Sometimes, the choice for my book of the month is straightforward, but on this January occasion, it proved nigh impossible, so huge kudos to the David McCloskey admirable spy thriller that was equally worthy of the selection, but was pipped at the post by Don Winslow’s diamond sharp novellas. And then, for your pleasure and delight, we find a contrary heroine who just refuses to die again and again, mysterious cheques in the post, Glasgow louche auctioneer Rilke on the make again, reunions gothic and traditional in isolated locales, alongside a smorgasbord of thrillers and mysteries to feed all palates! Savour.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Don Winslow/THE FINAL SCORE (Hemlock Press)
Having previously announced his writing retirement, Winslow returns (momentarily?) for another round, if only to remind us of how much he’d be missed! Not a sprawling epic novel on this occasion, but a collection of novellas which lands with ultimate impact, each story economical, compelling and hitting the target with engineering precision, not a word wasted, little gems demonstrating his mastery of the form, storytelling and emotions. In the opening one, which gives the book its title, a career thief about to go to prison for a long stretch organises his final impossible heist against a mobbed-up casino in order to leave his family money as much as proving to himself he can beat the odds. It packs enough thrills and affection for its characters to leave you wanting so much more. In ‘The Sunday List’ a drugs delivery service scheme inveigles all sorts of shady characters in a delightful maelstrom of petty crime while ‘The North Wing’ introduces us to cousins, one an honest cop and the other something of a wastrel, confronted by difficult decisions seeking a way out that suits both and ‘ True Story’ is a hilarious shaggy dog tale with a sharp sting tale that unfolds all in dialogue, with a mischievous nod to mafia made men of the big screen and had me grinning throughout. Boone Daniels from Winslow’s iconic THE DAWN PATROL, returns to bodyguard a capricious Hollywood star on a troubled shoot in ‘The Lunch Break’ reminding us of glories past and with an endearing psychological twist attached. Every story has the reader begging for more, sparse, almost perfect, which leaves the final one ‘Collision’ a very minor letdown about a conflicted killer, that only pales ever so slightly in comparison with the immaculate tradecraft and story writing of the preceding tales. An absolute joy!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
David McCloskey/THE PERSIAN (Swift Press)
McCloskey’s fourth novel, THE PERSIAN could not be more topical. Moving away from Cold War and CIA shenanigans and betrayals, we find ourselves at the heart of the ongoing bloody conflict between Israel and Iran, with the principal character, Kamran Esfahani, a Persian Jewish dentist who lives in Sweden reluctantly recruited by Mossad to infiltrate his country of origin to counter the Iranian nuclear menace, only to find himself confronted by the vengeful General, a cruel member of the Revolutionary Guard’s security forces on a mission of revenge against his handler Arik Glitzman who similarly hungers for bloody retribution for deaths and betrayals past. Caught between them is the wife of an assassinated Iranian scientist drawn against her will into this perilous espionage web. Part of the story unfolds following Kam’s capture and mental and physical torture at the hands of the General. Although the seemingly doomed dentist and amateur spy is nominally the main, title character, the spymasters and their increasingly bloody game is at the foreground of the cat and mouse, amoral plot. McCloskey brings a great sense of humanity to Kam and his cruel manipulators and makes this a novel of sharp psychological depth against an all too realistic and contemporary background, displaying yet another facet of his talent. A change of pace but with no drop in intensity and yet another quasi-perfect spy thriller whose flesh and blood characters will linger long after in the reader’s mind. First class.
Louise Welsh/THE CUT UP (Canongate)
Scottish author Welsh takes her time between books and this third outing for gay Glasgow auctioneer Rilke, following the award-winning THE CUTTING ROOM and THE SECOND CUT has been some years in the waiting but proves well worthwhile. As ever, Rilke is finding the business of living somewhat expensive, but his shady business dealings at Bowery Auctions allow him to survive, straddling the thin line between legality and outright fraud. However when the body of one of the company’s more shady clients Rodney Manderson is found in a nearby alley with a Victorian hairpin plunged deep inside his eye that was last seen in the hair of his boss Rose Bowery, Rilke’s first instinct is to substitute the improvised instrument of death with another and conceal and clean the involuntary weapon before he actually calls the police. Soon, the sharp-tongued Rilke finds himself investigating the bloody event as it implicates too many people he is familiar with, alongside assisting his old friend Fred who has recently left prison. It proves an uneasy endeavour as his acquaintances have a tendency to complicate everything and don’t make things easier for him. A welcome return for an endearing and complicated character with a great, sardonic repartee and a full immersion into a shifty and comic world of crime by one of the undisputed if unprolific queens of Tartan Noir.
