The Coffin Path

Katherine Clements novel The Coffin Path is released in Hardback/eBook from Headline on 8th February

FFO of The Woman in Black, The Innocents, Lady Macbeth

When you read books to review them for hits on your blog, you come across several different types of tomes.  You have those you feel you can connect with due to a resemblance to your favourite authors (Lee Child) or a genre such as thriller and crime. You get sucked into reading books of the same ilk one after another - I am forever indebted for the opportunity to review Streets of Darkness, Ragdoll, Sirens in quick succession. Those novels showed me that the genre of crime and urban noir is now on an equal footing with the tremendous success of Scandanavian Noir.

You also cross paths with books you take a risk on, those you are not familiar with and do not normally seek yourselves from shelves.  The Coffin Path is one of those books; it wears its influences on its cover - dark, mysterious, gothic - a novel stripped from the drafts of the Bronte sisters where the combination of God-fearing individuals compete against a foreboding landscape full of mist and fear, along with prophetic fallacies galore.

Mercy Booth is our heroine, the daughter of the owner of Scarcross Hall the house on the old titular pathway where the word is something evil lives.  The Hall is her home and where she wants to reside, yet small things start to go awry especially the three ancient coins missing from her elderly father's study. Then the stranger appears.

This stranger Ellis Ferreby, is cut from the same cloth as Mr. Rochester - that brooding embodiment of masculinity who wanders the moors searching solace and purpose - yet a man who knows what is right and wrong, can he provide purpose to Ms. Booth also.

Author Katherine Clements

As well as a ghost story that keeps you on your toes, it is also a cleverly conceived story of female empowerment of a woman learning about herself in a cold world:

'...in my younger years I would have named Father my closest friend, but there's no one in this world knows the whole of me. I've shared my pains with God alone. I've whispered to the wind, let the rain take my tears, dried my eyes on the fleeces of my flock and never let anyone see how I've felt the lack of a true friend.  I have not dwelled upon my loneliness. I never allowed it: I made my choice and must live by it.  But the trials of these last months have stirred a craving I thought long dead.'

This is an amazing evocation of love blossoming inside a young woman she thought dormant, and it has stuck with me.  The use of landscape to evoke a distant characteristic trait makes her a suitable companion for the man who walks the moors alone happily.

Clements has done wonders to create a distinctive tone and atmosphere of novel that has something for everyone, and whilst this reader found it tough at first, if you stick with it like this reader, you can gain something surprising from it.

The Coffin Path is released from Headline on Thursday 8th February.

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

Memory and Time in Novels

When you get into reading books it is surprising how one book can lead into another so seamlessly or without a deliberate mindset on the reader; this also happens when you encounter other forms of popular culture.

I remember going to see 'Gone Girl' the David Fincher directed film at the cinema based on the bestseller by Gillian Flynn; a story written by the view of a female protagonist about the break-up of a marriage stemming from the sociopathic behaviour of a women; I am focusing on the dissolution of marriage in early 21st century culture and how the sanctity of marriage itself is being forgotten about. Shortly afterwards, I started reading 'The Children Act' by Ian McEwan; a male writer with a female protagonist again experiencing the break-up of her marriage, and following much upheaval and emotional processing of the matter, the couple stay together.

The same instance of familiar themes and narrative outlines has hit me again from two very different writers.  On this occasion it is Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, the tale of Tony who is the other side of 60 has one bad marriage behind him and yet has a chance encounter with a girl he nearly married and the fall out of that side-step in life.  Tony spends much of the time reflecting upon why he broke up with the girl and how he mis-remembered or did not recall at all a vitriolic letter he sent to the girl and her new partner, his friend.  The sense of memory is lost on him because he has lost all memory of his act.

The second book is My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout; a story of the eponymous heroine who is in a hospital bed following an emergency procedure when she is visited by her absent mother at her bedside.  They have not spoken for several years following Lucy's decision to marry into a different faith causing a family rapture.  The time convalescing in hospital leads to Lucy recalling her upbringing in poverty and how her attainment to live better led her to New York and happiness with her husband - who is strangely absent whilst she is in hospital.

The book cover print is telling. A solo chair by the window which can be a holder for either Lucy or her mother; but perhaps inevitably, all you have at the end is yourself thinking about your memories. Memories are lonely when they are your own, with no-one else to share them with.

