The 2084 Report by James Lawrence Powell

This novel takes the form of a series of interviews with various people from scientists and politicians, to ordinary people, living all over the world, with one thing in common - despair at what went wrong in dealing with climate change.

I was hoping for something a little more inspiring  - something that would encourage me to do more, make changes to my lifestyle which could really help combat climate change. But no. Instead, I found it all quite dull. When covering up to the present day, most of the interviewees were regurgitating facts I was already aware of. Then, as they moved onto what happened post-2020,  I found myself arguing with them, querying why options that everyone has surely heard of, such as solar or wind power, weren't utilised to their fullest.

The answer comes at the end of the book - the author basically wants to champion nuclear power; in fact it's seen as the answer to all our problems. There's no way I'm a fan of that, I think it's just shelving the issue for a while and a price will have to be paid somewhere down the line.

Would I recommend this title? Only to an absolute climate change denier. It might stop them in their tracks and make them think. Anyone who is already concerned about the way things are going will probably, like me, just be irritated. 

Emily Eternal by M G Wheaton

Emily is an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.

So, her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome. But before her solution can be tested, her lab is brutally attacked, and Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions - college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra.

As the sun's death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. But before long it becomes clear that it's not only the species at stake, but also that which makes us most human.

As you can see from the publicist's blurb above, I'm continuing with my apocalyptic streak, but with a slight difference  - this time the story is set pre-apocalypse, because when the Sun dies there'll be no humans left to tell stories.
There are two sides to Emily Eternal; there's a gripping, action-packed race to save humanity from the dying sun, but, just as much, it's about what kind of society will survive, and what constitutes 'humanity'. How far can a person change and still be considered human? how far would you be prepared to sacrifice free-will to survive? Unfortunately, it's not something to debate further here as I'd have to give away too many plot spoilers.

It took a while to come to grips with the slightly weird way 'Emily' works - making her sometimes visible to one person, sometimes to many - but overall I enjoyed the book.
There were a few bugs and loopholes that plagued me at times - the most niggling being the lack of panic shown by the general public. The end of the world is coming, people know about it, but everyone seems to be taking it amazingly calmly - none of the street-rioting, suicide cults, etc that you might expect and which appear in other end-of-the-world novels and films. It possible that in part this could be explained away by the fact that Emily 'lives' in the restricted environment of a university campus and news of the outside world is kept from her, but even the academics surrounding her seemed unperturbed by the thought of mass extinction.
It's good to see a 'computer' working on humanity's side for once. Emily isn't 2001's HAL, or the Terminator series' mankind-destroying machines; rest assured she has our welfare at heart.

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Hodder and Stoughton 
Genre - Adult, scifi, apocalypse 

Holding by Graham Norton

review by Maryom

The small Irish village of Duneen is a quiet spot where nothing exciting really happens, so the finding of human remains on a building site is huge news! While the experts brought in from Cork follow procedures and take DNA samples away for analysis, the locals have already decided the body must belong to Tommy Burke, who supposedly left the area in a hurry twenty years before. Behind him he left two broken-hearted young woman - Evelyn who believed he was in love with her, and Brid to whom he was engaged. Both of them have stayed in the village, but whereas Brid tried to move on - marrying and having children - Evelyn has moped away the intervening years, living in her family home with her two spinster sisters. 
Local Guardai officer, Sergeant PJ Collins, has on his hands the sort of case he's long dreamed of, but, now in his fifties, is he up to the challenge or will the higher-ups from Cork steal his glory? 



Although I'm generally sceptical when I hear of celebrities writing novels, I must admit I was intrigued when I heard Graham Norton (yes, that chap from the telly) had turned his hand to crime writing. I'd half expected something weird and wacky, but instead it's a cosy crime mystery, something that might have taken place if Miss Marple had visited Ballykissangel - and I loved it!

A story such as this, with no dramatic violence or high speed chases, hinges round well-drawn characters and the gradual unveiling of hidden secrets, and Norton pulls it off excellently. 
Sergeant Collins is a relative newcomer to the area - he's only lived there for fifteen years - so he doesn't remember the drama that accompanied Tommy Burke's departure and has to rely on the collective memories of the village. Everyone seems agreed though, that after a fight in the street between Evelyn and Brid, Tommy upped and left - no one has thought to query his disappearance till now. But, as the murder investigation pursues these leads, a twist (which I won't reveal) changes everything, pointing the accusing finger in a different direction. It's nicely done, and completely believable.

