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.

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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…

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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.

Everything is Lies – Helen Callaghan

No-one is who you think they are  –  Sophia’s parents lead quiet, unremarkable lives. At least that is what she’s always believed.

Everyone has secrets  –  Until the day she arrives at her childhood home to find a house ringing with silence. Her mother is hanging from a tree. Her father is lying in a pool of his own blood, near to death.

Especially those closest to you  –  The police are convinced it is an attempted murder-suicide. But Sophia is sure that the woman who brought her up isn’t a killer. As her father is too ill to talk it is up to Sophia to clear her mother’s name.

And to do this she needs to delve deep into her family’s past – a past full of dark secrets she never suspected were there . . .

What if your parents had been lying to you since the day you were born?

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I really enjoyed her debut novel Dear Amy, and Everything is Lies is another cracking story from Helen Callaghan.  It’s well written, tense, and with some good twists.  (You can find my review of Dear Amy here).

Right from the first chapter I felt myself being drawn into something dark, a feeling that something bad was going to happen to Sophia.

Sophia is an architect in her late 20s.  Her parents run a garden centre and coffee shop in rural Suffolk.  They live a quiet, unremarkable life.  Sophia has ‘escaped’ and lives in London and has just started a new job.  Her mother calls her one night when Sophia is out with colleagues and Sophia brushes her off.

The next morning, feeling rather guilty, she drives down to Suffolk and comes across the horrific sight of her mother’s body hanging from a tree and her father lying in blood and near to death. The Police suspect it is an attempted murder-suicide; that Sofia’s mum had tried to kill herself and when Sofia’s father had tried to stop her, she had stabbed him.

Sophia is sure her mother isn’t a killer and wants to clear her mother’s name.  After her mother’s funeral, an elderly couple appear who turn out to be Sofia’s maternal grandparents.  She didn’t know them and they don’t seem very nice.

As she tries to find out more about her parents she discovers she didn’t really know them at all.  She learns from Rowan who works for her father that they had been burgled several times in recent months.  From a letter she also found out that her mother had written a memoir and had been been in touch with a publisher who had seen part of the handwritten manuscript and was keen to publish once they had the final part.  Sophia knew nothing of this.  After a fruitless search of the house she finds two of the notebooks hidden in her father’s shed but no sign of the third and final part of the manuscript.  However during her search she comes across a recent receipt for the purchase of a gun and cartridges and a shotgun licence in her mother’s name but no sign of the actual gun.

Everything is Lies is really two books in one.  Much of it is her mother’s memoir.  Her mother’s manuscript starts with a message for Sophia but ominously, the first line is “Everything is lies and nobody is who they seem”.  Then she starts reading the memoir and learns of some shocking things. Could the revelations in the book have contributed to her mother’s death?

Having read the two notebooks Sophia wants to try and track down the people her mother had been involved with to fill in some gaps but is she about to put herself in danger?

There’s a lot going on in this book and the tension mounts as doubts creep in.  Who can Sophia trust?  She’s dealing with her mother’s death, her father in hospital in a coma, the fact that Rowan seems to know more about her parents than she does.  Her mother has written a book (a memoir) revealing a completely different life before Sophia was born.  Meanwhile Sophia is trying to hold on to her job and also trying to keep her parents’ business afloat; there’s even an attempt on her life; and she’s also trying to trace people who may or may not have had something to do with her mother’s death.

There are enough twists and sub-plots to keep the book interesting.  An excellent psychological/crime thriller.

[My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a digital ARC]

On the Bright Side – Hendrik Groen

Description

85-year-old Hendrik Groen is fed up to his false teeth with coffee mornings and bingo. He dreams of escaping the confines of his care home and practising hairpin turns on his mobility scooter. Inspired by his fellow members of the recently formed Old-But-Not-Dead Club, he vows to put down his Custard Cream and commit to a spot of octogenarian anarchy. But the care home’s Director will not stand for drunken bar crawls, illicit fireworks and geriatric romance on her watch. The Old-But-Not-Dead Club must stick together if they’re not to go gently into that good night. Things turn more serious, however, when rumours surface that the home is set for demolition. It’s up to Hendrik and the gang to stop it – or drop dead trying . . . He may be the wrong side of 85, but Hendrik Groen has no intention of slowing up – or going down without a fight. 

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On the Bright Side is the sequel to The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen aged 83¼, one of my favourite books of 2016. The Secret Diary was such an unexpected delight. Set in an Amsterdam care home, it’s a wonderful book, full of interesting and sometimes wacky characters and you can read my earlier review HERE .  On The Bright Side is another year of Hendrik’s observations and thoughts on life and many of the wonderful characters are back plus there are a few new acquaintances too.

Who is Hendrik Groen? I know it’s an alias and it’s allegedly a work of fiction.  Is the author really an old person living in a retirement home?  I don’t care. I love both books and there certainly seems to be a bit of truth to the writing.  I hope the author is just like Hendrik.

On The Bright Side continues with the escapades of the 8 members of the Old but Not Dead Club. The members of this club might be getting older and in some cases frailer (Hendrik himself is now 85) but they are all still embracing life and embarking on their outings, enjoying new experiences (often involving lots of food and alcohol) and still causing mayhem in the care home. According to the club rules new members can’t just ask to join, they have to be invited by the members after careful consideration – and there can’t be any more than 8 members at any time. So yes, given their advancing years and health issues, there is a possibility that the club membership could change over the course of the year. Why only 8 members? That is the number that will fit comfortably with walking/mobility aids etc into the minibus.

Hendrik’s diary entries are observant, funny but also at times heartbreaking, especially when they lose members. There is also a serious side when there are rumours that the home may be down for demolition and that they might be forced to move. There are still plenty of laugh out loud moments but perhaps fewer than in the first book. He also reveals a bit more of himself and his life before retirement. Hendrik is just such a lovely character.

Hendrik mentions towards the end of the year that he is of a mind to write a novel next.  I do hope he does.  I look forward to it.

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

On the Bright Side is due to be published 11 January 2018.