Review: THE TENANT, Frieda McFadden

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DQFK5WVD
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hollywood Upstairs Press, May 6, 2025
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 370 pages 

Synopsis (Amazon)

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone that he shares with his fiancee, he's desperate to make ends meet.

Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she?

Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets...

Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set. 

My Take

Taking in a tenant to offset the need for money to pay the mortgage seems a no-brainer but then things begin to go wrong and not entirely the things you might expect.

A fairly gentle easy read, a book with a little humour, but then a rather staggering twist in the last pages. My first book by this author but probably not my last.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
#1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Sunday Times, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida’s work has been selected as one of Amazon Editors’ best books of the year, she is the winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for best paperback, and she is a Goodreads Choice Award winner. Her novels have been translated into 40 languages.

​ Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

To hear Freida talk about herself more in the third person, check out her website freidamcfadden 

Review: BEFORE SHE KNEW HIM, Peter Swanson

• 
  This book made available through my local library
  
• first published in 2019
• 309 pages
• ISBN 978-0-571-34064-4

Synopsis (publisher)

'They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.'

When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass, they're relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighborhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door.

When they're invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew's study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn't seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?

From its deeply unsettling opening, Peter Swanson, the master of contemporary domestic thrillers, fashions a novel as brilliant, dark, coruscating and surprising as Patricia Highsmith and Ira Levin at their very best.

My Take

Another book that just keeps you reading. (I seem to have discovered so many of theme recently - I blame my friends who keep recommending them).

I found this one a little difficult to get into but that may have been something to do with the size of the print which was a bit small.

Hen has trouble convincing her husband Lloyd and the police that her neighbour Matthew is a murderer.  The story is engrossing. But nothing prepared me for the final twist at the end. 

I've also read 4.8, RULES FOR PERFECT MURDERS

My Rating: 4.6

About the Author

Peter Swanson's debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart (2014), was described by Dennis Lehane as 'a twisty, sexy, electric thrill ride' and was nominated for the LA Times book award. His second novel The Kind Worth Killing (2015), a Richard and Judy pick, was shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and named the iBook stores Thriller of the Year, and was followed by two more critical and commercial hits, Her Every Fear (2017) and All the Beautiful Lies (2018). He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Review: THE LOST APOTHECARY, Sarah Penner

• 
  This edition available as an e-book for Kindle on Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08L7G19RP
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Legend Press (2 March 2021)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 321 pages
• Shortlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award
  2021's Most Highly Anticipated New Books Newsweek
  Most Anticipated Books of 2021 Popsugar

Synopsis (Amazon) 

With crackling suspense, unforgettable characters and searing insight, The Lost Apothecary is a subversive and intoxicating debut novel of secrets, vengeance and the remarkable ways women can save each other despite the barrier of time.

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive.

My Take

This novel attempts (successfully) one of those very difficult formats: two time frames separated by over 200 years, and also at least two themes mystery, and love/faithfulness. Another element is that it is written by an American author but set in London.

Caroline Parcewell's 10 year wedding anniversary trip to London turns out very different to what she had imagined when just prior to the trip she finds out that her husband has had an affair. Instead of a second honeymoon she finds herself in London alone. With time on her hands she goes mudlarking on the mud flats of the Thames and finds a small blue vial. This sparks a quest to find out more and she uncovers information about an apothecary who used these vials to help women deal with husbands they want to be rid of.

I have read it for my U3A Crime Fiction group.

I have discovered a reader's guide which both poses questions about the story, and gives some background to how and why it was written.

Here are some I may use in our discussion. (click here to find more)

1) The Lost Apothecary opens with Nella in her shop, preparing to dispense a poison meant to kill a man. Her work is sinister, and much about her character is dark and disturbing. When you first learned that Nella was a murderer, how did you view her? How did your feelings change over the course of the book as more of her past was revealed?
Did you believe she would eventually find redemption? In the end, did you see her as a hero, a villain, or something in between? Why?

