The Murder of Halland - Pia Juul

I read about The Murder of Halland on Savidge Reads earlier this year & was immediately intrigued. I haven't read much Scandinavian crime fiction as I have an impression that it's quite brutal & edgy, full of serial killers in remote locations & I like my crime a little softer than that. However, Simon's review was so enticing that I was quick to get hold of a copy. I am a fan of Danish television though & loved The Eagle, Unit One &, more recently, Borgen.

Pia Juul is a prize winning writer in Denmark. The Murder of Halland won the Danske Banks Litteraturpris in 2009. The prize is given to an established writer & Pia Juul has been published for over 30 years, writing poetry & short stories as well as novels.

The Murder of Halland is the story of Bess who wakes one morning to be told that her partner, Halland, has been found murdered in the square just outside their house. Bess is initially suspected of the murder as Halland's last words, heard by the man who found him, sounded like "My wife has shot me". Detectives arrive & soon seem to discount Bess as the shot was from a rifle fired some distance away. Bess is numb & uncomprehending as she had spent the night working in the study & had fallen asleep at her desk. Halland was leaving the house early anyway & what Bess thought was the bang of the front door as he left was actually the shot that killed him.

Bess & Halland's relationship is gradually revealed as Bess sits in the house trying to comprehend what has happened. Bess had left her husband, Troels, & daughter, Abby, after meeting Halland in a bookshop 10 years ago. He was older than she was &, although she loved him, she never felt completely comfortable in the relationship. She also regretted the loss of her daughter as Abby hasn't spoken to Bess since she left. Bess feels like a guest in Halland's house, even after such a long time. Her study is the only place she feels at peace, surrounded by her belongings.

Now that Halland is dead, Bess discovers that he had secrets. She discovers two keys on his keyring & has no idea what they are for. His laptop & a lot of his papers are missing & the detective, Funder, is full of questions that she can't answer. Bess takes long walks & keeps bumping into a mysterious stranger who turns out to be staying with her neighbour, Brandt. Her other neighbour, Inger, is kind & leaves casseroles on the doorstep but Bess doesn't seem to be able to make the appropriate responses to other people's grief & questions. Halland's sister's foster daughter, Pernille, arrives. She's heavily pregnant & reveals that Halland had been renting a room in her apartment for some time. Pernille seems more interested in who's going to pay her rent now that Halland is dead but her arrival does solve the mystery of the keys & the missing laptop.

Bess drifts through the days, remembering the past & being pushed by others through the conventional stages of mourning - the funeral, the visits from friends, the emails & texts from colleagues & acquaintances. Everything is seen through her eyes so we only read about the murder investigation when she is involved, answering questions or deciding what to withhold. Bess's decision to leave her husband led to estrangement from her own family. Her mother calls on the morning of Halland's death to tell her that her grandfather in England is dying & wants to speak to her. In that one conversation we learn all we need to know of the distance between Bess & her mother.

This is a very economical book. Only 160pp long & all the narrative is from Bess's point of view. Instead of leading the reader to sympathise with Bess, the narrative is so honest that it discourages such an easy response. Bess is taciturn, prickly, she doesn't always respond in the "approved" way. She is terse with Pernille, partly because of her suspicions about her relationship with Halland, but she bullies her every step of the way. She drinks too much & goes to a nightclub on the night of the funeral. Bess realises how much she didn't know about Halland & about their relationship. This isn't a conventional murder mystery with the clues laid out & red herrings everywhere. We do find out the solution to Halland's death & some of the other mysteries in the story but everything isn't tied up neatly at the end. The subject of the book becomes Bess & her grieving rather than the investigation into Halland's murder.

I found The Murder of Halland a compelling book. I read it in one sitting, in a couple of hours. I was drawn on by the short chapters, the elusive nature of Bess's narration &, as the blurb at the beginning recommends, don't skip the quotes at the beginning of the chapters.

Dream of the Dead - M G Scarsbrook

Theatre producer Charlie Maitland is dead, poisoned with tartar emetic, or antimony. The poison is invisible when dissolved in water but did Charlie commit suicide or was he murdered? He suffered in hospital for several days after the poisoning & refused to accuse anyone or admit he took the poison himself  & the police investigation has stalled. Charlie's marriage to actress Georgia Foxley is volatile & their frequent arguments about her drinking & extravagant habits have dominated their marriage. Georgia's personal assistant, Jane Edouard, may have had a motive for killing Charlie as he resented her closeness to Georgia. Charlie's new production, a musical version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, is in financial trouble before it even gets off the ground & his strict stepfather is determined that Charlie will stand on his own feet. The Maitlands' maid, Zofia, also knows something & is driven to attempt suicide from guilt & remorse. The initial investigation got nowhere & now, DI Jack Ravenshaw has been seconded from Bristol because of his special knowledge of the London theatre scene.

Jack is one of the Ravenshaw theatrical dynasty, as famous as the Redgraves or the Oliviers. He hasn't acted since a horrific bout of stage fright during a performance of Hamlet just after his father's murder. He's estranged from his mother, Vivien Ashton, who is still involved with the family theatre, The Curtain, although it's now owned by another company. Vivien was horrified when Jack joined the police & they've barely communicated since. Now, however, Jack is forced to use all his theatrical connections to get to the bottom of Charlie Maitland's mysterious death. Jack's investigation is also being obstructed by elements inside the police force. The senior officer on the original investigation, DCI Wade, is openly hostile & seems to be willing Jack to fail. DS Emily Hart is assigned to help Jack with the investigation but she has secrets of her own. Where do her loyalties really lie? Jack's investigations open up several new leads but not everyone is happy with his progress & there will be more deaths before he can discover the truth.

I enjoyed this book very much. The West End setting was very effective, which probably isn't surprising as  M G Scarsbrook is a screenwriter as well as a novelist. Jack is a sympathetic character. His life is shambolic & he seems to have no personal life at all. He joined the police force after leaving the stage as a way of gaining the skills to solve his father's murder which has haunted him. He seems to be procrastinating in every area of his life & being forced to return to London & the West End tests him in many ways. Emily Hart is also an intriguing character, not entirely sympathetic as her loyalties are confused but definitely a woman with ambition & good at her job. The supporting characters are well-drawn, especially Zofia & Darlington Bell, a family friend of the Ravenshaws & an influential critic. The only aspect of the novel that seemed unnecessarily far-fetched were the absinthe-induced hallucinations that Jack experiences. However, that's a minor quibble about a novel with an intriguing, multi-layered plot & a pair of detectives who will hopefully appear in another novel.

M G Scarsbrook kindly sent me a copy of Dream of the Dead for review.

The Late Scholar - Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh has written several novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane, the characters created & made famous by Dorothy L Sayers. The Late Scholar is the latest of these & it's a real treat for anyone whose favourite Sayers novel is Gaudy Night (as mine is).

It's the 1950s & Peter is now Duke of Denver, inheriting the title from his brother, Gerald. Among his many duties, Peter discovers that he is the Visitor of St Severin's College, Oxford. The Visitor of an Oxford college has mainly ceremonial duties - installing the Warden, for example. However, the Visitor can also be called upon to resolve disputes &, in this capacity, Peter has been asked to resolve a dispute which has turned very nasty indeed.

The College is in debt & the fellows are split on the course to pursue to pay off the debt & put the College on a better financial footing. The College owns a valuable Anglo-Saxon manuscript that may have been annotated by Alfred the Great. The fellows have an opportunity to purchase some farmland that has opportunities for development but to buy the land, they must sell the manuscript. The college is locked in a bitter dispute with the votes on either side evenly divided. The casting vote belongs to the warden of the College, who has disappeared. Then, the murders begin. Peter & Harriet are dismayed to realise that the methods used by the murderer have been suggested by the murders in Harriet's books which were, in turn, based upon some of Peter's cases. Harriet & Peter go to Oxford hoping to relive happier times but find themselves hunting a murderer.

