I have been having a bit of a thriller/crim fest recently during the heatwave which has now broken, I am glad to say, and spent a lot of my time while it was so hot curled up in my bedroom, the coolest part of my flat, reading and generally being slothful. I am indebted as ever to all those lovely publishers out there who keep me supplied with books. Many of the titles that arrived recently were unfamiliar to me and I know if I didn't get review copies I probably never even know about them. So here is a round up of recent
reads:
Sizzling Sixteen - Janet Evanovich. I gather that there are a lot of books featuring Stephanie Plum, the heroine of these books. In fact, sixteen, and lots more in between as well and I am surprised that these have passed me by. Stephanie Plum, with her cousin Vinnie (mmm sounds like a film title to me) run Plum Bail Bonds and it seems he has run up a huge gambling debt with a local mobster who kidnaps him and threatens to kill him unless the cash can be produced. Nobody seems particularly interested in helping Vinnie but Stephanie sets out to find a way. She is aided by Connie, the office manager, and retired Working Girl, Lulu.
Totally silly and very amusing and fast moving, I really enjoyed this book and though, at first, I found the flippant one liners a little disconcerting, once I got used to the machine gun fire style of chat, and tried hard to ignore the fact that Stephanie is descirbed as feisty - aaaaagh - I began to warm to it all and settled down for a fun read. Fun it was and this author is now on my list to keep an eye out for. No end entertaining.
The Siren - Alison Bruce. I recently reviewed Cambridge Blue by this author. It had just been publsihed in paperback and if you want to see what I thought about it, then click here. I had found it slightly confusing in places with a couple of strands in the plot I could not work out and will say straight away that her second, just published in hardback, is much better.
We meet DC Gary Goodhew once more, the youngest detective in the Cambridge Police Force who is so
driven and intuitive that his immediate superior is keeping a close eye on him, as well as a file locked safely away in his office clocking his every move. With good reason, as DC Goodhew is one of those annoying maverick type cops who prefers to work alone and cut corners. Without these kind of characters I sometimes feel the detective genre would come grinding to a halt.
Kimberly Guyver and her friend Rachel Golinski have a secret which they hope to have left behind them, but when a car is dredged up from the sea in Spain with a dead body inside and the identification of the corpse brings events closer to them than they would like, flight is the only answer. But before they have a chance to disappear, Rachel is murdered, her house burned down and Kimberly's little son vanishes. Although distraught at the disappearance of her son, Goodhew feels Kimberly is keeping something back and is being uncooperative with the police despite the dangers facing her.
Much better plotted than Cambridge Blue and, as with a new series, it takes a while for the characters to bed in and for the reader to begin to warm to them. Not sure I have warmed to Goodhew yet, but am getting there and his relationship with his old school mate and his grandmother show his off duty side and make him a much more rounded personality. These books are settling in nicely now and I shall be looking forward to the next one in the series.
The Dogs of Rome - Conor Fitzgerald. My thanks to Bloomsbury for sending me this as I had noticed it in their catalogue and thought it sounded interesting. A detective novel set in Rome. I love Italian detective stories, am currently enjoying reading the Montalbano books of Camilleri and adore those of
Donna Leon set in Venice so was looking forward to this. It is headed 'An Alec Blume novel' which makes it sound as if there are quite a few of them, but on checking it looks as if this is the first one so goody, another one on my list.
Chief Inspector Blume was born in the USA but lived with his parents in Italy since a child. A sulky sullen teenager he has to face reality when his parents are killed in a bank raid. The police are sympathetic to this suddenly orphaned teenager and when his landlord tries to throw him out of his home, they manage to 'persuade' him to forfeit rent and leave the young Alec in situ.
The police become his friends and replacement family and as an adult he joins the force and rises to Chief Inspector.
One hot day when he is enjoying lunch he receives a call telling him of a brutal murder not far from the corner of Trastevere where he is sitting. Arturo Clemente, an animal rights activist has been brutally stabbed; his wife is an elected member of the Senate and Blume is put under pressure from on high to clear the case up quickly, they have a prime suspect to hand and all looks cut and dried. Of course, this is the start of a detective novel so we know this is not the case and Blume has to fight to regain control of the investigation.
Very well written, good characterisation and lots of plots and sub-plots which lead him to a meeting with the local member of the Family, who it transpires he may have more links to than he realised or wants. Another good read and number two is, I hope, on its way.
I have tried to be fairly succinct with these three titles as I don't want to give too much of the plot away so I hope that these three mini-reviews wet your appetite and make you want to try these authors. All of them new to me and I enjoyed them all very much.
Thanks again to Bloomsbury, to Headline and Constable ....keep them coming