2) At the beginning of Caroline’s story, she finds the apothecary vial while on a mudlarking
tour. Had you heard of mudlarking prior to reading this book? Do you believe that fate or
coincidence led to her discovery? Have you ever stumbled on something that you consider to
be fate?

3) Both Nella and Caroline have been betrayed by men in their lives. In what ways did the two
women respond similarly to these betrayals? In what ways did they respond differently? Do
you feel that one woman was more emotionally resilient than the other?

4) Nella and Eliza form an unlikely friendship early in the story, despite Nella’s resistance to
having the young girl in her shop a second time. Why do you think Nella eventually softened
her heart toward Eliza? What drew the two characters—one on the cusp of womanhood, the
other toward the end of her life—toward one another? What kind of impact did Eliza have on
Nella’s character?

5) The Lost Apothecary is sprinkled with mention of magick, and several events occur that could
be considered either the work of magick or merely good luck. When you learned that Eliza
survived after ingesting the Tincture to Reverse Bad Fortune, did you believe it the result of
magick, or do you think she was a lucky survivor after jumping into the freezing river?

 My rating: 4.5

About the Author
Sarah Penner is the debut author of The Lost Apothecary, which has been sold into eleven territories worldwide. Sarah works full-time in finance. She and her husband live in St. Petersburg, Florida with their miniature dachshund, Zoe. Follow Sarah @SL_Penner Or visit www.SarahPenner.com

Review: KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, Deanna Raybourn

• 
  This edition published 1923 by Hodder & Stoughton
  
• Supplied by my local library
• ISBN 978-1-399-71278-1
• 353 pages
  

Synopsis (publisher)

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. But now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates their real-world resourcefulness in an age of technology.

When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses-paid trip to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realise they've been marked for death.

To get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman - and a killer - of a certain age.

My Take

I seem to have score a number of books about elderly or retiring assassins just lately. 

• 4.5, SEVENTEEN: Last Man Standing - #1
• 4.5, ASSASSIN EIGHTEEN - #2

I've added 'geezer lit' to my labels for this one. 

Four female assassins on the brink of retiring, highly trained, very successful, find that they in turn are on someone's list, so they must track down who is after them. They are not sure who to trust of their former associates, nor entirely sure what they've done. Some of them are aging more quickly than others of their group.

Entertaining reading.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

SILENT IN THE GRAVE

About the author

New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a double major in English and history and an emphasis on Shakespearean studies. She taught high school English for three years in San Antonio before leaving education to pursue a career as a novelist. Deanna makes her home in Virginia, where she lives with her husband and daughter and is hard at work on her next novel.

Review: FALLING, T.J. Newman

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• ISBN: 9781398507289
• ISBN-10: 1398507288
• Number Of Pages: 368
• Published: 15th June 2022, Simon & Schuster UK

Synopsis (publisher) 

You just boarded a flight to New York.

There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.

What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped.

For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.

The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.

Enjoy the flight.

My Take

This was a real page turner, and the reader is kept in suspense, working out how the story will turn out.

There are elements that you've seen in other real-life stories but also some carefully thought through good-feel moments.

Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.9

About the Author

T. J. Newman, a former bookseller turned flight attendant, worked for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 to 2021. She wrote much of Falling on cross-country red-eye flights while her passengers were asleep. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Falling is her first novel.

Review: THE CONFESSION. Charles Todd - audio book

• format: audio book from audible.com
• Narrated by: Simon Prebble
• Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins 
• Series: Inspector Ian Rutledge, Book 14
• Format: Unabridged 
• Published in 20102

Synopsis (Audible)

Declaring he needs to clear his conscience, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses that he killed his cousin five years earlier during the Great War. 

When Inspector Ian Rutledge presses for details, the man evades his questions, revealing only that he hails from a village east of London. 

With little information and no body to open an official inquiry, Rutledge begins to look into the case on his own. Less than two weeks later, the alleged killer’s body is found floating in the Thames, a bullet in the back of his head. 

