Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims

Set in Tower Hamlets, a deprived borough of London, this novel centres around the fictional Banyan Court, a housing Tower Block built by the reclusive billionaire, Tobias Fell. The block towers over the neighbouring streets and is home to middle-class residents who can afford its units, with a social housing annexe hidden around the back and made of substandard materials for poorer occupants.

Fell has made his fortune through various nefarious and immoral dealings (show me a billionaire who hasn’t?) but has managed to cover the extent of his rotten affairs with a mixture of litigation, intimidation, and charitable spending (again, not uncommon in the billionaire class). In his twilight years, he has retired to his penthouse and is now rarely, if ever, seen. A selection of residents in the tower, and its poor annexe, receive invitations out of the blue to a dinner party he is giving in the penthouse and this is the culmination of the story. Before that, we are introduced to each character.

What I really liked about this novel is that it is in effect a series of interconnected short stories, each long chapter focusing on a different character, introducing us to their lives, revealing how they discover the tower’s spooky and supernatural secrets and concluding with them receiving their invitation from Fell. Each character has little choice but to attend the party by the end of their individual story, whatever misgivings they might have (some do, some don’t), as whatever it is that inhabits the fabric of the building has reached out and irrevocably touched them. I’m not giving away any spoilers by saying the concluding chapters focus on the dinner party itself, we finally discover what is behind all the hauntings, and why these guests have been invited by Fell. 

This is a great modern ghost/horror story and as well as doing what such a story is designed to do - give us the creeps and scares - there’s a fair bit of social commentary running through in the background. Anyone who’s lived in London, or indeed any big metropolis, will be familiar with issues surrounding housing and affordability. Similarly, billionaires and oligarchs and disparities of wealth are regularly in the news. None of this is laid on too thick, however, and at no point does the author preach; instead, the social commentary is expertly weaved through the horror narrative.   

An excellent novel and highly recommended.

4 out of 5 stars 

 

The Package by Sebastian Fitzek

 

Dr Emma Stein is a psychiatrist and is at a conference where she’s raped by a serial killer known as “The Hairdresser” because he shaves the victims’ heads. Unlike his other victims, all sex workers, he doesn’t kill Emma but leaves her alive. She’s deeply traumatised and turns into a recluse. Her husband, a criminal profiler in the German police, secures their property with locks and gates and she spends her days and nights frightened by every noise or shadow. One day a package is delivered for a neighbour whose name she doesn’t recognise and so is set in motion a series of events that will bring to a conclusion the trauma of her rape and that of her abusive childhood.

 

Go online and read reviews of The Package by Sebastian Fitzek, one of Germany’s most successful crime novelists, and you will find it divides people. Some love this book, and some hate it. Those that hate it often complain of how unrealistic the plot is. Those who love it, some of them anyway, concede this but say you just have to suspend disbelief. 

 

I’m with the lovers. This is a madcap ride of a book and an absolute page-turner of a novel. Is it completely unrealistic? Hell, yes. The plot has so many holes you could drive a truck through. But it becomes apparent quite quickly that the author doesn’t care, he’s not after realism, he’s just looking to entertain his readers, and entertain them he does. This is my first Sebastian Fitzelf novel, I’ve not read him before (though I have another novel of his, Passenger 23, courtesy of NetGalley, and ready to go) so I don’t know if this is usual for him at all. But I loved this book.

 

Absolutely bonkers and a hell of a read, I recommend this to anyone who can suspend disbelief and just go with the ride.

 

4 out of 5 stars 

The Stranger by Simon Conway

 

Set in the continuing tumult of the Syrian conflict and the mayhem wrought by ISIS, this novel follows MI6 officer, Jude Lyon, as he hunts for a secretive, almost mythical, terrorist who’s skilled with explosives. The man, known only as The Stranger, is believed to have escaped Syrian government custody and is on his way to the UK to wreak his revenge after the UK authorities helped to have him kidnapped and imprisoned for torture. But is the man they believe to be The Stranger even him? Or might he be a cut-out for the real bomber?

 

Simon Conway is in my opinion one of the best contemporary thriller writers. But he’s criminally underrated and I rarely see his books mentioned. This is a real shame because all of the books of his that I’ve read have been fantastic and The Stranger is no different. Recently I spoke to a literary agent who told me that in his opinion there are too many books on the market that feature Islamic fundamentalism, and I agree with that assessment. Like the Russians during the Cold War, al Qaeda and ISIS are all-too-often the go-to baddies in fiction, and many of the works that feature them are run of the mill. But equally, it would be terrible if this novel was caught up in that dismissal, for it stands head and shoulders above the competition.

 

The Stranger is brilliantly told and brought to life and has an original plot which I won’t reveal here for risk of spoilers. Needless to say, it will do nothing for one’s faith in the intelligence services, not a surprise in a post-dodgy dossier world.  But the malfeasance and double-dealing of the intelligence chiefs in this novel rival that infamous example, and unfortunately, are all too believable.

