Tag: book review

Book review: The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

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Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series are great for cozy crime aficionados who enjoy a good laugh. And I do love stories about seniors who not only don’t let age get in the way of a good time, but use it to their advantage to get the upper hand. The Bullet That Missed is book 3, following The Thursday Murder Club and The Man Who Died Twice.

If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.

Pensioners and amauteur detectives, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim take an interest in the case of television reporter Bethany Waites who’s car went over a cliff into the sea ten years earlier while she was investigating a tax fraud operation. Her body was never found, presumed consumed by creatures of the deep. The gang from Coopers Chase Retirement Village start to ingratiate themselves with people surrounding Bethany’s disappearance. Then their main suspect has a fatal incident with a pair of knitting needles.

Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been receiving mysterious and threatening text messages that lead to her being kidnapped by a man who calls himself Viking. Viking threatens to kill Joyce unless Elizabeth kills a former KGB chief called Viktor. He gives her two weeks.

Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

Will Elizabeth commit a murder, and can the Thursday Murder Club solve two murder cases?

People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

The Bullet that Missed is a witty whodunit full of twists and red herrings and delightful characters interspersed with some of the very real challenges of ageing such as how Elizabeth battles with her husbands advancing dementia, the importance of friendship, and love in later life.

It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?” says Viktor. “It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.

Book review: Silver by Chris Hammer

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When a book has a sequel, you can’t really just read one in the series…

Silver follows on from Chris Hammer’s Scrublands with protagonist Martin Scarsden. In Silver we pick up a few months later. Martin is in a relationship with Mandalay, the beautiful single mum who ran the bookshop in Riversend. Mandalay inherited a fortune, including a house in the town that Martin grew up in – Port Silver. Martin hasn’t returned to Port Silver since he left to become a journalist, and to escape his traumatic childhood.

For a moment Martin sees the two towns superimposed: the tough working-class community of his youth and the gentrified retirement village it is becoming. Some fairy godmother has visited in his absence, sprinkling the silver pixie dust of family trusts, self-managed superfunds and negative gearing, but sprinkling it unevenly.

Mandalay moves to Port Silver with her son while Martin is in Sydney finishing writing a book about his experience in Riversend. The day Martin arrives at Mandalay’s rental in Port Silver, he finds a man murdered on the entryway floor. The dead guy is an old friend of his from school, and he and Mandalay become suspects. Martin needs to solve the case to save Mandalay from suspicion.

Love ’em, look after ’em, support ’em. Set ’em straight when they need it. But don’t think you can change them. They’re who they always were. Simple as that.

As with the Hammer’s first novel, Silver has many interwoven and complex plots and themes (cults, real estate speculation, greed, corruption, drugs, class divides) and a caste of interesting three dimensional characters to keep the reader engaged. In Silver, the main character Martin also has some unresolved history to deal with, so there is plenty of high stakes emotion and drama.

Book review: Thorn In My Side by C.J. Skuse

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I did that thing I wouldn’t normally do…I dove right into the middle of a series. I have never ready C.J. Skuse before, but found their darkly humorous thriller, Thorn In My Side, uncomfortably hilarious and enthralling. And best of all, it didn’t matter that I have not read the first three books.

Rhiannon Lewis is a serial killer trying to live a quiet life. She had to change her identity (now known as Ophelia) and move to San Diego to escape the law in England. She left her daughter behind in England and has one clandestine phone call per month with her sister for updates on her daughters wellbeing.

The old Penny D has been a boon for a serial killer in hiding. Stay-at-home orders. Forced distancing. No meaningless conversations on dog walks. Face masks. Little did I know when I had facial reconstruction surgery that I’d pen the next year and a half behind a fucking mask but there you go.

Ophelia lives with her South American fiancee Raf who has a talent for taming her fiery temper, and she hasn’t killed anyone for more than 800 days (yes, she’s counting). Everyday she still thinks about killing and writes a list of the type of people she would target.

Her restraint eventually fails when her soon-to-be sister in-law calls her for help with her abusive ex. Before long she finds herself with more bodies on her hands, but after all, like Dexter, she only kills bad people. Meanwhile, Rhiannon struggles with the fact that her man, who she adores, and his family do not truly know her (not even her real name) and she want’s to be seen. But how do you tell your sweetheart that you are a serial killer?