I enjoyed The Late Scholar very much. Dorothy L Sayers is my favourite novelist of the Golden Age & I have reread her books many times. I've also enjoyed all of Jill Paton Walsh's continuations & new novels as she obviously admires Sayers & has an immense fondness for the characters. There are many echoes of Gaudy Night in this book & Miss Lydgate & the Warden of Shrewsbury have cameos as well as favourite characters from the Wimsey novels - Bunter, of course, Uncle Matthew & the Dowager Duchess, a little frailer but still as loquacious as ever.

The novel isn't just a wallow in nostalgia, though. The plot is satisfyingly full of clues & possible suspects as well as the obligatory red herrings. I especially enjoyed the discussions about the authenticity of the manuscript & its annotations (Bunter's photographic skills come in handy, here) & the young scholar Jackson whose enthusiasm for the manuscript is based on his hopes of basing his career on studying it. The dons are a mixture of the noble & the venal & the atmosphere of Oxford is as seductive as ever. I'm not usually a fan of authors adapting or continuing the series of others but I think this is the exception. Jill Paton Walsh has done a fine job & fans of Peter & Harriet are in for a treat.

Cauldstane - Linda Gillard

Jenny Ryan is a ghost writer. She has written the autobiographies of many famous people but when she has the opportunity to work with Sholto MacNab, adventurer & explorer, she's intrigued. Sholto has specified a male writer but Jenny's pen name is J J Ryan so he & his sons, Alec & Fergus, weren't expecting Jenny when she arrives for the interview. Jenny is fascinated by the castle, by its dilapidated state, by the family motto, "Let fear be far from all", & by the legends that surround the family. Sholto's motive for publishing his memoir is to make some money. The estate is in dire need of cash & Jenny convinces him that she's the right person to help him do that. She agrees to stay at the castle while they work & soon becomes involved with the family & their future.

Jenny is drawn to Alec, a quiet man who runs an armoury business from the castle that brings in much-needed income.  Fergus runs the estate but lack of money is hampering his ideas for the future.  Then there's the curse that hangs over the heads of all the MacNab men. The faithless wife of an MacNab laird was murdered by her husband with the Cauldstane claymore, a massive sword that still hangs in the Great Hall. Her mother was a witch & she cursed the family by declaring that no MacNab wife would live long or bear children if they were not of the MacNab blood. She was condemned as a witch & drowned in the river near a rock called the Blood Stone because of its colouring. Legend says the curse was written on that stone. This curse has blighted the lives of the family ever since. Alec's wife, Coral, had died young, drowned in that same river. Whether it was an accident or suicide is unclear. Fergus had just proposed to his girlfriend but she refused him after she heard of the curse & became frightened. The family is divided over the future of the estate. Should they sell up or work towards some of the ideas that Fergus & Zelda are keen to try to give Cauldstane a future?

Sholto's first wife, Liz, had died in a fall from her horse when Alec & Fergus were very young & his second choice, singer Meredith Fitzgerald, had been a mistake. She'd been Sholto's mistress, one of many, while he was married to Liz, & convinced him to marry her after Liz's death. Meredith was expecting wealth & luxury but Sholto's fame & his ownership of Cauldstane didn't translate to money & soon they were living separate lives. Another faithless wife of a MacNab, Meredith was killed in a car accident after a drunken argument with Alec on his wedding day. Sholto's sister, Zelda, returned to the castle after divorcing her husband & helped to run the house with help from Wilma Guthrie, who has worked for the family since the boys were small.

As Jenny's affection for Sholto & attraction to Alec increases, she becomes determined to break the spell of misery, grief & fear surrounding the MacNabs. However she has not only the legend to conquer but a more tangible threat to overcome. She hears harpsichord music. Messages begin appearing among her notes on her laptop, evil messages filled with jealousy & hatred. Alec knows who the writer is & he's determined that Jenny should leave the castle for her own safety. Jenny realises that she now has to fight not only the legends of the past & Alec's fears but face her own insecurities & the secrets of her past. As Alec withdraws & becomes more distant, Jenny's determination to save the castle & the family increases. Her investigations reveal secrets that will shock the MacNabs but may also set them free.

Cauldstane is a terrific story, a Gothic mystery set in a haunted & cursed Scottish castle. As I read, I was reminded of many of my favourite books, from the romances of Victoria Holt to Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca with echoes of Shakespeare & Elizabeth Gaskell as well. All the characters are beautifully drawn, from Alec, whose life has been burdened by guilt to Sholto, the aging adventurer who is troubled by the consequences of the reckless behaviour of his past & worried about the future of his sons & the estate. Jenny has secrets of her own which are only gradually revealed but she's an undaunted heroine whose love for Alec will give her the strength to fight the evil force threatening the family & her own happiness.

I hope I haven't made the story sound too gloomy as there's a lot of humour as well. Sholto's glee in describing his near-death experiences in the Arctic gives us a glimpse of the dashing adventurer he'd once been until ill-health & regrets about his behaviour to Liz consumed him. As always, Linda Gillard describes the natural world beautifully. The castle is a character in its own right, as evocative as Manderley & a perfect setting for this Gothic tale of love & the struggle between good & evil.

I was lucky enough to be sent a pre-publication copy of Cauldstane by the author.
Cauldstane is available as a Kindle ebook from Amazon & will be published in paperback soon.

The Pure Gold Baby - Margaret Drabble

Jessica Speight is a student in London in the 1960s. She has an affair with her married teacher, the Professor as she calls him, and becomes pregnant. Her baby, Anna, is the pure gold baby of the title. The Professor eventually drifts back to his wife, after failing to convince Jess to have an abortion, & Jess becomes a devoted mother to Anna. Anna is a beautiful baby, calm & happy. However, as she gets older, it soon becomes apparent that everything is not right. There's no physical manifestation of her disability but she is slow to learn & physically clumsy. She will never learn to read & write although she can recognize letters & numbers. Anna has a developmental delay that is never precisely diagnosed. Is it genetic? Was she deprived of oxygen at birth? Jess doesn't know but she soon accepts that this is Anna & devotes her life to caring for her daughter.

Jess studied anthropology & made a journey to Central Africa that resonates throughout her life. She became fascinated by the children of the tribe she was studying, children afflicted by a disability then called Lobster-Claw syndrome (later called SHSF or split hand, split foot). The children coped well, adapting to their disability & accepted by their community. This trip to Africa represents the beginning of a career that will never really take off. Once Anna is born, Jess will take no more field trips. Her career became one centred on the home, on her neighbourhood of North London. She studied, she marked exam papers, she wrote articles & edited a journal. She worked so that she could be at home to take care of Anna. even after she finds Anna a place in a residential school for a few years, Jess doesn't venture far from home. She has a short-lived marriage & a few minor relationships but this is the story of a mother & a daughter.

The novel is narrated by Eleanor, a friend of Jess. Telling the story at one remove is an interesting decision but it works. Eleanor is part of Jess's circle of friends in North London. She's married with two sons but we never really know much about her. Her purpose is to tell the story of Jess & Anna as she knew it, through observation, rumour & the stories Jess told her over the years of their friendship. What we discover about Eleanor is through asides & scraps of conversation. The advantage for the reader is that we form a picture of a neighbourhood from the 60s to the present day. The type of neighbourhood that Margaret Drabble was writing about in the 60s & 70s, where the children are cared for almost collectively. Eleanor may be one of Jess's closest friends but even she doesn't know everything about Jess. For a long time she doesn't even know who Anna's father is. Jess tells her own stories in dribs & drabs, which is what life is like.

