Passenger List by J.S. Dryden

 

When Kaitlin Li’s twin brother, Conor, disappears after Atlantic Airlines Flight 702 vanishes while flying across the Atlantic, with all passengers and crew presumed dead, she becomes obsessed with solving the mystery. She sets up a Facebook page for tips and is soon investigating. Inevitably this leads to a whole heap of conspiracies and various people who might be kooks, spies, or various shades of baduns.

The tragic, and downright weird, tale of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared without a trace over the Pacific in 2014, clearly inspired Passenger List. MH370 has inspired many conspiracy theories and these are clearly also an inspiration for Passenger List. In real life I have no time for conspiracy theories, but in fiction I love a conspiracy thriller. For example, personally I suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin of JFK, but I love a JFK conspiracy novel or film and Oliver Stone’s movie might be hokum but was great fun.

That said, as I read Passenger List I wondered whether this was going to be just a rehash of MH370 conspiracies, all pushed along by cardboard cutout genre fiction tropes and two-dimensional characters. This is a novel inspired by a podcast (a drama podcast, obviously. Not a true crime one). It feels cardboard cutout and there is little depth to the characters. That said, the plot moves along at pace and when the final denouement occurs it is believable, even for someone like me who doubts conspiracy theories in real life. The author doesn’t go with the most outlandish theory, but ends with something much more realistic, knowing as we do how governments have a tendency to cover their backs.    

Anthrax Island by D.L. Marshall

 

The island of Gruinard, off the coast of Scotland, is the setting for this novel. It’s an actual island which was poisoned with anthrax during the second world by a British Government experiment on germ warfare. Unfortunately anthrax spores are hardy and the island remained polluted for decades until a hugely expensive clean up operation. But what if the government failed in their endeavours and anthrax has returned? Such is the scenario painted by debut novelist D.L. Marshall.

A technician has died from a virulent strain of the disease. Attached to the new scientific mission to clean up the island, his death is a mystery and the intelligence services despatch freelance operative John Tyler (under the guise as the technician’s replacement) to investigate what has happened. It quickly transpires that the technician’s death might well be foul play and so John has a captive cast of suspects (for obvious reasons access to the island is strictly controlled). 

What follows is one part locked room mystery, one part spy thriller. It’s an interesting set up and John Tyler is a well-drawn protagonist. The suspects are well-drawn too, and the novel is adeptly plotted. Did I guess who the killer/killers were? Well, no, I must confess that I didn't. But they were credible and their motives believable when the reveal came, and the narrative led to a satisfying denouement.

Tyler himself is clearly set to return in a sequel and it will be interesting to see his back story. He’s an action hero in the mould of many in the espionage/action genre, though Marshall tells us he’s never been in the military. That was a little confusing as we gather he knows his way around weapons, etc. But I’m sure Marshall will explain this as the series continues and I’m not somebody who needs everything to be spelt out on page one of book one.

This was a great read, and Marshall is a great talent. Bring on book two in the series.

I Know What I Saw by Imran Mahmoud

 

Xander Shute is a once wealthy banker now living on the streets. After a fight with another homeless person in a London park, Xander sees an open door and shelters inside someone’s flat. Only they return when he’s there and he witnesses the woman of the house being murdered. Filled with shame at his cowardice in not stopping the assault, Xander becomes obsessed with finding out who her attacker was and bringing him to justice.

This is the author’s second book and a worthy follow on from his excellent debut, You Don’t Know Me. It’s not a sequel and does not follow on from his earlier title (although I would encourage people to read both books, as they’re both excellent). 

While the two titles have something in common in that they’re both told in first person from the protagonist’s point of view, and the reader has to decide how much of their account to believe, Xander Shute is a much more unreliable protagonist than the young man on trial who was the centre of the plot of the author’s debut. 

Xander had quite an eccentric childhood, fiercely bright but encouraged by his father to compete with his much more gifted younger brother, a contest he always lost. This led to years of resentment on Xanders' part, although his brother was always kind to him. But then tragedy struck and Xander went off the rails and now his memory is flawed. Throughout the narrative he discovers things about his past which cast his memory of the murder in a new light. This keeps the reader guessing until the end.

