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Reviews by Cloggie Downunder

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When She Was Good: Cyrus Haven #2
by Michael Robotham

Another brilliant read! (6/9/2020)

“People think they want the truth, but the opposite is true. Honesty is mean and rough and ugly, while lying can be kinder, softer and more humane. It’s not honesty that we want, but consideration and respect.”

When She Was Good s the second book in the Cyrus Haven series by …more

Good Girl, Bad Girl
by Michael Robotham

brilliant crime fiction (6/4/2020)

Good Girl, Bad Girl is the first book in the Cyrus Haven series by award-winning Australian author, Michael Robotham. When Nottingham psychologist, Cyrus Haven first encounters Evie Cormac, it’s at the request of his acquaintance, Adam Guthrie, a social worker at Langford …more

A Conspiracy of Bones: Temperance Brennan #19
by Kathy Reichs

Virtually boneless, but still plenty to intrigue. (6/1/2020)

A Conspiracy of Bones is the nineteenth book in the Temperance Brennan series by best-selling American anthropologist and author, Kathy Reichs. Life has turned upside down on anthropologist Tempe Brennan: apart from distracting family dramas and her own medical diagnosis, …more Ryan and Slidell have abandoned their police force jobs to start up a PI business. But most disturbing of all is that the new boss at MCME has a sizeable grudge against Tempe and is freezing her out of her usual consultancy there.

Margot Heavner, appointed after Larabee’s murder, seems to be oriented to maximum publicity at the expense of ethics. She and Tempe locked horns over the case of a murdered child, and now she is being excluded from a strange new case: a faceless, fingerless, gutless body that Heavner has already implied to the press is a murder victim.

But apparently someone wants Tempe involved: she has been sent, anonymously, pictures of the body. Tempe has another ally at the MCME, and she manages to get her own photos, a sample and information about the autopsy. And what she sees raises one puzzling question: why is Heavner lying about the body?

Can Tempe resist getting involved? If she can discreetly investigate and identify the victim, is she doing it for the right reasons? Because publicly proving Heavner wrong and ending her exile from the lab is an attractive proposition. Slidell, if initially hesitant to get involved, becomes quite interested when links to a certain missing-child cold case become apparent.

Tempe does exasperate: her tendency to jump, alone, into a potentially dangerous situation against all reasonable advice is starting to wear a little thin. However, the snappy dialogues between Tempe and Slidell, Tempe and Ryan are a joy, and there is lots of clever detective work done by both Tempe and Slidell.

This installment features a radio shock-jock, child porn and pedophiles, conspiracy theories and the dark web, and Reichs also includes plenty of fascinating tidbits like: Zombie ants, military bunker real estate, composite imaging from DNA phenotypes and taphophobia. The notes at the end are also interesting. Virtually boneless, but still plenty to intrigue.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia (less)

The Satapur Moonstone: A Perveen Mistry Novel
by Sujata Massey

Excellent historical fiction (5/25/2020)

The Satapur Moonstone is the second book in the Perveen Mistry series by award-winning British-born American author, Sujata Massey. When the governor’s top councillor offers Bombay’s first female solicitor, Perveen Mistry a small job in the Sahyadri Mountains at the tiny …more Princely State of Satapur, she’s a little hesitant.

The work, finding an agreement between the widow of the late maharaja and the dowager maharani regards the education and welfare of the prospective ruler, the ten-year-old maharaja, would not present a problem; working for the British Government, however, she finds distinctly unappealing.

But anticipating that it may lead to further such work for women in seclusion, she accepts. And apparently the scenery is spectacular, and cooler weather in October will be welcome. After a somewhat undignified arrival in the area, she meets the political agent, an Oxford-educated civil servant, Colin Sandringham, who is not at all what she was expecting.

During her stay at the Circuit House, Perveen meets some interesting guests, and has a chance to learn more about the people and situation at the Royal Palace. Concerns expressed in letters from the two women at odds have her wondering about the young prince’s safety.

Her concern is reinforced by the interviews she conducts at the Palace, after an unpleasant journey and a poor welcome. Perveen begins to entertain doubts about the accidental nature of the older brother’s demise the previous year. And when there is a death, she also worries about her own safety.

Massey gives the reader another interesting and intriguing historical mystery. The setting, a castle isolated by weather and terrain for months at a time, is different; the plot has plenty of twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing right up to the dramatic climax; and lots of fascinating details, such as travelling by palanquin, the intricacies of succession rules, Royal etiquette and customs, and degrees of seclusion practised by Indian women, keep the reader enthralled.

