Sins as Scarlet – Nicolás Obregón

Former homicide detective Kosuke Iwata is on the run from his past. Living in LA and working as a private detective he spends his days spying on unfaithful spouses and his nights with an unavailable woman. Still he cannot forget the family he lost in Tokyo. But that all changes when a figure from his old life appears at his door demanding his help.

Meredith Nichol, a transgender woman and his wife’s sister, has been found strangled on the lonely train tracks behind Skid Row. Soon he discovers that the devil is at play in the City of Angels and Meredith’s death wasn’t the hate crime the police believe it to be. 

This is dangerous territory. But Iwata knows that risking his life and future is the only way to silence the demons of his past.  Reluctantly throwing himself back in to the dangerous existence he only just escaped, Iwata discovers a seedy world of corruption, exploitation and murder – and a river of sin flowing through LA’s underbelly, Mexico’s dusty borderlands, and deep within his own past.

*********

I enjoyed Nicolás Obregón’s debut novel Blue Light Yokohama which was set in Tokyo. and featured Inspector Kosuke Iwata.  You can find my earlier review HERE.

In Sins as Scarlet there have been big changes in the life of Inspector Kosuke Iwata.

He is no longer an inspector with the Tokyo Homicide Department. He’s no longer a Police Detective. Having left Japan in 2011 with almost nothing, he’s now living in Los Angeles and working as a private investigator, mostly providing evidence of cheating husbands and wives to his clients. He has also reconnected with his mother Nozomi although the relationship still seems a bit distant and a lot of things are left unsaid. You get the feeling Iwata is fairly self-contained.

When his late wife’s mother comes into his office demanding that Iwata investigates her son’s recent murder, he feels he has no choice but to investigate. Julian had transitioned into Meredith years before and the Police were treating it as just another hate crime, saying terrible things about Meredith and basically doing nothing.

The investigation takes Iwata into some dark, dangerous and violent places and also

across the US – Mexican border. He uncovers crimes involving more missing transgender women and is taken into a world of corruption, exploitation and human trafficking and puts himself in extreme danger.

As well as the present day investigation, we’re also taken back to Tokyo 1975 to learn of his mother’s story and everything she endured; how she came to abandon Iwata in a Japanese orphanage and then came back to get him with her new husband years later. I liked this as it filled in a few things that were hinted at in the earlier book. We also got a little bit of Iwata’s back story and what happened to his wife and child and I think this helped explain some of Iwata’s issues and later actions.

It’s quite a complex, layered story. At times there was more violence and brutality than I would normally want to read about but I find Iwata quite a compelling character. He’s tenacious and a skilled detective but also very self contained and reluctant to let people get too close but by the end of the book I thought I could see a hint of some softening at the edges.

If there’s a third book in the series I suspect we might find a slightly different Iwata.

[My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for providing a digital review copy.]

The Quaker – Liam McIlvanney

A city torn apart.
Glasgow, 1969. In the grip of the worst winter for years, the city is brought to its knees by a killer whose name fills the streets with fear: the Quaker. He takes his next victim – the third woman from the same nightclub – and dumps her in the street like rubbish.

A detective with everything to prove.
The police are left chasing a ghost, with no new leads and no hope of catching their prey. DI McCormack, a talented young detective from the Highlands, is ordered to join the investigation. But his arrival is met with anger from a group of officers on the brink of despair. Soon he learns just how difficult life can be for an outsider.

A killer who hunts in the shadows.
When another woman is found murdered in a tenement flat, it’s clear the case is by no means over. From ruined backstreets to the dark heart of Glasgow, McCormack follows a trail of secrets that will change the city – and his life – forever…

*********

The Quaker is set in 1969 Glasgow.  It’s a fictional account of the hunt for a serial killer, very loosely based on a real case. Three women, each raped, strangled and dumped; each believed to have met their killer, reported to be a respectable looking, bible quoting man, at the Barrowland Ballroom.

Glasgow is in the grip of one of the worst winters and months of police investigation into the murders is getting nowhere. There are posters everywhere showing an artist’s impression of the Quaker’s face – a respectable looking man; the victims faces are splashed across the newspapers; rumours abound as to the Quaker’s identity. Thousands of police hours are spent following up every call, every letter written by members of the public, taking statements, crossing the city to interview possible suspects but still the investigation is getting nowhere. Following the death of the third victim, there have been no further murders but the investigating team are still going through boxes and boxes of statements trying to make connections that might solve the case. Stirred by the Press, the public are demanding results.

