Barbara Jenkins: So long as It's Wild - Standing strong after my famous Walk across America, Dexterity Publishing, US, 9781947297739, hardbackm ebook available

Now this is quite a personal choice of a book and not for everyone.Barbara Jenkins walked with her husband Peter from 1976 until the end of 1978 from New Orleans to the coast of Oregon. Their walk was sponsored by National Geographic and I remember reading about them in their magazine, totally in awe and disbelief.

Barbara, now in her seventies, retraces the good and plenty of the bad of her epic walk after a road trip with her son Jedidah who is a writer himself. Born dirt poor into an Ozark hillbilly family, her thirst for education brought her to a Christian university in New Orleans where she met her husband, a celebritiy who had already walked there from the East Coast. Totally unfit,  freshly married, madly in love but not really knowing much about her husband, they set out, Barbara ignorant of nature's cruelty and her husbands expectations. She writes about the hardship of her journey, her disappointment in her marriage, the time after their walk and fame when Peter laps up all the fame and she is treated as a side line, about settling in Tennessee and having 3 children, their eventual separation  and rebuidling a new life with grit and determination. Barbara has the gift of a Southern storyteller and as someone who loves to hear about peoples unusual life stories,  I had great fun listening to her side of the story despite not sharing her southern christian beliefs. 

 Garry Disher: Day's End, 9781800817371, paperback, Viper, 9. August pub date

Garry Disher sits in a quality of his own as an Australian noir crime writer with my favourite character, Hirsch, at its center,  the only policeman on duty in a God foresaken place called Tiverton and an area to patrol that would make anyone in Europe go pale. 

The upcoming " Day's End" is the 4th in the Hirschhausen series which I have become addicted to,  but maybe because this is the third Aussie crime novel I have read lately with crystal meth dealers in its plots, this new "Hirsch" does not get my usual five stars simply because I found the story not completely tight and sometimes confusing.

Disher's  great writing is always a treat as is his ability to start the book with seemingly benign assignments, here driving an international visitor, Janne Van Sant, to her sons last employer before he disappeared, resulting in a whole firework of events. Disher is great when describing life in the outback, Hirsch's plight and emotions,  the strange and dangerous characters living in these place. Even if not 5 stars this time, always such captivating reading.

 D.V.Bishop: The Darkest Sin, 978152903842, Pan Macmillian, paperback 

Right after reading "City of Vengeance" I downloaded the ebook for the follow up, The Darkest Sin", which won the CWA Historical Dagger for 2023, featuring the wonderful Cesare Aldo, officer of the Otto, set in Renaissance Florence.

 Just as rich in atmosphere as the first book, Aldo gets entangled in solving a murder inside a convent. A naked man, stabbed multiple times, was discovered by a nun in the morning prompting an investigation by the Church  and Albo,  representing the city. He strongly contradicts the church officials conclusions and using a trick,  sets off on a path of investigating each nun as he firmly believes that one of the nuns is quilty of murder.  How the man got into the convent is another mystery.

Brilliant plot,  atmospheric and transporting you into the political mine field of Florence in the 16th century, I loved The Darkest Sin, almost as much as City of Vengeance.

 D.V.BISHOP: City of Vengeance, Pan Books, 9781529038798, paperback 

I really disappeared into the world of Florence anno 1536,  featuring a real dude,  Cesare Aldo, officer of the criminal court protecting the Duke of the House of Medici and seeing that justice is served to Florence's citizens. 

 Shortlisted for several historical crime awards, City of Vengance is a historical thriller I absolutely loved. The 400 something pages were gobbeled up, I was driven by an explosive plot,  poisonous, wicked characters around Aldo and the murder of a Jewish moneylender he was ordered to solve in 4 days.

The atmospherice setting in Renaissance Florence plus Aldo's secret passion gave this a special twist.  Ace read if you love historical novels set in Italy. 

I quickly downloaded the second book in the trilogy, The Darkest sin,  which did win the 2023 CWA Historical Dagger. Cannot wait to get started on Aldo's next adventure!

 Patricia Wolf: Outback, 9781471411700, Embla Books, Paperback , I read the ebook.

While waiting for the publication of the new Jane Harper: Exiles,  I discovered  Patricia Walker to satisfy my appetite for Australian noir crime writing and boy, does she deliver! 

"Outback" is set around DS Walker, who is taking time off from work to care for his dying grandmother, she lives in the Outback where she helped raise him. Walker is called in unexpectedly to investigate the disappearence of two German tourist, Rita and Berndt,  who vanished while on their way to work at a farm. He finds town folks less than cooperative  and only when Rita's older sister arrives, a police woman from Berlin, is there some movement in the case. Ds Walker suspects organized crime operation might be setting up a meth operation in this deserted area and that Berndt and Rita's disappearence is somehow connected.... 

I do not want to reveal more but this is dark,  really fast paced atmospheric  thriller which I devoured, not only for Jane Harper and Gary Disher fans. Ds Walker is a very likeable character,  I just downloaded her second novel, Paradise which features him this time of the Australian Gold Coast..

Femi Kayode: Gaslight, Bloomsbury, November pubdate, 9781526617637, hardback and available as ebook

Thanks to an early netgalley courtesy of Bloomsbury, I had great fun reading this mystery set in Nigeria, pointing a heavy finger at the corrupt evangelical churches which are huge in Africa and the US. 

The plot is almost a side issue but the atmospheric portrait of some key characters and life in Nigeria is what I found entertaining, mainly around Philip Taiwo, an investigative psychologist, his formidable wife, pastor Jeremiah Dawodu, head of a Nigerian mega church who becomes a chief suspect when his wife Folsade goes missing and is eventually found dead. The corrupt entourage around the bishop is heavily borrowed from real life TV churches. In the novel they are trying their best to keep Taiwo poking around to find the truth around Folsade's death. 

Definitely a mystery that stands out by its Nigerian setting alone.

 Nicola Williams: Until Proven Innocent, Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK, 9780241562710, 

Some books you start take a while before they really hook you. This was the case for me with "Until Proven Innocent" by Nicola Williams which begins with the shooting of Reverend Matthew's 15 year old innocent son Paul. Could he have been mistaken for his brother,  badass drug dealer Tony, who has enough enemies and a prison record ?  

The novel is an excellent build up to the court case against corrupt, racist police officer Lawrence who is accused of the near killing of the victim who remains brain dead on life support.

At first I was a little irritated but fascinated at the same time by how seemingly  disconnected each character enters the plot and slowly becomes part of the complete picture. I  especially liked barrister Lee Mitchell who of Carribean decent,  is  a  rising star in the law chambers until she is muscled into defending Lawrence whom she despises. I knew little about the British court system and learned quite a bit while turning the pages faster and faster until the novel climaxes with the actual trial.

How can a lawyer justly defend a client whom she despises is one of the main questions of the novel as is the situation of people of color in the British judicial system. 

Excellent mystery and characters, the author was a barrister herself and it shows in the quality of the novel.