Review: The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman: A Historical Mystery Women

The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman: A Historical Mystery Women by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Based on the real-life policewoman Dorothy Peto, this series has settled down into a pleasant cosy detective series with less emphasis on the accurate historical detail, although it is still there, just not so prominent. Dorothy has been seconded to Scotland Yard during WW1 to assist while so many men are on the Front. A charming Frenchman, Colonel Cartier approaches Scotland Yard on a delicate matter, his cousin the Marquis de Nagay has disappeared in London, together with three rather fine sapphires worth £50,000. Meanwhile, London is being plagued by a spate of thefts of jewellery from members of the aristocracy who are all baying for Scotland Yard to find their heirlooms.

They discover that the Marquis left London to visit Yorkshire and the home of Lady Birkbeck, the mother of a former school friend who was killed at the Somme, he was also expected to visit a local factory in which he had a substantial investment. Following her son's death, lady Birkbeck has thrown herself into trying to save other young men, even giving over most of her home to house a hospital for wounded soldiers.

As they try to track down the elusive Marquis Dorothy and the Colonel find themselves embroiled with Communists, Irish republicans, criminals, mysterious bandaged men, and men dodging conscription.

I enjoyed this, I suspected what had happened (although I got some of the logistics wrong). However, I did think Dorothy was a bit gullible.

Looking forward to the next one.

I received an ARC from the publisher.

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Review: Murder in Portofino

Murder in Portofino by T.A. Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Dan Armstrong, his girlfriend Anna, and his dog Oscar have gone to Portofino for a long weekend of sightseeing, walking, Bob Dylan, and gastronomy. Eating dinner at a restaurant after the Bob Dylan concert Dan and Anna's meal is overshadowed by the loud and drunken activities of a large group of people in the private dining room. Imagine Dan's surprise when some of the rowdy crowd turn out to be famous British comedians and TV presenters. Dan also overhears a conversation between two men who seem very unhappy about a third man, with threats of violence being made.

Their min-break is progressing well, until Dan discovers that one of the rowdy crowd has been murdered. Thinking that the conversation he overheard might be important he explains the discussion to the detective in charge of the case, and promptly gets roped into the investigation, much to Anna's chagrin.

Oh, and Dan has also been roped into investigating the disappearance of a young British woman who has been teaching English as a foreign language, she hasn't answered her phone in days and her parents back in England are frantic with worry, although her older sister just suspects she has lost her charger and has gone off with her latest boyfriend.

A previous gripe was that everything got way too complicated (I think there was one book where one person killed someone, then they were killed by someone else in revenge and so on). Luckily this one was relatively straightforward and although there were numerous suspects there were sufficient doubts to keep you guessing.

Overall, you know where you are with these books. Cosy retired copper and his trusty dog solve mysteries against the backdrop of the gorgeous Italian countryside, with copious luscious descriptions of delicious-sounding food.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Death at the Sign of the Rook

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I would have sworn blind I'd read all of the Jackson Brodie books but Goodreads tells me different. Anyway, when I saw this ARC on Goodreads I jumped at the chance to read the latest instalment.

Jackson is a PI, his lucrative Russian clientele have fallen away and he is reduced to working for a rather unpleasant set of twins who claim their late mother's home help helped herself to paining which had sentimental value. Whilst Jackson can clearly see there is a place where a painting once hung, he is unconvinced by the frankly wooden explanations given by the pair and feels there must be more to the story. However, as he investigates he discovers that the home help used a burner phone, a fake reference, and a fake name. Could the painting be a lost master? Could it have been stolen during WW2, or was it seized by the Nazis (which of course is also stealing)? Jackson reaches out to an old friend and discovers that there may be some similarities with a theft two years ago of a Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to the Dowager Lady Milton and her family.

The Milton family have been selling off their valuables to keep the house afloat, the new Lord Milton has turned one wing into a hotel, repurposed some buildings as Airbnbs, and sold off others. His latest venture is to sell Murder Mystery weekends with a small acting troupe portraying an Agatha Christie-esque story for the guests to solve. However, with laughable consequences, it turns out that a real vicar, sleuth, thief, murderer, and army major also arrive at the house unexpectedly.