Tom Hindle/A KILLER IN PARADISE (Century)
Although the Agatha Christie trope of old friends reuniting for mysterious reasons in an isolated locale is becoming something of a cliché amongst the current renaissance of cosy vogue, there is no doubt that Tom Hindle is one of the more adept practitioners of the form, having impressively used the formula before with elegance and imagination in settings as diverse as the Arctic, Lake Garda in Italy, a country manor and a transatlantic sea journey, enjoying great commercial success in the process. On the occasion of this new novel, we find a motley group of friends and acquaintances reunited to attend the formal opening of a luxury hotel in the Costa Rican rainforest, owned by property heiress Abigail Blythe, with whom they trekked across Central America some ten years before, a journey that ended badly for one of them. The connections, old and new, between the diverse protagonists and their often-conflicted past histories are quickly laid out in time for a body to be discovered at the launch and a mass of suspicions, suspects and antagonisms rise to the surface as the survivors, none of whom is the picture of innocence, soon come to the realisation they are trapped in place and must endeavour to solve the murder before each of them follows in the same bloody footsteps. It’s a plot we’ve encountered many times before but Hindle has a mischievous talent for deception and well-rounded if at times caricatural characters and pulls the reader along like an adept puppet master with bags of surprises up his sleeve. Jolly entertainment.
Paul Finch/THE LODGE (Thomas & Mercer)
A suspenseful thriller with a strong touch of gothic darkness by a veteran British crime author who is equally at ease in the horror and fantasy genres, THE LODGE takes the theme of the classic visit to a shady closed locale and spins it into frantic overdrive to menacing effect, dialling up the suspense and degrees of peril to the protagonists to ten and more. Nick Thornwood travels at the end of a weekend-long Murder Tour to the gloomy turrets of Black Tarn Lodge, an imposing gothic folly set deep in the forest of Bowland, where he and his fellow visitors have been promised the screening a legendary, lost movie by the lodge’s former owner, the director Edgar Karmwood. First their phones go missing and then some of the weekend’s participants fade away into the darkness, until inevitably the first body is discovered and the visitors find themselves isolated and being picked one off one at a time. The setting proves itself as much a character as the human chess pieces desperately trying to make sense of their predicament, a building full of the late director’s costumes and props, sinister and malevolent. Breathless and often gruesome, the novel gains in intensity what it lacks in originality and proves an exemplary exercise in style and a fast, compelling read.
Lauren Schott/VERY SLOWLY ALL AT ONCE (HQ)
This cautionary tale in thriller guise presents us with an affluent suburban upper middle-class couple, Mack and Hailey Evans chasing the American dream: a brand new house in a exclusive Lakeland village in Ohio, respective careers on the up, two beautiful children. But the bills keep arriving and it’s a struggle for them to financially stay afloat. Then a convenient cheque arrives in the mail from an unknown source. Under the impression it might be a gesture from his estranged father to reconcile, Mack conveniently cashes it. But then, further sums of money keep on arriving unbidden in the couple’s lap, getting larger every time, solving a cohort of financial problems, although Hailey harbours a different suspicion as to its source and the motives behind it. Naturally, the time comes when a harsh reckoning lands on their troubled doorstep and the investment someone has made on them has to be repaid, accrued interest and all, if life for the married couple is not to take a perilous turn. At times satirical about the strivings of the bourgeoisie and carrying a strong hint of mischief, the rapidly accelerating plot proves both sinister and a comedy of errors that will keep the reader glued to the page, more or less sympathetic with the hapless protagonists as they begin to sink into a monetary version of quicksand. Tense, twisty and witty, this is domestic thriller with some innovative aspects and a knack for flawed characters.
