The Lost Girls Of Penzance‘ (2023) is the first book in a five-book British Police Procedural series set in Cornwall. I hadn't read any of Sally RigbyThe Lost Girls Of Penzance‘ (2023) is the first book in a five-book British Police Procedural series set in Cornwall. I hadn't read any of Sally Rigby's books before. I picked this one because I liked the setting, the opening pages worked, the audiobook was less than seven hours long, it was narrated by Clare Corbett and, if I liked it, it would give me a new series to follow.
I listened to most of the book during a slow, tedious two hundred mile drive north and then finished it off when I got there because I wanted to know who had done what.
I had fun with the book, in a mild, low-key way. It was a great listen-to-it-while-doing-something-else audiobook. It was unchallenging, gentle and focused more on the police officers than on the crimes but had enough of a mystery at its heart to keep me curious.
There was nothing in the story that I haven't read in many other police procedurals but there were no gaffs or annoyances either. The plot involved the discovery of human bones in the grounds of an abandoned house and the abduction of little girls from their day nurseries. Either or both of these could have been gruesome but, although there was a lot of anxiety about the lost girls, the story was never in danger of getting into traumatic territory. The bones provided a puzzle to be worked on when all that could be done to find the girls had been done. The search for the girls was, until the last abduction, mostly a vehicle for displaying how Lauren Pengelly led her team (with too much formality and no knack for winning loyalty or engendering team spirit) and how her new sergeant, Matt Price, integrated into the team (fairly effortlessly apart from missing the tools and teams he'd had on the much bigger force he'd left behind). The police officers in the team were drawn in a competent, light-weight TV series way that was easy to follow and often amusing. The contrasts between the backgrounds, approaches and motivations of Pengelly and Price kept things moving along nicely.
I've downloaded the next book in the series, 'The Hidden Graves Of St. Ives' to listen to when I have my next long drive....more
"At Risk" is the debut thriller by Stella Rimington, former Director General of MI5. I didn't have high hopes of "At Risk" but I picked it up because "At Risk" is the debut thriller by Stella Rimington, former Director General of MI5. I didn't have high hopes of "At Risk" but I picked it up because I was curious to see how a woman with twenty-six years in the service would portray the counter-intelligence world of MI5. I've just bought the next three books in the series so you can count me as a new fan.
"At Risk" has a solid plot with a credible terrorist threat at the heart of it but it wasn't the plot than won me over, it was the point of view.
This isn't the black and white world of Jack Bauer, where our hero is using any mean necessary to defend the free world from evil foreigners intent upon mindless destruction. "At Risk" set in a world that is more nuanced and more complex than Jack Bauer's.
The terrorists in this book are in the UK to kill and to demoralise. They take the lives of anyone who threatens their mission and their mission will inflict death and pain. They are also dedicated, disciplined people who have strong reasons for what they do.
Liz Carlyle, the MI5 counter-intelligence officer hunting down the terrorists, does not carry a gun and no powers of arrest. Her job is to dig through the evidence to find the threat and prevent it. She does this in a down-to-earth methodical way, working closely with the police, the armed forces and MI6. To succeed, she has to find and shape data that will get her inside the heads of the terrorists.
To me, the way the data was assembled and the way the different groups worked together felt authentic. Liz Carlyle is completely believable and I want to see more of her in action. That I felt some empathy for the terrorists by the end and yet still wanted them stopped, shows that the book worked.
Overall, the book is well written, with a strong plot, good pacing, believable action and the ability to immerse me in the counter-terrorist world without drowning me in research. There were a few places at the start of the book where I found the physical descriptions of the people and their body-language to be a little clumsy but things got much better once the story started to move.
The end of the book is surprising, memorable and refreshingly human. I'm on board for the rest of the ride with other eight books in the series now.
