She Had It Coming - Carys Jones

 

Brand new thriller from Carys Jones

This book is about what happens when a best friend goes missing, and your daughter was the last person to see her best friend alive. And how the search for truth tells you so much more about the people you think you know best.

Pippa is a popular girl as school, yet her best friend Heather is a tearaway, a rebel who is acting out against her mother who is the work too hard while Pippa's mother Abbie is the ever-faithful, loyal housewife who wants nothing more than the perfect life for her family.

The disappearance and subsequent finding of Heather's body leads to an upheaval of Abbie's homelife and puts an already terrible strain on her marriage to John who is working too hard at the hospital in his role as surgeon.

Jones cleverly weaves a tale of truth and lies, able to correctly give voice to both Abbie as the caring mother and Pippa the erstwhile teen whose life has fallen apart as suspicions spread around the school upon the discovery and knowledge of Heather's passing becomes known.

The influences on this book range from Fiona Barton to the television series Doctor Foster, written by Mike Bartlett - the series that was at times misanthropic and did not like its lead character mostly. Jones however, has crafted in Abbie a forthright and strong woman, partial to the odd tipple but will do anything to save her child.

That is the ultimate message of this book, how far would you go to protect your child and stop the truth coming out. Jones writes the characters of Abbie and Pippa with such care and attention, you do side with their actions as they aim to resolve the problems caused by Heather's disappearance.

A gripping read for this reader, yet not quite as memorable as was hoping, albeit written with a great conviction and assurance.

SHE HAD IT COMING is out from Orion Publishing now on all formats.

My thanks to the author's agent, Emily Glenister, for the review opportunity.

The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly

 

Brand new LA set crime thriller from master storyteller Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is most famous for creating the indelible detective Harry Bosch, rendered in the Amazon production Bosch starring Titus Welliver. Bosch is a hard-bitten, hard-working policeman who knows what is right and wrong, while the forces that be conspire to restrict his brand of policing in these more politically correct times.

As Bosch has grown up and in the narrative of his books, retired from the police force to become a private detective, we now follow Renee Ballard, a female police officer who works the same beat as Bosch used to do and is also facing the same troubles Bosch used to notice - colleagues who do not work as hard, no empathy for victims and hands tied by paperwork.

This new tale starts on New Years Eve, Ballard has to work the beat as all police officers must do on a busy night of the year in Los Angeles. In a pique of revelry, angelinos shoot bullets into the air amidst this unusual tradition a bullet goes astray leading to a murder investigation. The bullet leads to the reopening of a cold case led by Bosch.

The predatory Midnight Men are on the prowl, a duo of sex predators who attack women on major holidays - single women in their own home attacked and victimised. Ballard takes these attacks personally and chooses to hunt them down. Connelly has always had a great eye for detail in police work, as Bosch says 'get off your ass and knock on some doors' and Ballard's detective work in noticing the streetlights in terms of giving the perpetrators extra darkness is a wonderfully painted narrative detail.

As ever, there is a crispness to the dialogue spoken with real world dialogue apparent amidst a global pandemic and the swiftness of the narrative as Ballard spins numerous plates in the air while combining with Bosch to great effect. 

This makes for a winning combination and this is another winner from the desk of Connelly, a master of the crime genre.

The Dark Hours is out now from Orion Publishing on all formats 

Things Can Only Get Better - David M. Barnett

Following on from his best seller CALLING MAJOR TOM, David M. Barnett is back with a new novel set in the mid 1990s.

Our lead protagonist is Arthur Calderbank, an elderly widow who is not living in a chapel that overlooks the cemetery where his deceased wife, Mollie lays now.

Arthur is the custodian of the cemetery, keeping gravestones clean and making sure the proper respect is paid by those who visit and those merely passing through. In his elderly years, life has one more surprise for Arthur. It is Christmas time and his wife's birthday is December 23rd, every night of her birthday an unknown person leaves moonflowers on her gravestone.  Arthur is perplexed as he has no idea who it could be as they had no children and no living family members.

Meanwhile, Arthur encounters four teenagers - Kelly, Gemma, Nicola and Timmy - who through will and determination believe they can be a rock and roll band reminiscent of Oasis and other Britpop bands of that esteemed era of popular music.