Throw into the mix my second Barnes' book in the last two months The Noise of Time which is set in the middle third of the Twentieth Century following a Russian musical composer looking back at this life and the fascination of how things play out for a reason in hindsight, with the novelty of events occurring within leap years.; you have authors who want to concentrate on memory as the sole reason for living, yet it might be too late to remember.

Patriot

Please note: This review does contain spoilers of the plot.

The new Brooke Kinley adventure by AS Bond is a rip roaring page turner which is a thriller in the mode of a B movie picture with A class ideals and intrigue. Remember the film Eagle Eye which had a great cast yet got seemingly lost in the shuffle and you forgot about it until I just mentioned it again, starting Shia Lebeouf, Michelle Monaghan and Michael Chilikis.  That film focused on an elaborate assassination attempt using people who became mere pawns in the hands of someone else's larger plans.

In this post 9/11 world, Patriot makes us realise that America's greatest threat may come within as it uses the trope of a non-nuclear bomb with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) as the trigger, similar to the pinch in the 2001 version of Oceans Eleven.  The plan by the terrorists is to send America back to the dark ages, and have the contracts to rebuild the nation.

What begins as a journalistic investigation by our protagonist Brooke, soon descends into a paranoid thriller in the vein of the 1970s The Parallex View and Days of the Condor.  Kinley finds herself in the wilderness of Canada where she encounters pilot Dex who himself is looking for a missing brother.  Their crossed paths means they must help each other to their eventual outcome.

Helping Brooke out along through all this is Department of Defence employee, Scott Jensen, who in some respects is the better protagonist considering he is the more active out of him and Brooke, and he fact that Brooke is unconscious for a good few chapters.

Scott is reminiscent of Jack Reacher, whilst smaller in stature, he is however a man who thinks on his feet and chivalrous to the end.  Scott attempts that which anyone would do in any of he situations encounters. Scott's patriotism and conduct becoming of a white knight is telling when you realise that AS Byatt is a female, her ideal of a man is clear.

Whilst this reader found Scott a more engaging character, it is still Brooke who has the curtain call with a crowning moment of journalistic triumph.

Byatt writes with a briskness and ease which makes the book so winning, although I found the inevitable coupling of Brooke and Dex a little underwhelming, not to say the writer cannot write romance, the action and intrigue were far more convincing.

However, Patriot, should still garner your attention and the pay off is both entertaining and satisfying if you stick with it.

Patriot is out now on Amazon kindle for £1.79 and is published by Castle Books.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Alice Hoffman, most famous for her book Practical Magic (which became a film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman), returns with her latest novel The Museum of Extraordinary Things.  Set in New York City, 1911 it tells the coming together of two young lovers, Coralie and Eddie, as the city of New York goes through some huge changes.

Coralie Sardie, is the only daughter of the the owner of the Museum in the title.  Brought up alone by her father all her life, with the help of housekeeper Maureen, Coralie has lived in a world of wonder until her father makes Coralie part of the exhibition.  In the museum, there are displays such as the World's Heaviest Woman, cojoined twins, the Wolfman who talks like an English gentleman; all wonders and oddities from around the world.  However, a change is coming to the Coney Island venue as a rival business, Dreamland full of fun, frivolity and amusement rides is coming to town and changing the concept of family entertainment.

Eddie Cohen, is a Russian immigrant photographer who is spied upon by Coralie.  Coralie feels a sense of change and boldness in her when she sees Eddie for the first time; could he be her kindred spirit and love of her life?  As Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the mystery behind a young woman's disappearance and the dispute between factory owners and labourers.

Hoffman uses the narrative trick of starting each chapter with either Coralie or Eddie looking back at the events in a first person voice and then changing back to a third person voiceover of all the events.  This serves as a basis of the elder characters explaining their actions with the benefit of hindsight, yet we as the reader are not left out of the loop of narrative thrust as we bear witness to two standout fire set pieces which are fittingly evoked in all their brazen glory.

Hoffman renders the two young lovers well giving a voice to them both as they go through changes.  For Coralie, it is the start of her sexual awakening as she meets Eddie for the first time and for Eddie it is his first steps into manhood as he has to overcome those who want to suppress his ambition. 