 

What really sets The Stranger apart is the namesake villain. He’s a chilling creation and steals the show. While Conway’s protagonist, MI6 man Jude Lyon, is compelling enough, he can’t help but be overshadowed by his antagonist. If I have once minor criticism, it’s The Stranger's sexual deviancy, which he indulges in with a female acolyte who’s obsessed with him. There’s nothing graphic about it, the author doesn’t dwell on it at all, but I found this strand unnecessary and at danger of making him into a pantomime villain. But luckily Conway doesn’t linger on this and thus it doesn’t spoil what is otherwise an excellent portrayal of a terrifying adversary.

 

The Stranger is a really good book and I really hope this brings the author to more reader’s attention.

 

4 out of 5 stars

The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson

 

Miranda Crabtree is a young girl who lives with her father in the Arkansas bayou. They ferry a witch named Iskra around and she performs midwifery duties for local people. One day the witch performs such services for a dictatorial preacher, Billy Cotton, who leads his flock like a cult. Cotton’s wife gives birth to a deformed child with webbed feet and has died in childbirth. When Cotton tries to kill the child, Iskra saves him and they take the child to a mysterious island. Here Iskra and Miranda’s father take the child into the woods and when Miranda follows, she finds the child but not her father, who has been killed.

 

Miranda raises the child on her own and ten years later is employed running dope by Cotton and a corrupt cop, Charlie Riddle. But Cotton’s flock has deserted him and he’s dying of cancer. He’s addled by the guilt of his wife dying in childbirth and needs a sacrifice. So, one day, Miranda arrives to pick up dope but the traffickers have something very different: a young girl. She refuses and takes the girl home, even though she knows that Cotton and Riddle will come looking for her, and when they do, Cotton might discover that his son is in fact not dead.

 

The Boatman’s Daughter is a fantastic novel that pulses with atmosphere and a slice of Southern Gothic that masterfully mixes horror with crime fiction. This is a book that seamlessly blends magic and mythology and blood sacrifice with corruption and the evil that men do. The bayou the author conjures is both a brutal and beautiful landscape, populated by (mostly) brutal people. This is a place far out of the reach of the authorities, and those that are present are corrupt and dangerous, as Charlie Riddle – who along with the other authority figure, Billy Cotton, is one of the major antagonists are testament.

 

This is the author’s second novel and the first book of his that I’ve read. It won’t be my last as this is highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars  

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

 

Lewis, Gabe, Cass and Ricky are four friends. They’re Native Americans of the Blackfeet tribe and were raised on a reservation. One day they go out on an illegal elk hunt and slaughter a large number of elk. This is an event that will haunt them, quite literally.

 

Ten years later and something is haunting the quad. A spirit – a woman with an elk head – and it wants revenge. Ricky is the first. In a prologue, he is attacked in the car park of a bar and tries to defend himself with a wrench, damaging several trucks in the process. In modern America, Native Americans face racial violence, and when the elk woman vanishes, he faces the wrath of the truckers who beat him to death.

 

The elk woman now stalks the other three and where this book excels is how the author shows it slowly driving them mad. Without giving spoilers, the most shocking and compelling part of the novel for me is the part which deals with Lewis. He’s escaped the reservation and is married to a white woman. But is she the elk woman? Has it possessed her? Or perhaps it’s the crow Indian who he works with and who flirts with him?

 

Later the vengeful spirit pursues the last of the two, Gabe and Cass. Both have moved on with their lives, Cass having settled down with a woman he hopes to marry and Gabe with a daughter who’s a talented basketball player. The reader knows that the elk spirit will try to kill the men, but the tension is heightened by who she might take down with them.

 

This is a fantastically written novel and as well as horror, it examines the Native American experience. The author, Stephen Graham Jones, is himself a Blackfeet Native American and it comes across, this being a novel written with real heart. This is the first novel by the author I’ve read, but certainly won’t be my last.

 

4 out of 5 stars

Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze

 

Snoopz is young man from a polish family living in London. His twin brother is an accomplished musician, his father a cartoonist, but he has been drawn to a life of violence and crime in inner-city London. Hanging out with kids from a nearby estate he smokes drugs and commits violent street robberies. The novel opens with a violent and vicious robbery of a woman on the street. All the while though, he’s also studying for an English degree and the violence and thuggery is interspersed with descriptions of seminars and lectures.

 

The author, Gabriel Krauze, was himself engaged in this life, indeed this is clearly a very thinly disguised memoir, there being many similarities between Snoopz and himself, and this lends the text a certain credibility. 

