Cara Hunter:  Into the Dark, Penguin Random House UK, 9780241283202, paperback,  Publication date: July 2018

 

 I read Cara Hunter’s “Close to Home” last year, the novel was chosen by the Richard and Judy book Club giving it a high popular rating. Her second novel due to be published in July was sent to me as a proof. Using the same set of Oxford detectives around DI Fawley , “Into the Dark” is even better than the first novel, superbly spun with many unexpected turns; I was completely hooked. A very fine, non bloody psychological thriller I can wholeheartedly recommend. 

A woman and child are discovered locked in a basement of a posh Oxford neighbourhood when a wall collapses that builders are trying to fix during renovation work on the house next door.  For the detectives involved, similarities to the Fritzl case in Austria immediately come to mind. The woman appears to have been held captive for some time and is in a very agitated state.  The little boy doesn't seem to be able to talk.  When the police arrive, they discover that the only person living in the house is an elderly academic who is in a state of neglect and seems to be suffering from dementia. Hardly the person capable of committing such a crime.

Cara Hunter is excellent in describing the detective’s step by step approach when trying to put pieces of the puzzle together. With the stress mounting in the team, all their character flaws are exposed.  Just when they believe to be close to solving the crime, previous theories start to collapse with newly discovered findings.  When the body of a missing female journalist who had been living around the corner from the crime scene is found in the garden shed, the case receives a new twist and they are forced to take a new look at suspects. I will not go into further details but some 400 pages later of this well-crafted psychological thriller the outcome is unexpected. 

Vesna Goldsworthy: Monsieur Ka, 9781784741181, hardcover, Chatto & Windus (Penguin Random House UK), pub date 22. February 2018

 

With her wonderful new novel “Monsieur Ka” Vesna Goldsworthy created an exceptional atmosphere reminding me so much of the underlying melancholies found running like a current through Russian classics. She is such a skillful writer. The idea to continue telling a story based on the Karenin family from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is exquisite and she pulls it off beautifully. “Monsieur Ka” is one of these quiet books I always longed to go back to, perfect storytelling.

It is the bitter cold winter of 1947 in post war London. Albertine Whitelaw, a young, newly wed Frenchwoman who met her husband Albie in Alexandria, is trying to feel at home in her cold Earls Court house while he is travelling on covert government business in Europe. Feeling even more lonely and estranged during Albie’s absence, she accepts a job as a companion to elderly Monsieur Carr, a Russian count whose son Alex is looking for someone who can converse and read French to his father after a stroke. Albertine soon discovers Count Carr to be none other than the son of Anna Karenina, Count Sergei Karenin. A deep friendship and trust develops between these unlike exiles and Alex Karenin’s family over the ensuing months which begin to have an effect on her life. As Count Karenin starts telling her about his dramatic life, Albertine decides to surprise him by chronicling his life in a book.

One feels like one is sitting right next to Albertine as she unravels her own life story and that of the Karenin family. An atmospheric literary page turner I greatly enjoyed.

Amy Bloom: White Houses, 9780812995664, Penguin Random House US, hardcover

Amy Bloom is such a fine writer, I never read anything by her before and was truly astonished at the quality of her writing.  A literary novel but a page turner at the same time is how I would describe her latest book centering on Eleanor Roosevelt’s suspected Lesbian liaison during her time in the White House with journalist Lorena Hickok. This was never confirmed, historians are split over the issue but Hickok was known to be a Lesbian and 3000 letters between the couple are part of the Roosevelt archives.

Lorena Hickok gives this exquisite novel her voice and what a voice it is. Her upbringing was truly a horrific one which left no room for sentiments. One of the most memorable passages of the book is her description of her childhood and coming of age. The book stays close to historical facts; Lorena became one of the best known female journalists of her time gathering many firsts.  When assigned to cover Franklin D Roosevelt’s election campaign, she meets Eleanor Roosevelt for the first time to do a portrait of the soon to be first wife.  Both women fall madly in love with each other and in the novel Lorena makes no bones about their love being a very physical one.  I was very moved by her description of their deep love and understanding during adverse times and circumstances lasting their entire life. 

This intimate, cracking novel of an unusual relationship with revealing juicy bits about the Franklin D Roosevelts household at the White House will probably appeal to women readers mostly. What could have easily become  a soapy, romantic story about Lesbian love by a less talented writer was turned into a delicate, intriguing literary novel by Amy Bloom. Superb.

Jane Harper: Force of Nature, 9781408711019, C format paperback, Little Brown, publication date February 1, 2018

Ever since reading the CWA Dagger Award winning novel “The Dry”, I am a big fan of Jane Harper. I was thrilled to be able to read her new novel “Force of Nature” before pub date February 1^st and boy, does this woman know how to spin a yarn! “Force of Nature” is just as gripping as “The Dry” and Aaron Falk, the very sympatico detective featured in The Dry, is making his reappearance.  I hope she continues the Aaron Falk series and might chose a case with more illegal financial transactions, Aarons special investigation skills. Not that I do not like her current novels set in the Australian bushland…..

 

Five women embark on a company sponsored team building trekking tour into the bushland not far outside Melbourne. When they reappear a few days later, one of them has gone missing and their world is upside down.

