Two thrillers from Asia, as the current successful wave of translations continues to reveal the depth of Japanese (and now Korean) crime writing, the obligatory serial killers on the rampage but with a modicum of originality and less clichés than usual, the incomparable Liz Nugent at her best dissecting the dark depths of the human soul, Oxford after dark and deadly doings in a hospital echoing a recent real-life case: this month’s criminal menu ranges far and wide.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Liz Nugent/THE TRUTH ABOUT RUBY COOPER (Penguin Sandycove)
Liz Nugent’s new novel has all the ferocity and bruised landscape of female despair that characterised her previous SALLY DIAMOND but turns the screw a notch tighter through its relentless exploration of wasted lives and quiet despair. Ruby is the younger, both envious and spurned younger sister of a Boston religious family, looking up to older Erin for whom life is so much easier. When she deliberately seduces Erin’s boyfriend Milo and later accuses him of rape, both families are torn asunder and the fall-out will last decades, with the psychological scars never to be erased. Milo ends up in prison, protesting his innocence and her parents split, while Ruby takes refuge in Ireland with her grandmother. The price she has to pay for her lies is a trauma that never leaves her and this tightly wound psychological thriller never relents as guilt, self-justification and one initial impulsive act are seen to have the power to destroy so many lives. Ruby is an intensely complicated character and it might be difficult to find much sympathy for her but the tale of her errors and the path of destruction she leaves in her wake also offers glimpses of affection and understanding for the damaged nature of her personality. No one reaches the darkness at the heart of the souls of young women like Liz Nugent and even though this is not an easy read by virtue of the tale’s power to shock in relating how a single wrong act can literally destroy a handful of lives, there is also a hint of redemption glimpsed throughout and a touch of humanity, reminding us that even the worst in us can possibly be redeemed. Essential reading.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Emma Styles/THE SHARK (Sphere)
A much-awaited follow-up to London-based Australian author Emma Styles’s award-winning debut NO COUNTRY FOR GIRLS, this is a serial killer thriller in which the tension leaps off the page with a bite. Two women on the Western Coast of Australia by the Perth Cottesloe suburbs form a highly uneasy alliance in a bid to hunt down a killer murderously active on local beaches, stalking female swimmers, with a trail of mutilated women’s bodies scattered in his wake on the shoreline. The case is inspired by a real-life crime spree years ago dubbed the Claremont Stalker, but Styles rapidly makes the story her own, through the prism of female rage against the system and a gallery of fallible characters on both sides of the good and evil tracks. Disappointed by the inefficient police response to the chain of awful murders, Carmen and Raych, who met in earlier days as inmates in a psych ward take the matter into their own hands, both with personal motivation: Rachel’s close friend Piper was one of the victims while Carmen feels an unhealthy attraction to the killer. Brimming with anger, they end up as vengeful vigilantes, kidnapping the prime suspect to ill effect only to hear that yet another woman has disappeared while he was in their hands. Twisty and intense, with two highly unreliable and morally complex narrators at the helm, with opposing moral dilemmas and a powerful sting in the tail.
Haruo Yuki/THE ARK (Pushkin Vertigo)
A clever locked room mystery variation from Japan with an added touch of horror, THE ARK touches all the right buttons and proves a relentless race against the clock with the odds mightily stacked. A group of seven university friends embark on an expedition to explore a mysterious abandoned underground bunker isolated in the depths of a remote forest, only to find themselves trapped inside following a minor earthquake, and to witness the water levels rising, seeping through the layers of heavy rock, making their situation highly perilous. By their calculation they could survive a week, although one of them might have to sacrifice himself and stay behind. Only for a member of the endangered group to be found murdered in what has become a case of locked cave mystery. As panic rises and mistrust reigns, Shotaro assumes the role of detective as the murders continue and the sheer terror they are experiencing crescendoes and the reader is left to follow the unfolding of events through meek narrator Shuichi. Fast-paced and rewarding, the novel’s ingenious blend of genres and tropes generate a strong sense of foreboding and the final, mischievous twist does come as a major surprise and caps a rewarding read, with a set of varied characters that will have the reader hissing at for their cowardice and deviousness as well as their moral righteousness, allowing doubt to creep in as to who is the killer and the identity of the next victim. A jolly genre dark caper with thrills to spare.