Whilst an obvious work of fiction by an esteemed novelist, there is enough in her to appeal to the young adult readers of the Twilight series; two star-crossed lovers who must fight to be together; brilliant set pieces, deception and lies abound between Coralie and her father.

All in all, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, is a novel that finds a writer at the top of her game who has written a fictional novel full of imagination and mystery yet set in a historical context evoking a bygone era of New York City starting to become the most famous city in the world with the advent of electricity before the Jazz Age and Great Depression put it firmly on the map.

I Am Pilgrim

I Am Pilgrim is unlike any action book you have read. It is unlike any espionage book you have read. It is unlike any thriller you have read. It is unlike any book you have ever read before.

Terry Hayes, a renowned movie screenwriter of such works as Mad Max/The Road Warrior  (which he co-wrote) with George Miller, releases his first novel from Transworld Publishers. It tells the story of Scott Murdoch, the best special agent in the history of the CIA, the former 'Rider of the Blue' the man who stepped back from espionage work to write a book about committing the perfect crime, which leads to help being re-enlisted to he front line, and attempt to stop a smallpox being released in America by a terrorist.

We think his name is Scott Murdoch, he goes by three different identities during the book's narrative and numerous flashbacks. That is the beauty of this mammoth book of nearly 900 pages, Hayes allows himself the time to tell the story and yet he writes with such a clear and precise purpose that the book rocks along like a Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code which covers as much in half the pages.

The jet-setting narrative and location jumping will make people think of the Brown novels where protagonists jump on planes as quickly as they change trousers, however, Hayes is of a more intelligent ilk and every movement of Pilgrim is necessary to track down the man who wants to destroy America.

The book starts in New York, with a murder in the Eastside Inn with Murdoch meeting his colleague Ben Bradley. The murder is reminiscent of motives put in Murdoch's book under the pseudonym of Jude Garrett, which leads to the globe-trotting. We follow the terrorist from Iran to Pakistan to Afghanistan to Lebanon.  Pilgrim travels from America to Turkey with diversions to Bulgaria, Germany, Milan and Saudi Arabia and back to the climax in Turkey.

However, Hayes loves his characters and wants you to understand them, hence the extensive flashbacks of the back story for all including a clear explanation for the terrorist's actions; the extensive look back at how he obtains the deadly pox strain is brilliantly executed.

Another thrilling sequence is when Ben Bradley tracks down Murdoch in Paris.  It is important that the flashbacks are extensive and not indulgent; the fact being that little morsels of detailed information are implanted within them to maintain your attention as a diligent reader.

The reader is rewarded with great chases, shoot-outs, mind games and the tension reminiscent of a Tom Clancy novel, it is fitting that this novel is released a year within of Mr. Clancy's passing as this is the novel a red-hot Clancy might well have written in his day and age.

Terry Hayes has succeeded in writing what will become a milestone piece of action espionage writing, a game changer in the same vein of John le Carre, Lee Child and Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal - writers that Hayes indebted to.

By writing a book of such girth where not a page is wasted and not enjoyed, it might make other writers take note that in this day and age of immediacy and quickness; if the novel is executed well there is still a place for the 900 pages of thriller writing.

I Am Pilgrim is released on paperback on May 8th from Bantam Press/Transworld Publishers

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

Everlasting: The Immortals Series by Alyson Noel

The last in the series is released on paperback, and we may have found our successor to the Twilight saga.

Alyson Noel, lives in California, and in that temporally fluxed state she has created a world of immortals.  A love story between two of them.  Ever is the young teenager who has loved and lost Damen over hundreds of years.  They have faced deadly enemies, harboured dark secrets and a powerful curse meaning one may have to part from the other forever.

Over five books previously, the journey has become progressively darker in context, beginning with the third novel Shadowland where the secret and the curse meet, to the fourth Dark Star`where Ever must cope with the darkness inside her (a mention of puberty and adolescence perhaps).

The characters have progressed and thanks to the success of the first three novels, Noel has been able to develop these characters effectively and productively.  Pleasingly, and most tellingly, she dedicates this novel - the sixth and final - to her readers. 

I freely admit, that I am not a fan of Twilight, I have never read a Harry Potter book although I have seen more than 50% of the feature films.  But in this world, the world needs a new saga to love and cherish.  Twilight seemingly came out of nowhere and with the right marketing and strategy this adaptation (which must be coming in the next few years) may be global.