One old fart’s petunias won’t grow, he digs a bit too deep to check for tree roots and hits a femur. And suddenly my name is everywhere again. There are debates about me on morning TV. Sales of Rhiannon T-shirts spike again. Overly woke TikTokkers with no discernible qualifications perform monologues telling ‘the kids’ not to obsess about murderers and to always choose kindness.

The story ends on a cliffhanger…

I enjoyed reading a thriller told from the point of view of a villain who manages to make the reader sympathetic to such incredibly anti-social behaviour, to the point where you can see the value in the service she is providing…bwahaha!

Book review: The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell

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If you’re a middle aged feminist (or you love a middle aged feminist) who relates to the concept of being invisible and you are looking for a light summer read, The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell could be for you. It’s a cracker of a yarn, and perfect for curling up on the sofa with on a wet summer afternoon.

Be a good listener. Don’t join a conversation merely to wait for your turn to speak or to offer advice. Joint to listen (from La Lista).

Freycinet Barnes is a woman with an unusual past who has eked out an idyllic, ordered middle class life in Tasmania with her successful husband and three children. One day after dropping her popular, award winning dancer daughter at the Derwent Dance Academy, she goes for a walk and distractedly steps off a curb into the path of a Fiat 500 occupied by Kyrie and Rosanna, two members of the Moonah Women’s Choir.

Frey gets up and puts the kettle on, washes a few dishes, then says, ‘I got hit by a car at low speed last week.’
‘How’d you go with that?’ Roger briefly scans his daughter for signs of injury.
‘Not bad. I jumped. It was a Fiat 500.’

Little does Freycinet realise that soon after she catches her husband in the embrace of another woman, these women will change her life forever. The Moonah Women’s choir are a motley band who love to sing. Each is drawn with wonderful characterisation that develops to its full potential over the course of the novel as they come fully into themselves.

Home is one thing, but only when you step out of it and see other places and other worlds will you know that home is everything (from La Lista).

There is Italian Rosanna, mother and wife who has a terminal illness and writes a list for those she is leaving behind (items from La Lista are scattered through the novel); Bizzy, the choir director and lifetime advocate and protester for just causes; Eleanor who is learning to feel emotions; Avni, who came to Australia as a refugee and writes beautiful music; Irene who sees and speaks to her dead husband; Quin, reformed criminal pregnant with triplets; and more. The main character, Freycinet, is of course full of surprises, but you’ll have to read the novel to find out about her secrets.

There are two things you need to know about women and you’ll be all set,’ says Roger. They wait as he pauses for effect. ‘She can eat your chips, but you can’t eat hers. Also, mark in your diary when her hormones are on the rise and set down eggshells for yourself. Hormones are a great, powerful mystery and you’d do well to do the washing up for them.’

The Angry Women’s Choir is a story about friendship, about not letting middle age put you into a box, about finding your inner voice and holding your own space. The novel is funny and heartfelt and quintessentially Tasmanian.

Before you give your heart away to anyone, make sure they are kind to animals and think first are funny (from La Lista).

Book review: The Maiden by Kate Foster

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In 1679, Lord James Forrester was stabbed to death beneath an old sycamore tree with his own sword. Lady Nimmo was beheaded for the crime, and is said to haunt the site of the deed.

In the end, it did not matter what I said at my trial. No one believed me.

Lord James Forrester of Corstorphine, a village on the outskirts of Edinburgh, was a womaniser, gambler and drinker, who hid his debauchery behind the veil of being a respectably married Presbyterian. Lady Christian Nimmo, niece of Lord Forrester, was said to be wild, impulsive, and passionate, and a woman with a ferocious temper. She was married to a respectable fabric merchant, but it was portrayed as a sexless union.

It is this story that Kate Foster’s debut historical fiction novel, The Maiden is based on. A Maiden, is the name of the guillontine-like execution device used to behead criminals at the time. Foster’s novel is a sympathetic exploration of what would drive a relatively privileged, intelligent, married young woman, to murder her lover (nowadays an uncle hitting on his niece would be sufficient, but back then its wasn’t unheard of to get together with a relative).

