Madeleine's Book Log 2024

[Madeleine]

The Harbour Lights Mystery by Emylia Hall - this is the 2nd book in the Shell House Detectives series, I haven't read the first one but found this fairly easy to read as a stand alone, as the author does do a few updates.  The story is set in and around the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole, and our detectives are Ally, a widow in her mid 60s, and ex cop Jayden, who has moved down to Cornwall from Leeds, having left the force following the death of his partner.  It sounds like the Detectives are still finding their feet, but they can't help investigating when a local chef, though originally from London, J P Sharpe, is found murdered in Mousehole, not long before Christmas.  Then the pub where he works is burnt down, though no one is injured, and a mysterious letter found in his pocket points towards a local connection, but it turns out that JP has a rather chequered history, and not many people are that sorry to see the back of him. Could someone dear to both the detectives be in danger, or are they in danger themselves?  After a slow start, this picked up pace and the last part was quite gripping, and I thought the book was quite well-written, though it could have been a bit better paced, especially in the first half.  I'm intrigued to read the first book now - I read this one as a Christmas read - and there's also a 3rd book due out in March. 7/10

Edited January 12, 2024 by Madeleine

[Madeleine]

A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone - this is the first in the series about the Skelf family, who run an undertaker business in Edinburgh, coupled with acting as private investigators.  The book starts with the sudden death of Jim, the patriarch, and is subsequent unorthodox ie illegal cremation in the back garden!  Rather too much detail here, but afterwards the women in his life - his widow Dorothy, their daughter Jenny and her daughter Hannah - try to pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on both businesses without him. But when Dorothy starts to go through his papers, she finds payments of several hundred pounds being made every month, for several years, to an unknown woman.  Meanwhile Jenny, unemployed and divorced and back home with her mother, takes on a seemingly straightforward PI case, following a man whom his wife suspects of having an affair.  Hannah too has an investigation of her own - when her flatmate and fellow student Mel suddenly disappears, she finds herself opening up a can of worms (literally in some of their cases) as she discovers more about her seemingly hard-working, studious friend.  Then there's also the case of the missing employee, who disappeared suddenly several years ago.  So several storylines, but the book is well written and divided into fairly short chapters focussing mainly on each of the 3 women, so the different strands are easy to follow, though by the end I was starting to think that maybe there were too many coincidences.  As it has a distinctly morbid tone, and is rather gruesome in places, I can't say I enjoyed it  overall, but the characters are all engaging, and Edinburgh is well-described, making it almost a character in it's own right.  I will definitely read more of the Skelfs, but it is rather depressing at times so maybe not to everyone's taste. 7.5/10

Edited January 20, 2024 by Madeleine

[Madeleine]

A Shetland Winter Mystery by Marsali Taylor - this starts off in a fairly light mood, with sailor Cass Lynch on dry land for once, as she's on a break from sailing for Christmas,and is back on Shetland at the cottage she has moved into with her policeman boyfriend Gavin and two cats. In the run-up to Christmas, it seems that many residents have been visited at night by trowies, little folk who live in mounds in the hills, and come down to cause mischief.  Tiny footprints lead up to doorways and windowsills, and then lead away from another window, or a catflap, but no harm is done.  Cass suspects the local children,and for a while it all bowls along, until a teenager goes missing, and then another young man is found dead on a beach -are the two cases connected?  Events then become more serious, although towards the end of the book so many people, especially the female characters, did so many silly things that I started to get a bit fed up with the tired cliche of a character heading into danger, when all they had to do was go to the police.  Having said that, it was very readable and passed the time well enough.  6.5/10

[Madeleine]

Whispers of the Runes by Christina Courtenay - this is the 3rd in the "Runes" series, which tells of a young woman who travels back to the 9th century, when the Vikings were busily battling for kingdoms in Britain.  This time it's Sara, who finds an old knife, cuts herself and is whisked back in time, where she meets a hunky (naturally) young man who's the sole survivor of a shipwreck.  As there's no one else around, she cautiously joins him as they head for York (Jorvik as it was known in that time) but are soon forced to join the Heathen Army - yes those pillaging Vikings of legend - if they want to survive, but it's not all bad, they make friends and Rurik manages to make and sell some jewellery items, as he's a silversmith by trade - and guess what Sara does for a living? Yes she's a silversmith and jewellery maker too.  No prizes for guessing where this is all heading, but to be honest the endless will they won't they, plus both of them thinking that she should have been allowed to return to her own time, got a bit repetitive after a while and the book started to drag.  It did pick up eventually in about the last third, which saved it,but this is probably the weakest of the Runes series so far.  There are another two (at least), and they do have linking characters.  An easy read but it did drag a little. 6.5/10