While Perveen’s marital status still precludes any sort of liaison, there is a hint of a possible romance. The mention of 1922 in the back-cover blurb is puzzling, as the events clearly take place in October 1921, following directly on from the events of A Murder At Malabar Hill. This is excellent historical fiction and more of the plucky and appealing Perveen Mistry will be most welcome.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin. (less)

Days Without End
by Sebastian Barry

a moving and powerful read (5/22/2020)

“The mind is a wild liar and I don’t trust much in it that I find there. To tell a story I have to trust it but I can issue a warning like a ticket master issuing a ticket for a western-bound train that will be obliged to go through wilderness, Indians, outlaws and storms.”

…more Days Without End is the seventh novel by award-winning Irish author, Sebastian Barry. In his later years, Thomas McNulty thinks back to his youth: he skims over the awful experience of sailing to Canada and barely surviving, and jumps straight into the first time he met Handsome John Cole (“my beau”) under a Missouri hedge during a rain storm. From that moment on, everything happens in tandem.

In Daggsville, as youthful teens, they don dresses to dance with miners, until they grow too tall. In the army, they ride west to deal with an Indian problem in California, finding themselves in the middle of a massacre of women and children. The parallel between the Irish, the Indians and the African Americans is quickly clear to them: “It’s a dark thing when the world sets no value on you or your kin, and then Death comes stalking in, in his bloody boots.”

A trek across the prairies that involves hunger: “There was no game below the mountains this time and soon our bellies were gnawed by hunger. It was weeks of a journey and now we were a-feared of what hunger might do. A hunger-knower like myself was a-feared more than most. I seen the cold deeds of hunger.”

Also experienced are a flash flood, frostbite, a firing squad, heatstroke, many encounters, good and bad, with Indians and, ultimately, a treaty. Friendships are forged, though not with all: “No one could prize a man with a tongue like a bolus of knives.”

And if they see the worst of humanity then: “Desolate and decimated though we were, there was something good there. Something that couldn’t be extinguished by flood and hunger. The human will. You got to give homage to it. I seen it many times. It ain’t so rare. But it is the best of us.”

From Indian wars to the Civil War via an interlude on the stage in drag in Grand Rapids with the orphaned Indian girl they have brought home. While the graphically described battle scenes definitely illustrate the unglamorous side of war, they do become a tiny bit tedious. Surrender, captivity and finally release are not the end of the drama, even after they settle on a Tennessee tobacco farm. More than once, getting into women’s clothing proves to be a saviour…

The punctuation and grammar (or lack thereof) give authenticity to the voice of this mid-19th Century uneducated Irish immigrant. But Barry is such a skilled author that, despite this, he often makes Thomas McNulty’s prose sing: “Then the rains came walking over the land, exciting the new grasses, thundering down, hammering like fearsome bullets, making the shards and dusts of the earth dance a violent jig. Making the grass seeds drunk with ambition” and “It was so silent you could swear the moon is listening. The owls are listening and the wolves.” Characteristic of Sebastian Barry’s work, this is a moving and powerful read. (less)

The Widows of Malabar Hill: A Mystery of 1920s Bombay
by Sujata Massey

a very enjoyable read (5/19/2020)

A Murder on Malabar Hill, also titled The Widows of Malabar Hill, is the first book in the Perveen Mistry series by award-winning British-born American author, Sujata Massey. Bombay in 1921 may not be ready for a female lawyer, but Jamshedji Mistry has given his daughter an …more education and Preveen Mistry is determined to contribute to Mistry Law. If catering to women needing legal services gives their firm an edge, then she will embrace that.

When Omar Farid dies, he leaves three widows. Perveen is dealing with the will when a request comes in from the household agent/guardian regards the family’s wakf that rouses her suspicion: all three widows have signed over their endowments to the wakf (family charity trust). However, the documents give cause for concern.

When she visits these women in purdah, she finds discrepancies in what they know about their gift to the wakf and the intended use of the funds; quite a few secrets between the women; and a distinct lack of harmony. Perveen is, nonetheless, resolute about her duty to the women and their interests. But, shortly after her visit, there is a brutal murder at the house…

A welcome distraction is the arrival of her college friend Alice Hobson-Jones, whose parents live on Malabar Hill, next to the Farid house. While Alice has her own problems, and issues of confidentiality preclude Perveen from sharing too much, she’s grateful to have Alice’s perspective.

She wishes, too, that she could share her concern about a disturbing glimpse of a man she had thought far away in Calcutta, Cyrus Sodawalla, with whom she has an unhappy history. As the story unfolds, each tidbit of information reveals another plausible motive for the murder and, more than once, Perveen has to check for possible conflicts of interest before she acts.