B.A. Paris/WHEN I KILL YOU (HQ)
British author Paris has over the course of a steady writing career quietly established herself as one of the leading, more perceptive stars of the crowded psychological thriller field, garnering increasingly massive sales and international reach and her ninth novel is a perfectly etched example of the genre. Neil Masters is an unassuming woman in her mid-thirties who works for a charity, leading a quiet life and involved in a steadily growing relationship with globe-trotting Alex. All appears peaceful on the surface until she begins receiving strange parcels and notes and to her utter dismay realises she is being stalked. Her fear is multiplied by the fact she has been hiding bad secrets of her own and, fourteen years ago, was known as Elle and played amateur detective in a notorious murder case which led to her clumsy activities destroying a man’s life in the process. The narrative develops with a dual point of view, with both Neil/Elle and the unknown villain offering their perspective against the background of a dual-pronged story following both the present events and dissecting the past which has in all likelihood much to bear on the suspenseful tale of Neil’s increasingly terrified state of mind. A novel that never slows down and keeps protagonists and readers on their toes throughout, as the suspense rises to a powerful crescendo, with many a surprise and misconceptions littering the emotional trajectory Neil has to endure. Splendid storytelling in overdrive.
Simon Mason/THE DANGEROUS STRANGER (Riverrun)
Following on from a series of exquisite novellas that evoked Simenon’s ‘romans durs’ in their tense, intimate view of the dark but often silent side of humanity, Simon Mason returns to the equally fascinating world of unrelated DIs Ryan Wilkins and Ray Wilkins’ Oxford, now on his fifth investigative outing in territory much familiar to Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse but with an additional touch of modernity and wit. The detectives come from sharply different backgrounds: Ryan grew up on a trailer park, with close connections to criminality while Ray is a highly educated upper-class gent of Nigerian descent, but their combined talents make them a worthy pair of official sleuths, despite an uneasy relationship. Following an attack on a hotel hosting asylum seekers in which a young man is set on fire, which places the action directly in the headlights of present British society and politics, the wary cops’ Chief Constable sets them on the case with a strong sense of urgency, even though he is dubious of their capacity to work together. Was the crime an accident, deliberately connected to far right movements? The ensuing investigation proves quirky and unorthodox and reveals the dead man was not actually an immigrant or even a resident of the hotel, putting the case in a whole, new tantalising perspective. Mason is becoming a master of the modern British police procedural and his double act is one for the connoisseurs.
Sören Sveistrup/HIDE AND SEEK (Michael Joseph)
This is the second novel by the Danish scriptwriter of THE BRIDGE TV series to feature Detective Naia Thulin and Raheem of the National Cyber Crime Centre, as well as Mark Hess and is a follow up to THE CHESTNUT MAN and proves something of a doorstopper of a book at well over 500 pages long. Despite its length it turns out to be fast-throttled, intense and particularly violent, with the required dose of Scandinavian angst, highly troubled characters and a strong sprinkling of moral ambiguity. Troubling childlike voices haunting a wood, repeating an innocent if gloomy children’s rhyme, a body discovered in the water and, many years later, Silje Thompsen, a Copenhagen woman becomes haunted by an unwelcome series of messages featuring the same counting rhyme, with a methodically orchestrated rise in the terror stakes, all elements contributing to a scary premise on an unstoppable road to terror. When the cops come investigating, matters take an even more sinister tone as they uncover a serial killer on the loose and find themselves in a frantic race against time. Sveistrup orchestrates his plot and characters like a malevolent clockmaker, dotting the dark itinerary with twists. With the added mischief of a disappearance on Valentine’s Day to muddy the already murky waters. This is a breathless read and most certainly unputdownable.
J.R. Thornton/LUCIEN (Magpie)
The second novel by a British-born but American and Chinese-educated author with a tennis playing background who now lives in Italy working for AC Milan sees him tackling genre with a provocative tale of dark transgressions in academia with sinister hints of Donna Tartt and SALTBURN. Christopher Novotny, a would-be artist, hailing from a modest background, arrives in Harvard to study and falls under the glittering influence of his privileged roommate Lucien Orsini-Conti and his world of wealth, parties and expensive possessions. Attracted to the lifestyle, social clubs and an unhealthy sense of decadence, Christopher is soon drawn into an art forgery scheme and realises his friend has an hitherto concealed dark side, with powerful queer undertones. With strongly-etched characters who could easily fit into a Patricia Highsmith tale of deceit and illusory surfaces and personalities, LUCIEN is a clever variation of the pact with a highly handsome devil trope, albeit with a strong, malingering touch of homo-eroticism and proves both satirical and realistically sharp as Christopher, now known as Atlas, resorts to painting fakes as he strives to make sense of his societal and sexual leanings and the story swiftly accelerates into a road to nowhere quest for reinvention and acceptance. Ambiguous, propulsive and intense.