The Pure Gold Baby is a fascinating exploration of the changes in society over the last 50 years. Through Anna's story & through the stories of others, the depressed poet, Steve, or Zain, a Sudanese who was working at the BBC until his marriage ended in violence & he was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, we witness the changes in medical care over the decades. Jess's involvement in the medical system as she tries to find the care that Anna needs, brings her into contact with Steve, Zain & many others, both carers & patients. It's an interesting look at the way society has changed in the way we look after the disabled, the way we view mental health. Above all, this is the story of Jess & Anna, a story of love & devotion & the way a woman's life is changed in a moment by the birth of a child who will always need her.

I enjoyed The Pure Gold Baby very much. The narrative is slow & discursive, taking in anthropology, health policy, information about authors who have cared for or denied their own disabled children or siblings (including Jane Austen, Pearl Buck & Arthur Miller) & the changes in North London over fifty years. I read over half the book in one sitting yesterday afternoon. There are no big, dramatic events. Even the dramas - an attempted suicide, a health scare - are concerning rather than heart-stopping. It was like sitting beside Eleanor as she told me the story of Jess & her pure gold baby over a pot of tea at the kitchen table. The novel is a beautifully observed slice of middle-class English life over the last five decades.

I've read quite a few of Margaret Drabble's novels, even though I always feel I'm about a decade too young to read them. I mean that I was born a couple of decades after Drabble, Fay Weldon, Margaret Atwood & I always felt that I couldn't read their novels in the same way that their own generation did. These writers all seem to have been writing very much for their generation of women, especially in the 60s & 70s, with the growth of the feminist movement. Having said that, I've enjoyed their work & Drabble's Radiant Way trilogy is a particular favourite - even though I read the books a decade after they were written. I'd read somewhere that Drabble had retired from writing fiction but I'm glad she changed her mind. I listened to a podcast from the BBC's Open Book programme last week (it's here if you'd like to listen to it) & was pleased that I could download the ebook from my library's collection straightaway.

Murder and Mendelssohn - Kerry Greenwood

Phryne Fisher is back with her 20th case. Obnoxious conductor Hedley Tregennis has been murdered. He was poisoned but was actually killed by suffocation - someone stuffed the score of Mendelssohn's Elijah down his throat. Tregennis was loathed by the members of his choir as he had a nasty habit of groping the sopranos & humiliating & bullying everyone else. Phryne is called in by Inspector Jack Robinson to help his investigations. He finds questioning the members of the choir as easy as herding cats & Phryne steps in to help as she is more on their wavelength. She soon discovers that two copies of the score are missing & that Tregennis had a secret visitor, a woman who brought him delicious, expensive meals. Discovering the mystery woman becomes vital but the post mortem reveals a surprise about the actual cause of death.

Phryne also runs into an old friend, Dr John Wilson. John & Phryne first met during the War on the Western Front. Phryne drove an ambulance & their brief relationship was a great comfort to them both, even though John is basically homosexual. Phryne saved John's life by driving her ambulance in the path of a sniper, leaving him badly wounded but alive. Now, John is in Melbourne with Rupert Sheffield, a mathematical genius lecturing on the science of deduction. Sheffield is an unpleasant man, arrogant & cold. John's unrequited love for Sheffield makes him unhappy but he needs someone to devote himself to. John is also concerned that someone is trying to kill Sheffield. There have been several accidents that could be more than that. Phryne & Sheffield dislike each other on sight & she agrees to investigate the attempted accidents for John's sake. This leads her back to the War again, as Sheffield was involved in Intelligence work in Greece & Phryne had also dabbled in Intelligence, working with novelist Compton Mackenzie. Her contacts lead her to the MI6 agent based in Melbourne as she tries to discover more about Sheffield & what he could be involved in.

Phryne investigates with all her usual aplomb & confidence. Assisted by her adopted daughters Jane & Ruth, Tinker & his dog, Molly, Dot Williams & Hugh Collins, Mr & Mrs Butler, the Hispano-Suiza, gorgeous clothes & delicious food. Phryne becomes a member of the choir & gets to know the impoverished students who put up with unpleasant conductors because of their love of music - & each other. There are several budding romances among the choristers & Phyrne observes everyone carefully while searching for a motive for murder more compelling than just hating the victim because he's an unpleasant person. When Hedley's replacement is also murdered horribly, the members of the choir come under even greater suspicion & Phryne has to decide whether she has one or two murderers to uncover.

The lingering effects of the War are everywhere in this book. Phryne & John still suffer from the after-effects of their war service & we learn more about Phryne's activities in Intelligence.  Echoes of Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson in the relationship between Sheffield & John & the characterisation of the choir are beautifully done. Kerry Greenwood has sung in choirs & she uses her intimate knowledge to great effect. The notes at the end of the book are fascinating as Greenwood discusses her inspirations for the plot & the themes of music, love, war & detection. I didn't expect it but Murder and Mendelssohn was an appropriate book to read in the weeks before Remembrance Day. As always, one book leads to another & I'm now reading Emily Mayhew's new book, Wounded, about the men wounded in action & the men & women who tried to put them back together again.

No Man's Nightingale - Ruth Rendell

Inspector Reg Wexford is one of those fictional detectives who ages very slowly. Poirot & Adam Dalgleish also come to mind. Their authors had no idea that their series characters would prove so popular & they all began life as middle-aged (or almost middle-aged) men. The first Wexford novel, From Doon with Death, was published in 1964, & 50 years later, Reg is still solving crimes. He has retired, but he's still able to lend a hand because of his friendship with Mike Burden, once his Sergeant, but now promoted to Detective Superintendent. Whenever I read a Wexford novel, & I've read them all, I always hear George Baker & Christopher Ravenscroft in my head as Wexford & Burden. The TV series from the 1980s didn't have the glossy production values of Inspector Morse, but I was very fond of it.

Wexford's idea of the perfect retirement project is reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He's constantly thwarted in his attempts to settle down to his book, however, by his garrulous cleaner, Maxine. Wexford's wife, Dora, is able to escape Maxine by going shopping or visiting, leaving Wexford to her constant stream of chat. One morning, though, Maxine tells him about the murder of local vicar, Sarah Hussein. Maxine discovered the body of the vicar, strangled in her living room. Mike Burden asks Wexford if he would like to have a look at the murder scene & he is quick to escape from Maxine. Wexford is also missing the job & is grateful to be asked to sit in on interviews & visit crime scenes. I'm not sure how believable this is, by the way. Would a retired detective be allowed to be so involved in official police work? I was willing to accept that it was possible, though, because the case is intriguing & Wexford wouldn't be able to do much investigating without the knowledge he gains from tagging along.

Sarah Hussein wasn't universally popular. Some of her congregation resented the fact that she was a woman; she was of mixed race, & she was a widow with a daughter who had been born some time after the death of her husband. There's a mystery about the father of Sarah's daughter, Clarissa. Clarissa is almost eighteen & her mother promised to tell her about the circumstances of her birth on her birthday but now, of course, this won't happen. Sarah seems to have few close friends & no family apart from Clarissa. The motive for the murder seems obscure but Wexford soon becomes intrigued by Sarah's past & his investigations lead him to think that the answer may lie in Sarah's past & the circumstances of Clarissa's birth.

Mike Burden, however, is looking at suspects in the present & much closer to home. The vicar's Warden, Dennis Cuthbert, disliked Sarah for her sex & her race, & the fact that she converted to Christianity from Hinduism as a teenager.  She had also abandoned the Book of Common Prayer for the Alternative Service Book. Duncan Crisp is a gardener employed at the house next door to the Vicarage. He was in the garden on the day Sarah was killed but claims to have seen nothing. Burden is unconvinced by Wexford's theories that Sarah's past is crucial to the murder but Wexford follows his own lines of enquiry.

