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The Skin Gods - Richard Montanari
by cazkins
I've read and reviewed a Montanari book or two previously and remember thinking quite positively of his stuff, so I was looking forward to this when I came across it in the library. On the cover it reads 'no one can hear you scream', and it also tells us that this is from the 'bestselling author of The Rosary Girls', just to draw us in. ... It falls within the crime thriller genre and it's one that kept me engaged and enjoying it throughout, though I did get a little confused by the premise at points towards the end, hence I couldn't give it a 5 star rating.
We're introduced to Montanari's favourite detectives, Kevin Bryne & Jessica Balsano, as they're walking the streets of Philadelphia hunting down the next sadistic killer. This time, the theme is the movies. A popular actor is around the area shooting a much anticipated film, but behind all this, what the public don't see, are the films that are turning up in video rental stores. First, a Psycho movie is turned over to the PPD (Philadelphia Police Department) after the unfortunate viewer found the killer sequence in the bathtub had been replaced by a real life death seen, much like a snuff movie. As time goes on, it looks like someone is recreating Hollywood to garner his own bit of A-List fame and celebrity.
Bodies start to mount and the puzzle gets more complex, especially with a sideline story involving Bryne and a woman named Victoria who was nearly killed years before by a killer who has recently been released. It looks like something a bit more than 'dodgy' is going on here, not just the fact that he's miraculously been released and a gold star cop has apparently admitted to tampering with the original crime scene to frame the guy, but because now they have a new spate of murders on their hands. Could the guy that's re-creating Hollywood horrors, now dubbed 'The Actor', be the killer from Bryne's past? Or is there more than meets the eye? Either way, it looks like the killer won't stop until he gets his final curtain call, but he's only just started to have his fun...
I won't say any more on the premise, but it was interesting enough and seemed to take swerves that weren't necessarily expected. Some aspects were predictable and it was another take on a somewhat done-before genre format, but Montanari made it his own through the characters and twists. Nonetheless, there were times further towards the end that the plot seemed to get a little muddled in my head as I struggled to fully understand who was doing what and why, so I do think certain twists could have been made a bit clearer.
We get to learn more about the personal history of the characters and also how they're connected and what the relationships tying them together are like. For instance, with Byrne's deaf daughter Colleen and how the current case brought him to rekindle his relationship with a former victim as two broken souls being drawn together, and Jessica's life as she's working through relationship problems with her husband whilst juggling work alongside a young daughter. The details are all important because they bring down to earth, human aspects to the characters in the book, and helped me to empathise with them, imagine them and understand them better, further making me want to keep reading about them because I cared what happened.
Montanari's writing style is very fluid and so I found this pretty easy to read and want to keep turning the pages. He has the ability to bring warmth to what you're reading and make scenes and characters more three dimensional. However, as I've already mentioned, I did find things a little confusing at times in terms of the premise; whilst this didn't detract from its readability or overall enjoyment per se, it did mean a star got knocked off for me. It could be because I wasn't in the right mindset or concentrating enough at certain points, but I didn't think things were necessarily all that clearly followed through or explained to keep the reader fully on track towards the end.
Further praise can be found on the back, though it pertains to The Rosary Girls, and includes 'A relentlessly suspenseful, soul-chilling thriller that hooks you instantly' - Tess Gerritsen (one of my top authors, so I have faith that if she thinks it's good then it probably is!).
Overall, I would recommend this for Montanri or crime thriller fans. He has a great writing style that engages and encourages the reader to keep turning pages and the characters have depth enough to draw you in and make them 'come to life', as they say. Unfortunately I didn't consider it the best Montanari pick, just because I got a little lost along the way towards the end with the premise, so it felt as if the water started to get a bit muddy when I thought things could have been made clearer for the reader.
395 pages over 98 chapters plus epilogue
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Close to the Bone - Stuart MacBride
by darren55
Close to the bone is the eight book in the Logan McRae series of crime novels set in a modern day Aberdeen, this is the first of the eight novels were McRae is an inspector rather than a sergeant. The books are written by Stuart Macbride and the books depict a dark, brooding, permanently rainy Aberdeen where the criminal underclass ... constantly undermines the police and the law abiding populace. The book is told in first person narrative by Logan McRae who has to contend with solving the crimes, coping with the wise cracking boss and useless sergeants, he also has a girlfriend who has been in a coma since the end of the previous book (~2 years in Logan's world).
There are occasional chapters depicting the murders and why the murderer is doing the acts which Logan will investigate, in this novel we have a gangland style murder where a tramp has his head and arms put through a car tyre and then set on fire. This murder has echoes in drug gang warfare in South America but there appears to be no drugs connection, however, McRae keeps finding small bundles of bones and has to fend off the overtures of the town's principal gangster.
This novel is the first as I mentioned to have McRae as an inspector rather than a sergeant, one of the joys of the previous novels was the battles between McRae and the inspector investigating the murders and the writer smoothly moves the contests up the food chain with his inspector now chief inspector Steele and still able to give McRae grief. I do wonder about CI Steele, she is foul mouthed and has no concept of political correctness and tact, I suspect in reality that she would find advancement extremely slow and a place of power and importance such as running CID would be unlikely. However, as a character in a book she is a joy and her constant comments over sex, drinks, cigs and groping the sergeants and PC are a joy. There is also an appearance of McRae's former boss DI Insch now cast as a producer of a film company making a film about witchcraft and murder, he was one of my favourites in McRae's early novels and feel that the books missed his aggression and tendency to think with his fists.
