Tag: book

Book Review: Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves

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book cover: Sleepwalkers

book cover: Sleepwalkers

 

A disturbing, gripping psychological thriller that keeps you guessing to the end

What the blurb says: “Blink. Keep your eyes open. Blink. That’s it. Don’t go back to sleep, not yet. If it weren’t for the nightmares, Ben would say he had a good life. He’s happy with his steady job, and loves his wife and kids to death. But it’s hard to ignore the dark, violent images that are so vivid that he often worries that the dreams are real and everything else around him is a lie.

Toby also suffers from nightmares. And the scars on his fifteen-year-old body are a ghostly reminder of actions he doesn’t remember or understand. Two people, two separate, unremarkable lives.

When their dreams and doubts collide and become too powerful to ignore, one fact will become clearer than any other – that the truth they are running towards is the very thing from which they should be fleeing.”

 

Rather like The Matrix, Sleepwalkers has the characters, and therefore the reader, questioning ‘what is the true reality?’ Three strangers – Ben, Toby and Anna – want to find out. Family-man Ben wonders if he’s just ungrateful for his seemingly pleasant albeit average family life, and is haunted by violent nightmares. Teenage Toby puzzles over how he came to have the scars that line his body, and if they are linked to the strange dreams he’s been having. And teacher Anna wonders whether this really is all there is in life. As their paths join, and they set out to discover what the truth really is, they discover that their lives are more connected than any of them could have guessed.

As Ben and Toby try to work out why their dreams seem more real and more vivid than their waking hours they discover a truth more shocking than they could have ever imagined. I found that I quickly cared about these characters and wanted them to succeed in their quest, even though I feared it could end badly for them. As the danger drew closer (I won’t tell you what – no spoilers here) I found myself holding the book tighter and reading faster and faster.

Tom Grieves’ writing is stunning: pacy, bold and completely absorbing.

In this action filled, disorientating and gripping story, nothing is exactly as it first seems. Sleepwalkers had me reading well into the night, unable to put the book down, and trying to puzzle out the truth (and what the characters will do when they find it) right to the end.

Highly recommended.

Guest Review on the Mean Streets Crime blog: Dark Eyes by William Richter

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Dark Eyes book cover

Dark Eyes book cover

Today I’m guest blogging over on the fabulous Mean Streets Crime Fiction blog, and reviewing the debut thriller of Hollywood screenwriter and Emmy Award Nominee William Richter. Here’s a taster …

A gritty, action paced YA thriller

What the blurb says: “Danger is both her past and her destiny. Born in Russia but adopted by a wealthy American family, Wallis Stoneman has lived a life of glamorous luxury. But, aged sixteen, she rejects the world that doesn’t feel like her own to live on the streets of New York.

Now life is tougher than Wallis imagined – and it’s about to take a deadly twist. When Wallis discovers her real father’s identity, a fight to stay alive begins. Because Wallis’s real father is a terrifying Russian gangster on the hunt for her mother.

And he’ll stop at nothing and no one – even his own blood – to find her.”

Wallis Simpson, Wally, is determined to find her Russian birth mother. After leaving the home she shared with her adoptive mother, Wally has built a life, and band of loyal friends, on the streets. When a chance meeting leads her to discover a clue to her true identity, she throws herself into her search with renewed vigour. But, as she uncovers more clues, danger mounts and those around her begin to die. The race for Wally to be reunited with her mother and discover the truth about her Russian history is on. The challenge is for them both to stay alive long enough.

To read the rest of my post hop over to the Mean Streets Crime Fiction site here: http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/crimefiction/2013/01/dark-eyes-by-william-richter/

Book to Film: the same, but different?

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English: Tom Cruise on MTV Live in December 2008

English: Tom Cruise on MTV Live in December 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I’ve always found book to screen adaptations rather hit and miss. There are some that I’ve loved – The Shawshank Redemption and I am Legend, for example. And those I’ve regretted seeing, like The Runaway Jury.

So, as a fan of Lee Child’s fabulous character Jack Reacher, I had mixed feelings about watching the new JACK REACHER film.

Would it live up to the book (one of my favorite of the series)?

Could Tom Cruise really play the ‘larger-than-life’ character of Reacher?

But I was curious to see the film, and so last night I ventured off to the cinema to view it.

And I liked it.

It was true enough to the book and the character for me to recognise them, the action was slick, and the pace kept moving (and me interested). And it didn’t matter that Tom Cruise’s Reacher didn’t look exactly as I’d pictured Reacher in my mind as I read the books. The character was there, just a bit different. For me it worked.