Merged review:
"At Risk" is the debut thriller by Stella Rimington, former Director General of MI5. I didn't have high hopes of "At Risk" but I picked it up because I was curious to see how a woman with twenty-six years in the service would portray the counter-intelligence world of MI5. I've just bought the next three books in the series so you can count me as a new fan.
"At Risk" has a solid plot with a credible terrorist threat at the heart of it but it wasn't the plot than won me over, it was the point of view.
This isn't the black and white world of Jack Bauer, where our hero is using any mean necessary to defend the free world from evil foreigners intent upon mindless destruction. "At Risk" set in a world that is more nuanced and more complex than Jack Bauer's.
The terrorists in this book are in the UK to kill and to demoralise. They take the lives of anyone who threatens their mission and their mission will inflict death and pain. They are also dedicated, disciplined people who have strong reasons for what they do.
Liz Carlyle, the MI5 counter-intelligence officer hunting down the terrorists, does not carry a gun and no powers of arrest. Her job is to dig through the evidence to find the threat and prevent it. She does this in a down-to-earth methodical way, working closely with the police, the armed forces and MI6. To succeed, she has to find and shape data that will get her inside the heads of the terrorists.
To me, the way the data was assembled and the way the different groups worked together felt authentic. Liz Carlyle is completely believable and I want to see more of her in action. That I felt some empathy for the terrorists by the end and yet still wanted them stopped, shows that the book worked.
Overall, the book is well written, with a strong plot, good pacing, believable action and the ability to immerse me in the counter-terrorist world without drowning me in research. There were a few places at the start of the book where I found the physical descriptions of the people and their body-language to be a little clumsy but things got much better once the story started to move.
The end of the book is surprising, memorable and refreshingly human. I'm on board for the rest of the ride with other eight books in the series now....more
I picked up "Valhalla" after reading a review by Glen Hates Books. Take a look HERE. It was a good review. It was an even better book, which I probablI picked up "Valhalla" after reading a review by Glen Hates Books. Take a look HERE. It was a good review. It was an even better book, which I probably wouldn't have found on my own.
Set in 2230, "Valhalla" tells the story of Violet, a teenage girl with the heart of a warrior, born into a society that sees violence as pathological and Violet as in need of a LOT of counseling.
At seventeen, on the brink of adulthood, Violet's family is murdered in front of her by the Orange Gang. Her response is instant, instinctive and lethal.
While the cops wait for her to fall into tears and request yet more counseling, Violet starts to figure out who killed her family and why. She joins the army so she can learn to be better at killing people but is thrown out because she's too violent.
The story kicks into higher gear when Violet is recruited by the legendary Valhalla, an independent group of heavily armed, cybernetically enhanced, very hard to kill and even harder to keep dead, warriors who see themselves as the good guys, and who's only rule is "Don't Fuck Shit Up".
This is a fun book that resists simple labels. It is a young adult right-of-passage book but its attitude towards religion (a cancer in society), violence (a way of letting off steam), and sex (as much fun as chocolate) is not going to get it into many school libraries. It is a science fiction book, filled with cool hi-tech weapons, medical techniques that can bring you back from the dead if your head is intact, and cyborg augmentation yet it is more focused on friendship and family and becoming yourself than it is on the toys. It is fast paced and packed with violence, achieving a body-count that would make even Hollywood action movies blush, it even includes a very graphic torture scene and yet none of it feels voyeuristic or even particularly repellent because of the tone of the story-telling.
The book carried me along quite happily, although some of the training in Valhalla went on a little too long. The plot had some nice twists and left me looking forward to the next book in the series.
The audiobook version is read by Steve Carlson, an American in his seventies, with the voice of an avuncular uncle who is also the black sheep of the family. He does a good job. I enjoyed listening to him but I wondered why he was selected. Violet is seventeen years old and from Scotland. Most of the action is in Scotland, Siberia or Norway. This would have been a very different book if it had been read by Gayle Madine, who did such a good job with "The Panopticon"
Merged review:
I picked up "Valhalla" after reading a review by Glen Hates Books. Take a look HERE. It was a good review. It was an even better book, which I probably wouldn't have found on my own.