The inspector’s only clue is a gold locket, found around the dead man’s neck, that leads back to Essex and an insular village whose occupants will do anything to protect themselves from notoriety. For notoriety brings the curious, and with the curious come change and an unwelcome spotlight on a centuries-old act of evil that even now can damn them all.  

My Take:

Another really good read from Charles Todd. Simon Prebble does an excellent job of the audio presentation. Although this is #14 in the series, it is only 1920 so we haven't progressed very far from the demons and ghosts of World War One. Ian Rutledge seems in better control of his own personal ghost Hamish, but even so wonders whether sometimes people hear him in conversation with Hamish.

Things are changing at the Yard. The Chief Inspector has had a heart attack and been hospitalised and so underlings like Rutledge are able to take advantage of the laxer supervision to operate this case on his own initiative. Of course that also means that the Yard doesn't actually know where he is and should anything happen to him, it will be some time before help arrives, if ever.

The audio versions of these books are produced to a very high standard, assisted by the fact that each story is carefully plotted and sufficiently tangled to be intriguing. World War One lurks there as a background without being intrusive.

my rating: 4.6

I've also reviewed
SEARCH THE DARK
A PALE HORSE
A TEST OF WILLS
4.5, A DUTY TO THE DEAD
4.7, A LONELY DEATH
4.7, HUNTING SHADOWS 

Review: A COLD DAY FOR MURDER, Dana Stabenow - audio book

• #1 in the Kate Shugak series
• this edition from Audible
• originally print published 1992
• audio version 2011
• unabridged
• narrator Marguerite Gavin
• length 5 hours 31 mins

Synopsis (Audible)

Eighteen months ago, Aleut Kate Shugak quit her job investigating sex crimes for the Anchorage DA’s office and retreated to her father’s homestead in a national park in the interior of Alaska. But the world has a way of beating a path to her door, however remote. In the middle of one of the bitterest Decembers in recent memory ex-boss — and ex-lover — Jack Morgan shows up with an FBI agent in tow. A Park ranger with powerful relatives is missing, and now the investigator Jack sent in to look for him is missing, too.

Reluctantly, Kate, along with Mutt, her half-wolf, half-husky sidekick, leaves her wilderness refuge to follow a frozen trail through the Park, twenty thousand square miles of mountain and tundra sparsely populated with hunters, fishermen, trappers, mushers, pilots and homesteaders. Her formidable grandmother and Native chief, Ekaterina Shugak, is — for reasons of her own — against Kate’s investigation; her cousin, Martin, may be Kate’s prime suspect; and the local trooper, Jim Chopin, is more interested in Kate than in her investigation. In the end, the sanctuary she sought after five and a half years in the urban jungles may prove more lethal than anything she left behind in the city streets of Anchorage.

My Take

I haven't read many crime fiction novels set in Alaska. Similarly while I have heard of Dana Stabenow I have never read one of her books. A COLD DAY FOR MURDER is the first in her Kate Shugak series of which there are now 20, the latest published just this year. See Fantastic Fiction.

I think I solved the mystery of what had happened to the two missing people, and who was responsible, about half way through the novel, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment. The characters are well drawn and the plight of the Alaskan Aleuts trying to make their way in a "modern" world is well described. As is the concern of the elders to preserve the old ways and their wish to keep the young people from leaving.

So if you are ready for a new series, maybe this is the one for you. I read it as part of my reading for the USA Fiction Challenge.

My rating: 4.2

About the author

Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage, Alaska on March 27, 1952, and raised on a 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska.  Read more

Learn more about Kate Shugak on the author's website.

Review: MURDER IN A BASKET, Amanda Flower

• published by GALE CENGAGE LEARNING 2012
• ISBN 978-14328-2567-4
• 281 pages
• Source: my local library
• India Hayes mystery #2

Synopsis (author website)

College librarian India Hayes thought the worst thing about the Stripling Founders’ Festival was her pink gingham pioneer dress until she discovered the body of a free-spirited basket weaver on the festival grounds.
The basket weaver leaves behind an angry blacksmith husband, a confused adopted son, greedy siblings, a dysfunctional artists’ co-op, and a labradoodle with a two-million-dollar trust in his name.