I wonder if they’ll make another one?

I hope they do.

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Just finished reading: The Calling (a John Luther novel) by Neil Cross

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What the blurb says: “Meet Detective Inspector John Luther. He’s brilliant; he’s intense. He’s obsessional. He’s dangerous.

John Luther has an extraordinary clearance rate. He commands outstanding loyalty. And yet he seethes with a hidden fury that at times he can barely control. Sometimes it sends him to the brink of madness, making him do things he shouldn’t; things way beyond the limits of the law.

This is the story of the case that tore Luther’s personal and professional relationships apart and propelled him over the precipice. Beyond fury, beyond vegeance. All the way to murder.”

I’m a big fan of the BBC series LUTHER (in which Idris Elba plays the title role) and couldn’t wait to read this book, the first novel in the John Luther series written by the show’s creator and writer Neil Cross.

Like the series, it’s a gritty and often shockingly brutal glimpse into the work of Detective Inspector John Luther. Rather than continue from the end of the second series, it takes the reader back to the time just before the first series begin and follows John as he works the case of the horrific murder of a man and his pregnant wife in their London home. As Luther and the killer become entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Luther’s relationship with Zoe, his wife, begins to unravel. It’s a story that, just like its main character, is as intense as it is compelling.

If you’re a fan of the TV series, or a fan of gritty police procedurals, then this book is well worth a read.

 

Just finished reading: The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

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The Uninvited book cover

The Uninvited book cover

 A vivid, unsettling look at a possible future

What the cover says: “As chilling murders by children grip the country, anthropologist Hesketh Lock has his own mystery to solve: a bizarre scandal in the Taiwan timber industry. He has never been good at relationships. Asperger’s Syndrome has seen to that. But he does have a talent for spotting behavioural patterns, and an outsider’s fascination with group dynamics.

Hesketh has no obvious reasons to connect the South East Asian case with the atrocities back home. Or with the increasingly odd behaviour of his beloved step son, Freddy. But when his Taiwan contact dies shockingly, and more acts of sabotage and child violence sweep the globe, Hesketh is forced to make connections that defy the rational principles on which he has staked his life, his career and – most devastatingly of all – his role as a father.”

 

The Uninvited isn’t the usual type of book I read. Is it crime, thriller, paranormal, science fiction or something else?

I’m not sure.

But whatever it is, it’s an interesting and thought provoking read, with an unusual take on the impact of environmental change.

It’s summarised on the dust-jacket as ‘part psychological thriller and part dystopian nightmare’. And I guess that’s right.

Either way, if you’re looking for something rather different – with engaging characters, a set of seemingly unconnected and unnervingly brutal incidents to piece together, and a theme that will keep you thinking long after the story is finished, this could be for you.

Good Reads Choice Awards 2012: Mystery and Thriller – cast your vote now!

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Good Reads Choice Awards logo

Good Reads Choice Awards logo

That’s right, it’s time to vote for your Good Reads Choice Awards 2012: Mystery and Thriller books.

The folks over at Good Reads organise these awards to showcase the top reader voted for books of the year.

Right now it’s the semi-final round (2 of 3 rounds) and there are twenty books to pick from including those by Lee Child, Tana French, Harlan Coben and Gillian Flynn.

So, what are you waiting for? Click along to cast your vote for your favorite mystery and thriller books here:  http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-mystery-thriller-books-2012#74616-Best-Mystery-&-Thriller

To find out more about the Good Reads Choice Awards and the voting process visit

http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2012

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Daily Ponder: Book spotting on the Train

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Kindle

Kindle (Photo credit: Simply Bike)

In just a few hours I’ll be heading up to London for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) hosted panel discussion “Is crime the new literary fiction?” that’s being held at Kings Place.

One of the things I always like to do on the train ride to London and back (and on the tube) is to check out the books my fellow travelers are reading. Are they crime thrillers, romance, science fiction, fantasy, historical or something else? And, more importantly, have I read them, and do they look like the type of thing I’d like to read.

I’ve even had quite a few bookish conversations with fellow commuters, and got some excellent recommendations from them. But, it’s not quite as easy as it used to be. That’s because of eReaders. I just can’t (or not as secretly) take a sneaky peep at the cover of the book being read. Although, that said, if I’m standing on the train, and someone sitting nearby is reading on an eReader (especially if the font size is set to large) it is possible.

But, not to be deterred (and, of course, being of a rather nosy disposition!) I’ll be book spotting on the train as I travel.

