BLOG TOUR: Cut and Shut (Louise Miller Crime Series Book 3) - Jonathan Peace

 

June, 1989

Tensions are high - tempers short

Following a stupid, drunken car theft, the tragic deaths of three local lads uncovers a powder keg of racial intolerance and bigotry.

A vicious attack

When two Muslim brothers are violently attacked, Louise sees her hometown with jaded eyes, shocked that so many of her colleagues are reluctant to get involved or help in any way those they once called neighbours.

A terrible truth

As she investigates, Louise, accompanied by WDC Hines and psychologist Karla Hayes, discovers links between the car theft and the assault but worse; the racial tensions that now threaten to tear the community apart, have masked an even darker crime – one that has gone long undiscovered, but will have devastating consequences.

What did I think?

Cut and Shut is the third book in the Louise Miller crime series and I think that it is the best one yet.  I've loved the previous two books, but it really feels as if Jonathan Peace has upped the ante with his third book in the series.  Although you can read each novel as a standalone, I'm reading the series in order and it's very rewarding to see the character development.  

Racial tension is as taut as a bowstring in 1989 West Yorkshire and it's quite difficult to read about the misogynistic and racist mindset of the 1980s.  It's frightening that it doesn't feel like that long ago, although I feel old when I realise this book was actually set 33 years ago.

With car theft, hate crime and the discovery of some gruesome remains that even made the police vomit, there's a lot going on in this novel and I was riveted from start to finish.  There's also a little bit of crossover from the previous book which tidies up some loose ends, but it's written in such a way that any readers new to the series will not be disadvantaged.

Gripping, atmospheric and clever, Cut and Shut is a fantastic novel that brings the darkness of the 1980s back to life, as discomforting and difficult to read as it is.  Brilliantly written with a razor-sharp plot, Cut and Shut is outstanding crime fiction and a very highly recommended read.  I'm already excited to see what's in store for Louise Miller in book 4.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

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BLOG TOUR: Where the Edge Is - Gráinne Murphy

 

As a sleepy town in rural Ireland starts to wake, a road subsides,trapping an early-morning bus and five passengers inside.  Rescue teams struggle and as two are eventually saved, the bus falls deeper into the hole.

Under the watchful eyes of the media, the lives of three people are teetering on the edge. And for those on the outside, from Nina, the reporter covering the story, to rescue liaison, Tim, and Richie, the driver pulled from the wreckage, each are made to look at themselves under the glare of the spotlight.

When their world crumbles beneath their feet, they are forced to choose between what they cling to and what they must let go of.

What did I think?

I have to start by saying that Where the Edge Is is so beautifully written that I was surprised to find that it is Gráinne Murphy's debut novel.  The emotive writing really drew me into the story and brought the characters' feelings to life.  I found it a very easy book to read and even though it wasn't as tense and gripping as I perhaps expected, it certainly held my interest.

Although the bus accident happens at the start of the book, Gráinne Murphy focuses on the characters around the scene rather than the people inside the bus.  This might come as a surprise to readers who are expecting a survival story of characters whose lives are passing before their eyes as the bus plunges deeper into the earth.  It is a survival story in a way as two of the main characters, Nina and Tim, find a way to live each day after a devastating event tore them apart.

Nina is the reporter on the scene and Tim is the firefighter liaison; they used to be married so it's difficult for them to be in such close quarters, especially when it opens up old wounds.  I found Nina and Tim's story extremely heartbreaking but I loved how Gráinne Murphy showed things both from a male and female perspective.  I don't really want to say what happened to them as it's a bit of a spoiler but I've never considered how hard it must be for a man to take a back seat and hover on the periphery in certain situations.

When two survivors are pulled out of the bus, people are more suspicious than joyous as one of them is Muslim.  I loved the character of Alina; it felt like she wasn't Muslim enough for her family and not Irish enough for everyone else.  Her husband really annoyed me though, especially when he kept trying to speak for her and if I thought he was annoying, his mother was even more so.  I was so mad that Alina's faith made people suspicious of the other survivor, bus driver Richie, and he was hailed as a hero by some people but vilified by others.

Gráinne Murphy really knows how people tick and Where the Edge Is completely captures the many foibles of human nature; it's a very character driven story and the bus crash kind of lingers in the background as the main story plays out on the page.  Thought-provoking and emotive in a way I didn't expect, Where the Edge Is is a superb debut from a very talented new writer.  