The story is narrated by Lady Nimmo and Forrester’s maid, Violet, who is also a sex worker. A young Violet was cut adrift after her family died and had to work in a brothel to survive. She was paid to spend a month living in luxury in a turret at Lord James castle in exchange for sex.

Foster does an excellent job of capturing the period – from the stench of the rat-ridden city streets, to the violent lives of prostitutes, the class divide, and the luxurious country lives of the wealthy. There is superstition, reputation destroying gossip, god of course, and repentance. You could even buy a mutton pie and watch a hanging, like olden day football entertainment.

Although I read avidly and wrote with flair, far exceeding the direction of the tutor who came to Roseburn, these assets were not considered to be as attractive as obedience or serenity or silence.

Personally I am surprised there were not a lot more murders like this given the way women were treated at the time. The Maiden is a gripping read and would make a great film.

Book Review: Scrublands By Chris Hammer

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Australian noir, Scrublands by Chris Hammer has one of the most compellingly visual openings of a crime fiction novel that I have read. A hot dry country town, a gathering Sunday congregation, and a murderous priest.

Byron Swift has changed into his robes, crucifix glinting as its catches the sun, and he’s carrying a gun, a high-powered hunting rifle with a scope. It makes no sense to Landers; he’s still confused as Swift raises the gun to his shoulder and calmly shoots Horrie Grosvenor from a distance of no more than fives metres.

Journalist Martin Scarsden visits Riversend a year after a mass killing. He’s been tasked with writing a human interest story on how the town is going in the aftermath of its young priest gunning down five men outside his church one Sunday. Scarsden had been a roaming journalist reporting on conflict zones until an incident in Gaza left him with PTSD. The assignment to Riversend is a chance to help him get out of the office and find his feet again.

Riversend is hot, dry and depressing. A dying town hiding a lot more than a murderous priest. Why did the priest who was popular with the local youth, police, and many of the locals murder all those men?

He looks up at the hotel; there is no sign of life. What must it be to live in this town? To be young and live in this town? Every day, the same stifling heat, the same inescapable familiarity, the same will-sapping predictability.

The stories Scarsden hears from the caste of cagey and eccentric locals don’t marry up the public narrative first reported about the incident. There is Mandalay, the beautiful single mum who runs the bookshop, the local copper and hero, Robbie, who killed the priest to end his killing spree, the wily old dero, Snouch who loiters in the shuttered up Wine Saloon, and Codger the old man living alone (and mostly naked) in the remote scrublands.

As Scarsden begins to unpack the story, and wrestle with his own demons, another tragedy strikes and masses of media descent on the town, throwing Scarsden into the spotlight. His reasons for finding out what really happened suddenly become very personal – his reputation depends on it.

Who knows what dark thoughts and obsessions can take hold in the small hours of the morning, when the mind chases itself down dark passageways and perspective is lost?

Scrublands has many complex, interwoven plot lines that make the reader think and keep them guessing, and Hammer’s attention to detail in building the world of Riversend is absorbing. Published in 2018, Scrublands won the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel. It is a compelling read and has recently been made into a series showing on STAN.

Book Review: The Philosopher’s Doll By Amanda Lohrey

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The Philosopher’s Doll by Amanda Lohrey is about domestic politics and conflict between the head and the heart. What happens when a woman’s biological clock is ticking and her partner is reluctant to commit to children?

I was fascinated by this novel, in part because I have never experienced the biological clock phenomenon, though I have been witness to it in friends. The Philosopher’s Doll delivers a deep three-dimensional dive into the inner thoughts of couples grappling with the issue.

Lindsay, a Melbourne philosophy academic and Kirsten, a counsellor are renovating their house. Their divergent priorities lead increasingly to arguments and perverse behaviours. He has other plans he wants to pursue, including completing the house renovations before committing to having children. He decides, without telling her, to buy Kirsten a puppy as a kind of substitute. Kirsten’s biological clock is getting louder, and after a drunken night of sex, she falls pregnant and finds herself with a conundrum. She is unable to tell Lindsay and unable to decide to terminate her pregnancy.

