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?

*********

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]

Beneath a Burning Sky by Jenny Ashcroft

When twenty-two-year-old Olivia is coerced into marriage by the cruel Alistair Sheldon she leaves England for Egypt, his home and the land of her own childhood. Reluctant as she is to go with Alistair, it’s in her new home that she finds happiness in surprising places: she is reunited with her long-estranged sister, Clara, and falls – impossibly and illicitly – in love with her husband’s boarder, Captain Edward Bertram.

Then Clara is abducted from one of the busiest streets in the city. Olivia is told it’s thieves after ransom money, but she’s convinced there’s more to it. As she sets out to discover what’s happened to the sister she’s only just begun to know, she falls deeper into the shadowy underworld of Alexandria, putting her own life, and her chance at a future with Edward, the only man she’s ever loved, at risk. Because, determined as Olivia is to find Clara, there are others who will stop at nothing to conceal what’s become of her . . .

*********

I enjoy a good thriller and I also like well-written romantic fiction especially historical so Beneath a Burning Sky ticks all the boxes for me. There is mystery, intrigue, illicit romance, abduction, lies, betrayal, murder. The story takes place in 1890s Alexandria when Egypt was still under British occupation and begins with an abduction then takes us back to a few months earlier.

22 year old Olivia has been brought to Alexandria by her husband Alistair who, you find out very quickly, is a thoroughly nasty, controlling, cruel character. Olivia is very unhappy but is unable to tell anyone. 

Years earlier, Olivia and her sister Clara had been forced to leave their childhood home of Cairo after the death of their parents and return to England to their grandmother. However their grandmother, a bitter, nasty woman, had kept them apart and had allowed no communication between the sisters. The grandmother also had a hand in leaving Olivia no choice but to marry Alistair, colluding with him to virtually blackmail Olivia into marriage. On a happier note, it turns out her older sister Clara is married to Alistair’s business partner and has been living in Alexandria with her husband and children.

So, I thought to myself, it’s a bit of a melodrama; maybe a bit of a cliché. I’m happy to say I was wrong. It’s better than that and I really enjoyed the story.

The story is quite complex, there are several threads and quite a lot of characters, and yet I didn’t find it too complicated. It is well written with a good balance of description, dialogue and background information so it’s not difficult to read. The romantic parts are not overly mushy but they are part of the story. I didn’t try too hard to work out the connections between some of the characters; I just let myself enjoy the story and the plot twists and wait for the connections to be revealed in time.

You hope there will be a happy ending but you can’t be entirely sure given the way the story unfolds. You just have to read it and find out for yourself! 

Beneath a Burning Sky is Jenny Ashcroft’s debut novel in the UK. It will be published in paperback on 29 June 2017 by Sphere.  

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

The Dry – Jane Harper

I just can’t understand how someone like him could do something like that.

Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn’t rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty.

Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one which Luke’s death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the truth of his friend’s crime.

*********

The Dry is a very good debut novel. I liked the writing. It kind of sucked me in immediately. I felt as if I was in that hot, dry town of Kiewarra which was suffering from a longstanding drought.

Aaron Falk is the outsider who has reluctantly returned to the town of Kiewarra where he had grown up, to attend the funeral of Luke Hadler and his wife and son. Luke and Aaron had been friends when they were younger but Aaron had left Kiewarra with his father and had gone to live in the city where he now worked as a policeman. Luke remained a farmer, married Karen and had two children. Apparently Luke came home on day shot his wife and son (but not the baby daughter) and then shot himself in the face.

Aaron planned to stay just for the funeral and wake and leave the next day but he is persuaded by Luke’s parents to stay on for a few days to look into the deaths to see if their son’s name can be cleared. What caused Luke to murder his wife and son? Was his business in financial ruin? When Aaron starts to investigate he finds a few things that just don’t make sense.

