Karen

COLD GRANITE is one of those debut books that come along and slowly cause a stir of comment and discussion in crime fiction forums. So much commentary just makes you want to get that book that everyone is talking about, but at the same time you often wonder if there's a chance that it's all noise and not much substance. COLD GRANITE is all substance.

On his first day back from extended medical leave, DS Logan just wants to get through his first day and hand responsibility back to his new DI. Despite needing to ease himself back into the job Logan finds himself investigating who is killing children. Just to add insult to injury the Chief Pathologist is his former girlfriend and her reception is just about as inviting as the Aberdeen weather in the middle of winter.

Getting himself back into the routine and back into the teams proves problematic for Logan. He's got to contend with a new DI who has an addiction to lollies, a problem with fools and a tendency to assume everyone is one. DI Steel is a well known womaniser who ends up with all sorts of political problems when a trial goes pear-shaped. WPC Watson is assigned as Logan's new babysitter, and she doesn't have the reputation of a ball-breaker for nothing. There's a new journalist in town and he's cocky and pushy. Somebody is leaking stories and Miller, the journalist, just can't seem to keep away from Logan. Children keep dying and disappearing and Internal Affairs seem to be very interested in Logan. All in all, things are not what Logan wanted or needed.

COLD GRANITE uses the weather almost as a character in its own right - it's used to enhance mood and atmosphere in a very engaging way. You feel the weather just as you feel the character's reactions and follow their desperate attempts to stop children dying.

Despite a difficult central subject, the murder of children, the author pulls off a light touch and a level of humour which isn't always just black and feels almost expected. This is a police procedural, but a good, varied story that uses the procedural elements as a framework and builds in details of the characters, their lives and their reactions in a manner that makes everyone human and many many of the people extremely likeable. There are sufficient sub-threads to add texture and realism to the environment and all of those sub-threads are finalised or pulled together elegantly at the end and there's no sense of rush to finish off the book. The language is sufficiently fluid and fluent to keep you engaged but the book does not smack of over-writing or the tendency of some first books to include all the ideas an author has ever had.

Add to that some clever twists and this is a pleasingly strong debut novel and one seriously good read.

Set in Wellington New Zealand, Jennifer Mortimer's book TRILEMMA brings her main character - Linnet Mere to a new city in search of lost family connections and love.

Setting this character up with a completely new start gives Mortimer a chance to put her narrator at a loss on a number of levels - no job (at the outset), no connections, no home and no support means Lin is under pressure and out-of-step from the beginning. Although born in New Zealand, she moved away as a young child leaving a fractured family background. The complications of her family are going to require the reader to pay attention, made more difficult in the earlier part of the book where it concentrates on the goings on in the business environment. Obviously this author knows a lot about the demands of project management, and the telecommunications world. Much of that knowledge, unfortunately, has led to a narrative that is too detailed, borderline boring and definitely in the way too much information camp. Interspersed within are Linnet's attempts to rekindle her relationship with Ben, now living in remote NZ, whilst also finding her sisters and reconnecting the shattered family.

Given that we're looking at all the action in TRILEMMA from Lin's point of view, it's hard not to wonder about the veracity of much here. You're going to have to accept accept the motivations for the move, and that the high-powered, highly regarded Project Manager can lob in town, get a job with a new broadband startup, find the old boyfriend, find the sisters, rekindle the familial connection, take over the company and sort out the political machinations of the Board (when she realises they are there). All done, it seems, without breaking a fingernail or even into a sweat, whilst simultaneously failing to notice some of the weirdness going on around her.

Along the way there's some points being made about glass-ceilings, sexism and the none-too-subtle bullying that occurs when the outsider woman steps into the position of power. Of the many aspects of this book, these are the things that were possibly most worthwhile, clouded and somewhat watered down by the narrative form which means that the reader, seeing everything through Lin's eyes, could be finding Lin a difficult character to connect with, or worse still, somebody whose motivations seem a bit dodgy.

Stick with TRILEMMA though, and once you get through the first half of the book, things do pick up. The project management / company management 101 shifts to the background and the mystery and (hefty) romantic elements get more of a run as the pace improves. The resolution, however, might make you think less broadband and more high-rise construction. (It's going to take a big dose of suspension of disbelief for many readers).

Undoubtedly TRILEMMA is trying to build into a thriller, but the lack of menace (probably because it's nearly all over before Lin realises it's there) means it's a bit hard to notice / believe whilst reading. Worth a look though if you're interested in somebody making some points about the problems for women in the corporate world.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-trilemma-jennifer-morton

Normally when I get to the stage of actually finishing up a review and publishing it, I've had a good long think, a work through the notes I take as I read, and have formed an opinion that I'm confident I can support. I therefore cannot, for the life of me work out, why THE HANGING still has me unsure.

