The Strangler's Honeymoon by Håkan Nesser My rating: 4 of 5 stars 'Desperately lonely, sixteen-year-old Monica Kammerle has little idea of what she is getting herself into when she begins an affair with her mother’s latest partner; the sophisticated Benjamin Kerran . . . Months later, when a woman’s strangled body is found decomposing in her flat, the Maardam police must discover who has committed this terrible crime. It isn’t long before they realise the perpetrator may have killed before – and is likely to do so again. Meanwhile former Chief Inspector Van Veeteren finds himself drawn into the mystery when a priest, who has learned dreadful secrets, appeals to him for help. But when the priest falls beneath the wheels of a train and the police find more dead ends than leads, it seems Van Veeteren will have to come up with a new approach to unearth this dark serial killer, before he chooses his next victim . . ' This novel was originally written in Swedish and translated into English by Laurie Thompson and for me it lost a lot of fluidity in the process. The humour didn't translate well and unnecessary breaks in sentences made it a challenging read overall. I constantly had to think what the writer meant as the translation in some parts was not clear which did impact on my enjoyment of the book. I kept reading as there was such a good degree of suspense and intrigue that I wanted to find out more about this murderer and who it was. I believe the author could have taken far less pages to get to the point but believe this was intentional in order to slowly build up suspense and to convey the long process of solving crimes of this nature. The characters were all believable and necessary to the plot; once I got to grips with the translation I even enjoyed the humour that Nesser managed to bring through the detectives on the case and the retired Van Veeteren. I had not read anything by this author before and although I learnt that this was one of a series of books involving Van Veetern it was not necessary to have read any of his other novels in order to enjoy or understand this one. The opening starts with a murder in Greece then switches back to Sweden in the small town of Maardam where a lonely and damaged 16 year old girl begins a relationship with her mother's lover. From here were are introduced to other characters as the novel builds and the storyline develops. The character of Van Veeteren the retired police chief is superb, he has now bought an antique bookshop and after a visit from a priest troubled by a confession he finds himself unable to resist the temptation of becoming involved in the mystery that unfolds. Nesser seems to have a unique ability to be able to connect the reader with his characters in such a gentle way that it seems the characters are familiar from the start. Van Veeteran works on a combination of intuition and experience, he is highly respected by his former colleagues and as they try to solve the crime the reader is doing so at the same pace with all the information they have and all the clues (in this case not many) so that when the novel is concluded the reader gets a real sense of achievement as well as having had a good read. This had a nice twist to the story that wasn't predictable and made the ending seem justifiable and allowed one character to turn the tables on the killer. I would have given this novel a 5 star rating had it not been for the 'lost in translation' issues so I have given this a 4.5 star rating, having said this I would possibly attempt another Nesser novel if only to revisit the wonderful Van Veetern and his colleagues - also to find out if he was able to 'retire' or not! I would like to thank the publisher for sending me this copy in exchange for a honest review.
'Remember the person you sat next to on your first day at school? Still your best friend? Or disappeared from your life for good?
Some friendships fizzle out. Rachel and Clara promised theirs would last for ever.
They met when Rachel was the new girl in class and Clara was the friend everyone wanted. Now in their late twenties Rachel has everything while Clara's life is spiralling further out of control. Then Clara vanishes.
Imagine discovering something about your oldest friend that forces you to question everything you've shared together. The truth is always there. But only if you choose to see it.' When I had the opportunity to read and review this book I jumped at the chance after hearing so many great recommendations and the blurb sounded really promising. The story is about Rachel and Clara, they have been the best of friends since school. One night Clara goes missing and Rachel must find her. Not only for her job as a news correspondent but as her best friend. The story is written in the style of a long letter to Clara, this I found extremely hard to follow and did not enjoy this style of writing.I think if it had been written in a different style it may have been easier to follow and more enjoyable. It also jumped from memories in the past to the present, this was something I also found difficult with in the book as it would take me ages to work out if we were in the past or in the present. I found the book to be a real slog, and it didn't flow very well. This is unfortunate as I haven't read a book that has made me feel like this for a very long time. I love psychological thrillers, however this didn't push the buttons for me. Unfortunately I couldn't connect to any of the characters and cared for them very little, this is a shame as it made it harder for me to enjoy. I was hoping for a real page turner when this turned up and I was so excited to read it, however I felt let down and left feeling flat. I don't like to write a negative review on any book as the author has taken time to write it and it is their work and it's better than anything I could write! However this book just wasn't for me. Saying this, this is only my opinion and as others out there have shown with their reviews, they have enjoyed the book very much. I would like to thank the publisher for supplying me with this copy in exchange for a honest review.