I Know What I Saw is a brilliant read and I finished it in just a couple of sittings. Xander is a sympathetic character, and the plot is compelling. This is a great read.

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox

 

Zoe and Kim Nolan are identical twins who have recently enrolled at Manchester University. They’re housed together in a flat in a hall of residence, and the narrative revolves around them and their flatmates, and some other students they befriend. Most important is Zoe’s boyfriend, Andrew Flowers, her course mate, Fintan Murphy, a flatmate of the twins, Liu Wai, and one of Andrew’s housemates, Jai Mahmoud. Other friends and flatmates appear in the narrative but are less central. Soon after the term begins, just three months into their time at university, Zoe Nolan goes missing and is never heard from again.

True Crime Story is written as a true crime book (hence the title) and includes emails between the author, Evelyn Mitchell, and a character called Joseph Knox (yes, THE Joseph Knox), who in an act which kind of breaks the fourth wall, appears in the narrative of his own novel. There are even references to Knox’s brilliant Sirens trilogy. Evelyn is obsessed with the case and interviews all the surviving participants - Andrew Flowers, Fintan Murphy, Liu Wai, and Jai Mahmoud, and Zoe and Kim’s parents, as well as the police liaison officer and some other people who become involved in the case.

The case became a media sensation, with Andrew Flowers, Kim Nolan and Jai Mahmoud in particular, coming under suspicion. Evelyn pulls on these threads, and on others, and soon exposes the dark underbelly of this story. For example, the twins' dad is quickly exposed as a repellent piece of work, as are others.

This is an innovative crime thriller that will keep readers guessing until the end and is not like many books on the market. It’s well worth a read.

Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

 

A landline rings, just as Agneta Broman, the wife of Stellan Broman, a post-war Swedish TV celebrity who the Swedish viewing public saw as an “uncle” to the nation, is waving her grandchildren goodbye. She answers the phone only to hear one word: “Geiger”. She immediately digs out a gun she’d kept hidden for years, shoots her husband dead, and disappears.

So starts this absolutely brilliant Swedish crime/espionage thriller.

Sara Novak is a vice cop who grew up a friend of the Broman’s daughters, Lotta and Malin. She was always the poor friend, her mother the Broman’s housekeeper, and as the narrative continues we learn the Broman daughters bullied her somewhat. She’s drawn into the investigation and it soon becomes an obsession. 

The police only know that Stellan is dead, and Agneta is missing, and are unaware that she was the one who murdered her husband. But as the bodies pile up and things point to a motive linked to the cold war and the conflict between the Communist East and that Capitalist West, it isn’t long before a nest of international intrigue is discovered.

The publishers billed Geiger as the most gripping debut since I Am Pilgrim, and I have to say I thought the analogy was apt. This is an ambitious thriller, encompassing big themes, not least, the Cold War and its legacy, establishment sex rings and cover-ups. Sara is an interesting protagonist, while Agneta makes for a brilliant antagonist, reminiscent of the anonymous English assassin in Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. In both novels the police and protagonist are unaware of the identity of who they are after until near the end, and this is a device which works as well in Geiger as it did in Forsyth’s classic.

At the time of writing this review, Geiger is my book of 2021. There’s still a good few months to go, so other titles might well surpass it, though I suspect even if this were to happen Geiger would remain a close contender. Either way, this is a brilliant novel and highly recommended. 

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka

 

Korean movie-makers have a long history of producing wacky, violent thrillers - Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance being the most obvious examples; their horror movies, too, are renowned, such as the zombies-on-a-train fest which is Train to Busan. But in narrative fiction, too, Korean writers often produce works which are similar; The Plotters by Un-Su Kim, is a notable example. Japanese cinema and narrative fiction has its own tradition of such off-beat mayhem, albeit not as well known as Korea’s. But Kotaro Isaka’s barmy novel, Bullet Train, which is being made into a movie, might well bring the country out of its neighbour’s shadow.