Tension ensues as the days wind down to the night flower mystery, the children have their own bad luck to contend with as bullies from all sides make themselves known.  All the children have dreams but living in a former mining town, their parents are out of work and looking to blame someone for it; they feel they have to dream to be able to leave the town, Kelly visits along with her mother to her factory job and has this vision of being the unlikely sprocket, the cog that is not wanted but can still get out of the system.

Barnett writes wittingly and lovingly, he is assured in writing genuine dialogue for both teenagers and the elderly getting the write back and forth between all generations spot on, which is difficult in these times nevermind trying to time capsule how people actually did speak, one teenage girl constantly says, 'He is well fit' which memory serves as a correct term of endearment over twenty years ago.

The author is a self-confessed cinema geek and his filmic references are great to spot throughout the novel from the little nod to a pharmacist recalling Its A Wonderful Life to the British cinema mining town Brassed Off to the youngsters wanting to make something of themselves a la Sing Street.

He also does a clever trick of talking about today by looking into recent history - the ground swell of opinion on immigration, entitlement of youth - and the past being lost to newer generations. Barnett makes a comment that we should all remain strong as a community of support and respect.

Barnett writes so well that this reader devoured the book in merely a couple of days, his recall and use of historical events help set in stone an entertaining piece of work that will be enjoyed with relish by many a new reader.

Things Can Only Get Better is published by Orion Books on November 14th.

My thanks to them for the review opportunity

For The Missing - Lina Bengtsdotter

It seems that Nordic noir is not going away, from the high point times of the The Girl trilogy by Steig Larsson to the Wallander novels; noir from Scandinavia is in vogue and not retreating to the shadows.

The debut novel by Bengtsdotter, is one of those novels that takes a while to get its claws into you, and once it does, it refuses to let go.

Nordic noir follows a template of a structure familiar to crime readers old and new; a young detective fighting her own demons must go back to her hometown following a long absence as a new case opens up old wounds for not just our protagonist but the family and friends she left behind for the bright lights of a big city.

This familiar tale of redemption to overcome a failing is well handled. DI Charlie Lager, is a detective with an affliction for alcohol, but the type of drinking where she drinks to an oblivion yet she wakes up for work with no problem; her peers know of her vices and dance around the issue as she is good at her job.

A missing child in her hometown leads Charlie to head north away from Stockholm, at odds with her partner and at odds with the town she returns to; nevertheless Charlie must find the missing Annabelle before it is too late.

And yet it is not Annabelle she is really looking for, Charlie is really looking for herself and this journey home helps her. Good writing is not just by the numbers of thriller and crime tropes, Bengtsdotter navigates a gripping tale of kidnapping, infidelity and violence against women with assuredness.

For The Missing is out now from Orion Publishing on all formats.

Our Life In A Day - Jamie Fewery

The debut novel from journalist Jamie Fewery, takes a unique narrative concept to tell the story of a relationship over 10 years.

Esme and Tom, meet by chance at a fancy dress party - they are the two who have not bothered to get dressed up so immediately there is a kinship bond between the two of them, a common footing from which to spring off.

That night Tom escorts Esme home to her flat south of the river, this walk they get to know each other and they agree to meet the next day. A relationship is blossoming.

Fast forward to 10 years later, on the day of their 10th anniversary, as a treat Esme decides to play a game where Tom has to come up with the story about their life together. 24 post-it notes, one signifying one hour of any hour of any day from the last 10 years - so we embark upon a flash backing and jumping around narrative where we encounter surprise birthday parties, Christmas get-togethers, long disruptive car journeys that paint the picture of a partnership and the obstacles that society can thrust upon you such as parental passings and the past that hangs around you.

While comparisons will be drawn no doubt to David Nicholls' One Day, this is an altogether different book which does not have the unnecessary ending Nicholls' book had which redeemed the quite frankly awful character of Dex.

Fewery has taken great care in constructing two lead characters who are fully rounded and while they have negatives and drawbacks, the realisation is 'don't we all'.  Tom is flawed in that he has his demons from his university days, attempting to deal with the pressures of uni life by drowning his sorrows too much and forcing himself to make a terrible decision.  That decision comes back to haunt him and his rendering is one of the better ones to show the pain of mental illness in young men, a portrayal rarely seen in literature and goes hand in hand with the current social groundswell taking place.