Perveen is a plucky and very likeable protagonist. Her backstory is told in flashbacks to 1916, describing how she came to be a lawyer and illustrating also her parents’ unfailing support. Her interactions with others indicate she needs to work on her poker-face and, at one point, she has fingers in so many pies that when she is kidnapped, she runs through a list of possible assailants.

Massey manages to include plenty of humour in this series debut, as well as a wealth of fascinating snippets of Indian social history. The restrictions that women faced at the time, both in law and through religion are demonstrated, and the practical concerns for women choosing to live in Purdah are shown. This is a very enjoyable read and another encounter with Perveen Mistry in The Satapur Moonstone will be eagerly awaited.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy. (less)

Redhead by the Side of the Road
by Anne Tyler

If only this dose of Tyler’s magic had been longer… (5/7/2020)

Redhead By The Side Of The Road is the twenty-third novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Anne Tyler. At forty-three, Micah Mortimer isn’t dissatisfied with his life: it may be predictable, but having an adequate place to live, just enough work, and the …more company of a woman friend suits him fine. Excitement is overrated.

“He and Cass had been together for three years or so, and they had reached re things had more or less solidified: compromises arrived at, incompatibilities adjusted to, minor quirks overlooked. They had it down to a system, you could say.”

Micah exercises daily, eats healthy food and has a series of (not entirely inflexible) routines that give him a sense of control. He makes house calls around the city for his IT business, Tech Hermit and, while being careful not to get too involved, looks after the tenants in his building in his role as unofficial super. From his older sisters and their families, there is a mixture of concern and amusement at the way he lives his life.

Then, in the space of an October week, two unsettling incidents ruffle his calm. Cassia faces the threat of eviction from her apartment because of a secret pet (and Micah’s reactions to this later turn out to be unsatisfactory); and a teenaged boy turns up claiming that Micah is his father.

It is always such a pleasure to read a book by Anne Tyler, and this one has you smiling all the way through, unless you are laughing out loud or saying “oh, dear” or “oh, my”. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, but Tyler’s special talent is making ordinary lives shine.

Tyler is wonderful at character description: “She was so sharp-edged, both literally and figuratively – a shrill, vivacious mosquito of a girl, all elbows and darting movements, and it was a wonder she’d given a glance at a stick-in-the-mud like Micah.”

Micah is quirky but believable and his inner monologue is often particularly entertaining: the remarks he resists making, and the Traffic God who comments on his impeccable driving are two examples.

His bewilderment at human interaction is palpable: “Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove.”

Family gatherings are Tyler’s specialty: “A mahogany side table held a lamp and a pair of pruning shears and a bottle of nail polish. No doubt the living room was equally disorganized, but you couldn’t tell, because it was filled wall-to-wall with people… The general impression, as always, was tumult: noisy, merry, unkempt people wearing wild colors, dog barking, baby crying, TV blaring, bowls of chips and dips already savaged.” As always, many of her characters are a little eccentric, but their observations on life are insightful at the same time as being amusing. If only this dose of Tyler’s magic had been longer…
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Penguin Books Australia. (less)

Sea Prayer
by Khaled Hosseini

A very worthwhile purchase. (3/6/2020)

Sea Prayer is an illustrated book by best-selling author, Khaled Hosseini. The text is very short and comprises what a father is telling his young son about the land they are about to leave, and how wonderful it once was, as they sit on the beach with many others, awaiting …more

The Ruin
by Dervla McTiernan

brilliant crime fiction (3/6/2020)

The Ruin is the first novel in the Cormac Reilly series by Irish-born Australian author, Dervla McTiernan. A month after his transfer from an elite Dublin unit to Mill Street Garda Station in Galway, and Detective Sergeant Cormac Reilly is still being lumbered with cold …more

Highfire
by Eoin Colfer

a very entertaining read! (3/3/2020)

“Every time he met someone, Hooke was figuring how to murder them and get away with it, in case the need arose.”

Highfire is a stand-alone novel by Irish author, Eoin Colfer. The Louisiana bayou: about the last place you'd expect to find a dragon. But here, just upstream …more

Into the Fire: Orphan X #5
by Gregg Hurwitz

Another entertaining action thriller: bring on number six! (2/27/2020)

Into The Fire is the fifth book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. With perhaps the idea of having something like a normal life, Evan Smoak vows that whomever Trevon Gaines sends him, it will be his last Nowhere Man mission.