The novel is a mixture of a lot of influences - teenagers who speak like Dawson's Creek, very aware of their place, but knowing that due to the things they have seen in earlier lives they can talk with unabashed experience. 

At the start of the novel, a mystical woman appears calling Damen, 'Damen. Augustus. Notte. Esposito' The Notte is the key, as the name no-one has heard mentioned before, but the hagrid ageing decrepit who reminded me of some spirit from the house of Miyazki and Spirited Away.

All these influences and the sheer effortness of Noel's writing whisk you along on a journey along with the characters towards the crescendo that ultimately ends memorably.

Worth a read, even if like me you would be a little sceptical of something that cradles between teen fiction and mainstream fantasy smash.

Everlasting is published from PanMacmillan Books for £6.99 in paperback.

My thanks to ThinkJam for the chance to read the novel.

http://www.alysonnoel.co.uk/

James Patterson 'London Private'

In this ever decreasing global community, things seem to be moving at quite a pace. Nevermore so in evidence, than the work of James Patterson, celebrated creator of the Alex Cross character immortalised by Morgan Freeman in the films Kiss The Girls and Along Came A Spider.

Patterson, a long term advocate for literacy (especially in children) has used his muscle as a best-seller to collaborate with up and coming authors in dual efforts. This means Patterson can keep releasing books under his marquee name whilst maintaining his work to get children reading from an early age.

Private London  is a spin off of a new franchise Patterson created with Maxine Paetro, on this occasion his co-author is Mark Pearson - it tells the tale of a private detective agency in London, a spin-off of the Los Angeles agency set up by the erstwhile Jack Morgan. In London, the head of Private is former Royal Military Police Sergeant Dan Carter, imagine Jason Statham but with an ability to string a sentence together without a grunt or monosyllabic shrug

The book revolves around two kidnappings, involving the same family, the Shapiros from Los Angeles. We flashback initially to a date in 2003, when Hannah Shapiro's mother is kidnapped, held for ransom, raped in front of her and the ransom is never paid by her billionaire father, Harlan. Flash forward to 2010, and Hannah is about to start studying Psychiatry at Chancellors in London, Morgan contacts Carter to be Hannah's personal protection during her stay in our homeland.

Then to the relative present day, and another kidnapping takes place this time with Hannah the target. However, with this being a Patterson thriller, nothing or anyone is ever what they seem - with the threat of crosses, double crosses and triple crosses always in place.

Carter and his team are on the case, but Carter has his own backstory with his ex-wife DI Kirsty Webb on the case from the legitimate standpoint for the Police; it is never made out that Private are secret just a private detective agency with unlimited financial resources that put the Metropolitan Police in the shade.

There is a common theory regarding the success of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - not that it was about the conspiracy theory, but because the chapters were short and punchy. Four to five pages that were of narrative significance and sustained a sense of purpose by including a moment of incidence or thrill. Private London puts Brown's books to shame, chapters of sometimes two pages in length means there is always something to keep you gripped. This novel was swallowed up in two days of page turning wonderment.

Whilst an American writer taking on London is not out of place, you need only look at Jeffrey Deaver's recent Bond novel, you can see why Mark Pearson was required. Pearson must have helped with the geographical element of locations from the difference of Metropolitan and Jubilee Line to identifying Amersham in Buckinghamshire.

The dialogue is the key to the page-turning, snappy and in combination with constant action and violence; however it never gets to the stage of parodying itself, although characters do refer to watching television programmes and it being nothing like the real thing. Characters are also self-knowing of what to say next,( 'Ready?' he asked. I nodded, resisting the impulse to say I was born ready.) straight talking guys who get to the point.

The only drawback was the other case revolving missing fingers in the book, whilst dealt with care and suggestion, that plotline gets kind of forgotten about once the kidnapping of an American princess takes centre stage. Patterson has that ability to render your full attention in what he exactly thinks you should pay attention to.

For fans of Patterson's novels, of which there are 1,698,671 on Facebook at last count, this is a definite positive addition to his back catalogue and the enticing anticipation of a sequel with a brilliantly constructed reunion at the end means Private London is open for business and it is booming

Private London is released on Thursday 9th June in Hardback by Century Publishing for £18.99 and is 368pages.

Become a fan of James Patterson on Facebook,.