The Wreckage

Debut novel from Robin Morgan-Bentley released by Trapeze Books on 6th February

Morgan-Bentley is a debut author, but one who works in the world of Audio books, a new voice who spends a lot of time listenting to other people's words in his day to day life, this has led to the creation of a traditional well told story but with a twist on the narrative.

The Wreckage tells the story of a road traffic accident told from three different viewpoints. Ben is a primary school teacher who is driving to work one cold wet January morning and then he sees a white flash. He has hit something, or more like someone. That someone is Adam, who has jumped in front of Ben's car that morning - this has led to his untimely death a few weeks later leaving behind a grieving wife, Alice and seven year old son, Max.

Ben, understandably, feeling guilty from breaking up this domestic bliss attempts to make contact with Alice at the hospital to explain himself. Following a frosty first reception, the two start to become more entwinned into each other's lives; Ben provides a shoulder for Alice to cry upon and a parental rock for Max during this difficult period of transition for all.

The book so easily could become a rote tale of the stalker, and RMB does flirt with that at times with the shifting perspective from Ben to Alice which never allows you to fully sympathise with one narrator and the balancing act of emotions and feelings from both parties does the service of oddly seeing and appreciating both sides of the story.

That is until the twist reveal which opens up a totally different storyline and plot, when the realisation to Alice of what has happened to her husband is shown to her.

A tale as much about mental health and well being, reaching out to those you love for the help required to overcome; and in this new year the resolution to be more open about the interiority of ourselves and channel that in a way that people can understand. All people have these moments of inner torture, how Adam deals with it is not the best way to go about it and how he attempts to make life better for his family is evidence of someone who went too long without help. Help is available to us always, starting with the ones we love.

Morgan-Bentley is an author to watch out for, this is a very interesting debut and one that shows how the benefit of reading and listening to an abundance of literature over the years leads to a unique and personal voice telling an often told tale with a different twist.

The Wreckage is out from Trapeze Books on 6th February.

In The Wake - Helen Treverrow

Helen Treverrow's debut novel is released from Urbane Publications on 28th June

When a body is found floating in London's Royal Albert Dock, public relations expert Kay Christie is sent to quiet the media, but things become complicated when it emerges she knows the victim.

Centered around the Excel center in London, a major exhibition is overshadowed by this body being found.  A convoluted narrative structure involving Kay's father who works at the exhibition hall, and the tightly knit support network around her starts to unravel as secrets much like the body rise to the surface.

Opening with the disappearance of a French nurse from her London hospital around Christmas time - the imagery Trevorrow evokes the harshness and cold of the London winter is depicted succinctly, showing the combination of how lonely the big city can be when you are questioning your own decisions in life.

Kay is in her 40s, gay and partnered with Julia, a woman who is enjoying an Indian summer with high-profile media commitments; and yet Kay is not happy. Kay drinks regularly, she is in love with her job but not in love with her routine. The introduction of a female police officer, Polly - younger and vital stirs some lustful yearnings within her which has been absent for sometime.

This melodramatic shift to a women's narrative in unison with the crime story is a risky venture, and on occasion the crime story struggles to be heard beside the Sapphic storyline; at times this reader felt that the love scenes were overpowering the actual crime story narrative and the interest in the case being solved.  Kay is an intelligent, successful woman and yet her life is full of quandry with Treverrow delicately explaining her psyche following a sexual assault from years past; which is told to us in flashback.

Last Stop Tokyo - Book review

The debut novel by James Buckler, published by Doubleday Press, follows in the footsteps of other debut novels by bright new voices of British crime fiction, Joseph Knox and Daniel Cole; where you have an unlikeable protagonist who does not fit the mould of crime novels, they are on the peripheries with a dark history looking for a change and seemingly unfamiliar with an ever-changing world they find themselves struggling in.

Buckler's lead is Alex Malloy, an English language teacher in Tokyo, who is running away from a tragic accident in London. From the outset, much is made of Alex's otherness in the Oriental jungle of Japan's capital city, his white skin, fair hair and Peter O'Toole blue eyes set him out from the crowd. However, as much as he tries to avoid trouble, trouble keeps finding Alex from drunken late nights with his friend Hiro, to the illicit relationship with Hiro's sister, Naoko; an affair that could prove deadly.

Buckler paints Tokyo as a city of vice and sin for foreigners, part-time citizens in a twenty four cityscape where they can get away with murder if they so wish.  From geisha girls who are treated like prostitutes, to unseemly businessmen who treat women as objects of lust to drug lords and vengeful work colleagues.

The trouble for Alex leads him to jail where he encounters Jun who cuts him a deal to get out of the predicament but this has a trickle effect on all of his relationships and those people's lives.

Alex is no saint and Buckler paints him as such, the moral fibre of British people has been called into question in novels recently especially the aforementioned Knox's Sirens where the toeing of the line between right and wrong is complexly handled in a nourish fashion involving double crosses, femme fatales and dark urban settings.