Despite the wrath of her college’s provost and protests by handsome police detective Rick Mains, India finds herself playing sleuth as well as foster-owner to the two-million-dollar dog. With her own eccentric family commenting from the sidelines and her Irish-centric landlady as volunteer sidekick, India must discover the truth before she has a permanent canine houseguest or ends up the next victim in the basket weaver’s murder.

My Take

A tightly plotted comical cozy with threads and quirky characters that connect it to the author's debut mystery novel MAID OF MURDER and that ensure there is plenty of scope for #3 in the series.

Librarian India Hayes can't help herself. If there is a mystery she is drawn to investigate it, and a murder is irresistible. There are plenty of reasons, two million dollars worth in this case, why someone would have murdered basket weaver Tess Ross, but in the long run I was caught surprised. For most of the book I thought the perpetrator was pretty obvious and that India was just being thick. The police predictably arrest the wrong person. In the long run India gets it right.

A light enjoyable, sometimes fluffy, read. If you like comedy with your murder you'll like this, possibly a bit more than I did (I like mine a bit more noir).

My rating: 4.0

About the author

Author's website 
 
India Hayes Mystery #1 MAID OF MURDER was a 2010 Agatha Award Nominee for Best First Novel.
Amanda Flower is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. She also writes mysteries as Isabella Alan.

Review: THE BRASS VERDICT, Michael Connelly

Allen & Unwin, 2008, ISBN 978-1-74175-544-2, 422 pages

The murder of his old colleague Jerry Vincent is a stroke of luck for defense lawyer Mickey Haller. Jerry has left instructions that Mickey should take over all his clients. There are over 30 cases on Jerry's books including a very high profile murder case: a Hollywood film mogul accused of the double murder of his wife and her lover.

After a bout of drug addiction and 12 months rehabilitation and slow recovery Mickey has been considering whether he is ready to go back to work, but now he has to hit the ground running. As he takes up the reins, he finds LAPD Harry Bosch sniffing around the edges. But is he interested in Jerry Vincent or Walter Elliot, the movie mogul?

This is a book full of twists and turns. There is no doubt that Mickey Haller is a clever lawyer. A slight complaint I have is that though it is written from Mickey's point of view, the reader is not entirely in his confidence. Connelly uses Harry Bosch to sling a few other arrows into the mix, and so right until the end you don't really know the full story.

THE BRASS VERDICT is #14 in the Harry Bosch series (even though for the most part Harry's role seems minor) and #2 in the Mickey Haller series. #1 was THE LINCOLN LAWYER, and my mini-review is below. The pair will meet again in NINE DRAGONS.

In 2009 THE BRASS VERDICT won the Anthony Award for Best Novel, and all I can say is that I can really see why: interesting story tightly plotted, good characters, keeps the reader interested right to the end.

My rating: 5

Check Michael Connelly's own site for complete lists, blurbs etc.

Other reviews to check:

• Caribou's Mum: fast-paced and gripping, with twist and turns that will keep the reader guessing until the end.
• Petrona: a superb novel. It is Michael Connelly’s nineteenth, displaying all the hallmarks of an author at the peak of his powers.
• Crime Scraps: a very well constructed not too complicated legal thriller ... an excellent holiday read

My mini-reviews of other Connelly titles

THE CLOSERS (2005) my rating: 5
After 3 years of retirement, Detective Harry Bosch is once again on active duty with the LAPD, this time assigned to the newly formed Open-Unsolved Unit. His former partner Kizman Rider and he are charged with using new technologies to find the answers to previously unsolved murder cases. A DNA hit has found a link between a weapon used to kill a beautiful mixed-race teenage girl seventeen years earlier and a man with White Supremacy ties. Although there were too few clues to solve the murder when it occurred, Bosch and Rider, using modern police resources, now uncover evidence that leads them to suspect and pursue several potential murderers before they arrive at the truth.