 

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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About the author:

Gráinne grew up in rural west Cork, Ireland. At university she studied Applied Psychology and forensic research. In 2011 she moved with her family to Brussels for 5 years. She has now returned to West Cork, working as a self-employed language editor specialising in human rights and environmental issues.

Twitter: @GraMurphy

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BLOG TOUR: All the Lonely People - Mike Gayle

Hubert Bird is not alone in being alone.

He just needs to realise it.

In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship and fulfilment.

But Hubert Bird is lying.

The truth is day after day drags by without him seeing a single soul.

Until, that is, he receives some good news - good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on.

Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out.

Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all . . .

Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long?

From bestselling author Mike Gayle, All the Lonely People is by turns a funny and moving meditation on love, race, old age and friendship that will not only charm and uplift, but also remind you of the power of ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference.

What did I think?

What a lovely story; anyone who doesn't love Hubert Bird must have a heart of stone.  Although I experienced a range of emotions whilst reading All the Lonely People, I read most of it with a smile on my face.  Hubert is a fantastic character and he really doesn't know how special he is; he truly is one in a million.

With his daughter in Australia and his son who knows where, widower Hubert thinks he's quite content being alone.  All he wants is a quiet life with his adopted cat but to stop his daughter Rose from worrying about him he pretends to attend an over 60's group at the local community centre.  Every week when she calls home, Hubert regales Rose with stories of his new found (imaginary) friends when all the time he has never left the house.  It started out as just a little lie with the best intentions but when Rose calls to say she is coming home, Hubert has to find some real friends pretty sharpish.

As we follow Hubert's attempts to make friends, we are also given flashbacks to the 1950's when he was a young man starting a new life in England, leaving his friends and family back home in Jamaica.  The racism is blatant in the 1950's and 60's and it's so sad to read what people had to put up with simply because of the colour of their skin.  On the positive side, it's heartening to see how far we've come in a relatively short space of time, although there's still a long way to go yet.

I loved the community spirit in the book and the knowledge that friends can be any age, colour or sex.  Hubert meeting his new neighbour, young single mother Ashleigh, is the catalyst that starts a chain reaction which ensures that Hubert's life will never be the same again.  As the pair become friends they embark on a campaign to end loneliness in the town of Bromley, but as their fame grows Hubert worries that the lies he has told Rose will be exposed before he has the chance to explain to her face to face.

I laughed and cried, I was shocked and surprised but I loved every minute of All the Lonely People.  It's beautifully heartwarming and exudes charm from every page.  Completely captivating, All the Lonely People is a very special book and one I won't forget in a hurry.  I cannot recommended it highly enough.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: The Last Widow (Will Trent 9) - Karin Slaughter

It begins with an abduction. The routine of a family shopping trip is shattered when Michelle Spivey is snatched as she leaves the mall with her young daughter. The police search for her, her partner pleads for her release, but in the end…they find nothing. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air.

A month later, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, medical examiner Sara Linton is at lunch with her boyfriend Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the serenity of the summer’s day is broken by the wail of sirens.

Sara and Will are trained to help in an emergency. Their jobs – their vocations – mean that they run towards a crisis, not away from it. But on this one terrible day that instinct betrays them both. Within hours the situation has spiralled out of control; Sara is taken prisoner; Will is forced undercover. And the fallout will lead them into the Appalachian mountains, to the terrible truth about what really happened to Michelle, and to a remote compound where a radical group has murder in mind…

What did I think?

I actually can't believe that this is my first ever Karin Slaughter book; her novels have been recommended to me many times so when an opportunity to join the blog tour for The Last Widow came up, I jumped at the chance.  

I didn't realise it was the ninth book in the Will Trent series and, with the characters of Will Trent and Sara Linton being already well established, I didn't really get any depth of feeling for them.  I think I definitely would have benefited from reading the earlier books in the series first, so I wouldn't recommend this as a standalone novel.  I'm intrigued enough about them to want to read the earlier books though; I love how Will isn't a people person, except when it's the right person of course and I can totally relate to that.