Esme meanwhile is written beautifully, like women in fiction she is stubborn, forthright and opinionated but loyal and faithful to Tom to a tee.  In the inevitable adaptation, you can picture Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) taking on the mantle of her role.  We are now past the manic pixie dream girl and landed in the land of beautifully stubborn young lady.

Fewery writes with a conciseness and clarity, I read the book in less than a week ripping through chapters at will. He has created two very rounded characters - a forthright female with her own ambitions and stubborn as hell, while in Tom he has written a man who has his demons and is wary to share them.  This is a great portrayal of mental illness; we as men need to open up and share our problems - when you communicate openly you can share the burden but also find some resolution and consolation in being honest about how you are feeling.

This book will garner a great audience and is a lovely book to purchase for Christmas; this is a book written for both sides of the argument, this is not a book solely written by the male gaze instead it can be considered a metrosexual novel of an altering relationship.

Our Life In A Day is published by Orion Books on 27th December 2018.

Hangman

The highly anticipated sequel to Ragdoll by Daniel Cole, has a lot to live up to.  When we finished Ragdoll, the hero Wolf had fled the scene following his colleague Baxter's decision to let him leave the crime scene.  Wolf has gone underground and no-one has seen him, we find Baxter now two years after the end of the Ragdoll murders and the numerous copy cats.  Now there is a new mass murderer who is taking bodies and having them hang from great heights with the word 'BAIT' scored into the torso of the mainly male bodies.

Baxter and her team, including the returning Edmunds have to work with new friends including the ex-pat Rouche, a man born in England but working for the CIA in America who is as disruptive as Wolf was but just as conflicted.

The book has the feel of the writer spreading his wings, but whereas the first book had the social context of fear and panic of unknown attackers on the streets of London, with the media spinning people into a frenzy for their health and safety; this novel though has the feel of being a lost love child of Dan Brown.  Extensive plotting with twists aplenty, by the book characters with little in the way of emotional connection and elaborate set-pieces of action and gore being given precedence over telegraphed dialogue.

This reader feels that following the high-octane, gasping intensity of Ragdoll this is a step backwards although the (very) late introduction of someone means that another book is in the offing and this return to the mean may hopefully incite a return to form.

Cole is a writer who clearly likes to take risks with his writing, compounded intentions and expectations of his readership but for this reader it seems to have come up short to the level of what Ragdoll was, my hope is that the expected third book is a return to that thrilling form.

Hangman is released by Trapeze Books on 22nd March

We All Begin As Strangers

Out in paperback today from Orion Publishing

The debut novel from journalist, Harriet Cummings, is a piece of historical fiction set around the year 1984, a hot summer when a burglar universally referred to as 'The Fox' is terrorising the small village of Heathcote near Oxford.  Cummings' novel tells the story from four differing viewpoints - opening with Deloris, the policeman Robert, vicar and nice guy Simon.

The problem I had with the book was the difficult opening of Deloris, a character who is unhappy in her marriage and sets about leaving her husband, Harvey, including taking a job in a hotel in London.  Apart from mere mentions of the Fox breaking into neighbour's properties, the story focuses on her plight and it comes across as a bit needy and unnecessary to the plot.  When Deloris appears later in the book, she is better on the periphery.

The four differing viewpoints is something we have seen in all manner of popular culture, most famously Akira Kurosawa's 1951 film Rashomon, where the differing viewpoints alter the narrative and who is telling the truth when all people claim ownership of the truth.

In this novel, the truth is not fully revealed until the last viewpoint entwined with Simon's personal problems of identity, this leaves the reveal of the Fox as almost secondary and when it was revealed, it was somewhat out of nowhere and underwhelming.

This is a shame as I had high hopes for this novel with it's beautiful book cover and the setting of 1984 for social and political context.

In conclusion, this is a novel that will garner critical attention, but may struggle to capture the imagination of the mainstream reader.

We All Begin As Strangers is published by Orion Publishing on 20th April 2017

Interview with David Barnett, author of 'Calling Major Tom'

Author David Barnett of 'Calling Major Tom'

Calling Major Tom is one of the most highly rated and beloved books of 2017, following its paperback publication from Orion Publishing on Thursday 29th June, NextToTheAisle was granted an interview with the book's author, David Barnett.