[Madeleine]

"The Heron's Cry" by Ann Cleeves - this is the second book in the author's new series,set in Devon, following Inspector Matthew Venn and his team. This one is focussed around a small farm and artistic community, when a doctor investigating the local health authority's care of a young man who committed suicide is found murdered in his daughter's studio, with a piece of glass from one of her pieces proving to be the murder weapon. Not long after, another artist is found murdered by the same method, in the local arts centre which is run by Matthew's husband, Jonathan. Potential conflicts of interest here seem to be overlooked by the author, but it does put Matthew Venn in an awkward position and threatens to drive a wedge between him and his husband, who wants to help, as the artists also worked at his centre. So a small community finds itself under investigation, and yet another death causes even more intrigue. Whilst not as good as the earlier Shetland series, this is still really readable, and Matthew's own issues,such as with his mother, are handled here too. 7.5/10

[itsmeagain]

I became interested in Ann Cleeves after finding Shetland on BBC was based on her writing. Oddly, a huge compendium of women's crime fiction I bought, has nothing by Ann, who lives in lovely Whitley Bay in the North East of England.

[Madeleine]

Not sure where you're based but if you're in the Uk you might be able to get some of her books in The Works, a discount book chain. It's been said before but the Shetland TV series is very different to the books, for example Tosh isn't in the books at all.

 

There is a collection called The Starlings which does have one of her short stories in, which is available online.

[Madeleine]

The Whitstable Pearl Mystery" by Julie Wassmer - this is the first in a series of books featuring Pearl Nolan, a 39 year old single mother who runs a restaurant in Whitstable, Kent and has also started a detective agency. Her first case starts when a man asks her to track down a local fisherman who owes him money from an investment which went wrong, but when she goes to visit the fisherman on his boat she finds him dead, caught in his anchor chain and drowned. Then her new client also turns up dead,found by Pearl, which makes the police quite suspicious of her! The detective in charge has been transferred from London and hates small towns and isn't too happy when Pearl, despite the obvious conflicts of interest, continues investigating and naturally learns more than he does. Although slightly predictable, I didn't guess the killer and there were enough back stories for the characters to keep me interested, it's also quite well-written for the cosy crime genre. There is also a TV series and I watched the first episode last night, which is based on this book. It was Ok but felt very rushed and I felt some of the casting was a bit off, though Frances Barber is perfect as Pearl's bohemian mum who helps her in the restaurant. There are several more books in this series and it looks promising. One quibble though - she mentions a character performing a 1974 Saturday Night Fever move, well SNF didn't come out until 1977......!7/10

[Madeleine]

"Mania" by L J Ross - this is the 4th book in her Alex Gregory series, I'd read the first one but not  the two in between, but, unable to find them in my ever growing tbr stacks, I went for the latest book instead. It can be read as a stand-alone, but be warned, as the ending is unresolved and will presumably continue to play out in the next book, whenever that comes out (don't think it's been written yet).  I didn't think this was the best of her books - she also writes the long running DCI Ryan series, which are generally much better, although they too have a few flaws, notably the perfection of the main character, and I have to say that Gregory is Ryan with slightly different features, ie he is of course handsome and women fall at his feet wherever he goes..... of which he is blissfully unaware,although there is a lot of UST between him and the detective assigned to the case he's helping with, Ava Hope.  It all starts during a night at the theatre, where Gregory naturally happens to be in the audience and is first on the scene, when the actor playing King Lear collapses on stage; at first it's thought to be a heart attack, but tox screening finds hemlock in his system - he was poisoned!  Was it suicide though?  Then a close contact of the man is also found dead with hemlock in his system, is it too much of a coincidence? Of course it is, and Gregory finds himself drawn in more, as he tries to profile a possible perpetrator.  The two victims knew each other from university days, so as usual it looks as if the clues lie in their past.  Then the Superintendent in charge of the crime team turns out to also be involved, which echoes the storyline of the early Ryan novels, involving a serial killer, and this gave me a sense of familiarity and repetition of a storyline being re-used, and as I got closer to finishing the book I started to suspect that the case would not be fully resolved, and it wasn't, it's left open to lead into book five.  I must admit I was bored by this at times, and almost gave up at one point, but it did pick up, with a clever sleight of hand towards the end, but I was slightly disappointed at being left hanging by the ending.  Oh well.  6/10