ECHO PARK (2006) my rating: 4.9
#12 in the Harry Bosch series. For 13 years Harry has kept in mind the disappearance of Marie Gesto. Marie disappeared when she left a supermarket. Harry has kept in touch with her parents but they all long ago gave up hope that they would ever see Maria alive. Now in the LAPD Open Unsolved Unit, Harry gets a phone call from the District Attorney: a man accused of killing two other people has put his hand up to Maria's murder. Since then he has murdered 9 others. Apparently the killer contacted Harry's partner at the time and they missed making the connection to Maria's murder. Harry does not like the guilt being laid on him. An excellent read. Just when you think you have it all worked out, the plot takes another turn. I'll certainly be looking for the next one (due out May 2007)

THE LINCOLN LAWYER (audio CD) (2006) my rating: 4.5
Los Angeles defence lawyer Mickey Haller gets his first high-paying client in years when a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman. His case quickly falls apart and Mickey is under personal pressure which makes him dangerous to work for. The CD case says this is an abridged version. The gravelly voice of the reader Michael Brandon took a bit of getting used to.

THE OVERLOOK (2007) my rating: 4.6
Harry Bosch has recently moved from LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit to the prestigious Homicide Special squad. He has a new partner, a youngster Ignacio Ferras, who regards him as a bit of a dinosaur, and this is their first case. A body has been found at the overlook above the Mulholland Dam, and it's rather obviously a murder. The victim is a medical physicist who supplies a radio active substance called cesium for use in medical procedures that use radioactive therapy.
Alarm bells go off for Harry when FBI agent Rachel Walling turns up at the scene of the crime. Rachel is attached to one of the FBI's Homeland Security operations called the Tactical Intelligence Unit. The body is easily identified and once the fact that a large quantity of cesium is found to be missing, the case becomes a tussle between the LAPD and the FBI. The FBI are saying this is a possible terrorist killing.
My full review: THE OVERLOOK

CONNED, Matthew Klein

Kip Largo has been a con man all his working life, probably longer than that because he learnt at his father's knee. He knows all about the Pot game, the Pigeon Drop, the Roper, the Mark, and the Button. The fact that he's just spent 5 years in jail for fraud has not reduced the lure of the con.

Currently he has two legitimate jobs but neither makes nearly enough money, and so the prospect of taking down a Las Vegas magnate worth billions is irresistible. The approach from the magnate's wife seems fortuitous.

His son Toby has a problem too - gambling debts have left him owing big money to the Californian Russian Mafia. If Kip can't stump up the money then Toby is dead meat, truly. The Russians show they are serious by breaking Toby's leg and hospitalising him. So Kip does a deal with the Russians and the plot to con money out of the magnate is launched.

There are so many twists in the con, it is rather like being in a deep water tank, with little idea which way is up. This thriller moves at a fast pace and Kip Largo the hustler is a master at his trade. This isn't my usual style of book, but I really did want to see how it finished, and I learnt a lot about the tricks of the con.

My rating: 4.4

THE SPELLMAN FILES, Lisa Lutz

Think of one of the oddest families you know, and I bet it comes nowhere near the Spellmans. 28 year old Izzy Spellman works for her parents, private investigators, and has done since she was 12. Spellman Investigations specialise in surveillance.

Of their three children Isabel (Izzy) has been without doubt the most trouble, a rebel almost since birth, and a constant subject of interrogation and even surveillance herself. Izzy's history of defiance contrasts with the apparent perfection of her older brother David, but he has managed to break away, leave home, and leads an independent life as a lawyer. By contrast Izzy's younger sister Rae began her first surveillance training before she could read, and is, at 12, in real danger of going the same way as Izzy.

Life in the Spellman household is a constant war, with one battle after another between Izzy and her parents, Izzy and Rae, including also skirmishes with Uncle Ray who lives with them. Izzy's life is under constant inspection by her parents and she would like nothing more than to leave home, on her own terms.

This book is lightly connected to crime fiction. Investigations are recounted, but it won't satisfy the serious genre devotee. Some have called it chick-lit, and there are elements of humour, just not really what I like to read. The best part was the investigation that takes centre stage at about page 200 (of a 350 page book), but that was almost too late for me.