Book Trailer:
Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly My rating: 5 of 5 stars 'Natty and Sean Wainwright are happily married. Rock solid in fact. So when Natty's oldest friend, Eve Dalladay, appears - just as their daughter collapses on a school trip in France - Natty has no qualms about leaving Eve with Sean to help out at home. Two weeks later and Natty finds Eve has slotted into family life too well. Natty's husband has fallen in love with Eve. He's sorry, he tells her, but their marriage is over. With no option but to put a brave face on things for the sake of the children, Natty embarks on building a new life for herself. And then she receives the note. Eve has done this before, more than once, and with fatal consequences...' When I was contacted on Twitter inviting me to join the 'Keep your friend's close' book blog tour I jumped at the chance. To begin with I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to read it before I needed to post the review on my blog. I should not have been worried, I read the book in two sittings (less than 24 hours) and was surprised how quickly I finished it. Paula Daly is a new author to me, I had not heard of her debut novel, however after reading this I would rush out to get it and read. Natty and Sean are happily married, they were childhood sweethearts, followed each other to university and now have two teenage daughters, Felicity and Alice. It was a relationship that everyone thought wouldn't last but they proved them all wrong. Today they run a very successful hotel in the Lakes, have a wonderful car and house. From the outside they have the perfect life. Natty works very hard to keep the perfect family life, running after everyone and juggling being a mum with running a hotel. One thing she has neglected lately is her husband Sean, but he understands she is busy right? Sean hasn't been happy in their marriage for a while, it's as if Natty doesn't have any time for him anymore. He can't remember the last time they actually spent any time together, just the two of them. He is beginning to feel abandoned and that he is so far down the line of getting any attention off of Natty as she has more important things to care about. But he is important isn't he? And he has needs too... Felicity is on a school trip in France, there is a problem and she is called to come quickly. Luckily Natty's old university friend Eve is staying to look after her family for her. Eve Dalladay is Natty's old friend who she hasn't seen in years, she currently lives in America but after an argument with her husband flees the country and comes back to the UK. She turns up at Natty's at a time when she needs her, they both have been through so much and know each other inside and out, or do they? Eve has a plan and sets straight to work while Natty is away. After all Natty won't mind her staying looking after her family, they go back so far and she trusts her with her life. It doesn't take long for Natty's life to get turned upside down and Eve is behind it. Natty needs to be sensible, she is having her life ruined by someone who she thought was her friend, she has taken her husband and she knows if she is not careful her daughters will follow suit. This is a brilliant story, the characters are real and deep. The story line is excellent, believable and gets your questioning do you really know your friends. It is excellently written and keeps you hooked throughout. I was routing for Natty to expose the truth and willing someone to believe her, I became passionate about her as a character, I really got behind her. I hated Eve and I desperately wanted her to be found out and want Sean to see what she was capable of. She gives the persona of a monster who will not stop until she gets what she wants and this makes the story a captivating read. Other characters are introduced into the story such as Natty's dad, Jackie and Eve's mother. These provide background information on the main characters and we follow their journey from their past to the present day. This helps give different opinions and to help you form your own opinion on them. I enjoyed the book immensely, however I did feel like I was left wanting a little more. I felt questions weren't answered and it was left to the readers interpretation. Had the book been a little longer I felt some of these questions could have been answered. There were a few twists I was not expecting during the book - particularly towards the end which made me enjoy the book even more. I found the book gripping and captivating and I would recommend others to read this. I would like to thank Alison for sending me this copy to review. Alison has also very kindly given me a copy to offer as a giveaway! This book is a must read so be sure to enter!