Alice Russel, a manager and troublemaker at work and in the hiking team, has disappeared in the Giralang Ranges.  Bree and Beth, the unlike twins, are battered and bruised, one of them suffering from a snake bike. Lauren, Alice’s old friend and Jill Bailey, co-owner of family owned Bailey Tennants, are unharmed but deeply shaken. Falk and his colleague Carmen Cooper are called into the investigation as Alice had been aiding their team as a whistle blower supplying information of supposed illegal financial irregularities within Bailey Tennants. Her last sign of life was an interupted call to Falk. 

What unfolds is a nail biting page turner of a thriller.  Harper unravels the story in two story lines. One follows the day by day events of the women’s hike and the other Falk’s and the search teams discoveries.  Until the very end several outcomes seem possible as to why and how Alice disappeared  and this suspense is kept up pretty much to the last pages.  A fantastic crime novel set in Australia from start to finish, I loved it!

Robert Harris: Munich, Hutchinson (Penguin Random House), 9780091959203, large format paperback

German Edition: München 1938,  Heyne Verlag, 9783453271432, gebunden

New titles by Robert Harris always land right at the top of the bestseller lists worldwide. Never having read one of his books, I was keen to try his latest book „ Munich” as it deals with an explosive period in Germany’s history before World War II.

The book is set during several fateful days in September 1938 when everything points towards war breaking out on the issue of the Sudetenland, then Czechoslovakia which the Germans want to annex by force.  Prime Minister Chamberlain is dead set to do everything in his power to avoid war and has managed to maneuver Hitler into agreeing to a meeting between the British, France and Italy.

Hugh Legat, one of Chamberlain’s private secretaries, is surprised to learn he is about to meet one of his former Oxford friends again. Paul Hartmann, now a German career diplomat in Berlin, has secretly joined the resistance movement despite being close to Hitler’s inner circle of staff.  Both men have not seen each other for several years and are harboring secrets of their own.  Their bilingual language skills have gained them enterance to be part of the support staff assisting Chamberlain, Hitler and high ranking government officials attending this historical gathering in Munich.

 

Very skillfully Harris weaves historical detail and fiction into a thriller.  Despite being aware of the historical outcome of the story, curiousness about the fate of Hugh Legat and Paul Hartmann makes one turn the pages faster especially towards the last third of the book. However, I personally prefer thriller writer Daniel Silva for this type of escapist reading .

Julian Barnes: The Only Story, 9781787330696, C format paperback, Cape/Penguin Random House UK, pub date: 1. February 2018

Julian Barnes, next to William Boyd, is a brilliant chronicler of conditions of the human heart and an acute observer of human failures. I always look forward to his new work.  His latest book, due for publication February 1^st, opens with this sentence: Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.

This line sets the tone for the next 224 pages where we become witness to Susan and Paul’s love story.  Paul, age nineteen, feeling bored during his semester break, decides to join the local tennis club and is paired off with Susan, age 48, to start in the doubles matches. What begins as a perfectly innocent encounter between a young man and what we today would refer to as a “cougar”, develops into a life changing relationship, both throwing caution to the wind.

It is the Fifties; Susan is trapped in a loveless marriage with Gordon Macleod and mother of two girls Paul’s age.  Despite their huge age difference, Paul and Susan are certain about the depth of their love and never doubt the seriousness of their feelings.  When Paul comes close to finishing his studies as a solicitor, they run off with each other to live together but the demands put on Paul as their relationship shifts are greater than he ever thought possible.  Barnes chronicles their relationship until Paul’s old age beyond Susan’s death.  The voice of Paul as a young and much older narrator looking back on a life lived is very moving and masterfully written.

One of the characters in the book I particularly adored is Joan, Susan’s best friend, whose dry sense of humor and no nonsense approach to life and her friend’s situation is only achieved by someone who has been beaten by life herself.

9780735218406 Chloe Benjamin:  The Immortalists, Putnam (Penguin Random House US), C format paperback in export markets, 9780735213180 hardback, pub date January 9^th, 2018

I just finished “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin, a 28 year old immensely gifted writer. How someone so young can write so brilliantly and wisely is really quite astonishing.  I absolutely loved this book.

What happens to your life and that of your 3 other siblings if a fortune teller reveals the date of your death while still quite young?  This is exactly what happens to the Gold children, Simon, Clara, Daniel and Varya, growing up in the Lower East Side of New York in the late sixties. 

These prophecies affect their lives deeply for the next five decades.  Simon escapes his Jewish controlling mother Gertie to the West Coast to become a dancer, hitting San Francisco’s gay scene just as the gay movement in the 1980’s erupts. Clara leaves with him to San Francisco to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a female magician.  Daniel is to become a medical doctor doing service in the Army and Varya choses a career in science doing longevity studies. 

 

One chapter is dedicated to each of them as the reader witnesses how their life paths is overshadowed by thinking they know the date of their deaths. I found the book at times heartbreaking and sad but also quite humorous and uplifting. How knowledge like this can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy is hardly surprising. 
 

"The Immortalist" is an incredibly well spun story and I would expect to see the book to become a word by mouth bestseller, a book club favorite,  hitting the NY Times Bestseller list hopefully. I love the beautiful cover design, hope it was kept from the proof I read.