I wonder what crime thriller books I’ll glimpse today …

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Review: Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

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Book Cover

An utterly gripping read from the first page to the very last

“When Archway Young Offenders Institution is closed down a notebook is found in one of the rooms. Its pages reveal the dark and troubled mind of Emily Koll, Archway’s most notorious inmate.”

Heart-Shaped Bruise is the debut novel of Tanya Byrne, and it’s a real corker. This young adult/adult cross-over story, is emotive, compelling and highly absorbing.

It tells the story of eighteen-year-old Emily Koll, through the diary she kept while at Archway Young Offenders Institution. As well as chronicling daily life as an inmate, Emily confides in the pages the things she can’t bring herself to tell the Institution’s therapist, Doctor Gilyard. Emily tells her story in her own style – cynical, witty and with more than a touch of dark humour. She might not be ‘likable’ to all, but she’s certainly very ‘readable’.

It’s hard to write a review without giving the story away, but I’m not going to tell you what Emily did or why she did it – it’s just too big a spoiler. What I will say is that as Doctor Gilyard tries to persuade the fragile-tough Emily to tell her why she did what she did, Emily’s barriers gradually crumple and she confides in the diary all the things that happened to tear her family apart and how she decided to take her revenge on the person she saw as responsible.

It’s a story of opposites – it’s sad yet funny, tense yet light-hearted, chilling yet warming, fragile yet powerful. Through Emily’s story of love, grief, hate and revenge, you go through the full rollercoaster of emotions. And it’s beautifully written, with a strong narrative voice that pulls you into Emily’s world, immerses you in her reality, and pulls a hard emotional punch at the end.

This is one of the most remarkable and unique books I’ve read this year. Whether you’re an adult or a young adult, this is a fantastic story that I think all fans of psychological thrillers will enjoy.

Highly recommended.

 

Heart-Shaped Bruise is published by Headline and is available now.

Review: Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah

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A superbly chilling and complex psychological thriller

“Amber Hewerdine knows more than she is telling. She knows that she hasn’t slept since the arson attack which killed her best friend. She knows that it is not normal for four members of your family to disappear one Christmas morning, and then reappear the next day, refusing to explain or ever speak of it again. And she knows that somewhere, buried deep in her subconscious, is the key to what happened all those years ago at Little Orchard.

Kind, cruel, kind of cruel.  These are the words she keeps coming back to. But what do they mean? Any why is she arrested within hours of first saying them, for the murder of a woman she has never met?”

An insomniac, Amber is struggling against her own body, and consults a Hypnotherapist to she if they can help. Instead of the relief she needs, the session unlocks memories that Amber has unknowingly pushed from her consciousness. These confusing and still unplaced memories start Amber on a quest to discover where they come from and why the Police believe she holds the key to an unsolved murder case.

As Amber tries to piece together a series of seemingly unconnected events, and consults the Hypnotherapist for further sessions, things become murkier rather than clearer, and the demons in her past threaten to overwhelm her.

For me, Amber wasn’t a character I instantly liked, but the situation she found herself in, and how she reacted, made her highly intriguing.

As the story progressed, and I found out more about Amber: how she’d taken in her best friends young children after her death, how she always felt in the shadow of her perfect sister-in-law, and how she decided to help DC Simon Waterhouse solve the case, she became someone I really wanted to root for.

I’m a big fan of Sophie Hannah’s brand of complex psychological thrillers, and this story didn’t disappoint. It has a wealth of interwoven connections challenging the reader to solve them.

Kind of Cruel is a chilling and unsettling tale of how unseen pressures and secrets within a family can distort and twist the everyday into the chilling. A shocking glimpse behind the mask of a seemingly ‘perfect’ family, and as much of a ‘why done it’ as a ‘who done it’.

Highly Recommended.

 

 

 

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Writing Prompts: “A Great Place for Murder”

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English: The Old Land Port

English: The Old Land Port (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other week, along with several of my writing friends from The Nomad Novelist Writers Group, I joined a walking tour of Dickens’ Portsmouth.  It was a fabulous tour, fill of great little insights into the life and world of Dickens.  But the thing I got most from the tour was the opportunity to have a good look around Portsmouth’s nooks and crannies.

A fellow writer had set his recently completed dark thriller in the city.  I was a beta reader of his first draft, and as we walked he gleefully pointed out all the locations that had featured in the novel.

As we neared the end of the tour we came across the Landport Gate. At this point I turned and said, ‘Wow, wouldn’t this make a great place for a murder.’  He agreed.  And as we were discussing how it might happen, we noticed the other people on the tour (non writers) quickly moving away from us.

Perhaps we should have explained we were plotting for a book!

What places have inspired your writing?

 

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