This book was fun and kept the story charging along as normal for McRae novels, the stories slowly intertwine and eventually the sources of the bones are revealed and there are plenty of other murders to keep the story going. Logan is near his best, intelligent, loquacious and an eye for the pretty girl but placing him as Inspector did change the feel of the book and we'll have to see how the future novels cope with his increasing levels of stress and office politics. I enjoyed the novel as normal and hope that the author continues with the stories and continue the story of McRae, Steele and Aberdeen.
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Dominion - C. J. Sansom
by SWSt
C J Sansom is probably best known for his historical novels featuring Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake. Occasionally, however, he takes a break from that and writes about other periods. His last venture such (Winter in Madrid) left me a little cold (pardon the pun) and wondering whether he was capable of writing interesting, non-Shardlake ... books. Dominion answers that doubt in some style.
The year is 1953. After making peace with Germany in 1940, Britain is now a single-party right wing state. Germany's Nazi Party, led by Hitler has a great deal of influence in Britain, including an SS Headquarters in London. The British resistance, led by Churchill, has spies everywhere and becomes aware of a valuable secret held by a brilliant academic locked away in a lunatic asylum. Two Resistance spies are charged with freeing the man and smuggling him to America before the Germans learn his secret.
Dominion is an "alternative history" book, a novel of intrigue and espionage set in a world that never was, but might well have been. It's not an original concept - Robert Harris did something similar in Fatherland - but Sansom makes it feel very special. The narrative is straightforward and easy to follow, but it keeps you gripped throughout and has a hidden depth. The fictional "historical" setting is utterly convincing and chillingly plausible.
What makes it so convincing is that Sansom doesn't just change big historical "facts". So, whilst there are some obvious differences (Hitler didn't commit suicide in 1945 and is still in charge of the Nazi Party), there are also plenty of little details that add to the atmosphere and show what a different world we would have lived in had Hitler succeeded in defeating Britain. It's clear that Sansom has done a lot of research into the events of 1939-40 and then come up with a convincing alternative of how things might have been if just one or two incidents had turned out differently.
The altered historical setting is not just a backdrop for the plot; but an essential part of it. Britain is operating under a climate of fear, where neighbour spies upon neighbour and no-one can trust anyone else. This has an impact on the behaviour of characters within the book itself and the direction of the plot.
Despite the convincing detail, it's the characters which really make the book work. Sansom creates carefully nuanced characters and each one feels like a fully fleshed out individual. Unlike many modern novelists, Sansom doesn't just throw you straight into the action, he takes his time to build and develop his characters. Their psychological make-up and outlook is as crucial to the outcome of the book as the events themselves.
Sansom - rightly - lavishes a lot of attention on all his characters, good and bad, so that you understand their ideologies, even if you don't agree with them. Nor is he judgemental. Whilst clearly despising the Nazis, he treats them with as much care as the Resistance ones. The main German character, for example, is surprisingly sympathetic, despite being a dyed in the wool and committed Nazi. It's no mean feat to achieve this but there were times when I genuinely felt sorry for him because he is just an ordinary person doing what he genuinely believes is right, however misguided those beliefs might be.
Inevitably, it's the Resistance characters that really attract your sympathy, and it's here that Sansom's focus on characters really pays off. They feel like old friends and you fear for their safety. Sansom uses this well, playing with the readers' emotions and constantly ratcheting up the tension so that by the end, your nerves will be shredded. The sense of tension throughout is palpable and the book keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout.
Sansom has an excellent writing style and knows exactly how to fashion a novel that people want to read. He builds the tension slowly, gradually drip feeding more and more information to the reader so that things start to become apparent and he builds in regular (but subtle) cliff-hangers that keep you in suspense. Chapters are deliberately kept relatively short (usually under 20 pages) and this also keeps you reading. You reach the end of one chapter and are so engrossed that you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. Despite its length, this is one of those books that you would happily sit and read from cover to cover.
Length is, perhaps, the one thing that might put some people off. The hardback edition is almost 600 pages, so it's something of a brick and looks a little daunting initially. As soon as I started reading it, I was immediately gripped and could scarcely put it down. 600 pages just flew by and it was almost with a sense of regret that I read the final pages.
The single downside I can think of comes with the Author notes at the end. Whilst these start off interesting they slowly turn into something of a personal rant against the Scottish National Party and the quest for Scottish independence; a subject Sansom clearly feels very strongly about. They left me feeling slightly uncomfortable and the preachy tone of them sat ill with the rest of the book.
Dominion is relatively new (October 2012) so copies it will still cost around £10 for the hardback/Kindle edition. It's well worth investing in, though, as it's a gripping title that you will want to read repeatedly.
Basic Information
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Dominion
C J Sansom
Mantle, 2012
ISBN: 978-0230744165
(C) copyright SWSt 2013
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