L'Exil des Anges by Gilles Legardinier

A new favourite discovered in 2014, Gilles Legardinier is a French writer now known for writing humourous, touching novels, many of them dealing with love stories, most of them with incredibly funny situations reminiscent of the best rom-and-sitcoms. I devoured his four books last year at the suggestion of my wife and loved every single one of them. Before those humouristic books, though, Legardinier had made a name for himself writing thrillers. L’Exil des Anges is one of the better known, an award winner the year it came out. 

Following a small cast of characters caught up in a government conspiracy and dealing with fringe science and reincarnation, L’Exil des Anges was a bit of a disappointment. A world away from the sort of story he tells in his more recent books, L’Exil des Anges also failed to coalesce when it comes to the characters – I didn’t feel particularly interested or invested in either of the three leads. The plotline itself meanders, starting out with the story of two scientists before jumping forward in time. Legardinier’s trademark wit is also lacking and the writing was ponderous, long paragraphs that left the story dragging along. It is probably a good thing that I didn’t start with this or I am not at all sure I would have gone on to read his later, much better works. I’ll probably still have a look at some of his other thrillers, but I am much more interested to see what he writes next instead ! 

I gave L’Exil des Anges two stars.

Retribution by Mark Charan Newton

THEY'LL KILL TO HIDE THE TRUTH. HE'LL KILL TO FIND IT. 

Having just solved a difficult case in his home city of Tryum, Sun Chamber Officer Lucan Drakenfeld and his associate Leana are ordered to journey to the exotic city of Kuvash in Koton, where a revered priest has gone missing. When they arrive, they discover the priest has already been found - or at least parts of him have. But investigating the unusual death isn't a priority for the legislature of Kuvash; there's a kingdom to run, a census to create and a dictatorial Queen to placate. 

Soon Drakenfeld finds that he is suddenly in charge of an investigation in a strange city, whose customs and politics are as complex as they are dangerous. Kuvash is a city of contradictions; wealth and poverty exist uneasily side-by-side and behind the rich facades of gilded streets and buildings, all levels of depravity and decadence are practised. When several more bodies are discovered mutilated and dumped in a public place, Drakenfeld realizes there's a killer at work who seems to delight in torture and pain. With no motive, no leads and no suspects, he feels like he's running out of options. And in a city where nothing is as it seems, seeking the truth is likely to get him killed ...

Retribution is the second Lucan Drakenfeld novel, following Drakenfeld.

Following on from last year's Drakenfeld, Retribution is a nice continuation of the series, providing a keen mystery and a clever solution, playing with the idea of victim/perpetrator and the theme of revenge. Drakenfeld is a pleasant narrator, a clear successor to C.J Sansom's Shardlake, while his female companion and bodyguard gets some much needed and appreciated development here. 

Fans of Newton's earlier work will feel somewhat let down by the world building - Drakenfeld's world is a clear Roman cypher, mingling elements of Late Medieval / Early Renaissance Europe, without any particular attempts to bring in any of the clever New Weird stylings of the Legends of the Red Sun. The Drakenfeld series, though, continues to do what it set out to do - write a historical mystery series in a fantasy world - and to do it extremely well!

I gave Retribution 4 stars. 

Wrat-Up 2014 - Top Ten Mystery / Thriller / Horror Books

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

From my review:

"The Winter People is one of a number of books I have read since the beginning of the year split over two time periods and with either a crime/thriller bent or a supernatural one. It is also one of the best. Suspenseful, marvelously well-written, with a keen eye for detail in the historical sections and a great trio of female characters at its core, the novel stayed with me in the days after finishing it."

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker

From my review:

"A "coup-de-coeur" as we say in France, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair will be one of those books I will remember for a long time. A great mystery, an exploration of writing and life, the book touches all the buttons I need to make me fall head over heels in love with a novel. I cannot wait to see what Joel Dicker writes next and I doubt I will wait for a translation of whatever it is."

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

From my review:

"Though few of the people we meet are necessarily likeable, nor the truths pleasant, it is impossible not to become enthralled and caught up in the town of Henbane and the secrets hidden there. Though the resolution of both mysteries do not hold many surprises, the revelations are handled deftly. More of a sweeping portrait than a true thriller, it was a great read that kept me hooked through to the end."

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R Carey

A cleverly written zombie novel, The Girl With All the Gifts had a fascinating cast of characters, a neat twist on the undead and a really kick-ass ending.

Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman

From my review:

"Edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting tension from the first page to the last, it is not the kind of book that I found myself laying aside without a tug of reluctance, wanting to read a little bit more to find out what would happen next or how a situation would resolve... At its heart, Ruin Falls is about motherhood and the lengths any of us (mothers or fathers) go to protect our children."

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

A fine example of historical mystery done well, Murder as a Fine Art serves up a Sherlock-ian anti-hero with a very personal stake in solving the rash of murders that are sweeping Victorian London. Using a real historical person as the main character is a risk, but one that pays off here.

Eden in Winter by Richard North Patterson

From my review:

"A family saga full to the brim with deceit and lies, Eden in Winter delves deep into the characters of the Blaine family and manages to create a page-turning yarn that is hard to put down. With hints of the political and legal thrillers that Patterson is well known for dribbled throughout, the book is a nice resolution to a departure trilogy for the writer. As usual, a great read that cements Patterson for me as a must-buy whenever he brings out a new book."

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

Another historical, this one more of a thriller, using the real-life Dreyfus Affair as a canvas to tell a story of racism, conspiracy and espionage. Harris is a dab hand at this kind of novel, which shows both in the strong - though plain - prose and the nail-biting pace.

The Fixer Series by T.E. Woods

From my review of Book Two, The Red Hot Fix:

"The Red Hot Fix was a good continuation of the Fixer series, bringing back a lot of what worked in the first novel and progressing both characters storylines in interesting ways. One plotline was more interesting and worked better than the other, but overall they both complimented each other nicely and set up an interesting finale. I will certainly pick up the next book in the series - I'm looking forward to see how Lydia puts her new skills to use in different situations."

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

From my review:

"A whirlwind tour of espionage, terrorism and murder, a globe-trotting thrill ride that also manages to delve into such themes as growing old, family, love and the cost of freedom. I loved the fact that while the entire story is told in first person, Terry Hayes manages to use that to segue into an omniscient third person at times, giving us a glimpse into the lives of various other characters along the way. I was hooked from the first page and it did not let up until the end. If you haven’t already, pick it up, read it and enjoy!"
 

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Internationally bestselling author Anthony Horowitz's nail-biting new novel plunges us back into the dark and complex world of Detective Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty--dubbed "the Napoleon of crime"--in the aftermath of their fateful struggle at the Reichenbach Falls.

Days after Holmes and Moriarty disappear into the waterfall's churning depths, Frederick Chase, a senior investigator at New York's infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency, arrives in Switzerland. Chase brings with him a dire warning: Moriarty's death has left a convenient vacancy in London's criminal underworld. There is no shortage of candidates to take his place--including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind.

Chase is assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective and devoted student of Holmes's methods of deduction, whom Conan Doyle introduced in The Sign of Four. The two men join forces and fight their way through the sinuous streets of Victorian London--from the elegant squares of Mayfair to the shadowy wharfs and alleyways of the Docks--in pursuit of this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty's successor.

Riveting and deeply atmospheric, Moriarty is the first Sherlock Holmes novel sanctioned by the author's estate since Horowitz's House of Silk. This tale of murder and menace breathes life into Holmes's fascinating world, again proving that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however im- probable, must be the truth.

A summer read two years ago, Anthony Horowitz' The House of Silk was an interesting, if not particularly ground breaking, addition to the Sherlock Holmes canon, an authorised continuation of the adventures of the great detective and his 'assistant' Watson. Set somewhere within the latter part of Holmes' adventures, The House of Silk was well written, exciting and faithful homage to Conan Doyle, which boded well for any more novels Horowitz might write in this world. 

Which brings us to Moriarty, Horowitz' new novel set in the Victorian London of Doyle's hero. Where in The House of Silk Horowitz played things safe, giving us an adventure clearly meant to slot neatly into canon, in Moriarty he has broken the mold, giving us instead an enthralling look at the world that existed between Holmes and Moriarty fateful fall at the Reichenbach and the reappearance of Holmes a few years later. With Holmes and Watson off the stage, Horowitz turns his attention to two new characters. One, Athelney Jones, is actually a character from Doyle's work, a Scotland Yard detective who appeared in The Sign of Four. Here, Horowitz is able to develop the character much further, using what Doyle wrote about him to give the man a clever backstory that explains his devotion to Holmes' methods. Jones becomes our Sherlock Holmes surrogate, but instead of just creating a cliché, Horowitz breathes life into the detective by giving him a family, something that Holmes obviously lacks. 