Edited April 17, 2024 by Madeleine

[Madeleine]

"Serpent's Point" by Kate Ellis - this is the 26th novel in the Devon based Wesley Peterson series, and this time Wesley and his team are investigating the murder of a woman on a coastal path near the area in the book's title, which is a house, where a Regency-set film is being made.  The house is also home to a small artist's colony, so there are lots of potential suspects and witnesses.  But it looks like the murder could be linked to a couple of cold cases and disappearances in other parts on the country,as the victim seemed to be conducting her own investigation, following the murder of one of her best friends a few years ago.  We also get some of the history of Serpent's Point, when two schoolgirls with metal detectors uncover a hoard of Roman coins and other artefacts, which brings in Wesley's best friend Neil, an archaeologist whose investigations always cross over with the more modern police storyline, especially when a relatively recent skeleton is discovered at the site, although it's soon dated to be about 100 years old, but this gives us the parallel story of another archaeological dig which took place a century ago.  As the police continue unearthing clues to their current murder, another woman disappears and they realise they are in a race against time. I did actually suspect who the killer was fairly early on, but there's a later twist which gives this case a suitably serpentine feeling.  Another easy read, possibly two many coincidences but it's fiction after all!  7.5/10

[Madeleine]

Death awaits in Durham by Helen Cox - this is another instalment in the Kitt Hartley cosy crime series, and moves slightly further north to Durham, where Kitt's assistant, Grace, has just started a librarian's degree course, but she is soon side-tracked by a cold case - the disappearance the previous year of another young student Jodie, whose last known contact with the world was a phone call to a local radio station claiming that she knew something which could bring down people at the university, but when she called back later, the call was cut off abruptly, and there's been no trace of her since then.  Her distraught fiance is still desperate to know what's happened to her, so Kitt and Grace take on the case.  When someone from the university is found murdered, Kitt's boyfriend, DI Mal Halloran is brought in, but for the most part he takes a back seat.  It was an OK read, not the best of the books in the series that I've read, but passed the time and was an easy read. 6.5/10

[Madeleine]

Time's Prisoner by Linda Gillard - author Jane is at a crisis point in her life, she's getting divorced, plus her publisher has asked her to stop writing her much-loved historical crime series, and come up with fresh material instead.  Now why a publisher would ask an author to stop a successful series I don't know, and why doesn't the author go down the self-publishing route?  Anyway, she suddenly finds that she's inherited an old house near Colchester, in Essex, which was once owned by another author, who broke up Jane's parents' marriage, which led to her mother's suicide,so not surprisingly Jane isn't too keen on the inheritance at first.  But she decides to see what the situation is, and heads out to Essex, where she moves into the house along with the resident gardener/housekeeper, Bridget, and tries to get the house in working order again.  Two other women also come to live there, the elderly author's nurse, and her ailing grandmother.  And then Jane gradually becomes aware of another resident - one who is 400 years old, was an actor and who was murdered during a private performance at the house.  What follows is a mixture of historical mystery, and a lot of introspection as Jane comes to terms with her parents' break-up and deaths, and also the passing of her best friend.  The book is a mixture of humour - some of the ghost's lines are very droll - and a look at grief, which did get a bit depressing after a while and over all I don't think the balance quite worked. However it's beautifully written, and the search for Horace's murderer kept my interest, as did Horace himself, who sort of adopts the current chatelaine of the house as his companion as he tries to find out who really killed him.  The author is now writing a prequel.  7/10

[Madeleine]

"The Bay" by L J Ross - this is the 3rd in the summer suspense series, and this time the main character is police detective Sophie Keane, who has featured in the earlier books.  When a body is found on a local beach in St Ives, Sophie is forced to confront her past (I thought that police officers weren't meant to police the same town that they live in,but....) and also sort through the list of suspects, that's after they body is identified.  She's drawn into the local artists' community, especially Gabriel, who has returned to his family home, and also has issues from his past to confront, and lay to rest.  No surprise that he and Sophie get together, but this is more of a crime novel than the earlier books, though there's a cheeky refernce to Ross's most popular, and longest running, series featuring DCI Ryan, in fact there's even a visit to Northumberland, though at least Ryan doesn't pop up.  However the author's habit of making her heroes all pretty much cut from the same cloth ie tall, dark and handsome with blue/grey eyes that are full of emotion, is starting to look a little cliched, as is her theme of 