Set in 2230, "Valhalla" tells the story of Violet, a teenage girl with the heart of a warrior, born into a society that sees violence as pathological and Violet as in need of a LOT of counseling.
At seventeen, on the brink of adulthood, Violet's family is murdered in front of her by the Orange Gang. Her response is instant, instinctive and lethal.
While the cops wait for her to fall into tears and request yet more counseling, Violet starts to figure out who killed her family and why. She joins the army so she can learn to be better at killing people but is thrown out because she's too violent.
The story kicks into higher gear when Violet is recruited by the legendary Valhalla, an independent group of heavily armed, cybernetically enhanced, very hard to kill and even harder to keep dead, warriors who see themselves as the good guys, and who's only rule is "Don't Fuck Shit Up".
This is a fun book that resists simple labels. It is a young adult right-of-passage book but its attitude towards religion (a cancer in society), violence (a way of letting off steam), and sex (as much fun as chocolate) is not going to get it into many school libraries. It is a science fiction book, filled with cool hi-tech weapons, medical techniques that can bring you back from the dead if your head is intact, and cyborg augmentation yet it is more focused on friendship and family and becoming yourself than it is on the toys. It is fast paced and packed with violence, achieving a body-count that would make even Hollywood action movies blush, it even includes a very graphic torture scene and yet none of it feels voyeuristic or even particularly repellent because of the tone of the story-telling.
The book carried me along quite happily, although some of the training in Valhalla went on a little too long. The plot had some nice twists and left me looking forward to the next book in the series.
The audiobook version is read by Steve Carlson, an American in his seventies, with the voice of an avuncular uncle who is also the black sheep of the family. He does a good job. I enjoyed listening to him but I wondered why he was selected. Violet is seventeen years old and from Scotland. Most of the action is in Scotland, Siberia or Norway. This would have been a very different book if it had been read by Gayle Madine, who did such a good job with "The Panopticon"...more
I sampled a few (fairly unimpressive) Sherlock Holmes short stories a few years ago but I've never read any of the novels. The Sherlock Holmes of my iI sampled a few (fairly unimpressive) Sherlock Holmes short stories a few years ago but I've never read any of the novels. The Sherlock Holmes of my imagination was based on movie or TV adaptations or from pastiches like Sherlock as an old man 'The Beekeeper's Apprentice' or Sherlock as a boy in 'Death Cloud' or Sherlock as a cameo role 'The Case Of The Missing Marquess'. When I saw that Stephen Fry had narrated a collection of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, I decided it was time to read 'A Study In Scarlet', the first Sherlock Holmes novel.
The first thing that struck me was that I wasn't reading historical fiction. The novel was published 138 years ago and the world it described was contemporary to the audience reading it.
The second thing was that the start of the book was about Watson, not Holmes. I knew it would be told from Watson's point of view but I'd expected something with a tone of 'Let me tell you about the remarkable abilities of my friend, the great detective' whereas, what I got was a more straightforward narrative about an army doctor, who has been wounded and had his health destroyed in the Afghanistan war, trying to make a life as a civilian in London. Sherlock Holmes appears only as a possible roommate who Watson meets when he is looking for affordable lodgings. I was fascinated by the first meeting of these two. Holmes didn't seem particularly intimidating, just a little over-enthusiatic about his obscure forensic chemistry experiments. The two were equals, not hero and sidekick.
The biggest surprise was that, halfway through the book, when it looks as though Holmes has captured the murderer, we suddenly leave John Watson's narrative and spend much of the rest of the book amongst the Mormons in the newly founded Salt Lake City. Neither Watson nor Holmes are present. We've rolled back thirty years to be spun a tale about how a man and his adopted daughter are pulled into the community of the Latter Day Saints and live amongst them for a decade until circumstances cause them to flee through the mountains in the dark of the night.
