Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton

review by Maryom

Catrin and Rachel had been friends for most of their lives till a moment of carelessness on Rachel's part led to the death of Catrin's two sons; since then, as best possible in a small island community, they've ignored each other. Three years on, Catrin feels she has nothing left to live for - apart from revenge. Her plans are disrupted though when a young boy goes missing. Although he's believed to have just wandered away from a family picnic, this isn't an isolated incident - two other boys have disappeared in the last couple of years leading some people to fear there's a killer at large on the island. The thought that one of their own number could be abducting children seems beyond belief, but what other explanation could there be?


Spanning a few days in November 1994 Little Black Lies is a gripping stand-alone psychological thriller from Sharon Bolton, author of the Lacey Flint series It's set on the remote Falkland Islands - a ready-made 'closed room' location of a tight-knit community where visitors are rare, mainly confined to the cruise ships that pass through in Summer. The story is told from three points of view, starting with Catrin, who while seemingly going about her day to day life is constantly thinking about death - that of her sons, her own, and the possibility of causing someone else's. Her version of events is followed by that of  her ex-lover Callum; one of the British paratroopers involved in the Falklands War, he's suffered post traumatic shock ever since, and has found that the only place he's at peace is oddly back on the Falkland islands, but he's still subject to periods of black-out during which he can be aggressive and violent. Lastly, we hear Rachel's point of view - for three years she has lived a life full of guilt and remorse, but maybe now there's a way she can make amends. As each version unfolds, we realise that what we first accepted as solid fact is open to interpretation, and that maybe events aren't as clear cut as we'd believed. I certainly found my sympathies shifting from one character to another as their back stories emerged. It's very cleverly done, and leads the reader first one way, then another, saving the final twist to the last page.
Definitely the sort of book that once started, you won't want to put down till it's finished!



Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, psychological thriller

Maryom's Picks of the Year - 2014

 Last year I couldn't cut my 'picks of the year' down to a small selection at all. This year, I'm being more ruthless and from an extensive longlist I've chosen a Top Twelve.....

I think there's a tendency to pick more recently read books for a list like this but, just to prove there are exceptions, top of my list is the first book I reviewed this year - Donal Ryan's The Thing About December The heart-breaking story of gentle but dim-witted Johnsey Cunliffe is played out over a year, a chapter for each month, leading to the climax in December; an immensely sad but compelling read.




Sticking with the grim side of life, and another book from early in the year - Cynan Jones' The Dig charts a clash of wills and lifestyles between Daniel, a farmer committed to his land and animals, and an anonymous badger-baiter, earning his living through cruelty. It's raw and bleak, a definite eye-opener for anyone who thinks the countryside is a rural idyll.







In A History of Loneliness John Boyne tackles the fallout from the paedophile scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland. Father Odran Yates has been a priest for forty years, has tried to live a good, blameless life, ignoring the abuses of power taking place around him, but now has to face up to his niggling conscience.






Carys Bray's debut novel, A Song For Issy Bradley, is about loss, hope, faith and family as a Mormon family face up to probably the most devastating thing that can happen - the death of a child. Ian and Claire, and teenage children Zippy and Alma struggle with their faith and their loss; only 7 year old Jacob can see an answer - to work a miracle and bring Issy back. Ultimately hopeful and life-affirming, there are without doubt some dreadfully dark moments but they're balanced by light, humour and love.






  Another family - this time the Saddeqs from Lahore in Pakistan. Roopa Farooki's The Good Children explores the complex relationships within this family- between children and parents, and between children themselves - as they grow up, spread their wings, leave home for England or the US, but always feel that tug that binds them together. It's grand in scale - moving from the1940s to the present day - and size - 620 pages, though it didn't feel a page too long.




I struggle to find ghost stories that scare me, so I was oddly delighted to stumble across this - Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray. While his mother makes plans for a new life in the old family home, Dieter, the boy-heir, encounters a strange ghostly boy with evil designs. With a growing feeling of menace, this is a truly spine-chilling read, probably best avoided late at night.

 Another debut, this time an excellent sci-fi dystopian thriller. Tomorrow and Tomorrow follows grief-consumed Dominic as he wanders through the virtual archive that brings nuclear-blast destroyed Pittsburgh and its inhabitants back to life.  Not-too-distant future dystopia with TV-like 'adware' that constantly streams news, adverts and reality TV style porn direct into the brain, a destroyed city recreated in virtual form, a twisting turning thriller and grief-struck hero combine to create a wonderful, complex story.

 The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh could easily have been just another tale of sun, sea and illicit sex but it's so much more; a perceptive portrait of a family reaching a turning point in their lives, a marriage that's a little too stale, and a woman seeking to re-gain her lost youth by tumbling heads over heels in lust with a hot 17 year old. I absolutely loved it.




The storyline to Hamid Ismailov's The Dead Lake reads almost like a fairy tale - a young boy ventures into a forbidden lake and is cursed for life - but the evil wizard here is the Russian government and the lake has been polluted by atomic testing. The first of Peirene's 2014 Coming of Age series deals with a boy who doesn't grow up, and a whole region caught, literally and figuratively, in the fallout from the arms race. Told in plain, straightforward prose, it's a tale to make your heart ache.