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn My rating: 5 of 5 stars 'Who are you? What have we done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?' I did not have the luxury of being able to read this novel in one sitting which was a shame as it was so captivating I really wanted to read on and on. However I couldn’t wait until I picked it up again and it was easy to remember where I had left it. The story is basically that on the morning of Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary Amy goes missing. Nick has been out early to get some last minute things to celebrate he comes home to find the door wide open and Amy gone. There looks to have been some sort of struggle in the living room but other than that there is nothing. Nick is number one suspect and has nothing to prove where he was at the time this happened although he swears he did not kill her. We see the trial by media of Nick played out in front of the public which condemn him and Flynn shows how easy it is to make someone look guilty with no actual proof. Amy’s diaries are found in the house which she has written since she first met Nick up to the time she disappears and they paint a very disturbing picture of Nick and hint that Amy is afraid of him which adds to stack up a pretty ‘conclusive’ case against him. The story is so cleverly interwoven and expertly written to play with your mind that by the end of the novel I felt as if I had been through a psychological journey with the characters. It has so much going on, murder, manipulation, marital breakdown, twists and turns and perfectly crafted toxic characters that makes you feel one moment Nick was the ‘villain’ to changing your mind the next and making Amy the ‘villain’. It is a masterly piece of writing that questions how well we can ever know each other and especially the people that we love. How an innocent action or word can toss someone over the edge without you realising it until it is too late – brilliant suspense. The first person narration allows us to be Nick and to see through his eyes and hear through his ears, this lets the reader get to know him and to form an opinion of him, allowing us to ‘experience’ all that he goes through so that by the time the police and media have labelled him as a cold hearted killer we can’t quite go with this. Nick is flawed, he is evasive but on the whole he appears to be a genuine and good person. However we then have a narrative by Amy his wife who talks to us via her diaries which makes the reader unsure of whether she is dead or not, and Amy paints an altogether different picture of Nick as the book progresses. Amy’s account through her diaries makes the reader very empathetic with her, she tells of brutality by Nick and how she becomes afraid of him. I then really believed Nick was capable of murdering her but there was a little niggle that all was not right with Amy. And it’s not really until Part Two ‘Boy Meets Girl’ that we begin to see Amy in a different light. Because we think we know what has happened (Amy has been abducted or killed) we start to make assumptions, this is very clever as Flynn uses this to connect us to the characters, they are making assumptions about each other too, they don’t really know what each other is thinking or feeling, what each one is capable of, and of course we know that as this is a psychological thriller there will be red herrings along the way. The novel is very much a product of the present times and Flynn manages to link the reader through the emotional roller coaster that both Nick and Amy feel with the loss of their jobs, the damage this is doing to their relationship, family trauma of Nick’s mother dying and having to return to his family home which makes it easy to identify with them both. Overall the book was captivating, intriguing, cleverly crafted and a very good psychological thriller with a lot of curve balls thrown in so I would give this book a 5 star rating. I suppose the only disappointment was the end, without giving this away it didn’t really tie the ends up for me tight enough, there was unfinished business. It would have been good to have the ending clearer but having said this there is enough material for a sequel here if Gillian Flynn has that in mind – I hope she does!
'It’s been two months since private investigator Cal Weaver’s teenage son Scott died in a tragic accident. Ever since, he and his wife have drifted apart, fracturing a once normal life. Cal is mired in grief, a grief he can’t move past. And maybe his grief has clouded his judgment. Because driving home one night, he makes his first big mistake. A girl drenched in rain taps on his car window and asks for a ride as he sits at a stoplight. Even though he knows a fortysomething man picking up a teenage hitchhiker is a fool, he lets her in. She’s the same age as Scott, and maybe she can help Cal find the dealer who sold his son the drugs that killed him. After a brief stop at a roadside diner, Cal senses that something’s not right with the girl or the situation. But it’s too late. He’s already involved. Now Cal is drawn into a nightmare of pain and suspicion. Something is horribly wrong in the small town of Griffon in upstate New York. There are too many secrets there, too many lies and cover-ups. And Cal has decided to expose those secrets one by one. That’s his second big mistake' This was sent this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This was the first Linwood Barclay novel I have read, it interested me as it was a thriller and I enjoy these types of books. The story had me hooked from the start, and as it turned out, I found it very hard to put down at all. Although to novel is long and nearly 500 pages I found I whizzed through the book and wanted more! So on one rainy night Cal Weaver a private investigator is driving home. He stops at some traffic lights, when he hears a tapping on his window. Cal has made up his mind, it not be a smart move to give a teenage girl a lift in the middle of the night. But when she asks if he is Scott’s dad, he feels he needs to help her and she may know something about his son. Cal’s son, Scott recently died, suspected suicide from taking drugs, Cal wants to find out who sold them to him. As Cal gives the girl (Claire) a lift, she begins talking to him asks to stop at a fast food place to use the washroom. When she gets there she is a long time in the bathroom, so Cal decides to go and check on her, he doesn’t find her, when he returns to his car he notices the girl sitting in the passenger seat waiting for her ride. Cal suspects something is not right and it turns out the girl now next to him, is not the same girl as he picked up, she doesn’t have wet hair, wet clothes and the cut on her hand is now gone. He decides to confront the girl on this and she asks him to pull over as she wants to get out of the car. This is a mystery that is puzzling Cal and he finds out the next day from the police that Claire has gone missing, Cal was the last person to have seen her, Cal feels responsible for giving her a lift and takes it upon himself to find her and opens an investigation, he is not working with the police, and they turn on him during the process. Linwood Barclay has produced an excellent thriller full of suspense. This is a dark novel, where no one is trusted and it seems everyone is hiding something. There are many red herrings dropped throughout the novel, which keeps it fresh and entertaining. As I said previously at 500 pages this is a long novel, however when your reading it you don’t notice this and I still read it in two sittings. This was my first Linwood Barclay book but will certainly not be my last, due to the suspense of the book I have already purchased another of his books and hope I am going to get the same thrill as this. This is going to be on the best sellers list soon, it has to be! Try it for yourself! A Tap on the Window – Linwood Barclay is out in October, be sure to grab yourself a copy!
The Strangler's Honeymoon by Håkan Nesser