A confrontational plot, THE HANGING starts out with a death scene that's particularly uncomfortable. The possible reason for the death of five men, left hanging in a school gym, comes much later, with the likely motive a long time before a possible perpetrator. Of course, identifying the victims was obviously going to be a problem as there is a level of disfiguring of the bodies which clearly flags the initial problems the investigation will have. The second major problem, the reaction to the deaths of the public, and even some sectors of the authorities, takes a while longer to reveal itself, but it definitely creates issues for the investigation team.

The team itself, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Simonsen develops as an unusual combination of colleague, competitor, boss, subordinate, friends, lovers, possible lovers, enemies and all levels in between. This is a very difficult group to get a handle on, not just because Simonsen is taciturn, flat, dark and quite distant for a fair part of the novel. Even allowing for a mid novel decision that perhaps there's a dry, desiccated sense of humour going on here, this is still a difficult bunch to get to know. Which doesn't help with connection with the storyline.

Because of the motive behind the murders, the terrible and dark secret that the victims have in common, there's a lot about the plot that not serviced well by a narrative that plods and moves forwards in erratic leaps and bounds. Whilst there are stages when things teeter close to a direction, it always seemed to end up meandering. I'm still not 100% sure if that was actually because of the plotting or simply reader disconnection.

Not being the sort of reader that automatically wants to like or sympathise with a novel's protagonist, understanding is more than enough. Achieving that was a struggle no matter how much slack I sought to give this lot. Perhaps Simonsen's loner pretensions, his illness, his taciturn nature was a little too derivative. We all know that in Scandinavian crime fiction it's been done before with considerable panache and in those days originality. Perhaps it's also because the public reaction to these murders, so easily stirred and built by the perpetrator was somehow a little preachy or manipulative of the reader at the same time.

But strangely, and for reasons that I still can't quite put my finger on, finishing the book wasn't a total chore. There is something there, somewhere that's sort of promising, despite THE HANGING not playing out as well as you'd think it should have from the blurb and the hype. Maybe it is a sense of humour that hasn't translated well. Maybe it was that slight feeling of having been there before. Either way, if the series continues, then I'd like to try another book. After the heavy lifting of the team introductions are out of the way, there might be room for a bit more character development and maybe a plot point or two that stay on message.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/hammer-lotte-and-soren-hammer

Starting out with a challenge to myself to listen to the entire Discworld series as audio books has been quite a ride. I had expected to be hugely entertained, to laugh a lot, and feel a bit sad in places. I hadn't quite expected to be as thought-provoked as I turned out to be, with the range of issues that Pratchett cast light on, granted in a funny way mostly, being as wide-ranging and pertinent as they all turned out to be. I had expected characters that I would grow to really like, but nowhere near as much as I grew to love Tiffany, Granny, Nanny, Sam, Sybill, young Sam, Carrot, Angua, Cherry, Detritus, Rincewind, the Librarian, Wizards, Archchancellor, The Dean, the Bursar, dear Mrs Whitlow, everybody, every single one of them. I've loved spending time in their company and I dreaded finishing THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN.

I'm not even vaguely interested in criticism or discussion of Terry Pratchett's plotting and writing when it comes to this last outing, the man was dying of an insidious, vicious disease, and the fact that he managed to write what he wrote is something I'll always be slightly in awe of. Knowing that he'd died by the time I listened to this, I found THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN hugely entertaining, in a desperately sad, end of an era in more than one aspect, way. It's the story of Tiffany Aching really stepping up to the mark, struggling with the workload, and the threats, learning her limitations and finding ways and means of coping. It's the story of the death of the great leaders of one generation, and the passing on of the crown to the next. It's all about trust, and love and care for each other in a way that, frankly, had me sniffling and diving for the tissues on more than one occasion.

It has me back lurking around https://wiki.lspace.org/Main_Page, renaming poultry pens with Discworld names, and basically hanging onto the world for as long as I can. It has me wondering how long it will be before I start the odyssey again - right back at the start. I absolutely love this series. Everytime I read, or listen to, each of these books, I find something else that I missed, something else to really admire, something to make me laugh a hell of a lot, something to make me go hmmmm.

I wasn't sure what to expect when listening (in the end I downloaded the Audible version) to BECOMING by Michelle Obama, and it was a long listen, it's a big book, but what I got was a masterclass in humanity, care, compassion and understanding.

Extremely well worth reading / listening to / considering - this was instructional in ways I did not expect.