9780349727202 Rebecca Makkai: I have some questions for you, Little Brown UK, Hardback

Right off the bat, Rebecca Makkai's  novel " The Great Believers" is an absolutely fabulous piece of literature, I loved it. Her latest " I have some questions for you" however did not have the same effect on me,  really struggled with it until the middle of the novel when the crime element gained dominance.  Did I expect too much from this novel? Maybe.  Mixing a campus with a crime novel has been done before, see Donna Tartt' s Secret History, but I felt Makkai's story and its character building too long drawn out with the added #Metoo movement mixed into it.

Bodie Kane, a film professor and podcaster, the narrator whose voice switches from the past to the present, has been invited to teach a course at  her old boarding school Granby. During one of her seminars a  female student decides to reinvestigate the murder of Bodie's classmate Thalia Keith, who was found brutally killed at Granby over 20 years ago confronting  Bodie with her miserable time back then becoming convinced that the wrong man was accused of the crime still serving time in prison.  It is when she decides to follow her own suspicions blending her present life with the past that the novel becomes really captivating and alive for me. 

 Jane Harper: Exiles, 9781529098440, Macmillan, hardback, ebook available, paperback September 2023

Jane Harper is an Australian crime writer whose new books I always look forward to.

 "Exiles" features Aaron Falk again, an investigator for the Melbourne financial police, this time on leave  visiting his best friend Raco in the Australian wine county for the christening of his godson. It also happens to be the one year anniversary of the disappearence of their friend Kim who uncharacteristically left her young baby unattended at a festival, never to be seen again.  While Aaron is having a fun time with the tight knit group of friends around Raco, both are drawn again to Kim's unresolved disappearence  involuntarily beginning their own investigation. 

Jane Harper has a subtle way of building her plots but I thought "Exiles" was too long drawn out before the novel starts to gather momentum and is not as strong as her previous Falk books. Still, the plot is solid, had a fine time being transported into the Australian wine country, particulary with Falk enjoying a personal stroke of luck this time.

Elizabeth Strout: Oh William, paperback, 9780812989441, Penguin Random House

( German " Oh William", Luchterhand Verlag)

Elizabeth Strout is a fabulous writer,  I greatly admire her work but i find her books sometimes downright depressing as she gets to the bottom of human struggles,  despair and emotions through her colorful characters. 

But " Oh William" which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 , I absolutely loved!  William is Lucy Barton's first husband, the father of her daughters, with whom she is still friends. William has just been left by his second wife and Lucy's beloved second husband has just passed away.

 Their shared loneliness intensifies their memories, thoughts and exchanges. It is an absolutely brilliant book, Lucy's voice so clear as she reflects on her past, upbringing and the failure of her marriage to William. I really felt for her, as she tries to makes sense of what shaped her life and her marriages.  Strout's writing is an absolute treat. 

Five stars from me !

 James Kestrel: Five Decembers, 9781789098679, paperback, Titan Publishing

" Five Decembers" by James Kestrel won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the reason it caught my attention. A gripping story set in war time Hawaii, Hongkong and Tokyo between 1941 -1945,  it is one of these good old fashioned crime novels reminding me a lot of Chandler or John D. Macdonald,  both writers I loved reading. So naturally I took to "Five Decembers" like a duck to water

 Joe McGrady is a Hawaii homicide detective who is assigned to a brutal killing of two young people, one the nephew of his boss. When the murder trail leads him on a chase through the Pacific islands, he  gets trapped in Hongkong and Tokyo just when Pearl Harbour is bombed. What follows is a fabulous story with many twists and turns which ticks all the right boxes, love, betrayal, imprisonment and revenge. Loved it. Perfect reading over New years. 

 Janice Hallett: The Appeal, Serpent Tail/Viper, 9781788165297

I always check the books listed for the CWA Dagger Awards and came across Janice Hallet's " The Appeal" which won the CWA New Blood Dagger Award 2022 , sounded really interesting

This is certainly a totally unique crime novel in the sense that it is written entirely as a sequence of emails and WhatsApp messages going back and force when law students Charlotte and Femi are assigned to this case by a law firm. In order to uncover what went wrong in the little town of Lower Lockwood and their alpha family the Haywards during a fund raising appeal for their sick grandchild leading eventually to murder,  they have to read previous emails of all the 15 people involved in this plot to get to the bottom of the murderer. 

I really struggled with this concept,  took me quite a while to warm to the concept but it never took. Another problem was that I really did not like any of the characters in the plot and the book has 432 pages! I finished anyway, the second half of the book saw me more engaged but this is definitely not my favourite mystery of the year. Apparently others see this differently which is part of the fun of reading, different strokes for different folks. 

 Joseph O'Connor:  My fathers House, 9871787300828, Penguin Random House, Harvill Secker, pub date: Jan 26, 2023

" Joseph O'Connor's : My fathers house " is one of these rare books that is literary, thriller and historical novel all in one,  based on a real life figure, Father Hugh ' O Flaherty, who was a priest in Vatican city with an Irish background. Set during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943, ( of which I had scant knowledge)  O' Flaherty set up a tight network of people from British diplomat,  Italian contessa, street vendor, nurses or ordinary people who helped Jews or escapees from prison camps to flee Italy via hiding them in Catholic institutions before an escape route could be found. Their hair raising dangerous missions of leading these groups to freedom while risking their own lives left me breathless at times. What human beings were capable of can be discovered between these 300 pages of this novel, be it the brutal reckless rule of SS Officer Hauptmann or the men and many women around O' Flaherty. Taking fictional liberties but based on true facts, this is a fantastic read, great writing and uplifting in the end.

 Ajay Chowdhury: The Detective, Harwill & Secker, 9781787303171 trade paperback , April 2023

Ever since reading the debut "The waiter" of the wonderfully entertaining Kamil Rahman detective series, I have become a fan of Ajay Chowdhury's writing. It has been such fun to read these three detective novels, featuring the demoted former Kalkotta detective Kamil in his new life as a cook and waiter in his friend Anjoli's Indian Restaurant in Brick Lane, London. Like a cat who cannot stop chasing mice, Kamil stumbles from one murder to another and resolves it in his unique way with Anjoli's unorthodox help. 

In " The Detective"  he has finally made it to detective with the British Met police and the plot is the best yet. One of the co-founders of a start up dealing with Artifical intelligence has been found murdered and Kamil is very  eager to show his worth to his superiors. Loved it, excellent mystery, cleverly constructed, gobbled it down.