 

One thing of note is gangs are rarely mentioned and Snoopz himself appears to have no particular affiliation. Gangs are constantly in the news at the moment, yet recently I met someone who works in prisons who told me that their prevalence is exaggerated, that often police claim offenders are part of a gang as they know it plays well with juries, but really it’s just a  group of mates. That certainly seems the case here, Snoopz and his friend just rob people for money and smoke drugs together and are not part of any wider criminal enterprise.

 

The best element of this novel is the juxtaposition between the protagonist’s English studies and his criminality. In particular he takes Nietzsche’s work to heart, the philosopher’s writings on morality justifying the criminality and violence he commits against others. When he discusses morality with a seminar group it really is quite chilling, for we the reader knows his secret, that this isn't just an academic exercise for him.

 

In many ways Who They Was is a very nihilistic novel. While there is a character arc in that the protagonist grows out of crime, there’s no regret or remorse for what he’s done. In many ways this reminded me of Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange (the novel, not the film), the protagonist of which never really comes to feel any contrition. This in itself is unsettling, though perhaps honest. In fiction we’re led to belief that people who commit crimes face comeuppance, or at least feel shame, but in reality, it’s as likely that just as many don’t.

 

Who They Was is a disconcerting and challenging novel and one that’s well worth a read.

 

4 out of 5 stars

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong

 

Azzy Williams is a young teenager in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It’s a deprived part of the country, where kids are dragged into a senseless postcode gang conflict that has simmered for generations. On one side there is the Young Team, to which Azzy is affiliated, on the other is The Toi and their young counterparts, the Young Toi. 

 

This novel is roughly split into three parts. It starts with Azzy as fourteen and we find him drinking and smoking cannabis and fighting alongside the Young Team. Then we meet him at seventeen and he’s spiralling out of control, the doubts settling in. Finally, he’s twenty-one and is desperate to get out of the life, but with enemies closing in.

 

This is a novel that is very reminiscent of the best of Irvine Welsh, and I’m not just saying that because it’s written in the authentic slang of the region. Rather it brings to a wide readership a world that is rarely seen. White working-class youth, the poverty and deprivation they experience, the alcohol and drug dependency they fall into and the violence they face, is an issue that is depicted in fiction infrequently, certainly in books which receive a wide readership. 

 

What struck me most about this story is the utter pointlessness of the violence between the Young Team and their rivals. While gangsters and drug dealers appear in the book towards the end, the violence the two gangs participate in is nothing to do with this, but rather all to do with geographics. Needless to say, there’s nothing to be gained from their territorial disputes, they’re not fighting over resources and it’s completely without meaning. It's all just something that has been passed down to them through the ages, which is something that Azzy comes to realise. Nor is there an end in sight, as even as Azzy and his surviving friends look for escape, a new generation waits in the wings to continue the war.

 

Based on the author’s real experiences, this is a great debut novel with real heart and one that is highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars

Turncoat by Anthony J Quin

 

Northern Ireland, 1994, and it’s the tail-end of the Troubles, the long conflict winding down. But that doesn’t mean the violence is over and Detective Desmond Maguire is the sole survivor of a squad of police ambushed after a botched sting. The sting was set up on the word of an informant, known as Ruby, but Ruby has now disappeared. Knowing he’s under suspicion, Maguire goes in search of the informant, a pursuit that leads him to the island of Lough Derg and the community of pilgrims who call it home.

 

I really enjoy books set in Ireland during the Troubles as it’s a historical conflict that interests me. My family come from Ireland and as a current affairs journalist I worked on many stories that covered aspects of the conflict. A number of writers have set stories in the period, not least Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series, Stuart Neville’s various titles, Anna Burns’ Milkman, David Keenan’s For The Good Times and Michael Hughes’ Country.

 

Turncoat doesn’t disappoint and is set to join the canon of really good novels that explore this conflict and its legacy. Like Adrian McKinty’s character Sean Duffy, the protagonist in this tale, Detective Desmond Maguire, is a Catholic in a still predominantly Protestant police force. Sectarianism remains an ugly fact of life in Northern Ireland (though not nearly as bad as in the past) and this is a factor that complicates Maguire’s efforts to prove his innocence.

 

Much of the novel takes place on Lough Derg and in some ways this novel reminded me of stories like The Wicker Man. Though this novel doesn’t deal with pagan sacrifices and other such supernatural phenomena, Maguire is an outsider in an isolated setting and amongst a community of believers.

 

This is a really good novel, very atmospheric, and highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars

Play The Red Queen by Juris Jurjevics

Vietnam, 1963, a female Viet Cong assassin is gunning down US servicemen on the streets of Saigon. Firing from a moving scooter and at some distance, she demonstrates remarkable skill and accuracy with a pistol and has disappeared into traffic before anyone has any chance to react. Tasked with hunting the Red Queen down and bringing her string of killings to an end are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two US army investigators.