When forensic …more

Out of the Dark: An Orphan X Novel
by Gregg Hurwitz

An excellent action thriller. (2/21/2020)

Out Of The Dark is the fourth book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. Among other things, Evan Smoak’s extensive training made him a skilled assassin. His very first mission, in an unnamed Eastern European state, involved the …more

Hellbent: An Orphan X Novel
by Gregg Hurwitz

Excellent page-turners! (2/14/2020)

Hellbent is the third book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. The one person that Evan Smoak does not expect to call his Nowhere Man line is his mentor, Jack Johns. And it turns out to be a call he would never want to receive. Soon after, …more

The Nowhere Man: An Orphan X Novel
by Gregg Hurwitz

would be great on the screen. (2/9/2020)

The Nowhere Man is the second book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. Evan Smoak has helped another needy person and is about to relax when a loose end niggles, so he follows up, finds there is more to do and proceeds. But, mission not …more

Orphan X: An Evan Smoak Novel
by Gregg Hurwitz

A page turner! (2/4/2020)

Orphan X is the first book in the Orphan X series by best-selling American author, Gregg Hurwitz. Just what is Evan Smoak? Some sort of fixer, avenger? He’s certainly not the importer of industrial cleaning supplies he claims to be. He flies very much under the radar; is …more

The Last Resort
by Marissa Stapley

a fairly entertaining read. (12/15/2019)

The Last Resort is the third novel by best-selling American author, Marissa Stapley. Located on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico, the Harmony Resort is touted as the last resort for failing marriages. Celebrity therapist Dr Miles Markell and his wife Grace and their team at the …more luxury resort repair marriages, a dozen couples at a time. It takes just two weeks. Their own marriage is, of course, perfect.

The reader knows, though, from the first pages, that after Hurricane Christine has passed through the area, Miles is missing, with grave fears held for his safety. Trouble in paradise, indeed! But before all that, the couples, with all their problems and quirks and secrets, arrive: alcoholic Shell Williams and her workaholic husband, Colin; social worker Johanna Haines and her District Attorney husband, Ben Reid. The other eight couples, nameless and featureless in the background.

From vague hints drip-fed into the narrative, the reader gradually learns what crippling secrets (and there are quite a few) these three couples are holding, and how their lives have been affected, until things build to an explosive climax, concurrent with a category four hurricane making things wet and wild.

It’s quite clever of Stapley to situate her resort in Mexico where the (accredited?) therapists are able to be unprofessional, unethical and inappropriate without oversight from any professional body; and where clients can be made to sign a (legal? binding?) contract with some surprise conditions. What does become quickly clear is that all the therapists are as much in need of therapy as the clients they are treating.

Nonetheless, the credibility is stretched: would DA Ben really sign a contract with no more than a cursory glance? Would two therapists and one intern dealing with twelve couples actually have time for all those dramatics and dummy spits? Certainly, the Haines/Reid and Williams couples seem to be getting more than their share of attention.

Stapley’s characters are perhaps a little stereotypical: a predator and some enablers; the sexually repressed, the grieving, the traumatised, the weak, the guilty; lots of angst there. Some are immediately detestable; others eventually evoke some sympathy.

Stapley uses multiple formats besides the conventional narrative to convey the story: blog, email, therapy session transcript, book excerpt and flashback. The very neat resolution is undeniably Agatha Christie inspired. Get past the slow start, suspend disbelief and it’s a fairly entertaining read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin. (less)

I Know Who You Are
by Alice Feeney

Undeniably a page-turner. (11/20/2019)

I Know Who You Are is the second novel by British journalist and author, Alice Feeney. When actress Aimee Sinclair returns home from the day’s film shoot to find her husband missing, she’s puzzled. True, they argued the previous night, but now he has disappeared, leaving …more

The Lying Room
by Nicci French

A brilliant, blackly funny and wholly enthralling read. (11/9/2019)

The Lying Room is the thirteenth stand-alone novel by British writing duo, Nicci French. Neve Connolly “was not so far off fifty. She had a husband who was more or less unemployed and on and off depressed; a job that had ground her down; financial worries. And she had a …more daughter who for years had turned her life inside out and upside down.”

She regards her affair with senior colleague, Saul Stevenson: “like a gulp of fresh water, reminding her that she still had a self, a sliver of life that belonged only to her”; it is a “joyful escape from the distress of her life.” She’s perhaps not proud of it, but she can’t really help herself. When she receives a text that represents an unexpected opportunity to be together, she quickly heads for their pied-a-terre. So she’s shocked to find Saul’s corpse, clearly the victim of a violent attack.

Neve has a logical reason for not calling 999: it would break her already fragile teenaged daughter Mabel, “jittery and frantic and full of rage”, to discover Neve’s infidelity to her husband of twenty years, Fletcher. Instead, she meticulously and methodically removes any trace of herself and their relationship. Well, almost. When she returns for an overlooked item, she makes a disturbing discovery.