This part of the story is historical fiction. Conan Doyle was only twenty-eight when 'A Study In Scarlet' was published. The events he's describing are set before he was born. He'd never been to Salt Lake City. Doyle was a lapsed Catholic and his knowledge of the Latter Day Saints seems to have come mainly from the anti-Mormon tracts that were popular in London in the 1880s.
Doyle's Utah story is as melodramatic and polarised as any early Hollywood Western. The Mormons are the bad guys - a cult run by evil old men who rule through covert anonymous violence and who are intent on grabbing land and adding young women to what Doyle calls their 'Harems'. It is a story of derring-do, good versus evil, wrongs done and vengeance sought. It's a long way from the expectation I had from the movies of watching Holmes dazzling Watson with his analytical abilities.
Eventually, we resumed John Watson's narrative to tie the event in Salt Lake City to the murders in London in a slightly clumsy way via a let-me-explain-it-all account from the murderer.
In the very last (and thankfully short) chapter as dramatic as a PowerPoint presentation, Holmes explained to Watson how he worked out who the murderer was.
I'm glad finally to have read the novel that started the Sherlock Holmes phenomenon. I'm also glad it was narrated by Stephen Fry, who gave it his all.
The next novel, published three years later, is 'The Sign Of Four'. The first chapter is called 'The Science Of Deduction' so I expect that the See how brilliant I am,Watson? stuff will start there. I'll be listening to Stephen Fry's narration again but it may be a while until I get to it....more
IN A NUTSHELL That was a wonderful read. It had edge-of-the-seat moments of tension, a satisfying mystery, well-founded speculations on the use of AI iIN A NUTSHELL That was a wonderful read. It had edge-of-the-seat moments of tension, a satisfying mystery, well-founded speculations on the use of AI in the near future and a deeply empathetic understanding of grief and loss.
It was a great start to a new series. I can see why this novel won the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel Of The Year 2024 and the CWA New Blood Dagger 2024. I've already downloaded 'Leave No Trace', the next book in the series.
This was a book that exceeded my expectations and my expectations were already high given the prizes that it had won. This could have been a police-procedural-with-a-twist book, living off the novelty of an AI paired with a human detective and I'd have thought it worth the read. But it was much more than that. This was a book with real people in it, a solid mystery at its heart, and a deep understanding of loss and grief.
It was a tense, clever, page-turner police procedural, even without the AI. I loved that the AI, instead of being an 'Oooh! SHINY!' piece of technology, a sort of digital CSI, became a means of focusing on how we look beyond the statistical probabilities and understand the unique challenges people are facing and the desires, fears, and perceptions that shape their responses.
I found the first few pages, where Kat, the human detective, is challenging the viability of using Lock, the AI on a case that affects real people's lives a little dry but it didn't drag. I liked that the AI technology concepts stood up as near-future possibilities.
For me, everything took off after the first interview with the missing person's mother. The dialogue felt real and was quite affecting. I liked that the case was set in Warwickshire. It gave the story a very normal, down-to-earth, English feel that made the AI wizardry easier to accept. it helped that the AI stayed plausible and mostly irritating (which seemed about right to me) and that Kat was just the right balance of attributes and history to provide the empathy, emotion and social context needed to move the story forward. For once, the lead detective isn't some bright young thing. She's been on the force for twenty-five years. She's a recent widow and a single mother to a traumatised son. She's not perfect but she is good at what she does. It was easy to be on her side. I became completely immersed in her story,
The mystery at the heart of 'In The A Blink Of An Eye' was solid. It would have made for an engaging police procedural story without the AI content. Adding the AI kept it fresh and gave it an edge.Surpisingly, it also made the investigation feel more human rather than more routine or mechanical. It helped that the story wasn't mainly about the AI. It was about the people, those who go missing, those they leave behind, those who are trying to find them and the difficult emotions that they experience. It was about how we see each other and how much of what we see isn't consciously based on data that can be calibrated, quantified, compared, replicated or even tested. It highlighted that the experience of being human is at its most real and its most powerful when can't be turned into binary code.