 

The Vietnam War is a conflict that has produced a large canon of literature and movies. I chanced upon a previous novel by the author, Juris Jurjevics, completely by chance and loved it. Red Flags told the story of a US army investigator who happened upon corruption amongst Green Berets advising Montagnards and South Vietnamese government officials and it was a brilliant book, so I couldn’t wait to read this. 

 

Once again, corruption is the real villain in this novel, and as Miser and Robeson investigate the Red Queen murders they discover just how venal the South Vietnamese state really is. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the author himself served in the Vietnam War and was a US Army investigator, and as corruption is the focus of both his Vietnam novels (he also wrote one non-Vietnam novel) I can only assume that this was something he discovered in real life.

 

I really wanted to like Play The Red Queen, because as I say, I loved Red Flags. Alas, while this title was good, I didn’t feel it had the magic of the previous title. Red Flags explored a little told story – the Green Beret units who mentored ethnic Montagnard soldiers and were stationed in remote outposts – and it had a real atmosphere, and the stakes were high. While Play The Red Queen does a good job with its Saigon setting it just can’t compete with the author’s previous title.

 

That said, this remains a strong title and is well worth a read.

 

3 out of 5 stars 

 

Baghdad Central by Elliott Colla

Baghdad, September 2003 and the city, and Iraq itself, is in a mess. The US occupation is incompetent and in the grip of self-delusion, and having abolished the Iraqi army, facing a growing insurgency. Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is a mid-level police officer who deserted his post after the invasion. After he’s picked up by US forces who mistake him for a wanted Baathist, the coalition authorities learn of his real identity and his skill with archives and data analysis. 

On that basis, he’s hired to help recruit a new police force, his task to go through the personnel files of the old Iraqi police forces and decide who can be trusted by the Americans and might be willing to work for them. In return, his daughter who has a kidney condition, is offered treatment. While going about his tasks, al-Khafaji learns that a number of female interpreters have gone missing, including his niece. This leads him to investigate and discover a disturbing plot. 

I really wanted to like this book, having heard so much about it and seen that there was a highly regarded television adaptation (which I’m yet to see). And there is much to like about this novel, but equally there’s much to be infuriated by, though this could just be my perspective. 

Where this novel is strongest is in the general atmosphere it portrays and how it perfectly encapsulates the utter ludicrousness of the occupation. I've never been to Iraq, but during the war I worked in current affairs journalism. While I never went to Iraq myself, I knew, and spoke with, many journalists who did. Everything I’ve been told leads me to believe that this novel is spot on, and that the situation was tragically farcical. 

But this is a meandering novel and the plot never really goes anywhere. Even the main story of the female interpreters who go missing is vague and the author’s heart doesn’t really appear to be in telling it. This is a pity, because at heart the plot had strong potential. The protagonist loves poetry, and poems and poetry appear throughout the text, but to me this just further slowed things down. 

All in all, this is a good novel. Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is an interesting character, as are many of the supporting cast, particularly some of the clueless Americans. The portrayal of Baghdad and the occupation is excellent. But the plot really should have been tighter.

3 out of 5 stars

Ghoster by Jason Arnopp

 

I recently signed with a literary agent for my own writing, and after reading my submission, my agent told me my writing style reminded her of this book. I had heard of this novel and seen the buzz surrounding it but had yet to read it. Seeing as my agent brought it up, I thought I ought to read it.

 

Ghosting, where someone ceases all communication with somebody, stops replying to their messages, perhaps even deletes them or blocks them on social media, and all without any explanation, is a product of the social media age. Kate Collins has been ghosted. She’s met Scott Palmer, seemingly the man of her dreams, and after a whirlwind romance she’s agreed to move in with him. But he ghosts her and right before she’s due to move in. 

 

Kate drives down from Leeds to Brighton anyway but finds his flat completely empty, stripped of all furniture and belongings, the only thing being his phone. When she manages to figure out his password and get access to the phone, she finds all manner of disturbing content and disconcerting messages. Then there are the strange whispering phone calls from numbers and people she doesn’t know. And just what is causing the gouges on the inside of the front door?

 

Ghoster is a supernatural chiller for the modern age. This s a brilliant novel, fantastically plotted and written. Kate is a sympathetic and compelling character, while the supporting cast is strong too. This is the first novel by the author that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last and I’m going to have to dig out his back catalogue. 

 

As said at the outset of this review, I read this title after my literary agent mentioned him. I just hope that I can write as well as him because he’s set a high benchmark!

 

5 out of 5 stars

The Last Resort by Susi Holliday

 

A new luxury retreat operated by Timeo, a mysterious tech company, invites a group of strangers for an all-expenses paid trip to try it out. They’re a disparate bunch, each seemingly selected for a different purpose (a social media influencer, a games designer, etc) and they’ve each been lured by an email that demonstrates the company knows a lot about them and promises them great things, though they’ve been forbidden from telling each other what exactly they’ve been promised.