Spoiler

police corruption,

 which is beginning to also feel a bit repetitive.  Apart from that, this was a very quick, easy read, and the atmosphere of St Ives is well evoked (but without having to fight the crowds!). 6.5/10

[France]

20 hours ago, Madeleine said:

"The Bay" by L J Ross - this is the 3rd in the summer suspense series, and this time the main character is police detective Sophie Keane, who has featured in the earlier books.  When a body is found on a local beach in St Ives, Sophie is forced to confront her past (I thought that police officers weren't meant to police the same town that they live in,but....) and also sort through the list of suspects, that's after they body is identified.  She's drawn into the local artists' community, especially Gabriel, who has returned to his family home, and also has issues from his past to confront, and lay to rest.  No surprise that he and Sophie get together, but this is more of a crime novel than the earlier books, though there's a cheeky refernce to Ross's most popular, and longest running, series featuring DCI Ryan, in fact there's even a visit to Northumberland, though at least Ryan doesn't pop up.  However the author's habit of making her heroes all pretty much cut from the same cloth ie tall, dark and handsome with blue/grey eyes that are full of emotion, is starting to look a little cliched, as is her theme of 

  Hide contents

police corruption,

 which is beginning to also feel a bit repetitive.  Apart from that, this was a very quick, easy read, and the atmosphere of St Ives is well evoked (but without having to fight the crowds!). 6.5/10

I listened to the first of these on Audible, The Cove I think, and to be honest wasn't impressed. It seemed both long-winded and Mills and Boonish

[Madeleine]

Yes it is a bit, this one was a bit better but they are pretty formulaic.

[Madeleine]

Exiles by Jane Harper -this is the 3rd in the Aaron Falk trilogy, which started with the superb The Dry,and features one of the police officers from that book,who Falk is visiting for the christening of his latest child, to whom he will be godfather. He's also there while the local festival takes place, which he also attended last year and he remembers a young mother leaving her baby and vanishing during the festival.  To commemorate this sad event, the missing woman's older daughter makes an appeal to the crowd, hoping to jog the memories of people who may have been visiting the year before, but aren't local, as all the locals were questioned at the time of her disappearance.  The woman's former partner is the brother of Falk's friend, so it's inevitable that he's drawn into trying to find the young mother.  And there's also an older mystery, of a local man who was killed in a hit and run incident, during an earlier festival several years ago.No one was ever found in connection with the accident, and the man's son is determined to find out what really happened. So Falk, despite being on holiday from his job as a Finance Investigator, finds himself involved with this incident too. I enjoyed this book, I've loved all Jane Harper's books and whilst this one was good I think it might be not quite as strong as the first two books in this series,but it's still an excellent read, well-written with vivid, believable characters. 8/10

[France]

I agree with you on all points!

 

[Madeleine]

"Death Rocks" by L J Ross - this is the 21st book in the detective series set in Northumberland, and begins with the discovery of a local photographer's body, on the so-called Death Rocks, which are a treacherous area near Dunstanburgh Castle.  At first it's possible that it might have been an accident, but further investigation says not, and then when a woman is killed in a hit and run incident,the police discover a connection, albeit slight, and wonder if they have a serial killer on their hands.  They then start to investigate another,earlier death, also supposedly an accident, and realise that something very nasty indeed is going on, but who is behind it, and can they stop more "incidents" happening?  And when one of their team is injured, it becomes very personal indeed, which leads to a dramatic, twisty ending, which did feel a bit rushed and seemed to finish rather abruptly.  This wasn't a bad entry in the series, though Ryan is now so sainted he's one step away from being deified, which does make me roll my eyes, and all the good guys are just a bit too perfect, but it will be interesting to see how the storyline carries over into the next book.  7.5/10

[Madeleine]

"The Secret Beach" by Veronica Henry- this is the author's latest summer offering,and is set in the picturesque Cornish resort of Speedwell, where Nikki has lived all her life, and now works as a wedding planner.  She's finally able to buy the house of her dreams, a cottage which she sets about renovating with the help of her family building firm, and also has a nice new neighbour,so everything is looking good, until a series of menacing postcards start being sent to her, referring to something which happened many years ago, and which she hoped would never come to light. She's also preparing to help commemorate the 20th anniversary of a terrible sea disaster, where many members of the lifeboat crew, including her father and brother-in-law, plus several of the people they were trying to rescue, all perished during a terrible storm.  In the meantime she's trying to organise another wedding, as well as dealing with her mercurial sister Jess, and her niece, aspiring singer Juno.  So quite a cast of characters, along with various other townsfolk and visitors to the resort. This was an enjoyable read ,with believable characters and a vivid setting,although I found the big reveal slightly disappointing.  but it's a nice easy holiday read, quite well-written and with a real sense of place and community. 7.5/10