PJ Collins, with his weight problems and general dissatisfaction with life, might be a little on the stereotypical side, but Evelyn and Brid shine out as real people. Evelyn is middle-class, sheltered, elegant, a woman who belongs somewhere more 'exotic' than Duneen, but shocking things marked her while young, and her life doesn't seem to have moved on since Tommy left. Brid, on the other hand, has tried to make a life for herself but is coming to realise how fake it is - and has turned to alcohol to fill her emptiness. 

Events unfold against the backdrop of village life - a church fete, an amateur music recital, an evening at the (only) pub, the day to day school run or grocery shop - and it's easy to imagine living in this normally pleasant peaceful place. In fact, as the story ends and PJ heads out of Duneen in search of greater excitement in a city job, I was reluctant to leave Duneen behind. I half suspect PJ and his city boss Linus Dunne might be back in another story - if so I hope it's the same style of gentle murder mystery, not anything gritty and gruesome.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars 
Publisher - Hodder and Stoughton 
Genre - Adult crime murder mystery

A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George

 review by Maryom


"Inspector Lynley investigates the London end of an ever more darkly disturbing case, with Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit.
The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge?
Following various career-threatening misdemeanours, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with bestselling feminist writer Clare Abbott and her pushy personal assistant Caroline Goldacre gives her a connection to the Cambridge murder, Barbara begs DI Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime."

 First off, I'd better admit this is the first DI Lynley novel I've read. I've seen him - and side-kick Havers - on TV though, so I felt confident enough to jump into the series this far through and be able to pick the personal story line up without any worries. And it felt just like catching up with old friends - apart from a little oddness about hair-colouring (TV's Lynley is dark-haired, the books' version fair), Lynley and Havers are as seen on TV; he's upper class, debonair, slightly restrained in everything he does; she's scruffy, over-enthusiastic and likely to be led astray by that enthusiasm.
The story doesn't start with a dead body but about three years before, when William Goldacre finds himself driven to suicide - so the reader gets to know a lot about the characters who will eventually find themselves being questioned about murder. His family are certainly an odd bunch of people, all with seemingly twisted relationships, and dominated by the mother, Caroline, who through a combination of flattery and lies manipulates her husband, ex-husband, two sons and daughter-in-law into doing actually what she wants; only William's girlfriend seems able to resist her. This same mix has managed to gain Caroline a foothold in Clare Abbott's life - moving up from cleaner, to PA - where she tries to exercise the same control. Clare isn't so easily won over though.... I don't know if this is typical of Elizabeth George's story development but it certainly worked well here. I liked getting to know the characters well and get a feel for what might lie behind the mysterious death of Clare Abbott and, at times, would have liked to point Havers in the right direction rather than have her flounder about missing things that seemed apparent to me! That aspect aside, I really enjoyed it.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, crime

The Butcher Bird by SD Sykes

review by Maryom

Oswald de Lacy is still trying to find his feet as new Lord of the Manor. Somershill has been as badly affected by the Black Death as anywhere else; fields lie fallow for want of men to plough them, houses sit empty where the inhabitants have died, and the villeins and tenants who once followed their lord's bidding without question are starting to understand the power they now have, particularly demanding that Oswald pays higher wages. As if these troubles weren't enough, a baby is found dead and thrown into a thorn bush. The villagers immediately suspect this is the work of the Butcher Bird - a huge bird seen above Somershill's fields, and rumoured to have been loosed by grieving villager John Burrows from the grave of his wife. Oswald is quick to discount such superstitious thinking, but if the Butcher Bird isn't to blame, then who is? Soon though Oswald is side-tracked by other problems, as his widowed sister's step-daughters run away to London, and he finds himself entangled by the charms of their aunt Eloise....

The Butcher Bird is the second of the Snowshill Manor mysteries, following on from Plague Land, set in the fourteenth century in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, and with Oswald still trying to come to grips with his new position, while solving another murder.