The description on the dust jacket reads: “Satoshi looks like an innocent schoolboy but he is really a viciously cunning psychopath. Kimura's young son is in a coma thanks to him, and Kimura has tracked him onto the bullet train heading from Tokyo to Morioka to exact his revenge. But Kimura soon discovers that they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Nanao, the self-proclaimed 'unluckiest assassin in the world', and the deadly partnership of Tangerine and Lemon are also travelling to Morioka. A suitcase full of money leads others to show their hands. Why are they all on the same train, and who will get off alive at the last station?”

But this gives only a taste of the mayhem that is to follow. Bullet Train builds the tension slowly but surely from the first page. It isn’t non-stop action, and neither are the gangsters and assassins mentioned on the dust jacket the only ones on the train, or the only ones to feature in the narrative; soon it feels like every passenger and member of the crew is out to kill someone else. That said, the characters mentioned are the main protagonists, and the author takes the time to flesh them out. My favourites are Tangerine and Lemon, a duo who bicker amongst themselves like an old married couple. 

But it’s Satoshi who steals the show. Frankly, I haven’t read a more chilling character since Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. In this schoolboy, the author constructs a true psychopath, far worse than many of the schlock versions in your average slasher movie, and I imagine far more realistic too.

Bullet Train is a brilliant novel and is wonderfully cinematic. It reads like a story set for the big screen, so I wasn't surprised to learn an adaptation was in the works. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for anything else written by this author.

Seat 7a by Sebastian Fitzek

 

Mats Krüger is a German psychiatrist living in Argentina. Despite treating phobias and other psychological conditions in his professional life, he ironically suffers from aerophobia, an irrational fear of flying. Mats is estranged from his daughter, Nele, after running out on his wife on her death bed and having an affair. Nele is heavily pregnant and Mats is intent on flying back to Germany to be with her at the birth, with the hope of patching things up. But when she books a taxi to take her to hospital for a caesarean, Nele is kidnapped and taken to a derelict dairy. There her kidnapper ties her up and points a live video camera at her. He rants about the cruelty of the dairy industry and what misery cows have to live through. Meanwhile, a mystery caller contacts Mats on board the now airborne flight and orders him to psychologically destroy an old patient of his, who works as a flight attendant on the plane. The caller wants the woman to become psychotic and homicidal and cause the plane to crash, killing all onboard. The caller tells Mats that if he fails to do this, the kidnapper will torture Nele and the baby and kill them.

Thus we have the setup for another madcap psychological thriller by the German author Sebastian Fitzek. Fitzek has made a name for himself with preposterous plots and over-the-top stories. Seat 7a is no different and takes as its inspiration several disasters which have afflicted aviation over recent years. Most notably the German Wings disaster of 2015, which is mentioned during the narrative, in which a disturbed pilot crashed a jet into a mountainside killing all on board. Equally pertinent might be Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which though as yet unfound, many believe the pilot or co-pilot to have purposefully crashed into the sea (though I think Seat 7A was published before the MH370 disaster). But regardless, these disasters and others like them have led the European Union and others to debate what they can do to stop them, including mandatory blood testing and psychological screening. 

As with one of Fitzek’s previous titles, Passenger 23, the plot of which took place on a cruise liner, Fitzek has clearly researched air travel extensively. For example, he references the safest places to be on a plane during a crash, and those where you’re guaranteed to die. I haven’t checked these facts out for myself, but I checked out some of his research for Passenger 23 and it all proved correct, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was accurate here, too. It all helps him to spin a fiendish web of intrigue.

Factual detail aside, Fitzek’s books are always extremely far-fetched and require a suspension of disbelief. But to be fair to him, that’s all part of the fun. He’s the antithesis of a certain type of police procedural writer, who strenuously strives for believability. Instead, Fitzek offers a rollercoaster ride of plot twists and non-stop tension, and if you accept that and run with it, his books are a very enjoyable read.