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Close to the Bone - Stuart MacBride
by NikitasAuntie
Fans of Logan McRae might be a little disappointed with this latest instalment in his ever unending chaotic life. The murders are as gruesome as ever; DI Steele is just as obnoxious and disgusting as ever; and interaction with his girlfriend is funny and heart rending; but a dedicated fan just feels that something is missing, it's a bit ... messy and not gelling quite as well as we are used to.
Opening with a gangland style murder, a body is chained to a stake, stabbed and with a burning tyre round its neck. The bodies begin to pile up; there are links to a local film set and witchcraft; a missing teenage couple; Asian immigrants being crippled; and to top it all someone is leaving little bundles of bones outside Logan's home...
It's still a really good read and you won't want to put it down until you find out 'whodunnit'
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Trust Your Eyes - Linwood Barclay
by brokenangel
Barclay is a former newspaper columnist and the author of several internationally best selling thrillers. This author was recently chosen by my crime writing book group and I selected this book to read based on the interesting blurb.
Praise on the back of the book comes from the Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and ... Stephen King, although, slightly irritatingly, it is not clear whether the praise is for this book, another book of Barclay's, or just the author generally. Regardless, the contributors may help to give you some idea of whether or not you are likely to enjoy a book by this author.
-- The blurb in brief --
While moving down a street one day Thomas spots a murder happening in a window. Should he tell anyone? The trouble is, he wasn't actually there. And it's unlikely anyone will believe him since he's not the most reliable witness...
I was hooked.
-- My initial thoughts --
The first few chapters felt awkward as Barclay tried to reveal and hide relevant background through rather clunky dialogue and irritating obfuscations. The blurb on the inside cover makes it clear that either Thomas thinks he's psychic or he's using something like Google street view so the comment that "He meandered down the center of the street, not particularly worried about traffic" felt pointless and clumsy. I quickly found myself getting a little irritated by the awkwardness of it all.
Initially, everything felt similarly clumsy. Characters have discussions they must logically have had before, which seem to happen purely in order to allow a gradual revealing of relevant information about Thomas, his brother Ray and the death of their father. The first time one particular new character, Allison, is introduced there are all kinds of points driven home for the reader in preparation for later events. On a first reading these points were already clunky. I felt sure that on a second reading they would be unbearable.
Of course, everything jars once a reader is predisposed to be critical. Suddenly the whole narrative seemed to consist of daft statements like "all someone had to do was wander through [the hallway] with a lit candle" to cause a fire. A lit candle? Have we suddenly gone back to the 1800s? Even in a power outage most people would reach for a torch. Niggles abounded and I wondered whether I would find the whole book just too irritating to finish.
-- Picking up pace --
As I read past the first few chapters these minor irritations dropped away and I realised I was gripped by the threads in this crime thriller, especially as Thomas and Ray waded unknowingly deeper into danger.
It quickly transpires that Thomas is a schizophrenic who has an astonishingly powerful memory. He believes there will soon be a catastrophic world event that will render his photographic memory of vital use to the CIA, and in the meantime he might be able to rescue a trapped agent or two. Utterly convinced of the importance of his future role, Thomas spends his days using Whirl360 (Google Streetview with a different name) to memorise tracts of various major cities and communicates regularly with the CIA and former US president Bill Clinton to keep them informed of his progress. As you do.
Meanwhile, his father has recently died in a slightly odd accident and his brother Ray has come home to organise the funeral and decide what to do about Thomas. Ray tries to be patient as he learns more about his brother's beliefs but struggles to cope and adopts a generally patronising attitude which means that he initially dismisses his brother's concerns about the scene in the window out of hand. One of the nicer aspects of the story is the way that local journalist (and obligatory love interest), Julie, encourages Ray to stop being so patronising and realise Thomas' strengths. The relationship between the brothers helps to make this more than just a standard thriller and I liked seeing Ray begin to really consider his brother's value. (After all, unsurprisingly for a crime thriller, Thomas is right: someone has been murdered.)
Once the story gets going there are some interesting twists, some minor, some major. I enjoyed this because it made the story gripping, especially as there are initially two different time periods some six months apart and it was interesting moving between them and seeing how the events in the past were affecting those in the present. Chapters often ended on dramatic revelations but, unlike James Patterson style thrillers or Point Horror writers, these were dramatic without being over-the-top shocking. I found that they interested me but didn't feel overly staged or cliffhangery, which can annoy me. I thought the final twist was particularly bold and effective as it was impossible to put the book down without thinking through the possible consequences but the book still felt 'finished' by ending where it did.
-- A gripping read --
Despite the main character being obsessed with maps and spending a lot of time on his computer, the narrative and dialogue is mercifully free of technical details and unnecessary geography. Often writers seem to feel the need to show off all the careful research they have been doing; there is none of that here and so the plot can continue to move at a good pace. There are some nice touches of humour along the way too as the criminals reflect on their past and on their career choices.
Barclay uses Ray as a first person narrator for most of the chapters which helps to add a sense of immediacy to the action. Chapters focusing solely on Thomas or characters involved in the murder are narrated by an omniscient voice. I found the switches between narrators easy to follow and felt that this approach worked well to allow the reader an insight into developments surrounding the murder.
I also liked the way the crime develops. It snowballs in a manner that is slightly farcical and new players are introduced gradually. I liked the mix of naive opportunists and hardened criminals and the way that one problem spirals out of control. It made the events seem more believable.