As third son in the family, he'd been destined for the Church, raised in a monastery, and has no inkling of how to run his estate - he could do with a quick course in both farming and 'human resources'. His villagers and servants seem to hold him in little regard, and, if possible, the women in his family value him even less! Whatever Oswald wants to do, they set out to find a way to outwit him.
I'd feel sorry for Oswald, constantly exasperated by them, if he wasn't the one with all the (theoretical) power. The peasants of his manor aren't free to stay or leave as they please, and, by law, wages are set at a low, pre-plague figure. Many are sneaking away, leaving the countryside and heading for town, hoping for a better life there.
Oswald's women-folk are stuck with him though! They're restricted by laws and custom from so many things, and have so very little choice about what will happen to them in life. They each have a way to try to get round these restrictions - Eloise relies on physical attraction, sister Clemence bullies and nags, and his mother deflects all arguments through silliness. It's funny at times to read, but the reality of women's lives wouldn't have been so humorous.

Like Plague Land, this works well as both crime and historical novel; it's as twisty-turny a whodunnit as any contemporary crime novel while capturing the flavour of the period without over-loading the reader with historical facts and figure.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson

 review by Maryom



Poor Thomas Hawkins has got himself in a mess again - and this time he's on his way to the gallows, convicted of murder!
After his previous adventures in The Devil in the Marshalsea anyone would think Tom would be ready to settle down to a quiet life, but living comfortably with Kitty Sparks, above the "specialist' bookshop she inherited from her guardian, is proving just too dull. Kitty is very much in charge of the shop and its income, even refusing to marry Thomas to prevent him gambling her money away, so when he's offered the chance to earn a little cash he jumps at the offer, even though it comes from one of London's most notorious criminals. 
But while Thomas gets himself involved in court intrigue surrounding the king's mistress and her estranged bully of a husband, another crime is taking place on his doorstep - his quiet law-abiding neighbour has been found brutally, and messily, murdered in his own bed. All the windows and doors of his property were locked and bolted, so the murderer had to have been someone from inside - his children, his apprentice, or his maid - but popular suspicion points at Thomas, especially as he'd been seen hammering on his neighbour's door and threatening him!
As Thomas is transported to the gallows, he reflects on the circumstances that have brought him there and tries desperately to keep up his hopes of a last minute pardon .....will this really prove to be his Last Confession?


 This second outing for Thomas Hawkins takes the reader back to the hustle and bustle of Georgian London - but whereas his previous adventure took place mainly within the confines of the Marshalsea debtors prison, this time he has the freedom of the whole city, from the slums of St Giles, and the coffee shops and brothels of Covent Garden, to the royal court itself; all life is there to be seen. The author has obviously done her research to bring it alive so vividly but it's displayed almost casually in the little details as the action moves forward, rather trotted out lecture-style in lengthy descriptions.
 The main story is the murder of which Thomas stands accused - a closed-room killing, with a limited number of suspects, all with grievances against the victim but none seemingly worth murdering for. Alongside and around this weave a variety of other threads - a bullying husband threatening his wife, a do-gooder trying to reform and clean up the streets, and through all of them the love story between Thomas and Kitty. Thomas remains almost boyish is his desire for adventure, unfortunately it tends to take him to both physically and financially dangerous places; Kitty is clever and shrewd, able to run her business successfully, and,while at times eager to share Tom's adventures, luckily has sense enough for the two of them; together they make a great couple.





Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

Skin by Ilka Tampke

review by Maryom

"Imagine a world where everyone is born with a 'skin' name. Without skin you cannot learn, you are not permitted to marry, and you grow up an outsider amongst your own people.
This is no future dystopia. This is Celtic Britain."

To the tribes-people of Caer Cad, knowing one's lineage and 'skin' is all important - without this how can anyone know where they fit in the world? Found abandoned as a baby Ailia has no way of knowing her 'skin' - normally this should see her banished from the tribe to live outside the fort but through her foster mother, Cookmother to the Tribequeen, she is given a home in the kitchen-hut and raised alongside 'skinned' girls. Without a skin, Ailia cannot fully take part in the religious ritual life of the tribe, but even so she finds herself with special abilities that enable her to talk to the goddess-like Mothers, and walk in their mystical world. With Roman legions heading for Britain, the way of life of the island's tribes-people has never been in so much danger. Could Ailia be the Kendra, the one chosen to save them?

