Book Reviews

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Anthology #35

The Dirty South, by John Connolly

Hitherto, I would not have actively sought out American crime thrillers in preference to other genres, particularly British ones, but this book, written by an ex-patriate Irishman, as it happens, appears not to be in thrall to an established, and well known background of American writing, and I found it an enjoyable, and nicely paced thriller. It is set in rural Arkansas, not long after William Jefferson Clinton, “the son of a traveling [sic] salesman out of Hope, Arkansas, became the forty-second president of the United States”, and it raised the hopes of many in The South, specifically his home state, that “some federal manna was bound to come the Bear State’s way.” However, the expected, but by no means guaranteed, largesse of a corporation by the name of Kovas Industries could easily be diverted elsewhere [Texas] if the barbaric killing of a young black girl were to go unsolved. That would not be automatically facilitated by the mix of competing police jurisdictions, associated civilian offices, such as medical examiner, and the overriding authority of one of the oldest families in the county, the Cades, one of whom, with the given name of Jurel, is the chief investigator for the county, and not averse to perverting the course of justice, if it serves his family’s interests. Into this febrile mix comes Charlie Parker, an ex-NYPD cop, who is searching for the man who killed his wife & daughter in a ghastly way, brought there by the information he has received through his grapevine about the local killing. Because of his intransigence, and initial refusal to reveal any details about his background, he is immediately regarded as a suspect, but this is soon resolved, and after some hesitation, he decides to remain and assist with the investigation, in the hope that it might also throw some light on his own search. The build-up to the resolution is quite slow, but not unnecessarily so, and in this prequel to the Parker series, he brings his outsider insight to help identify the killer. The paperback I read was published in 2021 [2020] by Hodder & Stoughton, London, ISBN 978-1-5293-9833–5.

Marple: Twelve New Stories, by various [12]

As ever with this sort of compendium, in my humble opinion, the result is a Curate’s Egg. I was already familiar with at least the name, if not in every case the work of several of the included authors: Val McDermid, Elly Griffiths, and Kate Mosse, in order of inclusion, but of course, familiarity with an author’s regular work won’t necessarily give a reader here the expectation of a particular style of writing, although in Elly Griffith’s case, there was a specific hope, and I am glad to say that I wasn’t disappointed. To be fair to these authors, and others who are continuing the work of now deceased but universally popular writers, a writing style must, surely, be a very personal attribute, and trying deliberately to copy another writer’s style isn’t necessarily the best approach. Nevertheless, and I do want to avoid giving an impression of bias here, Agatha Christie was a British writer, and her mystery thrillers were set mostly in an England between the 1920s and the 1960s, so it does feel somewhat odd to read a Marple story set in the 1970s, and it was very clear to me which writers here were not British, as a result of subtle differences in English usage and vocabulary. Perhaps I am the Luddite, expecting all the stories to written in a style preserved in aspic: I don’t know, but despite all the main characters being here, some stories felt more comfortable than others. That said, this is a welcome addition to the canon, as are the new Poirot stories written by Sophie Hannah, and all the stories here are quite short, so the action moves agreeably quickly. Definitely worth reading. The paperback I read was published in 2023 [2022] by HarperCollinsPublishers, London, ISBN 978-0-0084-6735-7.

April in Spain, by John Banville

This book is the second in a series featuring the character of Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, and it is the first [possibly only, but that is unclear] to overlap with this Irish author’s earlier series, featuring the character of Quirke, a retired pathologist. The time period is unspecified, other than the month, April, but it is probably late 1950s, or early 1960s*. Quirke is on holiday, albeit grudgingly, with his second wife Evelyn, an Austrian psychiatrist, in San Sebastián, Spain [*Franco died in 1975, but the indicators in this story set it earlier]. After cutting his right hand quite badly, clumsily attempting to open an oyster, Quirke & Evelyn attend the local hospital, and while there, he sees a young female doctor, whom he had previously spotted in a local bar, overhearing her Irish accent; Quirke is a recovering alcoholic; but the doctor refuses to treat him, abruptly referring him to a local male doctor. This confirms Quirke’s suspicions that the young woman is the same one who was thought to have died some years previously in mysterious circumstances back home. He impulsively makes the mistake of phoning his daughter, Phoebe, in Dublin: she and the woman, now going under the name Angela Lawless, had been friends when she was known as April Latimer [hence the pun in the book’s title]. Quirke asks Phoebe to come to Spain to put his mind at rest, and after some hesitation, and a couple of visits to significant characters, she decides to accede to his request; however, she is accompanied, somewhat to her chagrin, by Strafford, for her protection. Unbeknown to them, a London hitman, but who has a background in Dublin, is also on the trail of the pseudonymous Angela Lawless. The tension builds slowly, but inexorably, and the plot is plausible, but there is one aspect of the dénouement which stretches credibility for me; other than that, it is a well-written thriller, and I would be happy to find other stories by this author. The paperback I read was published in 2022 [2021] by Faber & Faber Limited, London, ISBN 978-0-5713-6360-5.

The Stone Chamber, by Kate Ellis

By now, the Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson character is very well established, having featured in at least 26 novels to date; I have reviewed a few of them, the most recent, The Burial Circle, here. They are set in Devon, a part of England known to many of my ancestors, and this one starts with a series of murders, seemingly random, but after the first, the others are connected by the method of disposal: a bullet to the head. Also, an American tourist has gone missing, and there are signs of a bloody struggle in her hotel room. It takes some time for the enquiries of Wesley and his colleagues to find any reason for these murders, and Wesley is helped to some extent by his old friend from his archaeology study background, Dr Neil Watson; Neil is excavating a church which shows evidence of an attached sealed room, which might contain the remains of an anchorite or anchoress: these were Christian devotees who chose to be sealed off from the world, for the purpose of solitary contemplation & prayer, apart from their existential needs being catered for. This ties in with a diary, dating from 1956, excerpts of which are interspersed with the other chapters, and whose existence is only discovered later in the story, when its connection to the murders is revealed. The plot is carefully developed, and the perpetrator is only discovered after family connections have been resolved, and the lies told by people to protect their shameful, or even criminal acts, have been brought to light. There is a final twist which is unexpected and poignant, and certainly not implausible, so this is an engaging read from this accomplished author. The paperback I read was published in 2022 [2021] by Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, London, ISBN 978-0-3494-2571-9.