For me there was just too much back-story, too much Spellman family history. I thought Lisa Lutz's previous experience as a screenplay writer was well used too. Some bits of the book are presented as a play script, but it was not a device that endeared me to it.

There is some more detail in the progress report I blogged about 5 days ago. Find out there about the awards this book has already won. Just because it wasn't my cuppa, that doesn't mean that you may not enjoy it as much as others, including Lauren Weisberger, have. I think it is just that I like my crime fiction more straight-laced or is it straight-faced? I did find the odd thing to smile about though.

My rating 4.0

WICKER (aka CAST OF SHADOWS), Kevin Guilfoile

How far would you go to look into the face of your daughter's murderer?

Dr. Davis Moore does controversial work at a clinic, providing the childless with children, not through in vitro but by cloning from anonymous DNA. There are strict codes governing the procedure, including that the person from whom the DNA is taken must be dead.

When his teenage daughter is raped and murdered, Davis uses the semen left in her body as the genetic basis of a cloned baby. He hopes that when the baby grows up he will somehow be able to use him to identify his daughter's murderer.

The people who do this work are being targetted by an organisation called the Hand of God, that employs a killer to see that high profile pro-cloners and scientists are killed. Although these pressures, together with the death of his daughter, lead to Moore retiring from active practice, he follows the growth of Justin, the baby cloned from the rapists' semen, with interest, and attempts to track the rapist down.

Not only is this a really creepy idea but the story raises some big issues about cloning - is the cloned baby the absolute identical twin of the person whose DNA it was cloned on? For example, will the murderer whose DNA was used also have the distinctive birthmark the baby has? Conversely, does genetic make up determine how you think, what you become in life? Will the baby grow up to be a murderer? If the baby is cloned from adult DNA will the baby have an adult or a child mind? Will the child feel connected to the adult?

I didn't "see" the ending of this novel coming. There are things revealed in the final 50 pages that you won't predict, so if you find it a bit of a long read like I did, hang in there!

This is another one of those books with a changed name. I think WICKER was probably for the UK market, but I think CAST OF SHADOWS was really a more appropriate and interesting title.

This book has won a couple of awards too - A CHICAGO TRIBUNE and KANSAS CITY STAR BEST BOOK of 2005, and The Best First Novel of 2005 in the Love Is Murder Readers' Choice Poll - and was a finalist in the 2005 Great Lakes Book Awards.

My rating 4.5

SHARK MUSIC (aka FIND ME), Carol O'Connell

NYPD detective Kathy Mallory has stopped turning up for work and there is a body on the floor of the front room of her apartment. Even Riker, her partner, knows only that Mallory appears to be on the run, travelling west from New York, somewhere on what used to be Route 66. More alarming than the corpse on the floor is the massive list of telephone numbers on the wall of the den. They have lines through them, as if Mallory has been crossing them off. And then 800 miles away, in Chicago, a second corpse has been found. Heavy rain is destroying the scene of crime, washing the evidence away. The body is laid out with its arm pointing down Route 80, saying "Follow Me". And then Mallory turns up at the scene of the crime.

Mallory appears to be following a moving caravan of vehicles travelling the Mother Road, Main Street USA, variously known as Route 66, Route 80, and the I-55. Leading them is psychiatrist Paul Magritte, almost like a patriarch leading a lost tribe, except that the cars contain parents of missing children. These people have been gathered from Magritte’s therapy patients and from internet groups. At each point where the caravan stops the parents post pictures of the lost children. As the caravan gathers media attention, so it also attracts more parents. FBI agents join it as do state troopers and local policemen. Old burials of tiny skeletons are discovered along the roadside, and some of the parents are murdered. Mallory is following an agenda of her own: a wad of letters written by the father she never knew as he too followed Route 66. The quest to find missing children, to apprehend a serial killer, blurs with Mallory’s own quest to find her father.