This book kept me on edge almost to the last page. It was a very satisfying read. I'm eager to see where the series will go next. I've downloaded the second book, 'Leave No Trace' and I'm looking forward to the third book, 'Human Remains' being released in April 2025....more
I'm very, very late coming to this party (there are now twenty-eight Miss Fortune Mysteries in print) but I'm happy to be here. 'Lousisana Longshot' wI'm very, very late coming to this party (there are now twenty-eight Miss Fortune Mysteries in print) but I'm happy to be here. 'Lousisana Longshot' was great fun. The humour was unforced but constant. Even though the main character, Fortune Redding, is a CIA assassin with a long list of kills to her name, she's easy to like. I enjoyed her, often bemused, reaction to living in the small town of Sinful, Louisiana, which seems more alien to her than being in-country in a Middle Eastern desert. I enjoyed watching her try and fail to behave like the librarian and ex-beauty queen her cover story claims she is. Most of all, I enjoyed watching her getting to know the formidable and amusing older women who lead The Sinful Ladies who covertly run the town.
There's a mystery plot that's used mostly to reveal the complex history of Sinful and The Sinful Ladies while putting Fortune into increasingly risky situations that usually end with her getting wet, muddy, shooting something and or trying to hide from the local ex-marine Deputy Sheriff.
For me, the book was one big smile and I happily suspended my disbelief to enjoy it fully. I loved the mix of the young assassin and the dangerous, secretive, scheming old ladies trying to solve a murder while preventing the Deputy Sheriff from building a case against a local widow.
The plot made a kind of whacky sense. Yes, it was too fantastic to be true but it was also too much fun for me to be worried about feasibility.
I think this series is going to be a regular comfort read for me, an opportunity to step away from reality into a chaotic, slightly exotic, female-dominated world where the good guys win the end. I've already downloaded 'Lethal Bayou Beauty', the second book in the series.
I recommend the audiobook version of 'Louisiana Longshot'. Cassandra Campbell's narration added a lot to my enjoyment of the book. I think she got the tone absolutely right and she gave each of the main characters a distinctive voice. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample....more
I bought 'The Killer's Christmas List' partly because it was promoted as "An anti-cosy Christmas crime novel". Given that it's about Set aside at 25%
I bought 'The Killer's Christmas List' partly because it was promoted as "An anti-cosy Christmas crime novel". Given that it's about a serial killer, my only concern was that it might be one of those books that gets a little too fascinated with the killer's violence. It turned out I needn't have worried about that. My problem with the book was quite different.
It's been ages since I've read a British police procedural. Entering this one, I was struck by how ritualistic they are. I felt I was treading a familiar, pre-ordained path with only the travellers and the location changing. That laid a burden on the quality of the prose and the characterisa tion that 'The Killer's Christmas List' didn't rise to, in my opinion.
The storytelling was functional, unhurried and focused on acknowledging the emotional impact of each step of the investigation on the people involved. Even so, from the start, I struggled to become engaged with the people.
A quarter of the way through the book, I decided to put it aside. It was too 'afternoon TV' for me. The storytelling was realistic but plodding. The characters were believable without being interesting. The writing was functional except when it tried too hard and threw me out of the story with phrases like: "The Mill was huge and hewn from redbrick" How can something be hewn and be made of bricks? I wasn't bored but I wasn't engaged either. If this had been a TV show, I'd happily have made a cuppa without pressing pause because I was unlikely to miss anything vital.
I was mildly intrigued by the child's narrative that was sprinkled between the chapters detailing the investigation and I'm sure the plot had a good twist or two to deliver but I was too restless to stick around and find out what they'd be....more