Silent Bones - Rachel Lynch

 

DI Kelly Porter returns with her new thriller

A gripping tale that is as much about the past as the present. DI Kelly Porter returns with a new tale about a cold case that brings back haunting memories for all involved.

Kelly was a good girl in school she stayed away from the cool kids, she kept her head down and did not rub people up the wrong way yet she remained approachable and knew when the cool kids went bad. 

In 1997, a young boy called Brian disappears and during a drought in the Thirlmere part of the Lake District, a body is found in a reservoir. The body is found to be that of young Brian who never came home one night.

The case spins on the discovery that some people are not letting on to know as much as they originally suggested. From the teacher, Mr. Thompson who hangs out with children at the weekend and may or may not been a drug supplier to those same pupils to Michelle the owner of a Holiday camp who took pity upon a local no-good Jason Cooper.

The discovery of a second body turns the case upside down with two murders to solve in a small town; coupled with accusations that Kelly's father, John Porter, renowned local policeman was not the salt of the earth he led people to believe.

As well as having to solve a case, Kelly also has a young family to look after and this follows familiar tropes of Canelo Crime releases from Lynch's contemporaries (MJ Lee and Marion Todd) who also have domestic routines to account for. This stable of writers make clear that law enforcement have problems at home to deal with as well as the crimes to solve - and this balance or openness of relationships certainly makes the characters more relatable and sympathetic. 

At times highly enthralling and page-turning, this is my first read of a Lynch crime thriller and certainly shall not be the last.

SILENT BONES is out on all formats from 27th July 2023 from Canelo Crime.

Medusa

Brazilian genre-bending horror MEDUSA out 14th July 

Writer-director Anita Rocha de Silveira second feature film is a mind melt of genres that follows 21 year old Marianna who is a member of a repressive patriarchal Christian sect. By day, she is all sweetness and Christ and yet at night she is a member of a vigilante gang of women who scare the women of the city they deem to be sinners in God's eyes. This film tackles the question of vanity and feminism in an increasingly smaller world due to the ubiquity of social media.

The Brazil we see her is similar to ones we are familiar with in this watered down social media where beauty is only skin deep, vanity is paramount and the need to be rich is at odds with own religious beliefs.

As Marianna, Mari Oliviera evokes a lot of connection and subtext into her role as a women questioning her beliefs and scared of the ramifications her actions within the vigilante group may have.

At times the style outdoes the substance of this film, and yet it remains highly engaging and watchable with its satirical take on the marriage of instagram and Christianity in one character who teaches followers how to take the perfect Christian selfie. In this film everyone is always looking at and gazing, a feast for the Laura Mulvey fans out there.

A film that could easily have been labelled provocative is in fact something a little bit more perscient than that and violence upon women by women - often as form of control - is apparent to this day; this form of control with the perpetrators seeking the victims to be like them is worrying as a whole and an indictment of the power of social media especially upon impressionable young women.

Her collaboration with her cinematographer Joao Atala creates a world that is both hypnotic and foreboding, a visual style and language of De Silveria's own coming together with excellent production design by art director Dina Salem Levy and the ominous soundtrack created by the director and Bernardo Uzeda.

A feast for the senses embodying the works of David Lynch in terms of melting of genres such as drama and horror; Dario Argento's out and out horror but also Brian De Palma's paranoid thrillers and twisty narratives.

Medusa is out from 14th July via Peccadillo Pictures. It shall be on streaming services from August.

THE BURNING TIME - Peter Hanington

 

New William Carver novel out July 6th from Baskerville 

Timely and perscient, Hannington has written a novel that is both of our time and for our time as we follow investigative journalist William Carver who attempts to take down an Australian inventor, Clive Winner who may or may not hold the secret to global warming.

William is tipped off by a Whitehall insider who fears that the influence Winner is having over the current PM is doing an injustice to government policy when ulterior motives may be more apparent for the antipodean.

Globe-trotting from Spain to Washington DC and Sydney to London; Hannington has captured the spirit of Jason Bourne for journalism with a fast paced taut thriller that is unputdownable.

Paranoid thriller tropes abound from suspicious disappearances to the general sense of being followed along with the presence of the lazy eyed henchman who strikes fear into all who cross paths with him.

Short, sharp chapters maintain attention and the tight plotting moves along a pace keeping the reader enthralled with intrigue and panic, and how refreshing to see a journalist be the hero for once in narrative fiction.

A must for new people to the series and character in the same vein as Mick Herron

THE BURNING TIME is out 6th July from Baskerville 

My thanks to Baskerville for the review copy.