 

Amelia, the main protagonist, is the odd one out. An aid worker, it’s not clear what she brings to the table. Similarly, when they’re all fitted with devices attached to their skulls which tap into their brainwaves, hers won’t work and she has to wear a less effective bio-sensor that’s worn around the wrist like a watch.

 

The head attched devices are the cause of trouble, for they soon start projecting the wearer’s deepest secrets for all the group to see. It soon transpires that each member of the party has a shameful past and the disgusted reaction each feels towards the others sows division. Amelia also falls under suspicion, for how come she got out of wearing one?

 

There are a number of books coming to market at the moment where a group of friends or strangers find themselves marooned or isolated somewhere and discover they have secrets. Susi Holliday’s novel is part of this trend, though it has a unique spin, being a genre crossover between speculative sci-fi and crime. The Last Resort is a kind of Black Mirror-esque tale where the implications of real-world tech that is in development (bio-sensors and efforts to read brainwaves are being worked on) is imagined and given a dystopian treatment. 

 

Holliday has written a really good thriller here that’s very readable and a real page-turner. It’s well plotted and despite their pasts and the things they’ve done, I found the characters relatable, the author making even those that had done the most appalling things all too human. 

 

5 out of 5 stars

The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton

I’m not a massive horror reader, preferring the crime and thriller genre, but I dip my reading toe in every now and again. Graham Masterton is a prolific author whose name I’ve seen a lot, he’s written a lot of books, but who I’ve never read. I decided to give this one a go, quite on a whim, and I have to say I’ve not been disappointed.

 

Allhallows Hall, a rambling Tudor mansion on the edge of Dartmoor, is owned by Herbert Russell, the retired governor of Dartmoor Prison. After he’s murdered, his estranged children and their partners return for the will reading. They soon learn that the house has been left in trust to young Timmy, Herbert Russell’s grandson (and the son of his least favourite son), and the only child present. This obviously causes friction with Herbert’s other children. 

 

When Timmy goes missing this is just the first in a long line of events that soon reveals the house not to be what they thought, and that Herbert’s death was not a simple murder. Strange whisperings, the characters pushed and shoved by invisible people is just the start, soon other’s in their party go missing, and even people trying to assist them.

 

A House of a Hundred Whispers is not a gory or violent novel, well apart from two very gory scenes towards the end, which are also incredibly imaginative in how the victims meet their ends. From what I understand, Masterton can do blood and gore with the best of them (as he demonstrates with the two examples mentioned), but this is much more a supernatural chiller than a gore-fest. I wouldn’t even say it’s particularly frightening. But that shouldn’t put readers off, because it’s a supernatural tale well told which compels you to turn the pages and handles it’s competing elements well. And there’s a lot of elements here: ghosts, witches, demons, spells and lots of local folklore.

 

4 out of 5 stars

Voodoo Heart by John Everson

 

All across New Orleans, on one night each month, people are being snatched from their beds, their hearts left on their bloody sheets. Their family and loved ones are at a loss to explain how it happened right under their noses; even partners sleeping next to the victims aren’t woken when the victims are stolen away into the night.  Detective Lawrence Ribaud’s wife is one such victim and this makes the investigation very personal to him.

 

It soon transpires that the disappearances are occurring on the night of the full moon and that voodoo, or at least a belief in voodoo, is in play. Ribaud is a cynic and doesn’t believe in the power of voodoo, but many of the people he interacts with do and as the investigation unfolds, he finds his scepticism challenged.

 

Voodoo Heart is an excellent book. It has a great sense of place and while I’ve never been to New Orleans myself, the author appears to know the city well; I really enjoyed how he took us behind the touristy kitsch that most visitors will only see. It is also full of a creepy atmosphere and is not for the feint hearted. Ribaud comes across some horrific things in this novel and there’s a lot of blood and guts.

 

If I have one criticism of Voodoo Heart, it’s that Ribaud’s police colleagues never mention his wife. This is a man whose wife is a victim of these horrific crimes, yet none of his colleagues, nor his boss, ask once about his wellbeing. No one asks how he’s holding up. And would he even be allowed to work the case, seeing as he’s so personally invested and thus maybe not thinking straight? Again, this is never addressed.

 

That said, this is a really good slice of Southern Gothic horror and is well worth a read.

4 out of 5 stars

Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow

 

Masha Maximow is a hacker in the employ of Xoth Intelligence, an InfoSec company that sells its services to the highest bidder. The novel opens with her posted to the fictional country of "Slovstakia" (which could be any number ex-soviet republics, perhaps one of the Stans in Central Asia, or an Eastern European or Baltic nation) where she helps its corrupt government with surveillance tech to crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. She has a conscience though and has befriended some of the protestors on the side to try and help them, but her efforts are no match for Zoth and the day job. 