If you are seeking one of those fish-out-of-water novels where an Englishman is lost abroad this is not for you, what you have here is an Englishman experiencing the effect of a gradual resentment of the English values from overseas territories, people do not like English but Alex still finds his saviour in an understanding detective Saito who wants to bring down a yakuza king pin and sees Alex as integral to the investigation.

Buckler writes with a real zip and thrust to the proceedings which is useful where the book comes in at under 280 pages, however, there is a real surprise in the ending which turns the point of view of the book to Naoko ending from a surviving female perspective, which is fitting as Naoko, a female character written by a man who is not merely an object of desire but a fully rounded character.

The ending will pack a punch and is quite a brave step for the modern day novel, Buckler has written a standalone novel that is both enticing and yet downbeat which is not surprising given the current uncertain political climate we find as a people find ourselves.

Last Stop Tokyo is released from Doubleday Books on 28th August in Hardback and all e-book formats.

What Alice Knew

This intriguing novel by T. A. Cotterell tells the story of Alice, a faithful wife, whose love for her husband is sorely tested by his indiscretions one night.  Set in the Bristol area, it follows on the footsteps of other novels I have read this year set outside of the Metropolitan hub-bub of London such as Oxford for We All Start As Strangers and the grim drabness of Manchester in Sirens.

Alice is a portrait artist, married with two children beloved in the area and a model of maternal nature. This is put to the test by her husband's may or may not be adulterous behaviour which may or may not have led to the death of a flirtatious admirer.

The novel hopes to be a gripping thriller in the same vein of keystone texts such as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, and yet this was a book this reader found hard to get through.  The combination of somewhat implausible plotting, the hysterical nature of the faithful wife losing her mind and sometimes unnecessary art history lessons.

By the final 70 pages when Alice goes to visit her mother do you understand the psychology of Alice fully in that she wants to please everyone and people take advantage of her grace from her bitter mother to her awful siblings who live far away from her as well as the home in Scotland.

The ending felt a bit contrived and rushed unfortunately, but then again the plodding nature of the plot to begin with perhaps the writer wanted to get away from these characters he created. A potential pivotal standoff with an old school mate for Alice when she paints her portrait is handled muddily and instead makes Alice even more vulnerable and this weakness does not enforce our sympathy but instead pity; not something you ever want to extend to someone.

At times the book felt like it wanted to say so much, but was unable to due to the weakness of the protagonist and the ending where she attempts to fall on her husband's sword is both ill timed and messy.

A shame after a strong opening that this book could not maintain the focus nor the attention of this reader.

What Alice Knew is released in Hardback/Paperback by Black Swan (Goldsboro Books) on 4th May

Next to You

I might sometimes feel the cold

But when I'm next to you

I feel warm

Cold can get you

when you least expect

It can chill your bones

And your nose is next

But holding you

Makes it all worthwhile

Makes me beam

and makes me smile

It warms my heart

Like it warms my bones

Being with you

Makes me feel wonderful

I sometimes feel the cold

But next to you, I feel warm.

Getting Started

Baby baby, am I the one you been searching for
If I am, I can give you so much more.
And I'm only getting started
Just only getting started.
To show you what you mean to me.

Baby baby, I'm so glad you came into my life
If I could I wouldn't change my mind
Cos we're only getting started
Only getting started
To show each other how we feel

Times can get hard, but we've got to keep a lid on
Don't let our emotions come to the boil
Cos we are a team
Yes we are a team
And we need each other to get through

You are so pretty, you are beautiful
My eyes are beholden to you and you are alone
Yes I like your face
You're pretty beautiful face
And I want to look at it the rest of my days

Tell me tell me what is on your mind
I've got this feeling I want you for all my life
And I'm only getting started
We're just getting started
To show you what you mean to me

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.

Sky At Night

The sky at night

Looks like it will never see the day.

The long night ahead of it

Looks like it will never end

Scary to be amongst it

Scary to see it so.

The sky is dark above us.

But blue when the light shows

Rain falling downwards

Every direction it can

Can I muster the courage

To get out of it in one piece

No end in sight

When will it end

Do we have to ride it out

Ride out the scary night

Could be in a tent

Could be on our knees

Changing a tyre in the hard shoulder

While my shoulder gives out one me

Need one to cry on

I cannot find the strength

As the rain falls harder and harder

Soaked through, home is a thought

At the end of the road

A road that flashes behind me

As my speed knows no limit

Scary is the night

Lights and sights all around

The sky looks like it might fall

What will today have in store?

23:05

Kissing as if no-one is watching
having your picture taken by a stranger
Walking in a straight line
straight to you
while you bump into anything that moves.
Wiping water away from your eyes
is it sweat or sun tan lotion melting
Riding the Bakerloo or Central
at Tottenham Court Road
on a Monday night
just like any other night to some
to those who take this step everyday
to the drunk who sleeps on the step
you step over

Dancing with your iPod to the sound
while you tip toe avoiding the lines
every step could be your last
every step could be your first
The first for the rest of your life
the life that doesnt have a course
My course is following the red line
on a Monday night

Its 23:05
55 minutes to tomorrow
55 left of today
Can you still make a first impression
or should you put it to bed
Gonna go to sleep tomorrow
and wake up in the same day
No drawing board
to go back to
I know what must be done
just like any Tuesday morning
but for now its still Monday night.