It's been a few years since I read a Ruth Rendell novel & I enjoyed No Man's Nightingale very much. Rendell is so good at building up a picture of the victim who, in this case, we never see alive. She's dead at the beginning so we only learn about her through the memories of others. Reg Wexford is his usual, spiky, opinionated self. I hate to think how grouchy he would be if he wasn't allowed to meddle in the odd murder. It's the combination of a police procedural with a private investigator novel as Reg goes off on his own tack while Burden & his team follow more conventional lines as well as the chance to catch up with old friends that I found so satisfying.

Kate's Progress - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Kate is fed up with life in London. She works in PR & shares a flat with two girlfriends but her love life is going nowhere. Her last two relationships have been disastrous & heartbreaking & she wants a change. When her grandmother decides to give her granddaughters their inheritance now so she can have the fun of seeing what they do with it, Kate is thrilled. She plans the Cinderella Project - putting her London life on hold for six months & buying a country cottage to renovate & sell.

Kate finds the perfect property in Bursford near Taunton where she'd spent holidays with her grandparents when she was at school. Little's Cottage is rundown & neglected but the price is right & Kate has served as a willing helper to her builder father & thought she could do most of the work herself. She doesn't realise that she's stepped right into the middle of a family feud by buying the cottage which is part of the estate owned by the Blackmores. Ed & Jack Blackmore are working to keep the family estate going without much help from their flighty stepmother Camilla. Camilla has a life interest in the estate as their father has died & she sold the cottage to Kate to finance her shopping sprees. Ed is immediately hostile to Kate although charming playboy Jack is more willing to get to know her.

Kate enjoys getting to know the locals including her neighbours Kay & Darren & the locals at the pub. Jack is only too willing to take Kate out & distract her from her work but she finds herself drawn to silent, brooding Ed who works in London during the week & will do anything to keep the estate together. She also becomes friends with Jocasta, Ed & Jack's much younger half-sister & becomes involved with Camilla's circle of friends. London begins to seems very far away & as Kate becomes more involved with the Blackmores & the local community, she wonders if she really wants to sell the cottage when the renovations are finished.

Kate's Progress is a charming novel with an attractive heroine, two potential heroes & an involving plot. Kate's country idyll isn't without a snake or two in the grass. One person at least isn't happy to see her in the cottage & leaves anonymous messages to frighten her away. Then there's Addison, a gorgeous American who seems very close to Ed & is obviously a part of his London life that he's kept private. This is a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers - Alexander McCall Smith

A new Scotland Street novel is always a treat even though I race through them in a day & then have to wait a year for the next instalment.

Bertie's seventh birthday is finally approaching & he's very excited - if only his mother, Irene, didn't insist that he invite as many girls as boys to his birthday party. He would also love a penknife as a special birthday present from his parents but he knows that he'll receive something non-violent & gender neutral instead. Art gallery owner Matthew & his wife, Elspeth are still getting used to being the parents of triplets. They decide that their wonderful Danish au pair, Anna, needs an assistant au pair but their choice isn't a complete success.

Angus Lordie, newly married to Domenica, has started sleepwalking & is encouraged by Domenica to see a psychiatrist. They also have a fascinating conversation about the order in which we think of the names of our married friends. Domenica feels that the order of the names is important & Angus is quite sure that everyone thinks of them as Domenica & Angus rather than the other way around. When their friend, Antonia, writes from her convent in Tuscany to invite herself to stay for a few weeks while she finishes writing her book on early Scottish saints, Domenica analyses every phrase of her letter in great detail. Antonia arrives accompanied by a nun from the convent, Sister Maria-Fiore, who has a talent for stating the obvious. The unfortunate affair of the blue Spode cup has not been forgotten by Antonia & causes some uncomfortable moments for Angus & Domenica.

Pat McGregor's love life seems to be improving when she meets an attractive young cabinet maker but their first date at a local bar becomes an embarrassment when Pat's father arrives accompanied by a very odd woman. Coffee shop owner Big Lou is always unlucky in love but decides that although her romantic relationships have been disastrous, she has a lot of room in her heart & in her life & becomes foster mother to young Finlay.

Irene Pollock wins a trip to a literary festival Dubai in a competition & Bertie & Stuart are eager for her to go. The trip doesn't turn out quite as Irene expected although Bertie & his father, while concerned for Irene's safety, settle down to enjoy their unexpected freedom.

As always, there are some very funny moments in this book as well as some poignant ones. McCall Smith's gentle humour & sense of the absurd is ever present & it's always a joy to catch up with the residents of Scotland Street.

The Bookstore - Deborah Meyler

Esme Garland is a young Englishwoman living in New York & studying for a PhD at Columbia. Her boyfriend, economics lecturer Mitchell van Leuven, dumps her just before she's about to tell him that she's pregnant. Far from home & living on a student visa, Esme gets a job at The Owl, her local second-hand bookshop. The Owl is home to a group of eccentrics, both staff & customers. George owns the shop & is obsessed with germs & nutrition. Luke brings his guitar to work & tries to educate Esme about American music. Many of the customers are eccentric & a number of homeless men drop in regularly with bargains to sell or to mind the shop for a few dollars.

Esme decides to keep the baby but doesn't tell Mitchell. When he finds out, he wavers between urging her to have an abortion & wanting to get married. Mitchell's family is descended from the old New York patrician families of Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. His parents are cool & assessing, obviously thinking that Esme has trapped Mitchell into proposing. Esme is disconcerted by Mitchell's ever-changing attitudes & assumptions that she will stop working in the bookshop & even move to the other side of the country. Through all this turmoil, the staff & customers at the Owl become the centre of Esme's world. She has few friends apart from her neighbour, Stella, & feels increasingly alone. Mitchell may be rich & handsome but, for me, he was summed up in this one comment, "... I don't need to buy books. I've got the whole of the library at the New School, as well as my iPad. Why do people still buy books? They just take up space."

The main problem I had with this book was Mitchell. He was so unpleasant, so self-centred, manipulative, needlessly jealous & unsympathetic that I just couldn't see why Esme agreed to get back together when she'd so fortunately escaped from him in about Chapter 3. He obviously has some deep emotional problems but we never discover the source of these, only the results. Esme has an inconclusive talk with an old girlfriend of Mitchell's but it leads nowhere. Their on-again, off-again relationship just got in the way of an interesting story about an Englishwoman alone in New York coping with pregnancy & all the financial & emotional problems that this causes. Every time Esme dismissed Mitchell or he left in a huff, I thought there was the chance for this novel to become something more. The most interesting chapters for me were the scenes at the Owl. The interactions with George & Luke, Esme's stumbling attempts to fit in & the growing friendships she makes that sustain her through several crises. Unfortunately Esme's erratic waverings about Mitchell just irritated me.

There are no easy answers for Esme as she faces the prospect of bringing up a baby alone in New York. Although I was frustrated by Esme's relationship with Mitchell, I did enjoy the Owl & the discussions about books & music there. The Bookstore is a fantasy in some ways as I don't imagine that Esme could possibly survive on her scholarship & the few hours she works at the Owl. Apart from the fact that she shouldn't be working at the bookshop at all while on the scholarship. I liked the fact that there was no neat resolution at the end of the book but I'm not sure that the delights of the Owl outweighed the irritations of Mitchell for me.

I read The Bookstore courtesy of NetGalley.

Oxford Ransom - Veronica Stallwood

One of my favourite mystery series has been Veronica Stallwood's Oxford series. I finally caught up with the news that the final book in the series was published as an ebook a couple of years ago & it was lovely to catch up with sleuth Kate Ivory one last time.