This is the second detective novel I have read in the last few days which has played with the detective genre (by which I mean played 52-card pickup with the foundation stones) and I loved it. I loved seeing Jackson Brodie again. I loved everything about this.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Cracked Mirror

The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was debating with myself how much I could actually say about this book, but the blurb does it neatly for me:

You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed.

You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes.

Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.

So I was trying to reconcile these two parallel stories (well actually there are three), one minute I'm in a sleepy English village with an octogenarian little old lady who has somehow solved multiple murders, the next I'm in Hollywood with a hard-boiled PI - maybe I should have read the blurb LOL.

Penny Coyne is beginning to think she might be losing her memory, especially when she receives an invitation to a swish wedding at a Scottish castle which will also signify the merger of two publishing houses. Penny has no inkling of why she has been invited, surely briefly working for the groom's father forty-plus years ago can't be the reason?

Johnny is investigating what looks like a clear case of suicide in a Hollywood film set, but he's not convinced, then his new partner is killed after someone deliberately torches the film studio to conceal the evidence. His only clue is that the deceased man's writing partner has left LA for Scotland to attend a wedding. The longer Johnny is in Scotland the more similarities he sees between his case in LA and the events in Scotland - almost as if his was the film version and this is the book ...

I have never read a Chris Brookmyre novel before, although my sister has recommended him to me, so I had no idea what to expect. It did take a while to get into this, particularly when the book wrenches from Hollywood to a sleepy Scottish village and back again, but once Penny and Johnny were both at the wedding things started to come together. I must admit I had a smidgen of suspicion about what was happening, but the unravelling of the plot(s) was very satisfying.

Overall, I loved it, a total Mindf*ck.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: London Rules

London Rules by Mick Herron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Roddy Ho has a girlfriend. I repeat Roddy Ho has a girlfriend.

Having got rid of the Bo-Jo lookie-likee Mick Herron now turns his thinly disguised lens to the Clacton scourge Nigel Smug-arge, in a showboating character who defects from the Tories to join a right-wing party so vile that even he can't stomach them. Determined to destabilise the PM (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Liz Jockstrap (sorry I saw it on a Gogglebox repeat last night - 'Truss, its like jockstrap isn't it?') by disclosing at a public meeting that her latest Muslim protegee has been doing something untoward. The showboat is aided and abetted by his wife, a tabloid journalist who intends to publish the incriminating evidence. Meanwhile, said Muslim is likely to be the next Mayor of a major regional city, he has weathered the news that his brother became radicalised and was killed in a targeted missile strike, and is well-known for supporting ex-cons and helping them to find work.

The UK is being hit by a seemingly unconnected series of attacks, possibly by a group of incompetents, but J.K. Coe with his amazing memory figures out that someone might have resurrected an old British playbook and is using it against them.

This is probably the first book where I noted that Herron often uses the trick of misdirection, describing something which leads your mind to imagine X and then later you discover it wasn't even a letter of the alphabet - unfortunately, in the next book I found it more irritating than clever, but I digress.

Can the Slow Horses foil the incompetent terrorists before they complete their mission?

I enjoyed this, the humour, particularly in relation to Roddy Ho, was off the scale and I particularly liked the Jason Stillborn quip (still snorting with laughter just typing it), but the body count is becoming stratospheric and I am starting to feel that some new characters maybe the spy equivalent of the Star Trek redshirt.

On to the next one, which as you may have gathered I have already read :)

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Review: Thieves' Gambit

Thieves' Gambit by Kayvion Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rosalyn 'Ross' Quest has been brought up as a master thief by her mother Rhiannon and the Quest family. However, she is beginning to find her life stifling and has planned to leave to take up a gymnastics course. She and her mother are on a heist and Ross is about to desert her family when it all goes wrong, her mother gets captured (and recognised). The captors demand a ransom of $1 billion and the only way Ross can see of getting that kind of money is by entering the Thieves Gambit, where the winner has one wish granted, no matter how big.

The Thieves Gambit is an annual competition, invitational-only, where a group of hand-selected thieves compete in a no-holds-barred competition to steal priceless artifacts, art, etc. Imagine Ross' horror when one of the first competitors she runs into is her former BFF turned nemesis Noelia, who wastes no time in forming an alliance with one of the other competitors, guess its true what her mother says, you can't trust anyone other than a Quest.