The second character is Frederick Chase, an investigator for Pinkertons, the legendary American detective force, sent to Europe to pursue an American crimelord determined to step into the gulf left behind by Moriarty's death. This investigation brings the two men together and from  there the story escalates, from Reichenbach to London, through the darkest corners of the criminal underworld. Brutality and terror stalk the streets of the capital and it seems that only Chase and Jones will be able to bring the true culprit to justice. 

What was already an enthralling, exciting, gripping mystery tale takes on a much greater dimension, though, in the last third of the novel. Horowitz pulls off a fantastic coup, setting up and delivering on an absolutely terrific twist that caught me totally by surprise but made perfect sense once it was revealed. I won't give anything about this twist away, but suffice it to say, I personally found it totally unexpected. Horowitz really delivers with Moriarty, showing that there are still interesting and surprising tales to be told in the Holmes universe. I hope he gets the opportunity to do so in the future. 

I gave Moriarty 4 stars.

The Buried Life by Carrie Patel

 

The gaslight and shadows of the underground city of Recoletta hide secrets and lies. When Inspector Liesl Malone investigates the murder of a renowned historian, she finds herself stonewalled by the all-powerful Directorate of Preservation – Recoletta’s top-secret historical research facility.
 
When a second high-profile murder threatens the very fabric of city society, Malone and her rookie partner Rafe Sundar must tread carefully, lest they fall victim to not only the criminals they seek, but the government which purports to protect them. Knowledge is power, and power must be preserved at all costs…

The Buried Life is one of those books that I had to read at the right time to get into - I had tried to read it a few months ago and it didn't quite gel for me - that may be due to the fact that I had read a few similar books around that time. Whatever the reason, I put it aside but it had interested me enough for me to want to pick it back up again, which I did back in October (yes, I know, bad blogger, bad! :))

A fantasy murder mystery to start with, The Buried Life could be termed science fantasy - while not made obvious, there are clear indications that the underground world of the book is our future, with books and cultural references serving as clear nods to our own world. This makes for a nice twist on the Victorian-esque, gaslight ambiance the book is set in. While the worldbuilding was good, where The Buried Life excelled was in the characters. I really enjoyed getting to know Liesl, Rafe and Jane: a washer-woman who is not mentioned in the blurb but who I would say is probably more important to the plot and more interesting as a character than the other two. Her Relationship with Roman proves to be a hinge for the story and her actions have major effects on the future of Recoletta.

While the murder mystery is tied up nicely, providing a pleasant sense of closure to that part of the book, there are larger events that take over towards the end and set up the stage nicely for the follow-up (due out in February). I for one will be eagerly waiting to download it to my Kindle on the day of release!

I gave The Buried Life 4 stars.

The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins

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After a military research station broadcasts a distress call ending with the order “Kill us… kill us all,” Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma are called upon to investigate. When they arrive at the lab, they discover a blight has destroyed everything within fifty square miles and that the blight is now spreading. An apocalypse is on its way, an event that might lead to the infamous Sixth Extinction. Forced to decipher an ancient threat rising from the distant past, the Sigma team will follow an ancient map rescued from the Library of Alexandria, one that points to Antartica and a prehistoric continent where a new form of life may spell death for an entire world. A true race against time begins, one that could spell the end of humankind if they were to fail…

As usual, James Rollins combines historical mysteries and cutting-edge science and technology to deliver a fast-paced thriller that starts with a bang and never let’s up! I’m a huge fan of Rollins’ work and have devoured every novel in the Sigma Force series and in the Sixth Extinction Rollins’ not disappoint. Once again, the team is forced to race against the clock to fight off the end of the world, taking the reader on a whirlwind adventure full of science and history. As usual, all of these elements are discussed in the end of the book, providing a glimpse into what is real, what is not and what may just be… Despite the fact that this is the 10th novel, it is easy to follow along with the storyline and the characters, though I would definitely suggest that anyone interested in the series start at the beginning with Sandstorm or at least Map of Bones.  While one of my favorite characters was absent from this one, all the other Sigmas are present and Rollins also manages to include a number of winks to some of his non-Sigma novels through some secondary characters. The Sixth Extinction works both as a thriller on its own terms and also as a continuation and evolution of the overall Sigma force series. Definitely a must-read!

I gave The Sixth Extinction 5 stars.

Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

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Of all the cases that haunt Bill Hodges after he retires as a cop, none haunt him more than the lone driver who plowed into a crowd of job seekers in a stolen Mercedes. Known as Mr Mercedes, the perpetrator was never found. So when Hodges gets a letter from someone identifying themselves as the escaped killer, he enlists the help of an unlikely group of allies in order to track him down before he causes another tragedy. What starts as an obsession, though, soon turns into a race against time as Mr Mercedes prepares to strike again, this time with an attack that will kill or maim thousands...
 