Kate Ivory is a writer of historical romances. She's working on her breakthrough book (or so she hopes) & everything, including her relationship with Jon Kenrick, has been put on hold until she finishes the book. The story begins with the wedding of Kate's agent, Estelle Livingstone. Estelle is marrying Peter Hume, a secondhand book dealer, & the wedding is a traditional affair, organised with Estelle's usual flair. At the reception, Kate & Jon are seated with Adela Carston, an old lady who is an old friend of Estelle's father & booksellers Frances & Ben Akin, siblings who have inherited the family business. Adela is a bit scatty but she was married to Victor, a notable although secretive book collector. When he died, his collection was stored in the basement & no one has ever been able to get a look at the catalogue. As Adela lives in an old house & has dozens of cats, the condition of the books could be doubtful but the Akins as well as Peter Hume, are definitely interested. Kate also meets Adela's grandson, Austin Brande, a property developer as well as Peter Hume's brother, Myles & his wife, Cathy. Myles is a lawyer but permanently strapped for cash, relying on Peter to bail him out all too often.

Some time after the wedding, Kate sends her latest work in progress to Estelle & is surprised when she doesn't hear from her as promised. Estelle runs her business as she runs her life - organised & formidably efficient. Kate becomes concerned about Estelle's silence & goes to London to try to find out what's happening. She finds Peter drunk & uncommunicative & the office deserted. Estelle had left home after a row & hasn't returned. Kate concludes that Estelle has been abducted but is puzzled as to why Peter won't go to the police. Peter's business is in trouble & his brother is pressing for a loan. When he receives a letter from Adela Carston asking him to look over her husband's library, he can't get there fast enough. Peter seems pleased with the deal he struck with Adele but then he receives messages from someone else accusing him of dishonesty. There are also persistent phone calls to Estelle's home & office from would-be authors demanding that Estelle read their manuscripts. Could Estelle's abduction be aimed at Peter? Or is there a demented author who doesn't take Estelle's brisk rejection kindly?

Kate is incorrigibly nosy & she is determined to find out what has happened to Estelle, even more so when she realises that Peter is doing nothing about it at all. Does he have a guilty conscience or is he being threatened by someone? She is also anxious to get Estelle's verdict on her new book & can't settle down to work without her advice. Jon doesn't approve of her investigations but when a friend of his, Craig Jefferson, comes to stay, he uses his skills as a criminologist to help Kate in her search. Their search leads them to Kate's friend, Emma, once an old flame of Peter's, & a cafe, the Writer's Bistro, where aspiring writers can go to write, network & find distraction. Kate becomes more & more concerned as time passes with no word from Estelle & her investigations could lead to serious consequences for them both.

Oxford Ransom is a fitting end to an excellent series. The Oxford setting has always been one of the main attractions in the series. In one of the earlier books, Kate worked at the Bodleian & other Oxford landmarks have featured as well. Kate's nosiness has led her into many precarious situations over the years & her freelance working life has meant that she could sleuth to her heart's content. Kate's mother, Roz, makes only a token appearance in this novel, a little older & a little more dependent on her daughter which is quite a contrast from her bohemian lifestyle in earlier books. Everyone is a little older & maybe, at the end of the book, Kate is ready to start thinking about settling down herself. As soon as the latest book is finished, of course.

My Husband Next Door - Catherine Alliott

I hadn't read any of Catherine Alliott's novels before so when I saw a copy of My Husband Next Door on NetGalley, I thought I would give it a go. The cover of this book is very chick lit, maybe with an older heroine in the vein of Katie Fforde. It looked like the humorous story of a woman whose husband is now living next door through some silly misunderstanding & the book would be about them overcoming their problems with humour & lots of pratfalls & comic misunderstandings, set in a tranquil English village. There's certainly humour in this book & it is set in a village but My Husband Next Door has a much harder edge than the average chick lit romance.

Ella met Sebastian Montclair when she was an art student living away from home for the first time. He was older, charismatic & already on his way to becoming one of the outstanding artists of his generation. They fall in love & marry when Ella becomes pregnant. Ella's mother & sister, Ginnie, are disapproving, her father is easier to persuade as he just wants her to be happy. Life is wonderful. Two children are born; Sebastian's career is booming & Ella combines her art with her family & a social life attending glamorous gallery openings & parties.

The good life doesn't last. Sebastian loses confidence in his talent & the pressure to keep painting & exhibiting leads to artist's block & drinking. The money dries up & they leave London for a farmhouse in the country owned by Sebastian's aunt, Ottoline. Ottoline sells them the farm & assorted outbuildings, one of which she continues living in. Sebastian turns the old Granary into a studio & eventually moves in there entirely as he & Ella become estranged. Their children, Josh & Tabitha, are now teenagers & drift between the house & the Granary while Ella makes some money by converting the other farm buildings into holiday lets. Ella does Sebastian's shopping & laundry but their relationship has been almost destroyed by his drinking & infidelity & Ella's guilt about her own painting. She gives up her own art almost entirely (except for occasional bouts in the middle of the night) & works as a freelance illustrator which she hates just for the money. This only adds to the guilt & resentment on both sides that keeps her apart from Sebastian.

In this curious marriage that isn't quite a marriage, Ella has become attracted to Ludo, a landscape architect working as a gardener as the financial downturn makes his skills less marketable. Ludo is a romantic & his brittle, ambitious wife, Eliza, hasn't taken kindly to their sudden drop in income. Ludo & Ella have a romantic relationship with lots of hand holding & longing looks but that doesn't look likely to ever progress to an affair.

Ella is shocked when her father, who has lived for years as an amiable doormat to his formidably organised wife, suddenly breaks loose. He takes up with a local woman who introduces him to another circle of friends, neighbours that Ella's mother, Sylvia, would never have socialised with. Sylvia's humiliation is such that she leaves home & moves into one of Ella's holiday lets. Ella & her mother aren't close. Sylvia approves of Ginnie's well-ordered life but only really approved of Ella's marriage when she could boast to her friends about her famous son-in-law. Now, with Ella's unconventional living arrangements right outside her own front door, Sylvia's brittle manner & obvious disapproval makes it impossible for Ella to do anything but clash with her. The fact that Ella's father seems to be loving his new, more relaxed lifestyle means that Ella faces having her mother on her doorstep for quite a while.

My Husband Next Door is a darker story than it first appears. There are no obvious heroes & villains. Sebastian's behaviour to Ella is horrible but she's not an entirely sympathetic character. Ella's father, Angus, seems to be the proverbial worm who turned after years of subservience but both he & Sylvia are complex characters. The reader feels a lot more sympathy for Sylvia as she gets over her hurt & anger &, encouraged by Ottoline (my favourite character) reassesses her life & future. There is humour & romance in My Husband Next Door but don't be misled by the sunny cover. This is an absorbing story of family relationships & the difficult decisions that have to be made to keep love & respect alive.

I read My Husband Next Door courtesy of NetGalley.

Plotting for Grown-ups - Sue Hepworth

I enjoyed Plotting for Beginners so much, I raced on to the sequel almost as soon as I'd downloaded it. Aspiring writer Sally Howe is a few years older now, about to turn 60 in fact. Her marriage to Gus is over. He decided he loved living in the wilderness so much that he's applied for permanent residency & is living in his cabin in the Rockies. Her brother, Richard, has just broken up with Pippa, although as he keeps walking her dogs & doing odd jobs for her, she may not believe the relationship is really over. Two of Sally's children live overseas & her youngest, Sam, is still popping in for home comforts & a chance to rant at his mother with his latest girlfriend, Xanthe, who takes over the kitchen & enjoys walking around in the nude. Best friend Wendy has reached the end of the line with her philandering husband, Alan, but keeps Sally amused with an endless stream of new outfits & her attempts at finding a replacement for Alan before she throws him out of home. At least the local village speed dating socials have two areas - one for those looking for a date & one for those who are already attached & just want to support the cause & chat to the locals.

