The Jump by Doug Johnstone

review by Maryom

Six months ago, Ellie's teenage son committed suicide by jumping off the Forth Road Bridge. While her husband distracts himself by searching down suicide conspiracy theories on the internet, Ellie can only find peace in physical activity. Everyday she walks from her South Queensferry home down to the shore then up to the Bridge, in an endless loop. One day she sees another teenage boy, Sam, standing outside the safety barriers, ready to jump, and instinctively she goes to help. She talks Sam down, takes him home, offers him shelter ...and then discovers the family mess he was running away from....

I read somewhere that director Ron Howard likes to make movies about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations - think of Jim Lovell and crew in Apollo Thirteen, or James Hunt and Niki Lauda in Rush. Now, to my mind there's an echo of this in much of Doug Johnstone's writing - a normal, ordinary person, one you might pass a million times on the street and never remark on, takes a step outside their everyday routine - and gets caught up in something way above their head! Whether it's a whisky-sampling holiday on Islay going pear-shaped in Smokeheads or a car accident that brings down the wrath of local gangsters in Hit and Run there always seems to be violence and mayhem lurking just under the beneath the surface of everyday life and waiting to burst out. What I love about Johnstone's novels is that you almost believe it could happen to you!
Ellie is a character that I feel will stick in my mind for a long while. Feeling she has little left to live for after the death of her son, she's willing to risk everything for another unknown youngster; both her overwhelming grief and dogged determination are convincing and believable.
The setting is, as in so many of Johnstone's novels, important and well-captured. South Queensferry isn't a place I know well (I visited once for an afternoon) but I really felt I was there, in a village of old fishermen's cottages and newer seaside builds, dominated by the massive bridge above, a brooding, threatening presence in Ellie's life.
I sometimes feel Doug Johnstone isn't very well known outside Scotland but he certainly deserves to be! If you haven't discovered him yet, why not?

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - adult thriller

Gone Again by Doug Johnstone

review by Maryom

Mark and Lauren have a happy marriage, a 6 year old son, Nathan, and are now expecting another child. When Mark is phoned to pick up his son from school, he just thinks Lauren has forgotten that it's 'her' day for this. But when she doesn't appear by Nathan's bedtime, Mark knows something is definitely wrong. Lauren has done this before, just after Nathan was born, and Mark fears that her pregnancy may have sparked a similar reaction. Then, in the first of several well-timed reveals, the reader discovers that Mark has a history of violence ...and we begin to wonder what exactly happened and can we believe what Mark says....

Gone Again is another great read from Doug Johnstone - a story about a perfectly normal family that get dragged into something sinister and find life spiralling out of control. In a way, it's a book of two halves, certainly of two moods. Things start a little slowly, exploring Mark's relationships with his wife, his son and his mother-in-law, and I wondered if this was going to be a different style novel to Doug Johnstone's usual fare; more of a psychological thriller with less action. But, as the reveals keep coming and Mark takes matters in hand in a d-i-y vigilante way, things really kick off. Many of us would just leave things in the hands of the police - not want to take on the world single-handedly as Mark does -  and this is where the slow build-up pays off. It seems logical with the earlier insights into Mark's character, and his grudging admittance to his violent streak, that this is how he would react.

It's a book that I raced through, each twist and turn making me want to read faster to reach the all-revealing conclusion. 

Like Hit And Run it's set in Edinburgh but in a different part of the city - the beach area of Portobello with its views out over the Firth of Forth.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - Adult crime thriller

 

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Tombstoning by Doug Johnstone

review by Maryom

The last time David Lindsay was in his home town of Arbroath was 15 years ago, in the summer holidays after leaving school, for the funeral of one of his mates who fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. Now there's a school reunion planned and persuaded by Nicola Cruickshank - who he always fancied back in school  - David reluctantly agrees to go along. What should have been a fun weekend, meeting up with old mates, turns sour when the body of one of them is found at the bottom of the same cliffs. The common denominator to the deaths seems to be David - or maybe his reclusive ex-schoolmate Neil. While the police seem prepared to accept these deaths as accidents, David, like many a thriller hero, decides it's up to him to investigate further - fortunately he has Nicola to assist!