Announced as Stephen King’s first entry in the ‘hard-boiled’ genre, Mr Mercedes is a cracking story, full of some of the most unexpected and original heroes he has ever created, going up against a truly twisted villain with some major mommy issues. While the echoes of Norman Bates are obvious, King manages to freshen the archetype, partly through a truly sickening opening scene that left me breathless. After a classic Stephen King slow start, the book picks up following the cremation scene and from then on it is almost impossible to put down – I for one stayed up way too late to finish it, especially considering some of the gut punch events building to the gripping finale! There are a few elements that might turn you off. If you’re looking for a non-King Stephen King book here, you’ll be disappointed: his inimitable style of writing is ever present, which you will either love or hate depending on your personal taste. As with most of his work, it is a book of its time: there are lots of references throughout to reality TV, terrorism and the Internet. And one character who is pivotable to the resolution of the plot only appears half way through. For me, though, this is a great King novel, written with all the skill the master can bring to the page. Apparently it is the first in a trilogy – I will be queuing up to get the sequel.
 
I gave Mr Mercedes 5 stars.

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker

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When struggling writer Marcus Goldman goes to see his friend and mentor Harry Quebert to find inspiration and a cure for his writer's block, he stumbles upon a disturbing revelation - years before, Harry had been involved with a teenage girl who has since disappeared. When the girl, Nola, is discovered buried in Harry's back garden, Harry is the obvious suspect. In order to clear his friend's name, Marcus does the only thing he knows how - he writes a book. As his investigation into Harry's relationship with Nola and the events of 30th August 1975 leads him to darker and darker truths, Marcus begins to question everything he thinks he knows about his friend...

 

Every so often in any reader's life, a book comes along that reminds you why you love to read. I have had a handful of such books in the past, great novels (in my eyes anyway), like An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears or The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair is one of those books. Combining everything I love to find in a book, it is a fantastic, beautifully written mystery that is also so much more than that at the same time.

 

Told almost entirely by Marcus Goldman, a self-centered, shallow, unbelievably successful writer faced with every writer's dread - writer's block - The Truth About... details the chaos that unfolds once the body of a fifteen year old girl is found in the back garden of famous writer Harry Quebert. Harry is Marcus' friend and mentor, so Marcus decides to carry out his own investigation in order to clear Harry's name. Drafted into writing a book about the experience, Marcus soon realises that no one can be trusted and that every time he thinks he is getting a handle on what actually happened to Nola Kellergan, the truth is something completely different.

 

Although the centrepiece of The Truth About... is the gradual unveiling of what happened in 1975 and the truth behind the Harry Quebert affair, Joel Dicker's novel is just as much about writing, boxing and life. Each chapter (which are numbered backwards by the way for a reason that quickly becomes clear) begins with a piece of advice Harry has given Marcus over the years. While this advice is ostensibly about writing, they can be applied just as easily to life and it is thanks to this advice that Marcus gradually grows, changes and matures as the book progresses. Although he never really loses the slightly arrogant edge that any writer needs to be able to stand up and ask the world to read a bunch of words they have strung together, Marcus does grow into a more rounded human being and it is just as much this change as the truth about Nola that carries the novel forward.

 

The writing is great and it is difficult to remember that this is a translation out of French. Whoever the translator is, he did a phenomenal job, only once dropping the ball on the use of the French Untel (in English, So-and-so), but which I doubt anyone who is not bilingual would actually pick up on. Is the writing perfect? No. The dialogue can be a bit clunky at times and the shifts from present to past are sometimes a little confusing. But the book was such a joy for me that I passed over all those little imperfections, simply enjoying the ride.

 

A "coup-de-coeur" as we say in France, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair will be one of those books I will remember for a long time. A great mystery, an exploration of writing and life, the book touches all the buttons I need to make me fall head over heels in love with a novel. I cannot wait to see what Joel Dicker writes next and I doubt I will wait for a translation of whatever it is. This one will be in my top ten if not my number one at the end of the year, I am sure. I gave The Truth About... 5 seagull-full novels out of 5.

The Red Hot Fix by T.E. Woods

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After the deadly events of The Fixer, Morton Grant and Lydia are trying to rebuild the shattered pieces of their lives. Lydia has spent a year in rehab, attempting to regain her confidence and to put the truth about her connection to the Fixer behind her, while Mort is embroiled in an investigation into a prostitute serial killer who only kills the men who pay her to sleep with them. As they both try to regain badly damaged confidence and find a way of moving on with their lives, the truth about what they both did threatens everything they have built...
 