I've read a lot of crime novels over the year but this was my favourite. The fourth of Sharon Bolton's Lacey Flint series, A Dark and Twisted Tide, is set among the old wharfs and  abandoned warehouses of London. A complex story that developed in unforeseen ways, with the story told from multiple points of view and a timeline that jumps backwards and forwards. It's only at the very end that everything comes together - and in a totally unexpected way.







...and to round off my list two rather different 'lighter' reads...

First, something very dark and wicked - Lizzie Prain finds an unusual way to dispose of her husband's dead body as she lovingly cooks her way through his remains in Season To Taste or How To Eat Your Husband. Natalie Young's humour is dark and twisted - think Sweeney Todd meets Desperate Housewives - and not for the squeamish.





Last, not least but certainly the lightest of my list, another debut - from actor Sara Crowe. Campari for Breakfast is a delightfully quirky coming of age tale about finding love and finding oneself. There are family secrets to be unearthed and a ghostly visitor to be braved, while the house threatens to crumble down and desperate ways are sought to save it. I absolutely adored this. It's light, funny and sad by turns, but overwhelmingly full of 17 year old heroine Sue's belief that one day she'll find love and begin to live decadently, sipping campari for breakfast!







Not really eligible for this list were some really amazing books published in previous years; Andrea Levy's Small Island, George Mackay Brown's Greenvoe, and Roopa Farooki's The Flying Man

A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton

 review by Maryom

Sharon Bolton is back with an extraordinary thriller set among the old wharfs, abandoned warehouses and industrial relics of the Thames. Ex-detective Lacey Flint is living and working right in the heart of them; her home is an old houseboat moored in a marina off Deptford Creek, and her work-place is on the river as part of the Metropolitan Police's Marine Unit. She'd hoped that quitting her detective role and getting back to 'proper' policing would lead to a quieter life - but things are rarely that easy.
Out for a morning swim in the Thames, Lacey discovers a partially submerged body wrapped in a shroud-like cloth, and Lacey just can't help getting pulled into the investigation. The body is quickly linked to other disappearances, and it soon appears that someone is abducting and murdering young (probably illegal) immigrant women along the banks of the Thames. It's just coincidence that Lacey seems to always be the one to find the bodies, isn't it?

I came a bit late to the Lacey Flint series - jumping in at book 3 Like This, For Ever  which I found a bit confusing with its on-going personal story-arcs. Now I know the characters and slipped back into their world comfortably. Lacey's private life is pretty much on hold for now as the man she loves, Mark Joesbury, is off undercover somewhere, out of touch with anyone and everyone, but there are still the prison visits to serial-killer Toc and enticing glimpses of Lacey's past.

A Dark and Twisted Tide starts chilling and tense, and stays that way! A complex story developing in unforeseen ways, involving people trafficking and other things too plot-spoiling to mention, it's, as you may guess from the title, as dark and twisted as you could wish for. I thought I'd unravelled the whole back-story to the murders and found myself expecting the story to move in certain directions - but I hadn't and it didn't! I love it when a thriller writer can manage that!

It's not necessarily easy to keep track of everything as the story is told from multiple points of view and the time line jumps about a bit,so it's only towards the end that everything slips nicely into place. But it's a story that grabbed me and had me reading late into the night. I'm not an explorer of caves, tunnels or anything under ground, so having action set in a half-flooded drainage tunnel with a rising tide is NOT my idea of fun - all of which made for an extra-dramatic nail-biting climax.

Something that delighted me was the way A Dark and Twisted Tide opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on London - not the bustling shopping areas or seedy backstreets but the marinas, creeks and inlets that lead into the Thames - for the most part dingy and polluted but in the midst of them an almost enchanted garden that I'd love to explore.

I'm now truly hooked on the Lacey Flint series and want to find and read the earlier ones (sadly not in stock at my library, as I checked yesterday) and can't wait to read Book 5 - no pressure on the author there!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, thriller

Buy A Dark and Twisted Tide: Lacey Flint Series, Book 4 from Amazon

Like This, For Ever by Sharon Bolton

 review by Maryom

Five boys have been abducted and murdered in London and the police don't seem to be getting very far with their investigations but eleven year old Barney Roberts has been keeping track of events with a police-style wall chart and feels he can begin to see a pattern emerging. He doesn't really want to acknowledge it though because it points a little too close to home....
Like This, For Ever is part tense psychological thriller and part police procedural, and I found it unfolded a little unevenly. The story is told from three different points of view - Barney's, his on-leave policewoman neighbour's and that of the investigating police team. Add to this interspersed extracts from an interview between a psychiatrist and the murderer (after his capture) and there's a lot of different angles to get your head round, especially as the police characters seem to have been picked up mid-story-line following on presumably from a previous book. I don't normally mind picking up a series part way through but this time it proved a drawback. So many of the characters had history with each other but not having met them before, I found it really hard to care about them and their personal problems  - and wished a lot of the time that they'd just get back to doing some police work and crime solving!

Barney's storyline, on the other hand, was compelling reading. Although some of the incidents surrounding him and his friends seemed a little far-fetched, and sometimes I had difficulty believing how young they were, his story gradually built in tension as he was forced to face the facts that bothered him.


Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - adult crime, psychological thriller,


Buy Like This, For Ever from Amazon