- What was the genesis of the book?

Well, I’ve mentioned this several times before, but the main inspiration came from a true-life event when the British astronaut Tim Peake made a wrong-number call to a grandmother in the UK at Christmas 2015, which amused me and made me wonder what would have happened if that conversation had continued, which is the basis for Calling Major Tom. But I suppose the real-life story behind that is the fact I was made redundant from my job in summer 2015 and embarked on a freelance journalism career. When the idea for the book came to me and I started discussions with Orion, who were setting up their new imprint Trapeze, it meant I was in a good position to devote the time to writing the book.

- Where did the idea for a fish out of water come about, by plot, by character?

I knew Thomas was going to be incredibly grumpy, and I knew that he needed to be away from everyone else, so that was the starting point. But I also knew that readers tend not to take to a character who’s curmudgeonly for no reason, so Thomas had to have had a life that had led him to being like that, and unfolding the reasons for his grumpiness formed a big part of writing the novel.

- I first heard of your book, a few months after David Bowie's passing, was this an unlikely accident or did you re-edit due to his passing?

No, it all came about at the same time, really. The Tim Peake incident happened just a couple of weeks before Bowie’s death, and when the latter happened - like Thomas in the book, I awoke on my 46th birthday to hear the news - it all seems to fit seamlessly together and helped to formulate Thomas’s character. He’s grumpy but he’s not a monster - he has excellent taste in music, and Bowie’s death, along with some more personal bad news, is one of the motivating factors that propels him into the position where he becomes the first human to make a solo mission to Mars.

David Bowie, the original Major Tom

- How long did the whole process take?

It was very quick, really. Because the idea consolidated itself very quickly I was off and writing at the beginning of 2016 and I think I’d delivered the finished manuscript by the end of July, with obviously some copy edits after that. But the ebook was released in January 2017, just shy of a year that I’d first begun conversations with Sam Eades at Trapeze about the idea.

- You have a good sense of character and dialogue of differing ages of characters, how did you capture that?

I think as a writer you have to be interested in all kinds of people, and observe them, and take notice of them. We usually all have family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours etc of varying ages, social classes, ethnicities etc etc and it’s just a case of being interested in people. All the best fiction is about people, and a good writer really needs to be able to get under the skin of all kinds of people to know what makes them tick.

- David Bowie hangs over the book and provides a soundtrack as you read, what other influences did you have?

Music was important - in fact, I recently put together a playlist of most of the music referenced in the novel (including Chris De Burgh’s Lady In Red… that was from another character, Thomas would be appalled). You can find it here: https://davidbarnett.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/calling-major-tom-the-playlist/. But I think I wanted the novel to feel as contemporary as possible, so there are references to Brexit etc. But one of the biggest influences was my hometown of Wigan. That’s where the Ormerod family who Thomas makes contact with live, and I wanted to try to portray a working class family as ordinary, normal people… so much of contemporary fiction seems to focus on middle class characters, I wanted to show the lives of people like those I grew up around.

Tim Peake's accidental phone-call supplied inspiration

  

- How pleased have you been by the response to the book?

Well, it’s early days yet, as the paperback only came out at the end of June, but the response to the ebook was phenomenal. I was amazed at how much of a chord the story and characters seemed to strike within a wide range of people, and there were some utterly fantastic reviews (such as yours!) from book bloggers, who I see as an absolutely vital part of the book culture for getting the word out about books to readers.

  

- You come from a journalism background, do you find the key to avoid block is to keep writing in any format?

Yes, the day job is still freelance journalism, so any given day will find me writing features for the national newspapers and magazines, working on fiction, doing a bit of lecturing at a local university, so I’m always writing, and while the writing isn’t always fiction, it’s like exercise. If you go to the gym you might do cardio or work different muscle groups, but it all contributes to overall physical fitness. It’s the same with writing. Journalism and fiction use different writing muscles, but ultimately it’s all writing, and that’s what’s important - to keep writing.