After her employers discover her moonlighting and she’s fired, she returns to the United States where she rejoins childhood friends who are protesting against oppressive policing in California. Here a previous employer, Zyz, forces her to work for them to suppress the protestors. Through chapters that flashback we learn how Maximow was first employed by Zyz to work in Iraq using her hacking and surveillance tech against insurgents. She was then recruited by Zoth. We learn too, of all the compromises that she has made down the years. 

This is the third book in a loose trilogy (though it stands alone, and you don’t have to have read the previous titles to read this), each focusing on tech and oppression, and on the protestors who try to fight it. It’s marketed as science fiction/speculative fiction, but it’s very much near-sci-fi; in fact, I think the genre is misleading, much of what’s included in the book is already current as any reading of the Snowden revelations would reveal. 

This is a book that is very heavy on the technical detail, however, and the author is keen to show exactly how realistic the events he depicts are. Unfortunately, I thought this dense knowledge was too much and the book often got bogged down under the weight of it. The book felt far too long as well, the author cramming much too much in one title. 

That all said, I was never tempted to stop reading and this is a compelling story with an interesting character arc. The reader never look at their phone in the same light, either. We all know that smartphones can be used to track us, and Attack Surface really brings this home. It also proves the lie to those who say “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” and those who believe that the loss of privacy that social media has ushered in is no big thing.

3 out of 5 stars

Stone Cold Trouble by Amer Anwar

 

This is the long-awaited sequel to the author’s debut Brothers in Blood, an impressive novel that made a well-deserved impact on the crime fiction landscape. We’re back with Zaq and his best mate Jags in Southall, and once more this is a tale populated by the West London neighbourhood's less respectable inhabitants.

Stone Cold Trouble starts off with Zaq still in the employ of the timber yard owned by the Brar family, this despite the fact that in the previous novel he went toe-to-toe with the Brar sons, both local thugs. Zaq outwitted them and they now languish as guests of Her Majesty’s Pleasure, but luckily for him, their father is blissfully unaware of his role in his sons’ incarceration, and so he still has a job.

Trouble for Zaq this time occurs on two fronts. First, his brother Tariq is beaten into a coma, and second Jags uncle loses a valuable necklace in a game of poker. Zaq investigates who beat up Tariq fearing it’s any number of people he crossed in book one, while he and Jags try and recover the necklace. Needless to say, it isn’t long before they end up in all kinds of trouble. As mentioned, and being a crime thriller, the two friends soon cross a new selection of unsavoury characters and some of the bad guys in Stone Cold Trouble are truly unpleasant people who consider themselves above the law. 

Stone Cold Trouble is a great novel, albeit a little slower to get going than Brothers in Blood. This reflects the storyline well though as Zaq is both worried about his brother and also has very little to go on in his investigations. The climactic last third is really very tense and by then the reader has discovered just how repellent those our heroes are up against really are.

As with the first book, this is a well-plotted crime novel with compelling characterisation, and as with book one, there are a number of hints of where things might go next. As the series progresses Zaq and Jags are building up both enemies (such as the Brar Brothers, who currently rot in the clink) and others who might become suspicious that the two could be a liability (a certain person in Stone Cold Trouble). Either could form a plotline for book three. Or the two might happen across a whole new set of villains. Either way, this is a series that is well worth a read and Stone Cold Trouble is a great sequel to the author’s debut.

5 out of 5 stars

Enemy of the Raj by Alec Marsh

 

Drabble and Harris are back in this, the second of Alec Marsh’s novels to feature the indomitable duo, and a sequel to his debut, Rule Britannia. It’s 1937 and our pair, Sir Percival Harris and Professor Ernest Drabble, are in India. The novel opens with the two on a tiger hunt, which is quite an opening for a story.

Rule Britannia was set against the backdrop of fascism in Britain in the 1930s and those who admired and wished to collaborate with Hitler. There was an element of speculative/counterfactual history to the plot, in that it imagined an attempted coup d’etat by fascist forces. In keeping with this flavour, Enemy of the Raj does something similar; set against the backdrop of the burgeoning independence movement in India, it isn’t long before our heroes find themselves embroiled in plots and conspiracies as needless to say, not everyone is happy with the idea of India freeing itself from the yolk of British rule.

Like the first novel in the series, Enemy of the Raj is well-plotted and the characterisation is strong, the two main characters a great contrast to each other. Drabble is intelligent and capable, he’s the action hero of the piece, while Harris is more than a little hapless.

As with the previous novel, the author has clearly done his research. This novel examines the history of India leading up to independence, and while this is not a heavy or political read, it is educational. Where Rule Britannia focused on the little known story of Cromwell’s head and what has happened to it down the years, Enemy of the Raj tells the remarkable story of Maharaja Ganga Singh, a man who the author rightly calls one of the lost giants of the twentieth century. This is a man who achieved much and led a really quite astonishing life and yet has been all but forgotten from history. His story is weaved through the plot of Enemy of the Raj to entertaining effect; hopefully, it will go some way to bringing Singh the recognition he deserves.