Things are complicated by the fact that Aaron is not welcome in the town. He and his father had left the town twenty odd years before having been under suspicion for the death of 16 year old Ellie Deacon, who had been Aaron’s girlfriend at the time. Luke had come up with an story that gave Aaron an alibi at that time but they had agreed to keep that secret between them.

However as Aaron and local police Sergeant Greg Raco investigate deeper, old wounds open, scores have to be settled. Emotions are running high. The drought has affected everyone. Livestock have had to be destroyed because there is no feed, debts are mounting, some farmers have been ruined. Was Luke another casualty of the drought?

Aaron is threatened, his vehicle is damaged, he is challenged in the street, he’s accused of harassment – the tension and the underlying threat of violence is kept running high.

In the meantime we get flashbacks to what actually happened in the past (printed in italics so easily distinguished from the present).

There are quite a few twists and red herrings. Just as Aaron and Raco think they have someone who could have been involved in the family’s murder, an alibi surfaces.

The writing is good and the characters are interesting. I liked the flashbacks to the past. Emotions and surroundings are at flashpoint (literally). A real page turner and a very good ending.

The Dry has already been published in Australia and the author’s webpage can be found here.

It’s scheduled for release in the UK 12 January 2017.

My thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy.

Dear Amy – Helen Callaghan

 

DESCRIPTION:

Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for The Cambridge Examiner. Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters – but none like the one she’s just received:

‘Dear Amy,
I don’t know where I am. I’ve been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I’m afraid he’ll kill me.
Please help me soon,
Bethan Avery’

Bethan Avery has been missing for years. This is surely some cruel hoax. But, as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything . . .

Dear Amy is a good debut psychological thriller.

It starts with the abduction of teenage schoolgirl Katie Browne who in a moment of anger had decided she was leaving home, had packed a bag, sneaked out of her house and had decided to go to her Dad’s (without telling anyone). It’s a foul, wet, windy night. A car pulls up beside her. The driver calls her name. She doesn’t know him. He offers her a lift. She declines but there is fear in her voice … Just as she’s decided to go back home and face the music she realises that someone is coming up behind her….

The story then switches to the voice of Margot Lewis, a teacher at St Hilda’s Academy who also happens to write the Dear Amy advice column in the Cambridge Examiner. Margot has no children of her own and her husband Eddie has left her for someone else.

Margot’s character seems quite proper and correct – kind of old fashioned and appears to be quite practical and very much in control. She had been Katie’s teacher at one time and was concerned about the missing girl.

Then a letter arrives at the newspaper from a Bethan Avery, who had been missing for almost 20 years, begging for help and saying she has been kidnapped and is held prisoner in a cellar. Was it a prank? Was it genuine? Was it connected to the disappearance of Katie Browne?

Margot tries to find out more about Bethan Avery and wants her to contact her again. Her search for information about Bethan becomes almost an obsession. She’s also annoyed that some people, including the Police, believe that Katie Browne has simply run away from home and Margot feels nobody is really trying to find her. Finally a criminologist called Martin Forrester contacts her regarding the letters from Bethan, telling her the Police provided her details.

As the story progresses we find out a little bit more about Margot via conversations with her soon to be ex-husband and her friend Lily who thinks Margot is taking on too much and will make herself ill.

There are some chilling moments too. A man in a car outside the school, gates, an encounter with a man in a carpark, someone watching and waiting in a car near Margot’s home, silent phone calls.

The tension builds and we see Margot starting to unravel, bit by bit, but still searching for answers in the Bethan Avery case and trying to link it to the disappearance of Katie Browne.

I quite liked the writing style and the various voices telling the story. The dialogue is generally good and although there are some wilder, slightly over the top scenarios that are just too far-fetched, overall I enjoyed this book.

[I received a review copy of Dear Amy  via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review]

 Author’s website:   http://ift.tt/1zLBc40

 

Ashley Bell - Dean Koontz

I don't know why, but Ashley Bell is the first Dean Koontz book I have ever read although I had heard of this author. I am in my early 60s and I don't know why it has taken me so long. I enjoyed it very much.