American Crow - Book review

 

English freelance journalist Jack Lacey has released his first self-published novel on Amazon.co.uk. Entitled American Crow, this is the first release in a series of books called The Missing Series featuring the lead character Sibelius Blake.

Whilst unashamedly endebted to the work of Lee Child and his novels featuring the iconic character of Jack Reacher, this is most definitely the work of one author seeking to get his workout in the bigger world with his uniqueness.

Whilst Child is also an English author, he is one who has very much become an Americanized author with Reacher going from state to state like Child is touring the nation. From coast to coast, valley to mountains; Reacher overcomes all comers due to his immense size and even bigger intelligence.

Blake in contrast is a battered investigator suffering from the trauma of the death of a family member. Vowing to finding missing people as a promise to the dearly departed, he is coaxed into one last job which means going back to America. A country where a warrant remains for his arrest.

Arriving in a snowy Canada and then ushered into the USA by being smuggled in the underbelly of a lorry. Blake encounters many characters in search of a missing girl which brings it all too close to home for our hero.  The brilliance of Blake is that he still maintains an everyman quality, having to think on his feet in some tough situations; whereas Reacher is the sort of guy who is the smartest guy in the room, and will act upon any mistakes made by his enemies.

Lacey excels in the briskness and pacing of the novel. From exposition to dialogue to set pieces, Lacey has a good eye for detail and painting an effective picture of the world Blake inhabits whilst still doing a good job of keeping Blake as the fish out of water protagonist, borrowing a trope from traditional crime fiction in that Blake is like us the reader sometimes noticing things for the first time; we share his surprise and shock in response to events.

Also embedded by Lacey is an environmental sub-plot into the narrative with an evil mining tyrant who is ripping the heart of the Kentucky mountains so as well as moral implications to the characters there are also wider social leanings to impact the people.

American Crow is a page turner that I digested in three sittings, at times enthralling and at times funny, Lacey has created a character in Sibelius Blake this reviewer cannot wait to read more of.

You can purchase American Crow on Amazon.co.uk here 
Jack Lacey is on twitter @JackLaceyBooks

Keep your eyes peeled for a forthcoming interview with the author, exclusively on NextToTheAisle

Maxwell Street

Nothing's bitter everything's sweet
Let's take a ride down Maxwell Street.

Take it slow so everybody sees us
The speed limit is 20 with speed bumps
Milk bottles lay vacant by the front door
Laying waiting for the milk float.

The grass is cut and the spring is in bloom
The hayfever makes you sneeze through the roof.
And the sky even though it turns it black
Give it a few minutes for the blue to come back.

Put the car into gear, head down
as the sun shines off of our wet hair
Stop every now and then outside a girl's door
give her a wink so she wants the whole show.

Bands play in their garage
loud enough to be heard
Pass the word around
there's a party going on downtown.
Everyone's invited it's a family affair
just long enough because we care.

But the lonely are the nights
when the street lights are turned on
Its a calling card from democracy
to turn the TV on.
But that won't happen s long as we're here
we're tired of waiting for the coast to be clear.
We've got each other
an equal heartbeat lets take a long drive
down on Maxwell Street.

Sensational construction

I once wrote a story which was too close to life.
Hidden meanings and readings unconsciously were written down.
It came out in one go a stream of thought
hoping the feelings I want are caught.
Research
Analysis
Read between the lines
Constructive criticism of what goes on in my mind.
Backdating
Updating
Keeping it straight.
Pulling it together to deliberate.
Skipping
Picking
Dipping for words.
Listening intently to what I've just heard.
Magnifying
Typing
What I just wrote
The hidden utopian
Repressions and hopes
Copying
Pasting
All at once on the screen
Avoiding
Plagarisers
Who smell the green.
Taking it slowly
One step at a time
Like a French new wave
Jump-cutting
In my mind.
Piecing a puzzle
which is all my own.
The sensationalised
Fantasised story
of a man homegrown

Time Waits

Time waits for no man
But I wait for it.
No-one knows my plans,
It's a secret.
I am growing tired
Ready for bed.

So take me and lay me,
Let me be
Careless and single
I need a drink
So take me and lay me,
Let me be

My back is aching
I need a rest
My room is tidy
I feel like a mess
My head is full
and my soul is empty

But if you take me as I am
I would happily lie down
If you lay me
by your side.
I'll feel nothing when I touch down.
Just take me and lay me
Let me be.
Careless and single,
attending AA
So lay me and leave me
I'm not worth it.

Blossoms

The blossoms bloom upon the pine
Look out my window at a quarter past five
And I see things that I've never seen before
a flat tyre on a new four by four.
The rain beats down upon the pavement below,
its falling faster harder upon the window.
Almost suddenly the clouds they clear
and the sun appears oh how so rare.
It reminds me of a smile I knew
that disappeared away from view.
And all at once the stress has gone,
it feels wonderful to see the sun
and I feel happy.