Set in Celtic Britain in the last few years before Roman occupation, Skin is an unusual combination of history, myth and fantasy, the three elements winding round each other like the threads of a Celtic knot-pattern. I expected this to be a book that I'd love - and for most of it I did. It started well, if not excellently, capturing the atmosphere of Ailia's hill-top home, the story-telling unfolding like something from a myth itself...but gradually as plot took over from scene-setting I found my interest waning.
Unfortunately, the more I learned about Ailia, the less I liked her - she disregards the feelings of others, is often quite callous in her treatment of them, and constantly disobeys rules set up for the safety of the Tribe.
Also the mystical side started to grate after a while - I think this would have been easier to accept in a wholly fantasy setting but against the very real historical backdrop of Roman invasion I wasn't comfortable with it.
So, if you'd asked me half way, or maybe even three-quarters, through, I'd have said this was a wonderful book; having reached the end, I'm not sure.


Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical/fantasy/myth

Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback

review by Maryom

Blackasen Mountain is a remote virtually uninhabited area of Swedish Lapland. Summers are brief and winters harsh. In 1717 a new family of settlers arrive in this inhospitable place; Paavo, who wants to put as much land between him and the sea as possible, his wife Maija and their two daughters, Frederika and Dorotea. Wolves and bears roam the land, and when Frederika discovers the dead body of one of their neighbours, wild animals are easily blamed. Maija isn't convinced though - to her, the slashes on the body look more like the work of a sword or rapier than a clawed foot. Enlisting the help of the priest, another comparative newcomer, Maija refuses to let the matter go ....but in a place where people can go for days without seeing their neighbours secrets are easily hidden and hard to expose.

Wolf Winter takes the whodunnit murder mystery and transports it to a time and place far removed from the modern urban landscape. In the early eighteenth century the far north of Sweden is remote and empty; a place where life itself is a struggle against the vagaries of the weather and the loss of a harvest can mean starvation. In the long, hard, dark winter, wolves howl at the doors, fear and loneliness build and the barriers between 'modern' logical beliefs and old pagan traditions break down. It's an atmosphere in which the supernatural is easy to believe in, and Frederika's visions of wolves are as believable as the real animals.


 In the best tradition of murder mysteries, there's an abundance of suspects - despite the unpromising sparsely populated nature of the area. The indigenous nomadic Lapps, whose traditional grazing grounds are now being parcelled out to settlers as farms, are viewed with suspicion by the incomers and are the automatic suspects for anything untoward, but all of the settlers seem to have arrived at Blackasen with secrets or running away from something; from involvement in political or court intrigues to Paavo's fear of the sea or what we would see as post-traumatic shock in men returned from war. Maija's poking about uncovers all manner of things that people would rather have kept hidden!

Add to this the amazing descriptive passages capturing the endless days of Blackasen's brief summer or the incredible fury and power of a raging blizzard and it all makes for a very special book.




 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

Plague Land by S.D. Sykes

review by Maryom


18 year old Oswald de Lacy has grown up with the expectation of becoming a monk. With two older brothers, he wasn't needed on the family estate. But now the Black death has changed all that. With his father and both brothers dead, Oswald must assume the role of Lord of Somerhill Manor - a role for which he seems totally unsuited. He has little or no knowledge of how to run his estate or when to sow or harvest crops, depending heavily on his former tutor brother Peter.
There's a more pressing matter to deal with first - a young woman, Alice Starvecrow, has been murdered and the village priest insists it was the work of demonic dog-headed men. Oswald is certain this is pure superstitious nonsense...but to prove that he must find the real, all too human, killer.


Plague Land takes a gripping murder mystery and places it in a well imagined period setting. Oswald's estate, like most of the country, has been devastated by the plague with fields lying abandoned as there are no longer enough peasants to work them. The peasants, on their part, have discovered that their lack of numbers gives them a bargaining tool they never previously had, and the old feudal order seems to be crumbling. Narrating the story from Oswald's point of view, as he struggles to come to terms with his new role, allows the author to explain the situation and system without falling back on a long history lesson.

Oswald also has his share of personal problems - mainly in the shape of his scatter-brained mother, who's still determined she should have her say in the way things are run, and his sister Clemence who in her twenties is considered an old maid unlikely to ever marry; her desperation leads to to a most unsuitable match that only brings more trouble for poor Oswald.