Tombstoning was Doug Johnstone's debut thriller published in 2006 by Penguin. I read it as a Kindle for PC copy - not the easiest reading method in the world and I usually save it for short stories and novellas. It says something for the gripping quality of this novel that it had me hooked despite this. The story line may be a little more straightforward than his later novels but it has that trademark of good fun going pear-shaped and sinister against a well evoked Scottish backdrop, in this case the Angus fishing town of Arbroath. There's lots of drinking, dark humour, some sex and a psycho killer on the loose - a brilliant read!

Previous reviews; Hit and Run;  Smokeheads 

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Penguin
Genre - adult, thriller

Hit and Run by Doug Johnstone

Crime and Punishment?
review by Maryom

Billy Blackmore has been out for the night with his girlfriend Zoe and brother Charlie. Drunk and drugged up, he still decides to drive home but on the way the unthinkable happens and he hits and kills someone. Zoe and Charlie persuade him that reporting the accident won't help the man, so they hide the body and drive off.

Billy soon finds that it isn't that easy to walk away from the incident or his nagging conscience. When the body is discovered next day, he's expected, as a crime reporter, to investigate - especially when the dead man turns out to be a local crime lord with a family ready to track down the culprits and mete out their own brand of justice, and to have a grieving widow in need of consolation.

I 'discovered' Doug Johnstone last year through a Waterstones review copy of Smokeheads, a sort of Scottish island based Deliverance, and wondered what he'd come up with to follow it.

Smokeheads was a sort of action/comedy/thriller - great fun but not likely to happen . Hit and Run is different. While still fast-moving, and at times violent, it's ultimately more thought provoking and, most importantly, more believable. Billy is a good guy at heart - though I'm not too sure about his brother or girlfriend - caught in a situation that, without too big a stretch of imagination, readers can relate too. Any of us could be Billy, trying to avoid responsibility but finding that our conscience is not as malleable as we might imagine.

As in Smokeheads, there's a strong evocation of place - this time capital city, Edinburgh, and the brooding presence of Salisbury Crags, overlooking most of the action and serving as a constant reminder of what Billy has done.

Hit and Run is an unputdownable, action packed read but with plenty for those looking for something deeper to get their teeth into. If you haven't discovered Doug Johnstone, then it's time you did! I'm definitely looking forward to more from him.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - adult action thriller

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Smokeheads by Doug Johnstone

Deliverance with a Scottish Twist
review by Maryom

"Four friends. One Weekend. Gallons of whisky. What could go wrong?" - well, just about everything it seems.

4 late-thirties, ex-university friends with a serious passion for malt whisky set off to Islay for a weekend of sampling the products from the island's many distilleries. Within minutes of leaving the ferry terminal they, or more specifically the loud-mouthed Roddy, get on the wrong side of the local police and from there everything goes downhill - rapidly! Instead of the jolly weekend they'd planned, arguments lead to an accident, the accident leads to them falling into the sort of nightmare scenario usually reserved for Hollywood movies - think of Deliverance with a Scottish twist. Will anyone survive to tell the tale?

Not everyone is going to take to these four whisky nerds or sympathise much when they land in trouble, but it's a fast paced, action-packed, roller-coaster-ride thriller which I found to be quite enjoyable, though you might be forgiven for thinking it's a "man's" book. There's not a lot of deep characterisation unless the characters are talking about the subtleties of malt whisky and then they could go on for ever! It's VERY violent and full of strong language, drug and alcohol abuse but bizarrely I find myself thinking of it as a lighthearted, enjoyable little book - perhaps I'm perverse.

I'd just like to add that I've been to Islay - and it was nothing like this!

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - action thriller

Buy Smokeheads from Amazon

Other reviews; I Meant To Read That