But now she is even more withdrawn from him, and has taken to compensating for her indecision with a series of ruthless fantasies. She will deliver an ultimatum and if he reacts badly, she will leave him. She will live somewhere in a small, light-filled apartment and it will just be the two of them, mother and child. The sperm has flown to the mark: the father has served his purpose and he can be dispensed with. These fantasies come to her like little jabs of false cognition, and then fade

As the story unfolds, Kristen and Lindsay reveal less and less of themselves to each other and more and more to the reader through their inner narratives. There is then an abrupt entrance of a third narrator some ten year later, Sonia, a student infatuated with Lindsay, who reveals what happened after the events, the decisions Lindsay and Kristen made, and who they became.

The Philosopher’s Doll is a rich, multi-layered dive into a very real life conundrum and how people grapple with very personal decisions when life throws them wildcards. Lohery is also author of The Labyrinth, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary award for fiction in 2021. Her writing is not light, but it is elegant and marked by profound characterisation and is beautifully meditative to listen to in audiobook form. Her work is born out of deep thought, clashing personal narratives, vexed choices, and meditations on the complexity of interpersonal relationships.

Harley Loco: A memoir of hard living, hair and post-punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side by Rayya Elias

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I read Harley Loco with my book group, and what a wild ride it was! Rayya Elias’s memoir is about migration, not fitting in, trauma, drugs, hair, music and survival.

Rayya Elias (1960-2018) is Syrian. She was born in Aleppo and grew up with three siblings in a big flat with French windows and marble halls. A couple of childhood accidents – one involving leaping from a wardrobe and her brother failing to catch her, and another where she broke her leg and was bed bound in traction for an extended period were shaping moments for her.

Pain makes you stronger, and nothing is too great for us to achieve.

Orthodox Christians, her family fled Syria as the Ba’ath party rose to power. They headed for the promised land, the USA, and went from being landowner farmers with a father who was treated like a king to being poor immigrants, where the only work her father could find was as a janitor.

One of the first photos I saw of myself was when I was about four or five years old. I was at my brother’s first communion party and I was singing for a table of archbishops and priests with a cookie in my hand…When I look at these pictures, I love myself, and I think I look perfect and adorable. These pictures spark memories of happiness and elation at all the attention I got for singing.

Rayya’s family socialised mainly within the Syrian community in Detroit, but she went to an American school, where, despite her best efforts to fit in and make friends, she was an outsider and mercilessly bullied. Her experiences changed her from being high spirited and fun to developing a tough exterior and taking drugs to numb her discomfort and grief, and because to begin with it felt like fun.

I learned from a very young age that life was chaotic, but if I could hold my breath long enough (even while kicking and screaming), and come up for air once in a while, they I would have the chance to fight for what I wanted or needed.

The drugs soon took hold, but Rayya also discovered she had a talent for cutting hair and making music and started to become successful at both after finding her tribe through those pursuits. She also discovered she preferred girls to boys, a more complex issue for her to grapple with – particularly given her cultural background and that she had a devoted boyfriend at the time.

I could be free. The edge on life that I’d been looking for all along could be mine now: my work, my goal, my pride, and my dream. It seemed easy and obvious and like the only conceivable choice. All I had to do was be clean, that was the edge.

Her first big female lover refused to choose her over a man, and Rayya’s path to self destruction was sealed. Her emotional void was filled with coke, casual sex, porn, crack and eventually heroin and it was not long before all her success in hairdressing and music started a backslide into theft, betrayal, hustling, drug dealing, homelessness, multiple arrests, and jail.

People talk about that moment of clarity for drug addicts. I sat there, in the pile of dirt and sweat I’d woken up in, and I cried. Unable to get up, unable even to turn off the hideous TV, I cried and cried, out of fear for myself and sadness at the mess I’d made of my life. There were no police, parents, rehabs, shrinks, friends, or lovers to tell me what was wrong with me. There was only a voice inside my head, first low and weak, but quickly gathering strength and conviction till it rumbled through me as powerfully as the call for heroin had the evening before. It said: Rayya, you don’t need to do this anymore. You can be free.