There's subterfuge, violence, double-crosses, romance, and high stakes car chases.

Loved it. Others have compared it to The Inheritance Games and/or Oceans Eleven and it does have those vibes. I felt some of the 'twists' were a bit obvious, although I suspected a Bodyguard-style plot. In the subsequent books I would like Nicholi (Noelia's younger brother to play more of a role, dare I say love interest?

Anyway, a fun read with lost to keep the reader interested.

I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Break-Up Pact

The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

June left her home town to travel the world with her boyfriend Griffin, but when her older sister Anna died she returned home (with some relief) to run the tea and scone shop they had dreamed of together. Unable to stand being dispensable, Griffin dumps June live on his reality TV show by introducing her to 'the love of his life'. Bad enough to be publicly humiliated, but June also becomes a social media meme titled 'the crying girl'.

June, Anna, and their brother Dylan were all friends with Levi at high school, June even had a major crush on him, but he moved to New York to become (gasp) a hedge fund manager and he and June haven't spoken for years. When Levi's artist girlfriend publicly cheats on him with probably the world's sexiest actor (I'm thinking George Clooney - basically someone on everyone's pass card), Levi returns home to finish writing his novel.

As soon as June and Levi run into each other their old camaraderie flourishes, and their mutual fried suggests the two of them change the narrative by posing as a rebound couple - something that takes the internet by storm. But with unresolved issues from their past, scheming exes, a voracious internet, and a failing tea shop to deal with, the course of true love never did run smooth.

I liked the premise of this, the fake dating didn't last more than about 30 seconds and that was okay. However, what dragged this down for me was just how much verbiage there was about everything, honestly I was ready for the book to be over a long time before it was finished. Maybe there were too many side plots (eg dead sister, planning brother's wedding, fake dating, failing business, Levi's writing, etc). I would compare this to Jamie Beck with a little les angst (rereading some of my reviews they were quite vitriolic) but there does appear to be quite a bit of navel-gazing, angsty introspection that I don't enjoy - if you enjoy that then I think you'll love this. SO I'm basically saying I'm shallow and I like my romances light on the angsty introspection LOL.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Case of the Lonely Accountant (The Finder Mysteries)

The Case of the Lonely Accountant (The Finder Mysteries) by Simon Mason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

One day, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Don Bayliss walked out of a meeting in the office and was never seen again, a pile of his clothes and possessions was found near Poole Harbour and the assumption was that he had committed suicide. Eight years later his widow, a local councillor and wealthy in her own right, finds Dwight Fricker's business card amongst her husband's things. Mr Fricker is a well-known local businessman with several illegal activities who is currently in solitary confinement in prison after attacking two guards - he is known to be psychotically violent. The local police re-open the missing persons file and call in 'the Finder'.

The Finder discovers Don to be a man of contradictions, a typical boring accountant who also lied to a neighbour unnecessarily. A kind and caring boss who opened doors for women and was generally respectful, but who sexually harassed a young woman in the office. A scrupulously honest employee who embezzled money from the company. Someone who presented as content with his life who was found weeping in quiet desperation by a colleague.

I enjoyed this, but reading it immediately after the first book in the series I felt it was too similar in the premise (not wanting to spoil the ending). Also, as I feared, the Finder's quirk is that he just happens to be reading a novel which sheds some light/has some bearing on the case he is working on.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Missing Person: Alice (The Finder Mysteries)

Missing Person: Alice (The Finder Mysteries) by Simon Mason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I only requested this book because I wanted to read the next book in the series, then I saw that it was based around Sevenoaks in Kent, which is very close to where I live, so I thought I would request this too.

Our narrator, 'the Finder' of the series, is an Iraqi-born former police detective who assists police forces in finding missing people.

When a young girl's body is found in a lake near Sevenoaks there is evidence linking her to a local man, Vince Burns. Mr Burns is relishing the notoriety and seems keen to imply that there may be other victims, he seems to want to be a famous serial killer. Nine years ago a twelve year old girl called Alice Johnson went missing while on her paper-round and her body was never found. The local police call on the Finder to find Alice('s body) and hopefully pin her murder on Vince Burns.

As the Finder retraces Alice's steps and reinterviews anyone who knew her then, he finds a child of great contradictions. Where des the truth lie?