When the murder is reported, DCI Alastair Hitching is on the case. Neve finds his gaze disturbing, and has to firmly resist the urge to tell him everything. “’Secrets,’ he ruminated, looking ahead, walking with long strides. ‘They’re dangerous things, don’t you agree?’” Trying to keep it all together, “She realised that she was already thinking like a criminal” and at every encounter with Hitching, Neve feels all will be revealed and she is about to be arrested.

The authors manage to work some deliciously dark ironies and utterly wicked twists into the plot. When it seems things can't get any worse, of course they can, and do! As the story unfolds, occasional elements of farce emerge, and sometimes things actually feel quite surreal, especially as, despite the dark goings-on, the minutiae of a life with a husband, a “stormy, ferocious” teenaged daughter, two pre-teen sons and a guinea pig, continue throughout.

Every so often, Neve succinctly summarises her current situation and as the story progresses, it becomes increasingly bizarre, although, to her surprise “Life continued in its tracks. Perhaps, she thought, it would be like a building that is demolished, holding its shape after the button is pushed, only gradually losing its outline, wavering, folding in on itself with a roar.”

This duo certainly has a way with words: as Neve tries to puzzle out who has done this, she understands that someone had “spread distrust through her like a stain.” A brilliant, blackly funny and wholly enthralling read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia. (less)

The Stationery Shop: A Novel
by Marjan Kamali

A wonderful read. (9/30/2019)

“Look, Zari, being in love is difficult to explain. When you know it’s right, you just know. There’s no avoiding it. It’s like … it’s like a tree has fallen on your head.”

The Stationary Shop of Tehran is the second novel by Turkish-born author, Marjan Kamali. In 1953, …more Tehran is full of political unrest, but seventeen-year-old Roya Kayhani isn’t interested in all that (she hears it from her father constantly). Roya just wants to read: Persian poetry, Rumi in particular, or translated novels, it doesn’t matter which. That’s why she’s a regular visitor to the Stationery Shop opposite her school. It’s a place to retreat to, a calm of quiet and learning; Mr Fakhri often has a volume of poetry all ready for her; she just loves the piles of writing tablets and pencils and fountain pens.

One Tuesday, while she’s idly perusing the shelves, a young man strides in whistling, collects some papers, rushes out again, but not before directing at her a dazzling smile and saying “I am fortunate to meet you.” Mr Fakhri tells her Bahman Aslan is “the boy who wants to change the world”. That (or perhaps Bahman?) should be approached with “vigilance” and “severe caution”. And yet, by the time they have met and chatted several Tuesdays in a row in his stationery shop, Mr Fakhri seems to need to check his inventory in the storeroom whenever they are there alone.

Walks and the Café Ghanadi and the cinema, and gatherings with her sister and their friends at home follow. Roya’s father approves of this passionate young man, because he too believes fervently in their Prime Minister, Mohammad Massadegh, and his vision for the country. Roya worries a little about Bahman’s overt activism, and the Shah’s police, but he assures her all will be well.

Soon they are engaged. Roya endures the nasty remarks and glares from her prospective mother-in-law. Life is wonderful and their future is bright. Then Bahman disappears without a word. Through Mr Fakhri, they communicate by long loving letters, but their arranged meeting goes badly awry. Was the destiny that her mother assured her was invisibly written on her forehead not to be with Bahman? It will be sixty years before they encounter one another again…

What a wonderful cast of characters Kamali gives the reader: some are easy to love and others require sympathy and patience. Their emotions and feelings, so well conveyed, are many: love (of course!), jealousy, grief and guilt, pride, ambition and greed, courage and cowardice all feature. The narrative is carried principally by Roya, but Bahman’s perspective is shown through letters he writes Roya, with Mr Fakhri’s contribution filling in some important background.

Kamali’s beautiful descriptive prose will easily evoke the fragrance of the Persian kitchen and that unique stationery shop smell. There are several incidents that will tug at the heart-strings so have the tissues ready. This is a beautiful book filled with lyrical prose and enclosed within a gorgeous cover. A wonderful read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Simon & Schuster Australia. (less)

The Nanny
by Gilly Macmillan

Macmillan’s best yet. (9/28/2019)

The Nanny is the fifth novel by British author, Gilly Macmillan. It's with great reluctance that recently widowed Jo Black returns to Lake House, her Pewsey Vale childhood home, with her ten-year-old daughter Ruby. The last thing she wants is to be beholden to Lady Virginia …more

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