UK cover

The book is about Bibi, a young writer, who has been diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer and is told she has one year to live. While in hospital her condition deteriorates but something changes during the night and the next morning she feels her cancer has gone. Following tests her doctor then confirms that inexplicably she is free of cancer.

When she gets home she encounters a slightly strange, enigmatic woman named Calida Butterfly, whose visit has been arranged by Bibi's parents to welcome her home. Calida reveals that she is there to help her find out why she was spared from brain cancer. It would appear, after some divination, that Bibi has been spared to save the life of someone called Ashley Bell.

The book is then essentially about Bibi's search for Ashley Bell and the ordeals she has to face while she searches.

US cover

Bibi, is someone I felt I would like to have beside me in a crisis. She seemed very sensible and level headed but determined. Despite some horrifying incidents, and coming across forces that seem determined to harm her, she is completely focused on trying to find out about Ashley Bell and to locate him or her to save them.

I liked the writing style and found the short chapter format easy to read. The locations shift from the present, to events in the past when Bibi was a child, and to somewhere overseas where her fiancé Paxton, a Navy Seal, is on active operations. It is easy however to recognise the shifts in time and place.

Initially I wasn't sure where the book was going. Was this psychological thriller drawing us into the realms of the paranormal, supernatural or something else? I stuck with it though and I'm glad I did. (It was never really a chore to read it!)

I liked the characters – the good ones and the 'bad' ones. They were all relevant and held my interest to the end. The pace of the writing was maintained throughout and the ending didn't disappoint.                                

Author's website:   www.deankoontz.com

US Publication:      8 December 2015  (Bantam)
UK Publication:     14 January 2016    (HarperCollins)

I received a review copy of this book from the US publishers Bantam via NetGalley.

MORE CRIME NOVELS!

I'm still on the crime novels!  I've been lucky enough to have been given advance copies via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

It might seem a bit strange that I'm really liking nearly all of them.  However that might just be that I am getting better at requesting books that I think I will enjoy. So here are another couple of short reviews.

The first one is The Lion and the Rose by Riccardo Bruni (author) and Aaron Maines (translator).  I loved this book (I was given an advance copy through Netgalley).  

The story is set in early 16th century Venice, a perfect setting for all the dark goings on.

There is something for everyone - gruesome murders, secrets, open secrets, political intrigue, secret societies, plots, conspiracies, torture, forbidden love and a scholarly German monk named Mathias (who has been questioning his faith) who has reluctantly been hired (or rather pressed) into investigating the murders.

Venice is the perfect setting for the book with its network of canals and dark alleyways. 

It seems to be a good translation of a well written book.  I loved this book even although initially I wasn't sure if it was my type of book (until the last month or so I seemed to be reading a lot of romance and 'chic lit' and enjoying these too).  It reminded me a little of the Brother Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters although these were set in an earlier century and not quite so 'dark'.  I would say The Lion and the Rose is perfect for those who like crime thrillers and mysteries, especially those in a historical setting.  

The second one is a bit different and maybe even a bit quirky.  It's not available until 20 October 2015. 

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone involves a 'virtual' theft and a murder but it is a whodunnit with a twist.  Dahlia (not an experienced detective) gets herself involved in the virtual world of gamers.  

At the start Dahlia is given money to investigate the theft of a 'virtual' spear - "The Bejewelled Spear of Inifinite Piercing" but she soon becomes involved in a real murder.

To be honest I didn't dislike this book and I did read it to the end but it didn't quite catch my attention enough to keep me up to the small hours to finish it. 

It would probably appeal to someone a bit younger than myself.  I'm retired now and I've never really been involved in online virtual worlds so I might be a bit too old to be classed as a total geek.

I have to say I did like it very much in parts.  Towards the end it was pretty funny, especially at the convention.  In fact the more  I read, the better it got.  Dahlia certainly gets herself into some weird situations.