Against this backdrop, Oswald attempts to track down a cunning murderer, while the bodies continue to pile up. Having no idea at all of what he should do, he fumbles and stumbles his way along, often walking unwittingly into danger. The unwinding plot has enough twists and turns to keep anyone guessing, though some clues are more obvious to the reader than to Oswald. Like him, the reader immediately discounts the 'demon killers' explanation, but it's easy to see how the priest plays on the villagers religious beliefs and general ignorance, manipulating them for his own ends.


This is a great start to a new historical crime series and I'm definitely looking forward to more.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

review by Maryom
Tom Hawkins is used to living on his wits, making his 'living' at cards and gambling, but now his luck has deserted him and he finds himself in debt; in 1727 that means being sent to gaol. Inside the Marshalsea debtors' prison,  he's given a spare bed in the lodgings of Samuel Fleet, one of the few people imprisoned for matters other than debt and regarded by many as a devil, striking fear wherever he goes. The spare bed though turns out to have been that of Captain Roberts, a recently murdered inmate who now supposedly haunts the gaol. Tom is offered a deal - help track down Roberts' ruthless killer and he'll go free. Sidetracked by the captain's attractive widow, suspicious of his 'room-mate' Samuel Fleet (believed by many to be the murderer),victimised by his gaolers, Tom walks a dangerous line as he tries to uncover the truth.

The Devil in the Marshalsea is a richly atmospheric novel full of the sights and smells of this abominable place,brought to us through the naive eyes of Tom. At first he thinks he could settle quite comfortably -  until he realises that he's only seen the more presentable side of the Marshalsea and that beyond a dividing wall is the 'Common Side' where those without any money or outside influence are crammed together in the most appalling disease-ridden conditions. It's almost unbelievable that people could be mistreated in such a way but the end goal of the prison is to turn a profit, and there's always someone willing to turn a blind eye for that!

The novel's strengths lie more in historical atmosphere than detection. It's difficult at first to see why newcomer Tom is picked to investigate the murder - surely the Governor has men of his own who could have done the job? - but, through luck more than detective skills, he at last uncovers the culprit and, as with all good murder mysteries, everything is revealed at the end.
 
An interesting addition to historical crime novels - and I'm hoping there'll be more to come about Tom Hawkins.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, historical crime

A Love Like Blood by Marcus Sedgwick

review by Maryom

I've chased him for over twenty years, and across countless miles, and though often I was running, there have been many times when I could do nothing but sit and wait. Now I am only desperate for it to be finished.


In 1944, in newly liberated Paris, Charles Jackson stumbles on something horrific - a man seemingly drinking the blood of a murdered woman! Shocked and terrified, he freezes - and when he looks again, both man and woman have gone. Dismissing it as either mere imagination or one of the things that happen in war, Charles tries to put it out of his mind. Years later he returns to Paris, and sees the same man in the company of a beautiful young woman. This time he feels he must do something ..... and so begins a lifetime of plotting and planning revenge...

Despite my age, I love Marcus Sedgwick's teen and YA gothic thrillers, so his first book for an adult readership was bound to have me intrigued. It returns to many of his familiar vampire-inspired tales, but with an adult twist as it explores the depths that love, fear and revenge may lead to. Charles' obsession leads him across Europe from Paris to Marseilles, from the remote highlands of Scotland to a ruined Italian hill top village, on a quest that lasts decades as ultimately everything else falls by the wayside and only his thirst for revenge is left.
The style is much like a Victorian ghost story with the expectation of horror building with every page, drawing the reader in, and, even though the ending came as no surprise to me, I was enthralled.

It's a story as much about the pursuer as the pursuit. Charles' character develops and changes with his obsession, and the ending and resolution are as much about those changes as the actual culmination of the chase.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars
Publisher -  Mulholland Books (Hodder & Stoughton)
Genre - vampires, thriller 

Buy A Love Like Blood from Amazon

John Connolly and Mark Billingham - author event

John Connolly

By The Mole 

Last night (18th Sept 2012) saw another author event with John Connolly and Mark Billingham at Waterstones in Nottingham. Both are successful crime writers and could easily have held the night on their own, but we had a double treat. Both authors have books out and work in the pipeline. But there is one other thing they have in common and that is "Books to Die For" which is a collection of 'essays' that 120 different writers have produced telling why their choice of mystery novel is a book "to die for". Not all the selections are gritty murder mysteries - the brief was 'mystery' and didn't include the word 'murder'. Authors like AS Byatt (Possesion) are included as well as Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently) also murder mysteries including Agatha Christie (Hercules Poirot) and Reginald Hill (Dalziel & Pascoe).