The Fixer was a surprising hit for me earlier this year - a thriller that I picked up on a whim but which worked really well and pushed all my mystery/thriller buttons: an intriguing mystery, a couple of damaged heroes, a twisty-turny plot. When I saw that the sequel was coming out later this year I added it to my To Read List, and when it became available on Netgalley I requested it immediately. Once it was approved I jumped it towards the top of the ever-growing pile of books to read, looking forward to returning once again to the world of the Fixer.

Due to everything that happened in the previous novel, it was inevitable that The Red Hot Fix would be a very different animal. The mystery of the Fixer - while still relevant - is no longer an issue for the main two characters, so Woods introduces a new mystery killer in "Trixie", a prostitute killing her "johns" who is the latest criminal to go up against Detective Mort Grant. While Grant investigates the Trixie murders with his son, Lydia is trying to find a way back into her life now that she has given up her Fixer persona. As the book progresses, though, she begins to realise that giving up her old life may not be as easy as she thought, especially when she is faced with a clear injustice.

The way Woods dealt with Lydia's storyline was very well done. We see her struggle to decide what to do when she meets a little girl whose father is abusing her and planning to sell her through his sick website, afraid of going back to her Fixer ways, but even more terrified of not doing anything. The way the story is wrapped up was excellent, showing that Lydia may be able to use her skills and the mindset she developped as the Fixer, but in a new way that might keep her out of the sort of trouble she found in the first book.

I much preferred this storyline - despite the disgust factor created by the girl's father and his plans - than Mort's cat-and-mouse game with Trixie. The surprise factor was missing, it was pretty easy to figure out who Trixie actually was and the situation was wrapped up very quickly. It felt like the storyline then went into a holding pattern while Lydia's story caught up, which took some of the tension away from the final scenes.

The Red Hot Fix was a good continuation of the Fixer series, bringing back a lot of what worked in the first novel and progressing both characters storylines in interesting ways. One plotline was more interesting and worked better than the other, but overall they both complimented each other nicely and set up an interesting finale. I will certainly pick up the next book in the series - I'm looking forward to see how Lydia puts her new skills to use in different situations. I gave The Red Hot Fix 4 tied-up johns out of 5.

The Lincoln Myth by Steve Berry

 

Abraham Lincoln kept his temper under control, but the woman standing across from him was taxing his patience.

When a plot to secede from the Union drags Cotton Malone's on-again, off-again lover Vitt Cassiopeia into danger, Malone agrees to once again assist his former Magellan Billet boss. Paired up with a young agent with secrets of his own, Malone's investigation leads him into conflict with the Church of Latter-Day Saints and a centuries old secret hidden within the US Constitution. As the bodies begin to pile up and more revelations are made, Malone comes to realise that the entire conspiracy revolves around the truth behind one of the United States' most beloved presidents...

The Lincoln Myth is the ninth book in the Cotton Malone series, which follows the eponymous hero through a number of historically orientated thrillers, pitting him against larger than life villains and putting him on the track of some of history's most enduring secrets. Up til now, Malone has investigated the Templars, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte and Queen Elizabeth I. All of the books are great fun, with slightly less of the over the top vibe that characterise Dan Brown, and with more of a historical bent. Malone is an interesting character, one with scars and hidden depths that Steve Berry continues to plumb even nine books in. As such, any new Cotton Malone book is a shoe-in for my To Read List and this year I was lucky enough to get an advance look at the latest thanks to Netgalley.

Nine books in it is difficult to see how Berry can still surprise, but he does an admirable job here by throwing a wrench in the growing relationship between Malone and Vittoria Cassiopeia, his paramour for the past few books, and putting them on opposing sides of the growing conflict. Berry also manages to layer an interesting commentary on current events throughout the book, forcing his characters to face the growing dissatisfaction in the United States and the ever-present threat of secession.

The plot itself revolves around two main arcs - on one side, a historical maguffin in the form of a secret adendum to the Constitution that allows for the legal right to secede from the union, and on the other a plot within the Church of Latter Day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons, to use said adendum to secede from the United States and build their own Eldorado. Though obviously far fetched, there are some startling arguments for both of these arcs that make the book seem less out there than it otherwise might. Laying aside the Mormon aspect, it is certainly true that there are some in the current US who would like nothing better than to force government out of their business and see each state make its own decisions. And the adendum to the Constitution, while an invention of Berry, seems like something that could easily have happened when one takes into account the historical context of the times in which the Founding Fathers wrote it.