- What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new novel for Trapeze, which is called The Lonely Hearts Cinema Club, and which will be published by Trapeze in summer 2018. It’s set in a quirky rest home on the Lancashire coast, which takes in students to fill empty rooms and make a bit of money, and is a bit of a mystery, a bit of an inter-generational clash, a bit of a story about loneliness and growing up… or not.

Calling Major Tom is out now on Paperback from Orion Books

Follow David Barnett on his website www.barnettmedia.co.uk/ or on Twitter @davidmbarnett

Calling Major Tom

David M. Barnett has written a wonderful novel which through the irony of timing and the (un)fortunate nature of planning, has become a story that may well live longer in the memory than any other run of the mill novels that name check celebrity.

A typically British yarn that is a fish-out-of-water story about a man way in over his head and not being able to deal with the surroundings he finds himself in and yet overcoming those same odds to better himself; the lead character is rich in the vein of misanthropic antagonists who is at loggerheads with the world a la 'The Man Called Ove'.

David M Barnett, Author

Whilst reading you can seemingly imagine a film adaptation in the same remit as The Full Monty or an Ealing Studios masterpiece, a lithe British film that wants to shout out and say how mighty we can be while Americans look upon us as merely that small island.

The ending of the book is handled very well and warrants a re-read in how Barnett handles the two storylines coming together, whilst it is far-fetched to believe an astronaut circling the earth would make contact with a down on their luck family in Wigan; nevertheless the narrative and the delicately handled characters make the scene not so far fetched due to the lightness of the writing and dialogue.

While the title may well be indebted to the White Duke, David Bowie and certain songs are name dropped throughout, this does not read as a sycophantic novel that jumps on the death of an idol instead it reads as a comment on how that very special artist became somewhat embedded into our cultural psyche by just being memorable in terms of his persona and song-writing.

For this reviewer, it was a book that was read quickly and turned pages swiftly with its lightness of touch and deftness of plotting and character.

Calling Major Tom will be published by Trapeze on 18th May 2017, in paperback (£7.99) and e-book (£7.99).

Ragdoll

With thanks to Orion Books for the review copy of this book before the February 2017 release date.

Written by debut novelist Daniel Cole, Ragdoll started life as a unproduced television pilot before Cole put it in a drawer somewhere and after many rejections decided to in his own words, 'do the selfish thing and write a book that I would love myself'.

Ragdoll tells the tale of the Ragdoll killer a serial killer who having already stitched together six victims to make a ragdoll of a corpse - separate head, torso, arms, legs. The head belongs to the infamous Cremation killer, a serial peadophile who would abuse young girls before disposing of their bodies in the aforementioned manner.

One detective William Fawkes stood up to his belief that one man Naquib Khalid was the killer, and this belief led to him attacking Khalid in the dock at the Old Bailey.  Now the case is brought back from the past, Khalid's own head is that of the Ragdoll, and Wolf is being used as bait by the Ragdoll Killer.

A man who is gripping the nation as he has provocatively claimed he will kill seven people on a specific date, with Wolf the last on the list. This showmanship of stating when and where he will complete his next murder is fitting for the current world fixated with multi-media platforms, the ultimate embodiment of 15 minutes of fame even for the victims. 

So begins a huge game of cat and mouse between the Metropolitan Police and the Ragdoll killer who is seemingly one step ahead of them, as the police try to put every next victim in witness protection, the killer beats them to the punch.

Daniel P Cole - the author

For a debut novel, Cole takes telling risks in his narrative by flirting with the possibility of following a tried and tested pattern yet then doing an about face which is as ingenious as his master villain. The risks are not restricted the narrative development, our allegiances to Wolf who is part Maverick, part wind-up merchant, part charmer is a risk taker himself, and our empathy for him is tested throughout culminating in the test of plausibility by the book's third act.

Yet Cole writes with such confidence and panache transferring from set piece to set piece whilst sustaining a romantic sub-plot and the growth of periphery characters coming front and centre by the conclusion.

The ending is both resolutory and yet ambiguous to the degree that there promises more to come from Wolf in whatever guise it may be. Whatever Cole chooses to do next, whether it is with or without Wolf, this debut novelist is certainly one to watch.

Ragdoll could possibly be the literary event of 2017.

It will be released by Trapeze Press on 23rd February on e-book edition and Hardback.