The story is quite gripping right from the start as a woman is abducted in front of her young daughter.  Michelle Spivey has disappeared without trace and the police have no leads.  When an explosion shatters the peace of a Sunday afternoon, Sara and Will head towards the scene of the incident without thinking twice.  What they discover puts them in terrible danger and Sara ends up right in the middle of something she can't escape from.  Only one man can save her but can Will hide his very strong feelings for Sara and go undercover to rescue her?

To be honest, I struggled with the book at first.  The first four chapters are told alternately from Sara and Will's viewpoint which results in whole paragraphs of speech being repeated.  I almost missed out a whole chapter, thinking I'd already read it and had put my bookmark in the wrong place.  Thankfully, Will and Sara get separated quite early on so there isn't too much repetition to contend with.  One thing that really affected my reading pace was the frequent use of very short sentences.  It's just my personal preference but I prefer a comma, semi-colon or an 'and' to keep the prose flowing rather than several very short sentences.

The talent of Karin Slaughter is very evident in The Last Widow; despite my jumping in mid-series and not knowing the characters, the story kept me intrigued and entertained.  It was quite scary at times, not just the scarily realistic storyline, but the character of the baddie in the story, Dash, being like a pot constantly on the boil that could boil over and scald you at any time.  

The Last Widow is a gripping and intriguing story and it's all too scarily realistic in this day and age where bigotry seems to be rearing its ugly head more often.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke

Southern fables usually go the other way around. A white woman is killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead.

But when it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he is drawn to a case in the small town of Lark, where two dead bodies washed up in the bayou. First a black lawyer from Chicago and then, three days later, a local white woman, and it's stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes - and save himself in the process - before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

What did I think?

I may have accidentally stumbled upon Bluebird, Bluebird when some blog tour spots suddenly became available but I am so pleased that I did, otherwise I might have missed this astonishing book.  Of course, the spots were snapped up quicker than I could respond, but fortunately I was invited to close the tour.

The prologue states 'Texas, 2016' and after that, due to the words and actions of the characters, I felt as if the book went back in time to around the 1950's but I couldn't have been more wrong.  I was actually gobsmacked when one of the characters mentioned the TV shows Scandal and Real Housewives.  I wish I could believe it was all fiction, but the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, just like the Ku Klux Klan, is very real indeed.

Skin colour plays a big part in this story when two bodies are found in the bayou: the first body is that of a black lawyer from Chicago, Michael Wright, which causes barely a flicker among the residents of Lark, Texas.  The second body is Missy Dale, a local white woman, which sees law enforcement officers from across the state descend on Lark.  The police don't think there is any link between the deaths because nobody cares about stranger Michael Wright, however, Texas Ranger Darren Matthews doesn't believe in coincidence.

As the story unfolds, the secrets of all the residents of Lark come to the fore.  Some of them have more to hide than others and one of them has a lot to lose when Darren uncovers a link to the murder of Joe Sweet, husband of local cafe owner, Geneva.  Fingers start pointing at likely suspects and the police don't know whether they are looking for one killer or two.

I felt absolutely wrung out after reading Bluebird, Bluebird.  I don't know whether I was exhausted with the dry, dusty Texas heat or cotton-mouthed from being unable to put the book down for refreshments.  It's alarming to think that skin colour still has an effect on how people are treated these days, and full marks to Attica Locke for raising the issue.  I often google things after reading, and I had assumed that the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) was created for the purposes of this book.  You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that the ABT, and many gangs like them, are real.

I can see Bluebird, Bluebird becoming a firm favourite for book groups as there are so many excellent discussion points in it.  The story is vivid, shocking and thought-provoking and this may be the first time that I have heard of Attica Locke, but I know it won't be the last.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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At First Light - Vanessa Lafaye

1993, Key West, Florida. When a Ku Klux Klan official is shot in broad daylight, all eyes turn to the person holding the gun: a 96-year-old Cuban woman who will say nothing except to admit her guilt.

1919. Mixed-race Alicia Cortez arrives in Key West exiled in disgrace from her family in Havana. At the same time, damaged war hero John Morales returns home on the last US troop ship from Europe. As love draws them closer in this time of racial segregation, people are watching, including Dwayne Campbell, poised on the brink of manhood and struggling to do what's right. And then the Ku Klux Klan comes to town...