As usual, Berry does a great job of balancing the action portions of the thriller with the necessary information that he must impart. Anyone who writes this kind of book needs to be a master at feeding the reader information at the right pace - too fast and it becomes nothing more than an info-dump, too slow and you risk alienating the reader who feels like the author is holding back. Berry has had a lot of practice and he does it with a steady hand. The revelations come just when they need to and each character is forced to make choices and face consequences for gaining the information they want.

The relationships take centre stage in this book - not only the rocky romance between Vitt and Malone, but also the relationship between Malone boss, Stephanie Nell, and Berry's president, Daniels. Daniels has been a growing presence in recent books, and Berry does a good job of showing how the pressures and weight of the presidency have come to drag on him. He is coming towards the end of his final term in this book and it is clear that his actions in The Lincoln Myth are a direct result of him worrying about the inevitable question of 'legacy'. His relationship with Nelle is also advanced, and we see another side of him as he handles a difficult reunion with his nephew, the young agent mentioned in the summary above.

The ending does not hold many surprises for anyone who has read any other books in this series (or in any other similar one), but Berry does a fine job of showing consequences. We get the feeling going forward that Malone and Vitt's ongoing relationship will have been irrevocably changed by what happens here and that may have a domino effect on his willingness to get involved in the future. Like Jack Bauer, soon to enjoy his own revival, though, we can be sure that Malone's adventures will not end here.

The Lincoln Myth is a historical thriller done right. While not holding many surprises, it does a great job of combining historical speculation with a taut action thriller, while not flinching from the relationships and characters that make the whole thing hold together. A true page-turner and a great book for the beach, it shows that Berry is still a master at this form and that there are still many ways in which he can make the Cotton Malone series work. I gave it 4 crazy angel-seeing killers out of 5.

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Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman

 

The children had never been this far from home before. Liv had spent most of yesterday driving around, hunting for no-mess Crayola coloring books, praying they weren't too juvenile to keep a six- and eight-year-old occupied in the car, then running up and down the supermarket aisles in search of bars and snack pouches in case they couldn't find food on the road. Or in case they did find something, and Paul wouldn't allow the kids to eat it.

Liv Daniels and her family leave on holiday for the first time in years on a trip to see her husband's parents. When they stop for the night in a hotel, everything seems to be going well. But when Liv wakes up the next morning, she finds her two children missing. The police are called and a search begins, but it soon becomes apparent that the person responsible may be closer than Liv thinks...

Ruin Falls showed up in a Most Anticipated Books column on one of my go-to blogs, and the atmospheric cover caught my attention. The blurb seemed to promise a tense thriller so I added it to my To Be Read list. When it showed up on Netgalley I requested it and was pleasantly surprised when it was accepted - one of the first ARCs I asked for and received! I decided to wait until shortly before the release date to read it and devoured it in a single day. Ruin Falls is a thriller novel done right and I loved it!

Set over a two week period, Ruin Falls tells the story of Liv Daniels. A mother, wife and business owner, she shares a farm with her professor husband and two children. Following her husband's eco-friendly lifestyle, they avoid consumer culture as much as possible. Leaving on vacation, Liv's world is torn apart by the disappearance of her children. But it is the identity of the kidnapper that really sends Liv reeling as she is forced to reexamine everything she thought she knew and every belief she held dear in the light of a horrendous betrayal.
I don't think I will give away any major spoilers if I reveal that the kidnapper is Liv's husband, Paul. The reveal itself happens very early in the novel, an  the true mystery is not who took the children but why and where he has taken them. The fact that Paul is the one to be behind the abduction allows Milchman to play around with the standard kidnapping storyline as the police relegate it to a domestic dispute, leaving Liv alone to try and recover her children.

Milchman does a fantastic job of creating tension - right from the first page we are dragged into Liv's frame of mind as more and more events ramp up her feeling that something is wrong. Even before we discover the kidnapping, Liv is stressed, convinced that something is wrong or about to happen. From an agressive truck driver to her son disappearing in a crowd, Liv is constantly on tenderhooks and so is the reader.

Having your children taken is any parent's ultimate nightmare and Milchman does a fantastic job of portraying that in Ruin Falls. That is made even worse by the aforementioned fact that the police will not do anything because the father is the one who has taken them. Liv's feeling of helplessness fills the pages and it is great to see her slowly gain the confidence she needs to save her children. She really develops through the course of the novel, and I loved the fact that despite the presence of a male character who assists her, at the end Liv is totally alone when it comes time to face the true villain of the piece.