Sally's writing career seems to have stalled. Her first novel sold reasonably well but her second is doing the rounds of the publishers & her agent is getting to the end of the list. Her third novel, a romantic comedy (written with the aid of Billy Mernit's Writing the Romantic Comedy) is coming along slowly as she works her way from The Chemical Equation : Setup & on to the Cute Meet & the Sexy Complication : Turning Point. When her agent, Donna, reaches the end of her list of publishers, Sally decides to publish the book herself. This involves finding a printer, organising an ISBN, investigating paper quality & font sizes as well as building her profile on Facebook & Twitter. Sally's writing group friend, Kate (aka Giovanna), helps out with a few tweets for the days when Sally can't think of anything to say in 140 characters & Sally blogs about the process of self-publishing.

Sally's love life is non-existent. It's been three years since Gus finally left but she's not ready to move on. Walking Pippa's dogs one day on the Monsal Trail, she accidentally trips up a cyclist who accuses her of criminal incompetence & rides off without giving her a chance to explain about the dodgy lead that led to the accident (I couldn't help thinking of Jane Eyre's first meeting with Mr Rochester at this point). The cyclist's bike lamp had fallen off in the crash & Sally wonders if she'll ever find out who he is so she can return it. Running into him again in a bookshop, she discovers that he's Kit Wyatt, the local printer who has been recommended to her for her book. After a few sticky moments at their first meeting in his office, she realises that he is a very professional printer with lots of good ideas for a novice publisher. That he also happens to be gorgeous & a widower doesn't escape her notice.

Kit & Sally's relationship follows the plot of her novel as she follows the chapters of Billy Mernit's writing manual from the Sexy Complication to the Hook that will bind her two romantic leads together. It's a funny, realistic look at love in middle age. Sally worries about her figure (what will Kit think of her post-mastectomy body?), the reaction of her children & his children (his daughters are incredibly jealous & over-protective of their father) & her desire to be with Kit but also have a life of her own. She spends most of her time trying to get Richard & Sam to move out so she can have her house to herself.. Sometimes only her addiction to Neighbours & Yorkshire Tea keep her sane.

I loved Plotting for Grown-ups. Sally is a very sympathetic character & I enjoyed meeting Richard, Wendy & Pippa again. It's great to see a woman in her 60s enjoying romance & getting on with her career even though there are complications with moody Kit & his horrible daughters. I especially enjoyed Sally's self-publishing journey. Sue Hepworth's own experiences were obviously great copy for this part of the plot as she self-published her novel, But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You,  a couple of years ago & wrote about the process on her blog. Plotting for Grown-ups is currently available as a Kindle book from Amazon but it will be available as a paperback later in the year.

Dead Water - Ann Cleeves

Journalist Jerry Markham returns to Shetland, telling his parents that he's on the track of a big story. A story about the future of the offshore gas & oil industry at Sullum Voe, under attack from environmentalists & locals worried about the future once the industry has gone. When Jerry is found murdered, laid out in a boat near the home of Rhona Laing, the Procurator Fiscal, the assumption is that it must be connected to his work.

Jerry left Shetland years before. His parents, Maria & Peter, own a luxury hotel on the island but Jerry had rarely returned home. He left few friends behind & he had been involved in scandal when Evie Watt, a student working at the hotel, became pregnant. Now, Evie is engaged to John Henderson, & seems to have put her unhappy relationship with Jerry behind her. Jerry had left
Evie behind without a second glance but on this trip he tries to contact her. Could Jerry's past hold the key to his death rather than his search for a story?

Inspector Jimmy Perez hasn't returned to full time work since his fiance Fran was murdered six months before. He's finding it hard to recover from the guilt he feels over Fran's death & only her daughter, Cassie, who Jimmy cares for, provides a reason to keep going. Jimmy's sergeant, Sandy Wilson, is adrift without his boss but doesn't know how to help. When Jerry Markham's body is found, D I Willow Reeves is sent from Inverness to head the investigation. Willow grew up on a commune in the Hebrides although this doesn't make her any less of an outsider on Shetland, what ever her boss might think. This is her first chance to head a murder enquiry & she's desperate to do well. Almost against his will, Jimmy is drawn into the investigation. His local knowledge is invaluable & Reeves is keen to include him in the team. Gradually Jimmy, Sandy & Willow work through the connections between the Markhams, Evie Watt & her family, drawing in Rhona Laing as well as Jerry's London life, to find his murderer.

This is a terrific book. I loved the Shetland Quartet & I was so pleased that Ann Cleeves decided to write a second quartet of which Dead Water is the first part. I love books set in Scotland & the atmosphere of Shetland & the other island communities is perfectly captured in these books. Jimmy Perez is an intriguing character, with his Spanish ancestry & his self-contained manner. His intuitive methods of investigation & his local knowledge of the people he lives among make him an excellent detective. It's interesting to see him in this book coming out of the worst of his grief over Fran's death & rejoining the world. I hope there's a chance to see more of Willow Reeves in future books too. I haven't seen the TV version of Shetland. A pilot was made & a series has now been commissioned. Much as I like Douglas Henshall, he's not my idea of dark, brooding Jimmy Perez but I'd love to see what he does with the role.

Ann Cleeves has been writing for many years but I only discovered her through the Shetland novels. Her other well-known series featuring Vera Stanhope has also been made into a TV series starring Brenda Blethyn. I've read one of the Vera books & will get to the others one of these days.  Bello have recently reissued earlier series featuring Inspector Ramsay (set in Northumbria) & bird watchers George & Molly Palmer-Jones, as e-books so most of Ann Cleeves's work must now be available again.

Plotting for Beginners - Sue Hepworth & Jane Linfoot

Sally Howe takes her husband, Gus, to the airport as he leaves on a year long stay in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains, emulating his hero, Thoreau. Sally has refused to go with him &, after an argument at the airport, she assumes that this year apart is really a trial separation.  Sally is an unpublished (so far, she hopes) writer & a year without Gus has it's attractions.  She looks forward to uninterrupted time to work on her writing - a novel & various pieces for newspapers - & being able to watch Neighbours without snide comments from Gus. Sally decides that life really can begin at 50, menopausal hot flushes notwithstanding. Sally's feelings about Gus range from irritation at his unemotional letters home which seem to be nothing more than lists of birds seen (he's a keen birdwatcher) & moments of missing him intensely.

Unfortunately for Sally, life tends to get in the way of the best intentions. No sooner has Gus left than several men begin pursuing her. Billy Bathgate at the local store, Jeremy from her Italian class & then there's Iain, who's a more disturbingly attractive proposition. Iain is a widower, an architect who lives in Italy but is in England visiting his daughter & mother. On his regular trips between Brighton (daughter) & Edinburgh (mother), he stops off to visit Richard, Sally's brother who has invited himself to stay as he goes through a divorce. Richard is DIY mad & very useful doing all the jobs around the house that Gus never found time for. Sally would be quite pleased if it wasn't for his habit of popping his head around the door of the study asking for guidance every half hour.

Iain's interest in Sally is soon obvious but, although he's attractive, there's something about him that Sally finds unnerving. Is it his habit of droning on about architectural features at the drop of a hat or is it the fact that he has his own hairdryer & is often caught checking his appearance in the mirror? Then there's Sally's son Sam, who tends to drop in from university with a carload of washing, rant at his mother about the world's ills, complain about the environmental unsoundness of the brands she buys at the supermarket & then disappear.

