Tag Archives: crime fiction

Time and Tide by Shirley McKay

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Time and Tide by Shirley McKay was published in 2011 and it’s the third book in the author’s Hew Cullan series.

The setting is St Andrews 1582 and a ship has been wrecked just off the town. There’s only one survivor, all the others have succumbed to some sort of illness. The locals are worried that it might have been some sort of infectious disease, but there’s a windmill on  the wreck and various inhabitants of the town want it for themselves.  But who does it belong to?

Hew is given the job of sailing to Ghent to find the owner and to tell them what has happened to all of the sailors, while Hew’s brother-in-law tries to establish what the sailors died from.  Hew’s task is all the more dangerous as the Low Countries are at war with Spain, but he’s glad to get out of St Andrews and to be travelling again and he soon falls in with a Scottish mercenary who will help him with his investigations in Antwerp and Vlissingen –  or not.

There’s a lot going on in this book, murders, rumours of witchcraft and Hew meets royalty,  I really liked it although my thoughts on it are hardly rivetting reading, but I’m looking forward to reading the next one in this series.

 

The Face of Trespass by Ruth Rendell

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The Face of Trespass by Ruth Rendell was published in 1974. It’s donkey’s years since I read anything by Ruth Rendell, I don’t know why but I have always got mixed up between her and P.D. James.

Anyway, I did like this one although it takes almost the whole book to get to the crime. I really prefer it when there’s a murder on the first or second page, so I did get a bit frustrated at what I regarded as a lot of scene setting. This does lead to an atmosphere of menace though, you just know that things are not going to go well for the main character.

Graham, generally known as Gray had written a very well-received novel two years previously and everybody had great hopes of him having a very successful career as a writer, but he hadn’t been able to replicate his success and didn’t even seem to be trying now.

He’s living in a small rural cottage not very far from London which is known as ‘the hovel’ as it’s just about falling down. It belongs to Mal, a friend who is travelling at the moment and is happy for Gray to live in the cottage – and stop it from falling down.

Gray has an obsession though, he’s having an affair with a married woman  who is rich – well her husband is rich. Apparently she always gets her own way but the relationship breaks down when Gray refuses to be manipulated by her.

There’s an atmosphere of danger and tension, especially towards the end of the book, and I enjoyed it despite its structure not being my favourite style.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

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The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny was published in 2021 and the Covid pandemic does feature in the book although it’s assumed that it’s all over and done with as there is a vaccine – if only that were the case – it’s still around in 2023 and people are still dying, with variants able to dodge the vaccines.

Anyway, I was happy when I realised that in this book the Quebec village of Three Pines is the setting. I’ve read all of these books apart from the most recent one and it just about always seems to be winter in Three Pines. I suppose that all adds to the cosiness of the Bistro with all of those sugary pastries and hot chocolate – mention of which always makes me feel slightly icky!

To the book: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has been given the job of organising the crowd control at a lecture which is being given by a controversial speaker. Gamache is keen for the lecture to be cancelled as its subject of euthanasia is so objectionable and divisive. The speaker believes that killing off anyone who is a drain on society is the only way of getting the country’s economics back on an even keel post Covid, and worryingly some people in the government seem to be taking the idea seriously. It’s all very close to the hearts of the Gamache/Beauvoir families, given that a supposedly imperfect baby is the latest addition to the families, and of course with Penny’s late husband having had dementia of some sort it’s something that presumably she would have been completely against.

As you would expect murder ensues! It’s a good read with moral and psychological questions as usual.

The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith – Readers Imbibing Peril XVII

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The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith was first published in 1956. It’s full of suspense and atmosphere.

Walter Stackhouse is a young handsome and succesful lawyer, he seems to have it all, but he has been married to Clara who is an estate agent for two years and she’s very work driven, a family is not on her agenda, she is more attached to her dog Jeff than to her husband.

In fact Clara is very difficult and is really in need of a psychiatrist, but she refuses to see one. She doesn’t have a good word to say about Walter and constantly criticises him, she embarrasses him in front of friends and one by one his friends are deserting him, Clara is isolating him. They’ve previously talked about getting a divorce but decided to give the marriage another go.