Gilly Macmillan/THE BURNING LIBRARY (Baskerville)
The award-winning English psychological thriller maestra takes a sideways detour into dark academia thriller territory (à la Dan Brown and Kate Mosse) and the marketing mavens change her first name from Gillian to Gilly for the occasion, a repositioning I find unnecessary and unlikely to bamboozle her fans. The end product is as ever splendid and a joy to read. Webs of conspiracy rise to the surface when harmless and anonymous Eleanor Bruton is murdered and her body discovered on a Hebridean shore, next to a scrap of fraying embroidery. Out of the shadows emerge two powerful occult female groups, The Order of St Katherine and the Fellowship of the Larks, both believing this artefact will lead them to a legendary, lost manuscript which will give them the upper hand in their timeless struggle to impose women in the highest reaches of the world’s corridors of power. Dr Anya Brown, a young, brilliant graduate is hired by one of the groups to unknowingly assist in this endeavour by joining the Institute for Manuscript Studies, unsuspecting of her benefactor’s motives. Meanwhile at Scotland Yard, Detective Clio Spicer is drawn into the investigation of the murder, unaware of the centuries-old conspiracy sitting at its root. Breathless, cultured and gripping, a fascinating proto-feminist adventure.
C.E. Hulse/VIVIAN DIES AGAIN (Viper)
An often laugh aloud comic thriller with a horde of classic murder mystery tropes, British author Caroline Hulse’s venture into crime is a veritable hoot. The eponymous Vivian Slade has long turned thirty, is still single, highly contrary, inconsiderate and friendless. But she is fixed on turning the tide and attends a family gathering where she is absolutely unwelcome, with every single party present literally hating her guts. When she is deliberately toppled over the balcony and meets her death, it could have been anyone responsible. However, Vivian returns to life and, in a Groundhog Day eternal cycle, keeps on being killed again in varying original fashions and must resolve the case of her own murder to break the implacable time loop she is held captive in. Her only apparent alley proves to be Jamie, a waiter eager to complete his shift and leave the premises. With amusing insights into Vivian’s past sins and mistakes, giving her character something of a Fleabag vibe, and a gallery of well-etched and all suspicious family characters out to take revenge on her, the tale races by with a succession of humorous and often cringeworthy events involving the much imperfect protagonists. Some will chuckle, others will roar and guffaw but the reader is guaranteed many a smile along the slippery road of Vivian’s cascade of misadventures.
Patrick Charnley/THIS, MY SECOND LIFE (Hutchinson Heinemann)
A powerful, elegiac debut novel by the son of writer Helen Dunmore, THIS, MY SECOND LIFE is a slow burner literary thriller with a strong personal perspective as the principal character has also undergone a life-changing cardiac arrest leading to a brain injury as did the author. Twenty year old Jagp Trevarno, following his harrowing experience, moves to Cornwall to live near St Ives with his kind uncle Jacob on an old-fashioned farm that has seen better days, and the whole book reads like a love letter to the local countryside, evoked in every small detail with delicacy and elegance as Jago adapts to his new environment and learns to appreciate it and the new-found simplicity of his rural life. However, a malevolent shadow looms over the close horizon, as local villain and neighbour Bill Sligo eyes a disused mineshaft on Jacob’s lower field near the cliffs and presses hard to acquire it. As the quiet rhythms of everyday Cornwall country life tick by, Jago finds himself obliged to intervene and solve the mystery. But is he in the right state to take on such a possibly perilous challenge? The story of Jago’s return to life and the local intrigue unfolds against the unencumbered clockwork of nature, the sky and their unhurried elements, unshowy, meticulous but affectionate. A touching and seductive read on the margins of genre.
Oliver Johnson/CALLER UNKNOWN (Point Blank)
An impressive adult conspiracy thriller debut by a well-known British editor better known until now for some children’s and fantasy books. CALLER UNKNOWN is an impeccable fast ride featuring an almost tireless series of surprising twists along the way that takes the reader on an implacable journey into darkness as subplots and mysteries unfold at length. Seven drugged children are found in Maine, alongside an American highway, and no one can retrieve their memories either through medical ways or hypnosis once they are awakened or establish who they truly are. Unknown to them and the public at large, they are the Apostles, created by a sinister organisation with a nefarious project in mind. Ed Constance is one of these children, later taken into care and grows up in ignorance of his role, until the day, now of college age, he receives a call and fragments of his memories finally return, piecemeal, and he finds himself on the run, with old adversaries seemingly on his trail. But from what? The revelations come fast and furiously while the novel’s pace seldom tires, with Johnson unpeeling his carefully constructed layers with anatomical precision and delivering a first class dark thriller with a venomous bite in the tail as befits an author who is also John Grisham and Lyndsey Davis’s editor and proves a master craftsman in his own right.