Mark Billingham

Connolly and Declan Burke edited the collection as well as contributing to the book. Billingham also contributed and that was the link between these two authors' presentation.

The evening started with Billingham giving a brief introduction of himself and then reading a very short story "Fifty Shades of Thorne" - an extremely entertaining satirical piece that had the room laughing from the off. He then read from the next Tom Thorne novel - a work in progress which he didn't give the title to because he said it would probably change yet.

Connolly then talked to us about himself and "Books to Die For" and once again it was peppered with humour that kept the room laughing.

Both authors then sat and discussed, between themselves but to the room, various mystery writers and their works, again keeping the mood light hearted. Most of the authors discussed were featured in the collection and, sadly, many were new to me, but with stories spanning from 1841 to 2008 perhaps that isn't too surprising.

With works by both authors available for purchase - or take your own collection in - a book signing followed.

Another great event by Waterstones giving fans and casual readers a chance to meet and ask questions of successful writers.

The Pile Of Stuff At The Bottom Of The Stairs by Christina Hopkinson

Too Close To Home?
review by Maryom
Mary is fed up with husband Joel's attitude to cleaning and tidying. She feels every spare minute she has is spent clearing up after him and their 2 children, while he gets to do the fun stuff in life - his idea of childcare is a trip to the zoo, not getting them fed, bathed and into bed, all such mundane tasks are left to his wife. Adapting the star-chart system used so successfully with children, Mary sets up a spreadsheet listing all Joel's faults, tracking every time he commits them and occasionally allowing him a gold star for a good deed. If he doesn't start to improve, she'll...well, what will she do?

Even though Joel doesn't show signs of improvement,when Mary starts to compare her life to that of rich friend Mitzi or gay couple -Cara and Becky - she discovers that happiness does not necessarily lie in a tidy house.

The Pile of Stuff at the bottom of the Stairs is a wry look at the problems besetting the modern marriage, though a little too true-to-life to be hilarious. If your children are still young, you might find it too close to home to be funny; anyone with teenagers might think 'just wait!' I really felt Mary's frustration with the endless daily chores but unfortunately it made my endless list of 'things to do' seem larger than ever!

Maryom's review - 3 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction

Buy The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs from Amazon

A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah

Review by Maryom

In November 1996, Helen Yardley was convicted of killing her two baby sons. In February 2005, after a campaign led by journalist/TV producer Laurie Nattrass, her convictions were quashed and she was released. In October 2009 she's found murdered. Is there a connection?
Nattrass has spent years working on his campaign for the release of wrongly-convicted mothers, pointing the blame at expert witness Dr Judith Duffy, but just as Duffy is about to be 'struck off' and his documentary on miscarriages of justice coming together, he decides to dump everything onto relatively inexperienced Fliss Benson and is leaving the production company as soon as possible. Fliss has her own personal reasons for not wanting to work on the project but is left with little option other than to accept it. Meanwhile Fliss has received a very strange, anonymous card bearing sixteen numbers arranged in a 4 by 4 block - and nothing else! Is it a warning? or a clue?

A Room Swept White is the first Sophie Hannah thriller I've read, although I've seen the TV adaptation of The Point Of Rescue (Case Sensitive) twice, and spotting it at the library thought I'd give it a go. I'm happy to say it lived up to my expectations. Some of the police characters were familiar from TV - Charlie Zailer and Simon Waterhouse - and this story fleshed out their characters and ongoing relationship.

I've been exploring a lot of Nordic Noir in my crime reading recently and it's nice to discover equally brilliant British writing.  I'm not a fan of twisted, perverted killers who abuse and torture their victims, preferring nice, straightforward deaths even if the killer's mind is warped, so A Room Swept White suited me. The backstory is cleverly told through newspaper articles and interviews, filling the reader in on what has occurred while not halting the unfolding plot line. It's an intellectual puzzle of a tale rather than one of screeching police-car tyres and last minute chases across town - rather, I suppose, like a modern Agatha Christie.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Hodder and Stoughton
Genre - Adult crime thriller

Buy A Room Swept White from Amazon