Against this background DI Duncan McCormack arrives on secondment from the Flying Squad to review the investigation and make recommendations. He’s not made welcome by the Quaker team. He’s an outsider in more ways than one and the team make life very difficult for him. They suspect McCormack is meant to write a report that will shut the investigation down. He gets a particularly hard time from another officer, Derek Goldie.

In the meantime safebreaker Alex Paton who has been living in London for a while is returning to Glasgow to take part in planned auction house heist. Following the robbery, Paton goes to ground in an empty top floor flat in a building due for demolition. He’s still hiding out there when a body is found in one of the ground floor flats. Police believe she’s the fourth victim of the Quaker. With the discovery of Paton’s hideout they feel they’re making progress in catching the Quaker.

There’s a lot to get your teeth into. The author manages to weave the various threads into a gritty, dark tale set in a time before social media and mobile communications. Gathering evidence was a painstaking task. It was only when I got to the end that I realised how many clues I had missed. There are also quite a few red herrings. The murder victims have a voice too, each one relating what was happening in their life around the time of their murders.

I often enjoy stories set in locations I know and I know Glasgow. I think when you are familiar with a location it’s easier to visualise events and you get more involved in the story. (Good writing helps too of course!) I hope this will just be the first of a series of books featuring DI Duncan McCormack. I think I want to know a bit more about him.

The Quaker was published on 28 June 2018 (kindle and hardback).  My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing a digital review copy.

No Further Questions – Gillian McAllister

The police say she’s guilty.
She insists she’s innocent.
She’s your sister.
You loved her.
You trusted her.
But they say she killed your child.
Who do you believe?

*********

Gillian McAllister writes great stories.  No Further Questions is her third novel and I loved it.  Gillian McAllister doesn’t mess about. I was hooked immediately.

The story centres round a court case but it’s also about a family and how everyone is affected by a terrible tragedy. The first voice is Martha’s whose baby daughter died. She’s in Court and it’s the first day of the trial. The defence says cot death; the prosecution says murder. They can’t both be right but her sister Becky, who was minding baby Layla at the time, has been charged with murder.

The story is told through witness testimony and flashbacks and observations of the lawyers, the judge, family members and of course the two sisters, Martha and Becky. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so conflicted. I was pulled in all directions. I would go from, “there’s no way Becky murdered her niece” to “oh, I didn’t realise that, maybe she is hiding something” then something would be said that turned everything on its head again. As the story unfolded doubts crept in (on a regular basis) as to what really happened.

There are no good or bad characters. Nothing is quite black or white. They all have their flaws and their good qualities. I liked them and cared about what happened to them.

Although the story centres round a tragedy, I really enjoyed it. It’s quite an emotional roller-coaster but the writing is good, the characters are interesting and believable and I felt involved all the way through.

A book I found difficult to put down; I’d definitely recommend it.

[My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a digital review copy].

You can find my earlier reviews of Everything but the Truth HERE and Anything You Do Say HERE.

THE BEST LAID PLANS …… or, time to return to pencil and paper?

Why is it when you make plans to get up to date with admin (and blogging), technology lets you down – again!

I know I’m easily distracted but I really did intend to catch up with drafting book reviews and post a couple (I’ve read three really good books in the past month).  I had some rough notes jotted down in a Word document ready for me to transform into a few paragraphs that made sense.

Went upstairs on Friday evening, switched on the PC ….. nothing.  The computer tried to start then spluttered and died.  Tried a few things ….. still nothing.  Of course my notes are not on a shared platform, just on the PC.  Typical.

Looked out an old (ancient) laptop.  I’m pretty sure it was still working when I stopped using it but it was old and slow.  Plugged it in …… nothing.  I could hear it trying to start but again, it just died.  There wasn’t even a flicker on the screen.

I have an android tablet and a smartphone but I find it incredibly difficult to type meaningful paragraphs without making mistakes.  The keyboard part of the screen is so tiny and it’s not so easy to cut and paste and swap things around.

Late last night I found another old device and I’ve managed to get it working for now so I’m kind of using this post as a typing practice. I’m so not used to this keyboard.  Small Notebook keyboards are not great to type on (but better than a tablet!)

Oh well.  Time to get on with drafting my reviews.  Perhaps I should go back to pencil and paper.