Her family never gave up on her, but multiple attempts at getting clean with violent withdrawals failed, until sobriety eventually prevailed. It was either that or die, and she figured given she had overdosed several times and survived, death could not come from drugs.

The calm and smooth ride of life, without all the peaks and valleys, is a goal I constantly strive for now. But back then, it felt unnatural.

English was no Elias’s first language. The writing of her memoir is sparse, frank and brutally honest. She paints herself frankly as she descended into a spiral of self destruction, self absorption and cruelty and she sucked others into her addiction. Harley Loco was uncomfortable to read, but ultimately triumphant as Rayya did escape addiction and find her way to a good life after drugs.

Book review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is an original, laugh out loud, keenly observant romp through through the world of sexism, discrimination and stereotypes of the late 50s and early 60s.

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun

The story opens in 1961 and is told (mostly) by the no-nonsense Elizabeth Zott, a quirky, self-assured pioneering chemist, feminist, cooking show host, mother of an illegitimate daughter, and a very intelligent and insightful dog.

I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.” “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?

Elizabeth Zott’s profession was as an unapologetically blunt and brilliant research chemist, but her career had been frustrated because a) she’s a woman b) she’s unapologetically independent c) she lives with the man she fell I love with (her soul mate) but refuses to marry him d) her lover dies and she bears his illegitimate child e) misogyny.

No surprise. Idiots make it into every company. They tend to interview well.

By an accident of fate she becomes the star host of television cooking show, Supper at Six, after the love of her life dies and she is fired from her job at the research institute. She decides to ignore the show’s producers and uses the platform to speak to millions of housewives about realising their own potential.

“I call this the ‘love at first sight’ bond because both parties are drawn to each other based solely on visual information: you like his smile, he likes your hair. But then you talk and discover he’s a closet Nazi and thinks women complain too much. Poof. Just like that the delicate bond is broken. That’s the hydrogen bond for you ladies — a chemical reminder that if things are too good to be true, they probably are.”

Lessons in Chemistry is brimming with idiosyncratic characters including Elizabeth’s soul mate, fellow scientist and Nobel-Prize nominated, grudge holding, orphaned, rower who doesn’t like rain, Calvin Evans; her highly inquisitive and intelligent daughter Mad Zott; their pooch, failed bomb disposal dog Six-Thirty; neighbour Harriet Sloane who hates her husband but holds out the hope of true love; and Walter Pine, TV producer and single father of Mad’s friend who steals her lunch.

Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change – and change is what we’re chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others’ opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future.

Garmus’s debut, Lessons in Chemistry covers serious themes with dark comedic grace and absurdity through a fresh lens. The novel won the Australian Book Industry Awards International book of the year. It was a joy to read and one of those rare books I couldn’t put down, and I love that Garmus was 65 when it was published – what an inspiration!

Book review: Sedating Elaine by Dawn Winter

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Sedating Elaine is a tale about broken hearts, bad decisions and unresolved childhood trauma told with dry, dark humour.

Young Londoner, Francis drinks and takes drugs to avoid her feelings, problems and a girlfriend she doesn’t really want. Inevitably the drugs become her problem when she finds herself in debt to her drug dealer for a lot of money she doesn’t have. Her job in a restaurant won’t raise what she needs before her dealer comes good on his threat and sends his debt collectors around to teach Francis a lesson.

This is the problem when a person makes everyone feel special; it means none of them are special.

Francis is still hung up on the last girlfriend who dumped her. She doesn’t particularly like her current sex crazed girlfriend Elaine who she picked up at a bar one night and has been hanging around ever since. But she asks Elaine to move in and pay rent so she can pay off her debt.

Francis was the sort of person who accumulated incredibly short, intense relationships that ended explosively, beyond repair, well beyond salvaging a friendship

When Elaine moves in with all her stuff and her noise, Francis starts to be driven mad. She craves quiet and alone time, so she decides to drug Elaine to keep her quiet until she’s paid her debt. Then she’ll dump her.

Elaine greeted her at the door wearing g a face of concern and nothing else.

The morally unhinged cringeworthy protagonist in Sedating Elaine will take you on an outrageous rollicking ride through her dysfunctional life. The debut novel was an easy, if uncomfortable read that had me laughing inappropriately all the way through.