This is a difficult book to categorise. Its a quiet, thoughtful, measured detective story, with the Finder trying to get inside Alice's head just as much as following clues and re-interviewing people. He also analyses the people he interviews to assess their credibility. We often say people piece together the evidence and that is a very good way of describing this detective process. Nothing felt like a leap of imagination or something obscure mentioned in passing, everything followed logically, including a few blind alleys.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. My only gripe was the references to the book the Finder was reading - I do hope his reading matter won't be some kind of allegory/commentary on each missing person in the series. On to book 2.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Liv Is Not A Loser

Liv Is Not A Loser by Lauren Ford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Olivia 'Liv' Granger has trouble committing, to a career, to a hot drink, to an apartment, to a boyfriend, to a new phone, to her degree. When her brother Joe gets engaged to his boyfriend she realises that everyone else seems to have their lives together whereas she is still acting like a teenager. Together with her brother, his boyfriend, and her brother's best friend Henry, Liv creates a ten point list to stop her being such a loser (I can only remember seven):

1. Finish her degree
2. Get an internship in her chosen field
3. Sign a lease
4. Get a new phone
5. Commit to one hot drink (I feel in this I need to explain that she routinely buys three drinks at a time)
6. Have at least three dates with a guy before rejecting him
7. Keep a pet alive

Liv starts to make headway with her list, despite being dragged into wedding planning by her obsessive mother, and forced to meet yet another of her father's new girlfriends (each of whom believes she is far more special to him than she really is), but her dating life is terrible - it is only the calm acceptance and commiserations from Henry that keeps her going. But when Liv overhears a conversation between her niece and Henry she realises Henry may have feelings for her and when she looks at him in the light of this new knowledge she realises she might have feelings for him too.

Whilst I get that Liv was stuck in a bit of a rut, I also felt that her family/friends were pushing her into a pigeonhole (maybe because she was the youngest they felt she still needed to be babied and/or told what to do?), really is it too much for someone to want three drinks? Really is your reality so rigid?

I've read a couple of similar books recently and this one didn't really stand out from the rest. There was a bit too much therapy-style chat and things just quickly fell into place when Liv started her list. How many times have I said this? I liked it but I didn't love it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: A Proper Façade

A Proper Façade by Esther Hatch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Nicholas Kendrick, Duke of Harrington, had an affair with an engaged woman when he was seventeen, they were not discreet and only his late father's actions in enlisting him in the army prevented it from becoming a scandal. Nicholas' father had single-handedly rescued the family's reputation after a series of philanderers and dissolute gamblers had made them notorious. Now, with his reckless pursuit of his own desires, Nicholas came close to ruining the family's reputation again.

Once he came to see the error of his ways, particularly after his father's untimely death, Nicholas has become a model of propriety, terrified of allowing his emotions to rule his head. He has parliamentary ambitions to relieve the suffering of the Irish people and needs his fellow peers to take him seriously and award him the same respect as his father. He decides he needs a wife, preferably someone who can help him with his ambitions. Lady Mercy Rothschild fits the bill, her father holds similar political views, she is of the right sort of family, and she is a beauty to boot so Nicholas proceeds most properly with a sedate courtship, desperate to legitimise his passions within the bounds of holy matrimony.

Mercy's parents have always been kind and loving, allowing her considerably more freedoms than other girls of her age. She has strong political views and is determined to marry for love, just like her older sister and her best friend, just indeed as her parents did. Until recently, Mercy's parents supported her wishes and were content for her to find love in her own time. However, Mercy's parents have suddenly started pressurising her to consider the Duke of Harrington's suit, he might be handsome but his stilted address and serious mien are totally at odds with the passion she seeks. So, to avoid disappointing her parents Mercy looks for other suitable young ladies that he might court instead.

This was pleasantly enjoyable. However, there was a little too much of Mercy discounting the obvious about Nicholas' passions (and indeed Nicholas assuming that when Mercy pulled away from a kiss it was with revulsion) and neither of the young women Mercy tried to set up with Nicholas would have furthered his political career so from that standpoint (given that was why Mercy was against the proposal in the first place) the set-ups seemed ill thought through.

Loved the cover, very Mr Darcy views Pemberley.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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