Lee Heejoo/HOLY BOY (Picador)
A frantic but imaginative retread of Stephen King’s MISERY, this dark, comedic thriller about the dark side of pop culture, translated from the Korean by Joheun Lee, could not be more topical as it follows the kidnap of a K-pop idol by delusional fans. Three women find they have in common a morbid fetishistic attraction to young, rising music idol Yosep. The group is led by Ahna, a bored, wealthy woman in her 40s with a troubled home life already in a one-way relationship of sorts with an almost under-age sex worker. She is joined by younger Mihee, who dreams of a great love affair and introverted Nami, wracked daily by a pain she wishes to share with others. They are later joined by Heeae, Ahna’s maid who happens to be Yosep’s birth mother, who had once given him up for adoption, and has an ulterior motive. They successfully kidnap the young singer and keep him prisoner in an isolated seaside mansion only for the group of women to tear themselves apart, each with a highly different end game for the boy singer in mind, which inevitably leads to the unveiling of murderous pulsions. A sharp satire of fan culture taken to extremes and an acute X-ray vision of the status of women in South Korean society, this has the allure of a noir gothic tale, unalleviated by the recurring instance and imagery of dead bodies washing up on the beach at regular intervals, possibly originating in North Korea. Lee has an eye for the bizarre and the obsessive as she joins the ranks of Asian writers straddling crime and horror with gusto.
Christie Watson/KILLING ME SOFTLY (Phoenix)
A hard-hitting psychological thriller by the bestselling British author sees her go back to her roots in the medical profession, and a painful focus on the heavy realities of work in a hospital A&E department. With the Lucy Letby case still prominent in people’s minds, Watson deftly explores the inside world of a hospital and how seeds of doubt can so thoroughly disturb the equilibrium in place. A surfeit of deaths and often unexplained incidents cause senior nurse Aoife to wonder about the conduct of some of her new colleagues at City Hospital; is it just incompetence or just coincidence? New arrival Eden is both self-righteous but also deeply caring for the patients in her care, triggering alarm bells to ring in Aoife’s ears. But it is Sophie who bothers her more, another younger nurse with a cold exterior and brimming with unjustified self-confidence. When Rose stumbles into a May/September affair with Aoife’s much older best friend Michael, Aoife feels compelled to dig deeper. A realistic portrayal of the pressures coursing through hospital corridors and rooms, KILLING ME SOFTLY tempers its sometimes delicate subject with a comic touch and a no doubt accurate description of the human foibles at play in such a pressured environment. Watson teaches Creative Writing at UEA and previously spent decades on the wards and her portrait of pressured life at the deep end is miles away from TV sitcoms.
Rebecca Philipson/HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER (Bantam)
Serial killer novels come and go and come again, all too often minor variations on the theme, but Rebecca Philipson’s debut manages to achieve more, with ingenuity and elegance. Samantha Hansen is a London police detective returning from leave following a disturbing ‘he said, she said’ sexual encounter with a colleague, which has left her badly shaken, and stumbles across the worrying case of a 14-year old found murdered in a local park. The only clue found at the scene is a self-help book for aspiring murderers that the killer has deliberately left behind to taunt the investigating team Samantha recruits. The book in question is a manual about the art of serial killing, written by a Denver Brady, who claims to be the most successful repeat killer still at large, whose skills have meant that no one had any clue yet as to his very existence. Thus begins a gripping cat and mouse game between cops and perpetrator, in which clues peppered throughout the sinister play book of crime worryingly arise in new cases. The novel unfolds as a book within a book and tantalises throughout, with a sympathetic sleuth regaining her mojo as she follows the trail, never knowing how much Brady is manipulating her. The novel does falter a little at times, with too many coincidences, some contrived elements and an annoying sub-plot involving a dog, but strives for originality and features great characterisation. One to look out for.