Walter tells Clara that he loves her so often he actually believes it, but when he reads about the murder of a woman in a newspaper he becomes obsessed with the case, he thinks the husband did it, but the husband hasn’t been arrested. Walter feels the need to visit a bookshop which belongs to the murdered woman’s husband, and so begins a catalogue of poor decisions, downright stupidity and silly lies which lead to a lot of trouble. In fact at times I began to feel sorry for Clara for having been married to him!

I really enjoyed this one, despite it being quite a stressful read. There’s such an atmosphere of danger or should I say peril for a character that I originally had quite a lot of sympathy for.

There have been various film adaptations of this novel, most recently A Kind of Murder which was released in 2016.

I read this one for the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge. RIP XVII

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson is set in 1926 London and it begins with a large crowd gathering outside Holloway prison which (Ma) Nellie Coker is just about to be released from. She’s something of a celebrity, the matriarch of a large family business as she owns a string of nightclubs, all catering for different types of clientele. Her six adult children have arrived in their two Bentleys to whisk her away, but not before the press photographers have snapped their mother.

Chief Inspector John Frobisher of Scotland Yard is also among the crowd. He has been sent to Bow Street Station to shake them up, it’s thought that there’s a lot of corruption in that police station. He’s not the usual type of police inspector, he’s keen on books and might take to writing himself.

It looks like Nellie hasn’t fared well in prison, it’s the first time she had ever been there and she’s no spring chicken. Some gangsters intended to take advantage of the situation and move in on her business. There’s also a corrupt policeman making a nuisance of himself and some of Nellie’s children are less than supportive.

I loved this one which I think has an authentic atmosphere of the post WW1 society with the Bright Young Things and their excesses, including drugs, but there’s also a more domestic thread with some runaway girls being sought by Frobisher and his undercover temporary sidekick.

In general I really love Atkinson’s writing – except for When Will There Be Good News? which was far too depressing for me.

My thanks to the publisher Random House UK and NetGalley who sent me a digital copy of the book for review.

Shrines of Gaiety is due to be published on the 27th of September 2022.

Sheiks and Adders by Michael Innes – 20 Books of Summer 2022

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Sheiks and Adders cover

Sheiks and Adders by the Scottish author Michael Innes was first published in 1982, by Gollancz. Whenever I see those yellow Gollancz covers nowadays I’m just about grinding my teeth, since I read about how badly Victor Gollancz treated his editor Diana Athill, paying her paltry wages for years. Anyway, to the book.

Sir John Appleby has retired from Scotland Yard, and he’s very happy to be out of it, but when he visits a summer charity fete which happens to be a fancy dress do, he gets involved in a murder. Appleby is dressed as Robin Hood and he’s amused to bump into his replacement at Scotland Yard, as he’s also dressed as Robin Hood! It seems that the fete is being held in the grounds of a house which belongs to a businessman who has recently moved there, and Scotland Yard has had a tip-off that there’s going to be trouble.

A wealthy Arab sheik is going to be attending, is his life going to be in danger? To add to the difficulties lots of men have decided to dress up as Arabs, it’s impossible to figure out who is the real sheik. One thing that Appleby knows for sure – for some reason the owner of the house had forbidden his daughter’s boyfriend to come dressed as an Arab!

This was quite an amusing read. Michael Innes was also an academic and he liked to make sure that his readers knew that, so there are a lot of literary allusions as usual, I know that some people find that annoying, I just find it quite funny!

A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry

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A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry is the third book in the Raven, Fisher, Simpson series which is set in 19th century Edinburgh. I really enjoyed the first two books in the series (The Way of All Flesh and The Art of Dying) and if you are thinking about starting this series you will get most enjoyment from it if you read the books in the correct order.

This one begins with Will Raven delivering a set of very unexpected twins to a poor woman in Leith, Edinburgh’s port. On his way back to Queen Street he witnesses a noxious parcel being pulled out of the River Forth. It’s the beginning of a police investigation but the detective in charge is always quick to jump to conclusions and isn’t too worried about getting the correct perpetrator of any crime, he just wants to clear it up quickly.