Enemy of the Raj is an entertaining novel and a worthy sequel to Drabble and Harris’s previous outing. I particularly like the author’s use of little known elements of history to illuminate the period and his use of speculative/counterfactual plot lines. I hope that he can think of something to equally good for the third in the series (I’m sure there’ll be a third outing for our part of unlikely heroes) and look forward to reading what they get up to next.

5 out of 5 stars

Making Wolf by Tade Thompson

 

Weston Kogi is a supermarket store detective in London. When he returns to the country of his birth (Alcacia, a fictional West African state, inspired by Nigeria) for the funeral of his aunt, the woman who took care of him as a child and put him on a plane to London just as the country exploded into civil war and thus secured him a better life, he runs up against people from his past. The abusive father who always disliked and was ashamed of him, the boy who bullied him at school and made his childhood a torment, the girl he loved. 

It is Churchill “Church” Okita, the boy who bullied him at school, who has the biggest and most immediate impact. For he has heard that Kogi is a detective, mistaken his job title to mean he is a proper police detective and abducts him to press him into service investigating a real-life murder. Church is an enforcer for one of two main rebel groups, the Liberation Front of Alcacia (LFA) and they want to know who assassinated an elder statesman who was refereeing negotiations with the Government. Kogi begins his investigations out of necessity (he doesn’t want to be murdered if Church and the LFA discover the truth) but soon discovers he has an aptitude for the work.

It isn’t long before the other guerrilla group, the People’s Christian Army (PCA) get involved, as indeed does the government’s intelligence services and the plot of Making Wolf becomes a combination of gumshoe PI novel in a unique setting, political thriller, and satire about West African corruption.

Tade Thompson is a gifted writer of Nigerian descent. Making Wolf is his first foray into crime fiction (before this he’s written sci-fi) and the first novel of his that I’ve read. Making Wolf seems like the first on a new series and I really hope it is, as this was a thoroughly enjoyable read. A well-written novel with a cast of interesting characters, this is a great read.

4 out of 5 stars  

The Heights by Parker Bilal

 

When a severed head is found on a busy London Underground carriage, the investigation soon draws in private detective Cal Drake and his partner Dr Rayhana Crane. Drake is a disgraced former Met police undercover detective, while Crane has her own history in intelligence and psychological profiling for the police. It quickly becomes apparent that the head links back to the case that ruined Drake’s reputation and led him to leave the police. A subplot runs along with this main story, as the two PI’s investigate a missing student.

This is the first of Parker Bilal’s books that I’ve read (though I have a few on my ever-growing list of titles on my kindle, which wait for me to get around to reading) and is the second in the author’s Drake & Crane series. It can be read as a standalone and the author gives backstory when needed, but personally, I felt that I would have enjoyed this novel more had I read the first in the series,  The Divinities. That said, I did enjoy this novel and found it compelling.

At heart, The Heights is a gangland/undercover police novel, a sub-genre I tend to enjoy, though I suspect that The Divinities was even more so. Unlike some series, where each novel is a self-contained story, the main story in The Heights is a direct continuation from that of The Divinities. It’s not concluded in The Heights either, so will continue on into a third title. A sense of resolution is given by the subplot, but this series should be seen as akin to a drama such as The Wire or Breaking Bad, where the major story spans a number of titles. Personally, I like this style of storytelling, which makes me even keener to now read The Divinities (I have a copy on my Kindle) so that I can fully appreciate the third title when it comes out.

The Heights is a well-written story with a tight plot and compelling characters. I just have one criticism and it’s a personal bugbear of mine. The author refers not once, but three times, to female uniformed police officers as WPCs. The W for Women Police Constable was dropped a long time ago and female police constables, like their male counterparts, are known just as PC. Unless an author is writing a historical set novel, the use of WPC is just galling. The Heights is a contemporary set novel and so it’s wrong here.

That said, I really enjoyed this book and will make sure to read The Divinities prior to the next instalment so that I can get a fuller appreciation of the complex tale that the author has adeptly weaved.

3 out of 5 stars 

London's Armed Police by Stephen Smith

 

This is really a review of two books because London’s Armed Police follows on from the author’s earlier title (albeit released by a different publisher) Stop! Armed Police!: Inside the Met’s Firearms Unit. 

The earlier title related the history of the Met’s firearms unit, from foundation through an exhaustive recounting of each and every shooting incident and the unit’s repeated reorganisation, up to the date of publication (2013). London’s Armed Police takes up the story, detailing shootings, incidents, and the unit’s reorganisation since. This truncated timeframe (the earlier title covered the period 1966 to 2013, while this book covers 2013 to 2019) allows the author much more space to detail the tactics, training and weapons of the unit (always mindful of course not to divulge confidential details).

