Wednesday 27 September 2017

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman





Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than… fine?

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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is one of my favourite books of this year.  It’s a wonderful read: quirky, funny, sometimes a bit sad but hopeful – a complete delight.

Eleanor is almost 30, lives alone and has a very ordered life. She goes to work in an office, wears the same clothes, has the same lunchtime routine every day and buys two bottles of vodka every weekend. She doesn’t socialise with colleagues and doesn’t engage with anyone. She is very direct and says what she wants to say without irony. Once a week she talks with her mother who dispenses advice (and criticism). In fact the mother comes across as a horrendous character.

Eleanor narrates her story in a very matter-of-fact manner. There is no hint of self-pity. As the story progresses you sense that her upbringing wasn’t exactly normal but she got a university degree and a job.
Eleanor is completely fine in her self-contained life until she finds the love of her life and decides to embark on a makeover and engage (just slightly) with the modern world. This makes for some very funny misunderstandings and yet I felt sadness at her predicament.

Eleanor is totally alone although she doesn’t see herself as lonely. She considers herself completely fine but she really lacks the ability to engage with other people and she takes everything very literally. I found it quite sad they way her colleagues talked about her.

Things start to change for Eleanor when an old man collapses in the street. Raymond from work just happened to be walking alongside Eleanor, making conversation while Eleanor was desperately trying to avoid any interaction. Raymond ran over to the man and got a reluctant Eleanor to help too.

Raymond is a warm, friendly, thoughtful character. Somehow Eleanor finds herself becoming less self contained. It’s a very gradual process but she starts to blossom (not sure if that’s the right word!) It’s not all plain sailing and there are setbacks. It’s not a romance in the traditional sense. It’s more about an unlikely friendship and Eleanor’s journey.

Although Eleanor comes across as slightly odd, I found her very likeable. The story is well written and is funny and sad in equal measure. I found it easy to picture the characters and the scenarios. It’s a very enjoyable, entertaining story. I definitely recommend it.

My thanks to NetGalley who provided me with a digital review copy.

Monday 25 September 2017

Cold Blood by Robert Bryndza








When a battered suitcase containing the dismembered body of a young man washes up on the shore of the river Thames, Detective Erika Foster is shocked. She’s worked on some terrifying cases but never seen anything like this before. 

As Erika and her team set to work, she makes the link with another victim – the body of a young woman dumped in an identical suitcase two weeks ago. 

Erika quickly realises she’s on the trail of a serial killer who’s already made their next move. Yet just as Erika starts to make headway with the investigation, she is the victim of a brutal attack. 

But nothing will stop Erika. As the body count rises, the twin daughters of her colleague Commander Marsh are abducted, and the stakes are higher than ever before. Can Erika save the lives of two innocent children before it’s too late? She’s running out of time and about to make a disturbing discovery…there’s more than one killer. 


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Cold Blood is number 5 in the Detective Erika Foster series and it’s another cracking thriller from Robert Bryndza.

This time a man’s mutilated and dismembered body is found in a suitcase washed up on shore of the River Thames.  There is no identification with the body but Erika manages to link the case to a young woman’s body that had been washed up in an identical suitcase two weeks earlier.  It appears the gruesome murders could be drug related and also that there may be at least two killers involved.

There are lots of things I like about Robert’s crime writing.

I love the way we are straight into a crime scene almost on the first page – no beating about the bush.
I like that we get to know fairly quickly who has ‘done the deed’ and we see events unfold from the perpetrators’ point of view as well as Police investigations. This doesn’t spoil the story; that’s when it becomes a gripping psychological thriller – how Erika and her colleagues work to solve the crime and try to catch the criminals. Robert is a very good storyteller. You also see the killers’ relationship change throughout the book. What starts off as something that might be considered an infatuation quickly develops into something more sinister and manipulative and then something very violent, brutal and shocking.

I like the fact that it’s a series, that characters have a bit of depth and there is some continuity although they may have a principal supporting role in one book and in another a more minor role. Equally important, each book can be read as a stand alone although I would recommend reading them in order. I really like Robert’s writing style and the way the words flow easily.