In the prologue there is a mysterious reference to a boy in a window. I liked the way that this rather odd comment gradually gained in significance as the narrative progressed and became quite significant. The denouement contains few surprises and is quite talky as characters try to explain their actions to other characters. Despite this I felt that the ending worked well to tie up the various plot elements in a satisfactory way. There is a brief final chapter that works as an epilogue and gives an effective coda to the whole story.
-- Conclusions: --
After a rocky start I really enjoyed this crime thriller and will be keeping an eye out for other books by Barclay. I liked the depth added to the basic plot by the relationships between the brothers, although the obligatory blossoming romantic relationship left me cold. I enjoyed the touches of humour sprinkled throughout and felt that the plot was suitably dramatic without becoming ridiculous. Although the beginning was clumsily constructed the ending was well-handled. Chapters short and pacey, appropriate for the genre without being ridiculously short (or indeed irritatingly long). The same can be said for the length of the book itself which runs to 498 pages of approximately size 14 font: enough length to develop the story, not enough to send a reader to sleep. The criminal proceedings are easy to follow while still being engaging and the topic (political manoeuvrings and corruption) is very relevant and therefore likely to have a wide appeal for contemporary readers of crime fiction.
The RRP is a rather eye-watering £18.99 which I personally feel is rather expensive for a work of fiction, even if it is in hardback. On the plus side, most retailers are selling it for rather less (currently £12 from some online sellers) and due to the nature of story you could happily re-read this after a decent interval without feeling like it was a complete waste of time. Still, I would be tempted to wait for this to come out in paperback unless you are a big fan of Barclay's. Even the kindle version is currently retailing at £9.99. Recommended - but shop around.
Read this if:
- you enjoy crime thrillers which follow the investigations of complete amateurs who happen to become involved in the crime;
- you have enough patience to disregard a slightly awkward beginning and remain interested during a rather talky conclusion;
- you like books in which all the threads are carefully prepared and neatly drawn together the end.
Avoid this if:
- you prefer your crime thrillers to follow the investigations of professionals and focus on clues / forensics / mysteries;
- you like to discover who-dunnit at the end, rather than observing the criminals throughout and simply waiting for the main characters to work out who and what they are dealing with;
- you like crime thrillers with high stakes (there's no danger of the world ending here)...or don't like crime thrillers at all!
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Wednesday's Child - Peter Robinson
by SWSt
Wednesday's Child is the 7th book in the popular Inspector Banks series. Banks novels tend to take a slightly different approach to much modern police fiction. Rather than being set in large cities, featuring psychopathic serial killers and a body count in double figures, they are set in the North Yorkshire Dales and often feature just a ... single murder victim. Arguably, they are all the better for it.
Having said that, Wednesday's Child is a little different and features two different plots. In the first, a young girl is taken from her home by a man and a woman pretending to be social workers. Meanwhile, a man is found brutally murdered and hidden in an old mine shaft. Initially separate incidents, the two cases slowly come together.
The Banks books are always fun to read. The gentler pace and lower body count is a welcome antidote to the murderous mayhem of much modern detective fiction. Wednesday's Child is no exception, proving an interesting and well-crafted story that will tempt you to keep reading long after you have vowed to stop. It's packed with interesting characters and realistic situations, so that it feels more like a "proper" police investigation than a thriller designed to titillate.
Much of the appeal of the books comes from this slower pace. I'm sure police officers would argue, but it feels like a more realistic portrayal of police work. Cases are solved through sheer hard work, talking to people to glean more and more information and slowly starting to connections between what is being said. Unlike many thrillers, it is not based on blind luck, unlikely coincidences, or chance conversations that crack the whole case wide open.
Having said that, I never felt quite as engaged with Wednesday's Child as previous Peter Robinson efforts. It's interesting enough and the plotting and writing are perfectly acceptable. However, it didn't draw me in as much as previous entries. I didn't care as much about the characters or the outcome (since I knew that Banks would get his man in the end). It wasn't bad; merely mediocre.
Normally when reading murder mysteries, I like to try and guess who did it, to pit my wits against the author and the characters to see if I can solve the mystery before they can. With Wednesday's Child, I took a much more passive role; happy to sit and wait to see how the story unfolds, rather than work it all out for myself.
There was a need with Wednesday's Child to have read previous books in the series (not always essential with the earlier titles). Robinson has started to build up a regular cast of characters and refers back to some of their previous cases. Increasingly, it's assumed that readers will know about these and no explanation is provided. This is not an issue (I think it's fair enough to assume that if someone is reading the seventh book in a series, they are going to have read earlier titles). Moreover it means Robinson doesn't have to constantly repeat information from earlier books, which could have been annoying.
A real issue with the book was the incredibly poor quality of the paper in the paperback edition. In fairness, this is more a criticism of the publisher than the book itself, but it did actually impact on my enjoyment. The paper is so incredibly thin that it is almost impossible to turn just a single page. I lost count of the number of times I turned a page, only to discover (on resuming reading) that the new page didn't make sense because I had accidentally turned two pages instead of one. When that happens a couple of times, it's mildly inconvenient; when it happens dozens of times, it becomes incredibly annoying. I appreciate that publishers use lower grade paper to keep costs down, but there's something wrong when it starts to impair the reader's enjoyment!
Despite only giving this three stars, I wouldn't want you to run away with the idea that it's a rubbish book - it's perfectly serviceable and entertaining; just not as good as previous books. It's certainly not put me off the Banks series and I'm looking forward to reading the next one - I just hope it has more in common with earlier titles than this one.
Basic Information
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Wednesday's Child
Peter Robinson
Pan, New Edition, 2002
ISBN: 978-0330482196
© Copyright SWSt 2013
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