The earlier title discussed tactics and weaponry too, but this latter title has much more on this and of course details the contemporary unit’s kit and procedures. Like the previous title, London’s Armed Police is gorgeously illustrated with dramatic colour photographs which bring what might otherwise be a technical manual to life. Similarly, photographs are used to illustrate the accounts of police shootings, though only where appropriate and there are no gratuitous pictures of bodies.

This is a non-fiction history but it is not a dry account and the author knows his subject and brings it to life. Readers will come to this from a variety of perspectives. For some, the appeal will be simple interest in the subject. For others like myself, it will be more reference. As a journalist and a writer of crime fiction, I have an interest in armed police operations. Whatever the readers' motivation, this is a readable and well laid out account of the Met police firearms unit and one that is sure to not disappoint.

5 out of 5 stars  

Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad by Dick Kirby

 

Dick Kirby is a retired Metropolitan police detective who spent a large part of his service with the Serious Crime Squad and the Flying Squad. He joined the police in 1967 and while he writes true crime prolifically, much of his writing focuses on historical crime, the period from the forties to the seventies. There’s nothing wrong with that, but generally, my interests are more contemporary. 

This book traces the history of the flying squad from its formation just after the first world war to the present day. Due to my interests, it was the latter half of the title that I was more interested in, the late 1970s/early 1980’s onwards. 

This section of the book is well told and in particular, I liked the detail on some lesser told tales, such as the armed operation to bring down the Arif brothers. At one time the Arifs were seen as contenders to the crown vacated by the Kray and Richardson gangs, and it was feared they would dominate London. They had a taste for armed robbery however and while other leading gangsters were moving into drugs importation, they continued robbing security vans. It was thanks to this that the Flying Squad was able to bring them to book.

While the Arif operation only occupies a few pages, better-known stories such as the Brinks Mat investigation, the Millennium Dome diamond heist and Hatton garden, as well as other lesser-known stories, proliferate. The more famous operations are discussed in greater detail in books dedicated to those events, but Kirby’s title doesn’t aim to do this and instead offers a brief account of how the flying squad contributed to the investigation.

I did read the earlier chapters, but as mentioned it was the latter half of the book which really held my interest and the author does a good job of collating and summarising the events detailed. All in all, this was an informative read.

3 out of 5 stars  

Vintage Crime edited by Martin Edwards

 

This is an anthology of short stories by authors who are members of the Crime Writers’ Association and published by Flame Tree Press. Unusually for anthologies, this is a celebration of crime writing down the ages and so the stories are taken from across a span of time, from classic to more contemporary.

 

The stories vary in length too and cover the full gamut of genre – spy thriller, through noir, to locked door mystery – and place, from London to Egypt. There are some distinctly weirder stories too. All in all, there’s a good range here, and this is a great read that you can dip into and out of.

 

This is a great selection of stories, well selected and put together. They’re included in date order (earliest to latest) but the reader has to refer to the notes at the back to know this. I quite liked that because it meant you came to the stories without any preconceptions (unless you flicked to the back to check first, of course).

 

A great read and highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars

 

 

The Hunted by Gabriel Bergmoser

Simon is a middle-class young man who dreams of adventure and discovering the real, authentic Australia. He’s lived his life in comfortable suburbia and he wants to see the world as it is, outside of his privileged bubble. So he’s taken himself on a road trip, just him, driving across the outback. In a bar one night he meets Maggie, a young woman with secrets and a backpack full of cash. What she’s running from, or where she’s running to, is a mystery. Simon’s brain knows he should just walk away, but she’s attractive and his heart (or perhaps another part of his anatomy) stops him from doing so and he invites her along. 

They end up in a remote township (was it an accident? did Maggie lure Simon there?) and it is here that the novel takes a dark turn. I won’t give too much away, but this book has been compared to the horror films Wolf Creek and The Hills Have Eyes, so you kinda see where it’s going.

This is a novel told on two timelines which cross over somewhat. There’s before things go bad (the build-up), and then the after. In the latter, the survivors end up at a gas station run by Frank, a man with a past that might just rival Maggie’s. This is also a novel that’s demarcated almost straight down the fifty per cent mark. The first fifty-per cent of the novel is a slow, inexorable build-up of tension. This is achieved in both timelines, the before being the build-up, the after being the survivors at the gas station preparing for the final onslaught. Then at the fifty per cent mark, the author takes his foot off the brake in both timelines and utter mayhem ensues.

This is a brilliant, brilliant novel. It’s expertly plotted and crafted, while the characters have a real heft. In particular, Maggie, who’s akin to a female Rambo. Again, I’m wary of giving away spoilers, but this is one woman the bad guys will wish they had never crossed. 

I’m going to end this review before I give too much away, but I can’t recommend this book enough. If you like horror or thrillers, if you like a heroine who could give  Mad Max a run for his money, then this books is for you. 

5 out of 5 stars