I’ve read all the Erika Foster books and travelled with her on her ‘journey’. She has definitely moved on from the first book/s. She seems more mature, mellow. She began by fighting against her superiors frequently – not always to Erika’s advantage. If she believes she is right she will argue her case and then do what she feels she has to do. She is still disagreeing with her superiors but I get the feeling she’s a bit less abrasive and argumentative. Even if she’s taken off a case, she’s more than likely to find another way of continuing her investigation.

In the last couple of books I feel she’s been more reflective, wondering what path she should take. She’s now a widow in her 40s (approaching 50) with no children. She’s turned down a promotion because she couldn’t see herself as a pen pusher stuck in an office most of the time.

There are some pretty gruesome bits to this book. The horrific murders, a shocking betrayal by a colleague, a brutal assault on Erika herself, the kidnap of Commander Marsh’s two young daughters, a race against the clock to find the little girls all leading to a shocking climax.

I would definitely recommend this book to those who like crime thrillers.  In fact I recommend all five books in the series so far.  They can all be read as stand alone but are best read from the start of the series.  Here are links to my previous reviews.

The Girl in the Ice
The Night Stalker
Dark Water
Last Breath

[My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bookouture for providing an advance copy]


Last Breath by Robert Bryndza







When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it’s not her case. 

While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can’t help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery. 

Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn’t seem to exist? 

Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.


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Last Breath is the fourth Detective Erika Foster novel from Robert Bryndza. I’ve loved every one of them. They just seem to get better and better.

Erika is still not happy in her current post – in the Projects Team. She is not meant for pen-pushing and is desperate to get back to the Murder Investigation Team and do the job she is best at.

The book opens with a body being placed in a large rubbish container and the subsequent discovery of the mutilated body.

Although no longer a part of the Murder Investigation Team, Erika, due to circumstances, manages to be one of the first officers at the scene where she has a run in with Superintendent Sparks. Despite being told to leave in no uncertain terms, being Erika, she goes behind his back and talks to witnesses.

When she later get more information from a witness, she passes it on the the officer in charge but again she is warned to stay out of the investigation. Of course, she continues to make her own enquiries. She comes across a potential link to another case and passes the information on to the DCI in charge of the case but gets no response. To compound her woes it turns out Erika had applied to be transferred back to the Murder Investigation Team but has been turned down.

Her frustration at being locked out of the case is so great that she even considers apologising to Sparks and is prepared to grovel to get back to what she does best – solving murders.

It’s a very good, satisfying thriller that moves along at a good pace. You do get to know “whodunnit” early on. It’s as if you are able to see inside the head of the killer and the lengths he will go to, to avoid being caught. There is a kind of game of cat and mouse between the killer and the Police. He uses fake identities on social media to trap his victims and then later tortures them. The story is sometimes quite dark and violent but it never seems excessive. There is a good balance of action, dialogue and background information. The different threads of the story come together very well. I think also that knowing the identity of the killer early on makes it even more exciting. There are also red herrings and plot twists and the action keeps on coming right to the end.

I like the way that Erika and other characters have developed and changed since the first book. Erika has definitely softened a little and mellowed since the first book but her tenacious and sometimes stubborn streak still appears. Former colleagues are also back in this book. Having said that you could easily read book 4 as a stand alone and still enjoy it. Previous relationships are briefly explained where necessary. Of course if you read all four books in the correct order I think you would get even more enjoyment.

Occasionally you get a series of books where the first one is exciting and brilliant but over time subsequent stories seem less exciting and fresh. I certainly haven’t found that with Robert Bryndza’s books. I think they get better and better. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend his books to people who enjoy a good well plotted crime thriller.

[My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bookouture for an advance copy of Last Breath]

Note:  When I started to draft a review of Robert’s latest Erika Foster novel (Cold Blood) I realised I hadn’t actually posted a review of Last Breath.  Maybe you can tell I’m a fan of all Robert’s writing.