Sally's career as a writer goes in fits & starts. She has a couple of pieces published in the Recorder, sends her novel to several agents, most of whom ignore her completely & spends hours deciding on the correct way to address the editor of the leisure section & then analysing her replies minutely for signs that she likes Sally's style. Sally goes to a weekly writing class with her friend, Kate, & their emails are a hoot as Kate bolsters Sally's self-esteem & offers fashion advice as Sally becomes involved in photo shoots & talkback on the local radio station.

Plotting for Beginners is a great read. Told in the form of a diary with email exchanges with Kate & Gus's letters, it's funny, witty & poignant. It's great to read a book about a woman in her 50s, complete with hot flushes & menopausal mood swings. The other characters are just as interesting, from the seriously odd members of the Deep Water writing group to Pippa, a neighbour who takes a fancy to Richard as he repairs Sally's drystone wall & Mrs Mountain, a local busybody who almost derails Sally's budding radio career when she calls in to clarify Sally's views on Christmas.

Plotting for Beginners was originally published as a paperback in 2006 & has just been relaunched as a Kindle ebook.

The sequel, Plotting for Grown-ups, is published this week & I'm looking forward to reading it. The ebook is available now from Amazon & the paperback is coming soon. More information is available on Twitter @suehepworth & on Sue's blog. Jane is on Twitter @JaneLinfoot

Letters from Skye - Jessica Brockmole

Elspeth Dunn is a poet & crofter living on Skye in 1913. She receives a fan letter from a young American medical student, David Graham, & they begin a correspondence. Davey is unhappy studying medicine, which was his father's choice. He longs to do something more creative & he pours out his thoughts & ambitions to Elspeth who he renames Sue. They learn about each other's lives - Elspeth is married to Iain & has never left Skye, mostly because she's afraid of the sea & boats. Her poetry is the most important thing in her life. Gradually their friendship deepens into love.

When war comes in 1914, Davey & his best friend Harry become ambulance drivers with the American Ambulance Field Service. Elspeth overcomes her fears & meets Davey in London where they become lovers. Elspeth's husband has joined up along with her brother, Finlay. Although her marriage was based on companionship more than passionate love, Elspeth feels guilty for betraying Iain & Finlay is so furious with her that he refuses to speak to her & their relationship is irrevocably damaged, especially after Iain is posted missing in action. When Davey's letters suddenly stop, Elspeth has no idea what has happened to him & she retreats to Skye.

In 1940, Elspeth is living in Edinburgh with her daughter, Margaret. Margaret is working as an evacuation officer, taking children to live in the country out of the danger of bombing raids. She is engaged to a pilot, Paul, who's stationed in southern England. After a raid one night, Margaret discovers a suitcase full of letters from Davey addressed to someone called Sue. Her mother is so upset by the discovery that she disappears, leaving Margaret desperate to find the key to the mystery of her mother's life. Margaret has no memories of Skye or her mother's Skye family & Elspeth has always refused to speak of the past. Margaret makes contact with her uncle Finlay, now living in Glasgow, &, after a frosty beginning, he begins to tell Margaret of Elspeth's early life. Margaret travels to Skye & finds her grandmother who explains a little more. Margaret's search for the story of her mother & Davey will finally explain the mysteries & silences of her mother's life.

Letters from Skye is written entirely in letters. Letters between Davey & Elspeth, Margaret & Paul, Margaret & Finlay. This can be a very successful way to tell a story - it's impossible not to be reminded of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. The downside of the epistolary method is a kind of awkwardness that this book doesn't altogether avoid. The correspondents have to retell events at which they were present so that the reader gets the information, which can be clumsy. It can also be difficult to recreate a sense of place without the descriptive passages of a more conventional narrative. I also thought that a couple of the plot twists near the end of the story were a little far-fetched so I finished the book feeling slightly let down. I wanted to love this book & it didn't live up to my high expectations.  Maybe I was comparing it to another book about Skye & WWI that I absolutely loved, Linda Gillard's The Glass Guardian.

On the whole, though, Jessica Brockmole has written a tender, romantic story with some exceptional characters. I especially loved Elspeth's mother, who comes alive in the letters Margaret writes to Paul when she travels to Skye. Davey's experiences with the Ambulance brigade in France were also beautifully done. I'll be interested to see what she writes next.

I read Letters from Skye courtesy of NetGalley.

Linda Gillard's Untying the Knot - now in paperback

Linda Gillard is one of the most successful indie authors around. Her books are intelligent, romantic, involving, with a great sense of place & gorgeous heroes. Linda has also shown that indie authors can use social media to great effect to build up a community of readers & her sales are a testament to her success. After publishing several books as Kindle e-books, Linda has started to produce paperback editions as well. The latest is Untying the Knot. Here's the review I wrote when it was first published a couple of years ago. Have a look at her website for more information.

I understood Magnus. I loved him. But in the end, I just couldn't live with him. A familiar story, you might think, but some friends and family saw things differently. Wives are meant to stand by their man - Army wives particularly. And I didn't. I walked away. I walked away from a war hero.

It was a long, at times agonising walk. It wasn't as if I was walking into the arms of a new love. I couldn't even persuade my teenage daughter to come with me. I felt like the loneliest woman in the world. I think I was only able to do it because Magnus understood why I was going. That was possible the hardest part. The lack of recriminations.

But Magnus knew all about The Long Walk. And feeling like the loneliest man in the world.

What do you do when you love someone but can no longer live with them? That's the dilemma facing Fay McGillivray when she leaves her husband, Magnus. Magnus has been a career soldier, working in bomb disposal. His postings have been to Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Gulf. Fay lived with the tension of being an Army wife for years, wondering if she'd ever see Magnus again every time he went back on duty. Then, the call came that Fay had always dreaded, Magnus had been badly injured in a bomb blast in Derry. And it wasn't just the physical scars, it was the mental torment that tore them apart. Magnus suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The flashbacks, the nightmares, the blank spots where he doesn't remember where he is or what he's done.

As part of Magnus's recovery, he decides to buy Tullibardine Tower, a rundown ruin of a medieval tower house, & restore it. (The picture, courtesy of Linda, is of Balvaird, to give you an idea of what Tully would have looked like). Hard physical work & solitude begin to heal Magnus but they drive Fay to the edge. Two years in a caravan on a windswept building site is more than Fay can stand. Their daughter Emily stays with her father & Fay begins a new life.

Fay starts again. She begins working seriously as a textile artist & finds some success. Her relationship with Emily suffers but she has a warm friendship with Magnus's mother, Jessie, a woman with secrets of her own. Her relationships with men are pretty disastrous because she compares them all to Magnus - & no one can compare. Magnus is still at Tully Tower, living with Nina, a young teacher who longs for a commitment from Magnus that he's not able to give. When Magnus turns up at an exhibition of Fay's work, she has to confront her feelings about him, their marriage & the reasons why she left.

Untying the Knot is a complex novel. Fay & Magnus are both damaged people. They suffer from guilt - Magnus because he's still alive & because of the way his illness has impacted on his family. Fay because she left. She was there to look after Magnus & she couldn't do it. She was so busy trying to be the buffer between Magnus & Emily, making Magnus feel secure & shield Emily from the worst of Magnus's symptoms. In the process, she lost herself. But Fay & Magnus both discover that the physical & emotional knots that tie them together will take a lot of breaking.