Of the supporting characters, most are well developed, though unfortunately Paul comes across as a bit of a cipher whose aims and motivations are left quite fuzzy. His parents are much more interesting characters, and the truth about his past is done in a very nice way, keeping you guessing and putting together the various pieces all the way through. I would have liked there to be a little more closure to his storyline, though what does happen to him is definitely well deserved.

As I mentioned above, the conclusion is worthy of the build-up, pitting Liv against everything she has feared and forcing her to stand up and fight for her children. The book ends with a hopeful twist, though one that remains bittersweet when you consider the implications of everything that has happened.

Ruin Falls does not break any major ground when it comes to this kind of family-in-danger thriller, but it does do what it set out to extremely well. Edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting tension from the first page to the last, it is not the kind of book that I found myself laying aside without a tug of reluctance, wanting to read a little bit more to find out what would happen next or how a situation would resolve. The mystery was well done and did not ever feel drawn out, and the conclusion was worthy of everything that had been set up until then. I felt for and related to Liv and the other characters. At its heart, Ruin Falls is about motherhood and the lengths any of us (mothers or fathers) go to protect our children (although I have to admit that Dads do not come out of this one particularly well!) I will definitely be adding Jenny Milchman to my Must-Read List. I gave Ruin Falls 4 shoemaking psychopaths out of 5.

Ruin Falls will be released on April 22nd.

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From the Blogosphere:
Loveinwrittenword
Chorley Chronicals
A Garden Carried in the Pocket

From the Author's Mouth:
Interview carried out by fellow author Cynthia Lott

Eden in Winter by Richard North Patterson

 

For three days, Adam Blaine and his family had entered the Dukes County Courthouse, a modest two-storey brick structure with white trim and doors, and passed through a double door to a spiral staircase that rose the courtroom itself.

In the aftermath of his father's apparent suicide, Adam Blaine has taken it upon himself to hide the truth - that the man who raised him was in fact his uncle and that his real father is the murderer who pushed his own brother off a cliff. As he struggles to protect those he cares about from the fallout, Adam also begins a relationship with his dead father's mistress. With the police and a journalist closing in on the truth, though, it seems that his dead father's reach may extend beyond the grave...

Ever since I read Balance of Power back in the early 2000s, Richard North Patterson has been a writer whose books I devour as quickly as I can. Though many of his earlier works were more straight-up legal and political thrillers, in the past few years he has been releasing a loose trilogy that depart from his status quo. Called the Martha's Vineyard Trilogy and starting with Fall from Grace back in 2012, these three books are more literary than what Patterson has written up until now. Following the fates of the Blaine family and those they have affected, Patterson has slowly developed a family saga with complex characters and a tangled web of lies and betrayals.

Eden in Winter is the final book in the trilogy and returns to "modern" day after the flashback to the 1960s presented in Loss of Innocence. We find the Blaines caught up in the immediate aftermath of the events of the first book as Adam's "uncle" - his real father - and brother are called to court in order to give their versions of what happened the night Benjamin Blaine ended up at the bottom of a cliff on Martha's Vineyard. As their testimony is given, we see how Adam has been manipulating events in the background, giving us a glimpse into just how good Adam is at what he does. As the story progresses, we follow Adam's struggles with his own life, and see as he tries to change it. A large part of that change involves Carla, his father's mistress, pregnant with his child. What begins as Adam wanting to make sure that his baby cousin has a better life than he does turns into much more as he and Carla draw closer.

Adam as a character develops in some interesting ways throughout the novel and we get a front seat to that as a large part of his storyline is taken up with his discussions with a psychiatrist friend. Forced to look into his relationships with his parents, his brother, his lovers and his job as a CIA contractor in Afghanistan, Adam comes to some major realisations about what he wants out of life and most of the impetus that keeps the pages turning revolves around seeing how and if he will be able to make different decisions than his father did.
Patterson's writing is crisp and at times lyrical. The skills gained writing more thrilling material in the past transfer well, making sure that what is at its heart a character piece delving in to the complex relationships of this - admittedly screwed-up - family is also a page-turner. Being so heavily invested in these characters from the previous novels also helps, obviously.

The one negative is that the final resolutions are a tad pat, especially when it comes to the relationship between Adam and Carla. Although the set-up is such that the ending seems in a way logical, it also demands a suspension of belief on the part of the reader that what should be such a totally dysfunctional and even slightly twisted relationship should work. Patterson lays the ground work, though, especially thanks to Adam's conversations with the psychiatrist throughout the early chapters.