Inspired by real events, At First Light weaves together a decades-old grievance and the consequences of a promise made as the sun rose on a dark day in American history.

What did I think?

I have fond memories of Vanessa Lafaye's debut, Summertime, that I reviewed quite some time ago, so I positively jumped at the chance to read an early copy of her new novel, At First Light.  As with Summertime, this is another novel based on real events that has you screaming in anger, clapping in delight and sobbing with devastation.  Vanessa Lafaye is such a wonderfully talented author who creates such depth in her writing that ensures the characters bore into your very soul and remain there until the end of your days.

Alicia arrives in Key West on the boat from Cuba, somewhat under a cloud, although we need to invest a bit of time in the story before we learn the reason for her exile.  She has come to live with her cousin, Beatriz, and work in her tea rooms but Alicia is shocked to find that her cousin answers to the name of Pearl and isn't known for serving tea in her establishment.

Also arriving in Key West is John Morales, returning from war in Europe.  He finds much has changed in Key West as he returns to his rightful place behind the bar of The Last Resort, the establishment he owns right next door to Pearl's Tea Rooms.  With such a close proximity to Alicia it isn't long before the pair fall in love and their story is as tragic as it is poignant because Alicia is brown and John is white.  In an era when the Ku Klux Klan were sweeping America there are many who will strive to tear John and Alicia apart, using any means necessary, but theirs is a love that is destined never to die.

At First Light is another masterpiece from the pen of Vanessa Lafaye.  It is shocking and heartbreaking to learn that this is based on a true story which makes it all the more poignant.  I had goosebumps reading certain passages and applaud Vanessa Lafaye for bringing this period of history to light.  In the current day and age of so much uncertainty and innumerable prejudices, it's a story that will resonate with so many people.  An absolutely breathtaking masterpiece that will be going on my read again pile.  Very highly recommended - I want to give it more than 5 stars!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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Summertime - Vanessa Lafaye

Synopsis:

In the small town of Heron Key, where the relationships are as tangled as the mangrove roots in the swamp, everyone is preparing for the 4th of July barbecue, unaware that their world is about to change for ever. Missy, maid to the Kincaid family, feels she has wasted her life pining for Henry, who went to fight on the battlefields of France. Now he has returned with a group of other desperate, destitute veterans, unsure of his future, ashamed of his past.

When a white woman is found beaten nearly to death, suspicion falls on Henry. As the tensions rise, the barometer starts to plummet. But nothing can prepare them for what is coming. For far out over the Atlantic, the greatest storm ever to strike North America is heading their way...

What did I think?

Summertime starts us off quite gently (for just a few minutes) with Missy, the Kincaid’s maid, trying to cool down in the heat then immediately grabs us by the throat as an alligator enters the garden.  Missy freezes in horror and I was almost screaming at her to grab the baby and run!  While Missy is still running through all the scenarios in her head, her neighbour Selma comes running with her shotgun!  Fire up the barbecue it’s gator steaks all round!

As we are introduced to the whole town of Heron Key, there are quite a few characters in the book so it can sometimes get confusing but the main characters quickly shine through.  We learn about Missy’s employers, Nelson and Hilda Kincaid, and their less than perfect marriage despite the birth of their son Nathan.  Missy is still living with Mama as she is waiting for the love of her life, Henry (Selma’s brother), to return from war.  Thanks to Selma’s Haitian love spells, Henry returns from war and his heart skips a beat when he sees Missy, but he returns with other veterans and lives with them at the veterans’ camp.  The veterans are quickly ostracised and when a white woman gets attacked the veterans’ camp falls under immediate suspicion.  Meanwhile, a storm is brewing…

It’s quite shocking to read about the degree of racial segregation that was enforced in America back in those days (the book is set in 1935).  It is even more disturbing when the storm comes, and lives are at stake, that colour of skin becomes a ticket to safety.  I was completely gripped by the whole story of the storm, and I did indeed gasp out loud as the storm claimed its first victim.  The ferocity and danger of the storm followed by the temporary peace and tranquillity of the eye was felt in every page and I almost felt like I was living through it with the residents of Heron Key.

This is a work of fiction based on fact so it can't help but reach into your soul and leave an imprint of the events of that fateful day in 1935.  It is an amazing story about courage and strength in the face of adversity - fight for what you believe in and never give up hope.  

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