This is a romantic novel in the sense that Fay & Magnus have a great love for each other & the reader wishes that they could find a way to be together. Their love is encapsulated in a letter Magnus wrote to Fay to be delivered in the event of his death. He kept it with him always as a talisman but didn't have it with him on the day of the Derry explosion. He finally reads the letter to Fay in one of the most moving scenes of the novel & that's the point where I thought there was a chance that they would be alright. But there's more than romance in the book. It's harrowing to read the descriptions of Magnus's PTSD, the terror he suffers, the flashbacks. It's also very funny. Poor Nina & her gorgon mother, pushing Magnus into an engagement that ends almost before it's begun when the engagement party descends into violent farce & recriminations.

Untying the Knot is now available from Amazon as a paperback or as an e-book.

Father and Son - John Barlow

My only problem with John Barlow's books is that it takes him a year to write them but it only takes me three days to read them! I was looking forward to Father and Son, the second book in the John Ray series (after Hope Road, reviewed here) & it didn't disappoint.

John Ray is called out very early one morning to a local bar owned by an old rival of his father's, Lanny Bride. He finds the body of Roberto Swales, one of his father's right hand men in the old days. Roberto was always around during John's childhood & John is shocked by his death & by the brutal nature of it. Shot in his legs & arms to incapacitate him, Roberto has been tortured with a broken bottle before his death. In Hope Road John helped track down the killer of Lanny Bride's daughter & now Lanny wants him to find Roberto's killer.

John's life is a mess. The white sheep of the Ray family, he went to Cambridge, became an accountant & moved to Spain. Unlike his brother, Joe, he didn't follow in his father's footsteps. Tony Ray was notorious in Leeds as a small time criminal involved in counterfeit goods & money. John never wanted to be involved in the family business which was neatly sheltered by the used car dealership Tony owned. John returned from Spain only to witness his brother's murder & reluctantly take over the used car business from his father, now in a nursing home after a stroke. The events recounted in Hope Road led to the breakdown of John's relationship with police officer Denise Denson. Den moved to Manchester & John's life has been a blur of alcohol & depression ever since. Tony Ray Motors is being run by John's step-cousin Connie, who owns half the business.

John's search for Roberto's killer becomes entwined with the story of a bombing in Leeds years earlier. Attributed but never claimed by the IRA, a bomb destroyed a supermarket. News coverage of the incident was dominated by footage of a young man staggering from the blast with the body of a baby in his arms. One of the men thought to be responsible for the bombing, Bernard Sheenan, has died & his last interview was with journalist Jeanette Cormac. Jeanette contacted John because she's also interested in writing a biography of Tony Ray. On the morning of Roberto Swales's murder, Jeanette had spent the night with John. When it emerges that Sheenan was murdered & in a similar fashion to Swales, John begins to wonder why these men were targeted & why they were tortured before their death in an obvious attempt to get information. The connection seems to be Jeanette's investigations &, if so, could Tony Ray be somehow involved? John's presence at Roberto's murder scene & his relationship with Jeanette attract the attention of local detective Steve Baron & he has to find the killer before the police arrest him - or before he, or someone close to him, becomes the next victim.

Father and Son is an edgy, fast-paced, breathless thriller. The action takes place over three days & I was reading as fast as my fingers could flick the pages. If work hadn't been in the way, I'd have finished it in a day. This is the most hardboiled series I read so if you prefer the cosier type of mystery, I should warn you that there are some violent scenes & the descriptions of the murder victims are quite detailed (I skimmed these bits). The plot is complex with strands reaching back to John's childhood & leads him to question how much he really knows about his father & his criminal activities. Denise Denson, visiting from Manchester, becomes involved in John's investigations & has to walk a fine line between helping the man she still loves but isn't sure she can trust, & not jeopardizing her career. Denise is a great character & I was glad to see her back in this book. She's wary of becoming involved with him again but doesn't want to see him dead. At the end of the book, John has reached another crossroads & I can't wait to see where John Barlow takes him in the next book in the series. I just wish I didn't have to wait a year to get hold of it.

John Barlow's new book - Father and Son

Early last year I reviewed the first book in John Barlow's series of thrillers about John Ray. My review of Hope Road is here. I loved Hope Road even though it was a little more hardboiled than my usual mystery reading. John Ray is an intriguing character. The son of a notorious Leeds crime figure, John goes to university, becomes an accountant & goes off to live in Spain. However, John isn't able to completely leave behind his family's criminal connections as we discovered in that first book. Hope Road was a fast-paced rollercoaster of a book & I was pleased to know that John Barlow was planning a series.

This week, John contacted me to ask if I would like to review the second John Ray novel, Father and Son. Of course, I said yes, please, & it's sitting on my Kindle right now & I'll be starting to read it very soon.

You'll find more information about John Barlow on his website. Father and Son is available as an e-book from Amazon only at the moment but John will send anyone an ePub copy if they forward him a purchase confirmation email from Amazon. Amazon are happy with this compromise so if you're interested, contact John through his website.

Country Loving - Cathy Woodman

Stevie Dunsford is an accountant working in London with an enviable lifestyle & a boyfriend who is eager to get married. Then she gets a call from Cecil who works on the family farm in Devon. Stevie's father has had a stroke & the farm is falling into ruins. The local vet is threatening to prosecute Stevie's father for neglecting the cattle & he's involved in a feud with his closest neighbour. Stevie had reluctantly left the farm when she was 18 after her father refused her the opportunity to work with him because she was a girl. He favoured her brother, Ray, who showed little interest in the dairy business & who has since left the farm. Stevie's estrangement from her father has lasted over ten years & she's only returned once, for her mother's funeral. She wasn't even aware that her father had suffered the stroke. However, she agrees to go home & assess the situation with her boyfriend, Nick.

The situation is even worse than she feared. The local Welfare Officer has given Stevie's father, Tom, a deadline to sort out Nettlebed Farm but Cecil is elderly & Tom is unable to do much except sit in the kitchen & threaten intruders with a rifle. He's also not happy & not grateful when Stevie turns up to help. Stevie loves the farm & soon realises that this is what she was meant to do with her life. The mammoth task she's taken on soon consumes her every thought & her niggling doubts about her relationship with Nick soon become overwhelming. Stevie realises that she was always meant to be a lady farmer rather than an accountant & Nick, who is so very much a townie, just doesn't fit in. She grits her teeth & tries to ignore her father's hostility & relies on Cecil & his wife, Mary for support. She also finds the locum vet, Leo, very attractive & although they get off to a bumpy start, their friendship soon looks set to develop into romance.

Stevie's hard work slowly begins to pay off & she meets the welfare deadlines for the animals. She begins to relax into her role as lady farmer & starts to build bridges with the neighbours & suppliers that her father has antagonized. She also starts to work on a plan to diversify from dairy & put in place a plan for the long term viability of the farm. Her breakup with Nick was difficult but necessary & her slow burning relationship with Leo looks set to take off. Then, a life changing event puts all these plans in jeopardy & Stevie has to make some hard decisions.

Country Loving is a lovely mix of comedy, drama & rural romance. I don't know if it's a worldwide trend but there's been a recent fashion here in Australia for outback romances. the covers are all the same - a young woman, usually blonde with long hair & wearing an Akubra, gazing into the dusty distance with a windmill in the background as you can see here. The setting of Country Loving fits right in to the genre although there's less of the sunburned country & more West Country lushness about the location. What sets this book apart from many of the other novels about women moving to the country is the depth of knowledge that Cathy Woodman obviously has of farm life & especially veterinary work. Not surprisingly as she started out as a vet & has previously written a series of romantic novels featuring vets. Stevie has a lot of problems to overcome & the rural setting seemed very realistic to me. Her fractured relationship with her father & the difficulties she faced in fitting in to the rural community were certainly not sugar-coated. Stevie realises that the ten years she spent away from the farm have made some things easier but nothing can overcome the need for hard work, tact & a lot of luck when it comes to dealing with the people of Talyton St George.

I read Country Loving courtesy of NetGalley.