, exciting and pretty horrific story in which nothing is quite as simple as it first appears. A great read.

About the author

Will Patching was born and raised in ‘Sarf Lunnon’, Engerland, or at least, that’s how he pronounces it! Hence, many scenes from his novels are situated in London, the surrounding suburbs and other parts of southeast England, though they also span as far afield as Thailand and the USA.

His approach to writing is to hit the reader with hard truths about the world we live in, and his mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels are designed to set your pulse pounding. One male reader decided he needed to check his door locks late one night while reading Remorseless and subsequently commented on social media: 

‘Seriously scary!’

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Just a thought - I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.

Gary Paulsen