A family saga full to the brim with deceit and lies, Eden in Winter delves deep into the characters of the Blaine family and manages to create a page-turning yarn that is hard to put down. With hints of the political and legal thrillers that Patterson is well known for dribbled throughout, the book is a nice resolution to a departure trilogy for the writer. As usual, a great read that cements Patterson for me as a must-buy whenever he brings out a new book. I gave Eden in Winter 4 bodies at the bottom of a cliff out of 5.

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From the Blogosphere:
No reviews that I could find

From the Author's Mouth:
Interview and article for the Boston Globe

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

That Cheri Stoddard was found at all was the thing that set people on edge, even more so than the condition of her body. One Saturday in March, fog crept through the river valley and froze overnight. The morning sun crackled over a ghostly landscape across the road from my uncle’s general store, the burr oaks that leaned out over the banks of the North Fork River crystallized with a thick crust of hoarfrost. The tree nearest the road was dead, half-hollow, and it leaned farther than the rest, balanced at a precarious angle above the water. A trio of vultures roosted in the branches, according to Buddy Snell, a photographer for the Ozark County Record. Buddy snapped pictures of the tree, the stark contrast of black birds on white branches, for lack of anything better to print on the front page of the paper. It was eerie, he said. Haunting, almost. He moved closer, kneeling at the water’s edge to get a more interesting angle, and that was when he spied the long brown braid drifting in the shallows, barely visible among the stones. Then he saw Cheri’s head, snagged on a piece of driftwood: her freckled face, abbreviated nose, eyes spaced too wide to be pretty. Stuffed into the hollow of the tree were the rest of Cheri’s pieces, her skin etched with burns and amateur tattoos. Her flesh was unmarked when she disappeared, and I wondered if those new scars could explain what had happened to her, if they formed a cryptic map of the time she’d spent missing.

Two disappearances, a generation apart, linked together by one girl – sixteen-year old Lucy Dane. One was her mother, believed by many to be a witch, who just up and vanished one day when Lucy was a little girl. The other is a young slow-minded girl named Cheri who Lucy has befriended. Determined to figure out what happened to both of them, Lucy begins to uncover mysteries and secrets in the community of Henbane, some which she is not prepared to face...

The Weight of Blood came across my radar through a number of fellow bloggers – it has been mentioned and reviewed a lot recently, for very good reason! Compared in the blurb to Gillian Flynn, it is a very well-crafted mystery, but more than that it is a sharp-eyed commentary on life, family and the secrets we all carry around. After seeing the cover – which is fantastically evocative – and hearing all the good everyone was saying about it, I shot it to the top of my TBR list.

A key idea dealt with in The Weight of Blood is delivered towards the end of the book as Lucy talks to Ray the lawyer:

“You’ve got to be sure you can trust whomever you’re telling, that it won’t come back on you.”

“How can I be sure?” I asked.

“He smirked. “You can’t be, in Henbane.”

As Lucy investigates the disappearance of Cheri – and by extension that of her mother so many years earlier – we the reader realise just how true that last is. You can never be sure about anybody in Henbane. Neither can Lucy, which creates a lot of the tension in the book. Unsure who she can trust and who is telling her the truth, she finds herself delving into family secrets that will change her life forever.

Through a clever use of first and third-person narration, as well as a number of viewpoint characters which expands as the story progresses, Laura McHugh manages to weave a complex story of betrayal, murder and secrets through two timeframes. Overall, she pulls this off with brio, giving us the story of these characters a generation apart, teasing us with the past while she sets things up in the present, before providing the answer to a number of questions in a tense and breathless final few chapters.

The stakes for both Lucy and her mother grow as the story progresses. For Lucy, especially, she is forced to reimagine the family history she had always believed in, especially when it comes to her father and her uncle. The two brothers’ relationship is central to the book and Ms. McHugh does a great job of portraying them at different points in their lives while shedding light on just how far some people are willing to go for those they love.

Though few of the people we meet are necessarily likeable, nor the truths pleasant, it is impossible not to become enthralled and caught up in the town of Henbane and the secrets hidden there. Though the resolution of both mysteries do not hold many surprises, the revelations are handled deftly. More of a sweeping portrait than a true thriller, it was a great read that kept me hooked through to the end. I gave it 4 Old Scratch Caverns out of 5.

 

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From the Blogosphere:

Popcorn Reads

All Things E

The Writer's Forensics Blog

 

From the Author's Mouth:

Interview at Mysteries and Suspense