I need to confess first up that I have read only a couple of earlier titles in O’Connell’s Mallory series. This is #9, and while I knew some of the background about Kathy Mallory, found when she was 6 years old in New York’s Grand Central Station, and fostered by NYPD’s Lou Markowitz, those who have read the series will have more knowledge about the central characters than I did. Trying to piece the book together was rather like a jigsaw begun at the four corners without a clear picture of what the middle would look like. Possibly a less determined reader would have given up, but with my focus on the holy grail of this review, I journeyed on. Things got better in the second half of the book, there were aha! moments, little questions posed to which we needed answers, and then the resolution arrived.

Standing back now, I can appreciate the complexity of what O’Connell has done in SHARK MUSIC. At times the image of this growing caravan crawling along Main Street, carrying with it so much heartbreak, and so many hopes that would never be realised, was almost surreal. Soemtimes it was evocative of the wagon trains of an earlier era rolling west. Overlaying all is the growing tension of the serial murderer trawling the caravan looking for his next victim. The reader is required to juggle a multitude of threads, sift clues, and even pose their own questions. Don’t expect SHARK MUSIC to be a quick read, it needs time.

A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, Timothy Hallinan

Poke Rafferty, an American, a farang, is the author of a number of very popular travel books in a series called "Looking for Trouble". Poke lives in Bangkok with Rose, a Thai woman, an ex-prostitute, whom he wants to marry, and a little girl called Miaow, rescued from the streets, whom he wants to adopt. Miaow has herself selected a street boy nicknamed Superman to rescue, but he appears to be a killer.

Able to speak Thai fluently, Poke is accepted in the local community where he lives. Poke's friend Arthit is a rare example of an honest Thai policeman. From time to time he and Poke do each other favours. Arthit tells Poke of an Australian woman who is trying to find her missing uncle Claus Ulrich, and Rafferty agrees to meet with Clarissa. The novel is set just after the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. Many Bangkok people are in mourning, many have lost immediate family. Down on the coast in Phuket bodies are constantly turning up, but Poke doubts that elderly and overweight Claus would have been there.

There are some things that Poke hates: the exploitation of Thai women in brothels and bars, and the child sex industry from which he believes he has rescued Miaow. Following a lead which he hopes will locate the missing man's housemaid, Poke is offered a huge amount of money to track down a stolen item. Something is not quite right and suddenly he finds himself in more trouble than he had ever envisaged.

This was a book that grew on me. I like the way it is structured, the way the section headings relate to the title, its division into short chapters, and the careful choice of provocative chapter titles. I like Poke - there is something of the larrikin about him, from a quirky sense of humour, his willingness to take on the role of knight errant, to his tenderness for both Rose and Miaow, and his empathy for the suffering of the victims of sexual abuse. Hallinan's depiction of Bangkok rings true: where the new and old, wealthy and poor, live right next to each other, where farangs like Poke struggle to understand Thai culture but at the same time try to improve the lives of the homeless and vulnerable.

Not only does Poke Rafferty come alive, but so do other characters such as Rose and the ex-prostitutes she is trying to get employed as domestics, the children Miaow and Superman, Hank Morrison who works hard to get adoption approval for homeless Thai children, and even the reprehensible Madam Wing, the old woman offering a fortune for the retrieval of her stolen property.

A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART raises real questions of morality. Hallinan forces the reader to take these questions on board because not everything that Poke does is right. This is not a book every reader will enjoy. It describes a world in which most of us do not move, one in which sadists and the sexually depraved profit at the expense of women and children, where children are sold in a widespread South East Asian sex industry.

Some people will know Tim Hallinan as the author of the Simon Grist series including EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL (1990), INCINERATOR (1992), THE MAN WITH NO TIME (1993), and THE BONE POLISHER (1995). But as his web site tells, Hallinan had to start again.

A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART is the first in a new series, centering on Poke Rafferty. The second novel in the Bangkok series, THE FOURTH WATCHER, will be released in June 2008, and Hallinan has been contracted for a third. For more details see http://www.timothyhallinan.com/

The website, by the way, contains Hallinan's advice to writers on how to get their book finished, things he's learnt in the process of writing his own.

My rating 4.7