Meanwhile Sarah Fisher has travelled abroad in search of advice from a woman who has been able to study medicine, but things don’t go as planned. Sarah’s relationship with Raven is even more confused than before, but that doesn’t stop them from conducting their own investigation into the various crimes that they’ve become involved with.

This series with its location of 19th century Edinburgh is so atmospheric, especially if you know the city. Presumably there will be another book in this series coming along soon, I’m looking forward to reading it already.

Ambrose Parry is the pseudonym of the Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre and his wife Dr Marisa Haetzman who is a consultant anaestethist, and the series revolves around the household of Dr Simpson who pioneered the use of chloroform, especially in childbirth. I can’t help wishing that I had got the same care that he gave to his patients while in labour!

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin

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The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin was published in 2021. William McIlvanney died in 2015, this book features the character DC Laidlaw in his first case. The earlier books earned McIlvanney the title ‘father of Tartan Noir’, but this book was unfinished on his death so Ian Rankin completed it.

The setting is of course Glasgow, it’s 1972 and gang warfare is a way of life for some people. When the body of a tame lawyer with links to a gang is discovered in a lane behind a pub in a rival gang’s area it looks like a simple case to solve as far as DI Milligan is concerned and he has already decided the outcome of the case. The young Laidlaw is starting off his career as he continued it, being a thorn in the flesh of whomever happens to be his boss. The investigation takes place over six days.

I believe that the manuscript was discovered by McIlvanney’s wife after he had died and it was only half completed, so Rankin wrote on from midway. I read the original Laidlaw books way back in the 1970s when they were first published but haven’t read them since then. I enjoyed the atmosphere of 1970s Glasgow, I was a teenager back then and Glasgow was my destination a couple of times every week, but I wasn’t completely grabbed by the plot of this book and it’s very male-heavy character wise, but I suppose that is very true to the times, the females are wives or girlfriends. Thank goodness nowadays we can have Siobhans!

In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes

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In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes was first published in 1947 but as you can see it has been reprinted by Penguin. From the cover the book was obviously made into a film, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. If I ever saw it it must have been back in the year dot.

Dix Steele had been in the American Air Force during World War 2, he was based in England but civilian life is difficult for him, he has serious mental problems, can’t stand any sort of noise and has been living off the hand-outs from a wealthy uncle. But now he has moved to Los Angeles and is staying in the apartment of Mel Terriss an old wartime acquaintance. Dix is supposedly writing a book and Terriss has moved to Rio for a while, leaving Dix with the use of everything of his, including his car and clothes!

Unknown to Dix another old wartime friend is living in the neighbourhood and when he bumps into Brub Nicolais Dix is surprised to discover that he is a detective. Brub is under quite a lot of stress as it seems there’s a serial killer operating in the area!

I really liked this one, particularly as the plot took a few unexpected turns – for me anyway.

I imagined all of the characters as being quite a bit younger than the people who were cast in the film. Much as I love Bogart he wouldn’t have been my choice to play Dix, he would have been too old, but that was common in Hollywood at that time, the male actors seemed to have much longer careers than the women and so were given parts that they were about 15 years too old for – or maybe the guys just looked older in those days!

Murder Most Vile by Eric Brown

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The setting is 1957 London and the private detective and sometime author Donald Langham has been approached by a wealthy elderly retired businessman Vernon Lombard. He wants Langham to investigate the disappearance of his favourite son who is an artist. Lombard seems to be besotted with Christopher while he despises his younger son and treats his daughter as a dogsbody.

When Langham visits the artists’ colony where Christopher had been living it’s evident that all the other artists really disliked him, and with good reason. When a body is discovered it seems there are plenty of possible murderers.

Meanwhile Langham’s associate Ryland is investigating the disapperance of a champion racing greyhound which belongs to Arnold Grayson who had been a Fascist leader before WW2, and Ryland’s father had been involved in the mob violence that had ensued in the famous “Battle” of Cable Street. The whole thing turns into a nightmare for Ryland.

This is a really enjoyable read although I would have liked a bit more of Maria (Dupre), Donald Langham’s wife. I think they’re a really good partnership and I also missed Langham’s literary agent, Charles, who doesn’t feature at all in this one.

Thank you to Severn House who sent me a digital copy of this book via NetGalley.