[Madeleine]

Murder on Lake Garda by Tom Hindle - this is the 3rd book by this author, but the first I've read, and I was attracted to it by the Lake Garda setting.  Robin and her boyfriend have been invited to her boyfriend's brother Laurence's wedding to social media influencer Eva, which is taking place at a castle on a private island in the middle of the lake. But as soon as they arrive it is obvious that there are tensions in the family, as the groom's parents are keen for his brother to join the family company rather than run his own bar, and his mother in particular is very cold.  Anyway as the title says it's not long before a murder takes place, and everyone is under suspicion, especially as it soon becomes apparent that both sides of the wedding party have lots of secrets they don't want to be revealed.  Tension mounts as the guests and crew start to turn on each other, especially when a second killing takes place.  I won't say any more, but I found this an enjoyable holiday type read, well-written though sometimes a bit repetitive, and Robin, who is sort of the unofficial detective here during the endless wait for the police, is likeable, though some of the other characters are a bit two-dimensional. I did have my suspicion as to the killer's identity quite early on (which turned out to be correct),and would read more by this author.  7.5/10

[Madeleine]

The Castaways by Lucy Clarke - this is set in 2 different timelines, the present day, where a young woman, Erin, is obsessed with finding out what really happened to the small plane which disappeared in the region of Fiji two years previously, with her sister on board.  In the other timeline, we go back to what happened two years ago - Erin and her older sister, Lori, have booked themselves a holiday on an island near Fiji, partly to help Lori recover from her devastating marriage breakup.  They are spending the first night on Fiji itself before catching a connecting flight to their island resort the next day, but they have a furious row and Erin stays out all night and misses the flight, which later disappears and after searching for a while the authorities leave the case open, but stop looking for it.  Then, two years later, there's a development in the mystery which prompts Erin to return to Fiji, to try to find out what really happened, which the reader is told whilst Erin carries on searching in the present day.  There were some survivors from the initial accident, and we follow their story as they try to survive on the remote, uninhabited island, whilst hoping for rescue, but it looks like some of the survivors aren't that keen on being found..... I can't say more for fear of spoilers, but overall I found this a bit disappointing, most of the characters were unlikeable and at times it did drag, though towards the end it did become more of a page-turner, but it didn't really do much for me. I have read one of her other books - One of the Girls - which was better.  A good holiday read but that's about it, and I ddin't really find it  that convincing  either.  6/10

[Madeleine]

I totally agree with you, it did pick up near the end but by then I wasn't really that bothered as to how it would finish.

[Madeleine]

The Little Theatre by the Sea by Rosanna Ley - Faye is thrilled when she finally achieves her dream of becoming an interior designer, having had a career change, and she is now a graduate, at 33, in her chosen subject, and accepts an invitation from her old friend, Charlotte, to house-sit for her in Sardinia. But when she arrives on the island, she finds she's been lured there under false pretences, for though the house-sit is genuine, she's also asked to help re-design the local theatre,which has been gradually sinking into a dusty decline, having been closed for several years, following the death of it's owner, who knew Faye's parents briefly. Now his son and daughter want to breathe new life into the little theatre (which isn't actually by the sea, more like on top of a hill, with views of the sea) but, as often happens in these books, the locals don't want their theatre to be brought back to life,and are worried about having too much change.  so Faye meets with some hostility at first, and coupled with her attraction to Alessandro, the original owner's son, she has mixed feelings at taking on the commission, especially as it is her first job, and she's not sure if she's cut out for something so precious to the local community. Meanwhile, back at home in Dorset, her parents are also undergoing something of a renaissance, as her father decides to retire,which opens up a whole other can of worms.  This was an OK read, no prizes for guessing how it all turns out, but I didn't really find the characters that convincing, and at times they were downright irritating, and I lost count of the number of times the author describes Alessandro gazing at Faye with his navy blue eyes!  OK for a holiday read, but nothing special, though the descriptions of Sardinia are lovely.  6/10

[France]

Navy blue eyes are such a cliche too! Just like violet eyes which often pop up in romantic fiction. And I've never seen anyone with eyes of either colour unless they're wearing coloured contacts.

[Madeleine]

Me neither, apparently even Liz Taylor's eyes weren't really violet.