Polar by T.R. Pearson

 

256 pages

You can buy Polar...Here

You can find out more about T.R. Pearson...Here

• The Blurb...

In their search for a missing toddler, Deputy Ray Tatum and his sometime girlfriend, Kit Carson, deal with an array of small-town foibles, follies, and characters in a story that stretches from Virginia to Antarctica. By the author of Blue Ridge

• My Review

Read this book after seeing recommended by the actor Peter Davidson of Doctor Who and All Creatures Great And Small fame on the TV show Between The Covers.

Curious book this one. On the surface, the plot is a simple one. A old redneck semi-pervert undergoes a sort of mental breakdown and develops a gift for prophesy that is an enigma to decipher. The local plod, laconic Ray Tatum, thinks that the backwoods nostradamus is dropping hints about a little girl that went missing a few years ago. And, well that's it. Our Gary Cooper/ James Stewart type hero doesn't go from clue to clue methodically unravelling a dastardly plot.

This book is more an examination of rust belt America and all the good and bad involved in it. It put the locals often comic lifestyles and attitudes up to a satirical mirror. 

What the author does have is a style all of his own. He does use two methods I found annoying. Instead of using the phrase " a man named Jones" he uses "a Jones" or "that Jones"  He uses this on numerous occasions for numerous people. Secondly he uses the word "evermore" in dialogue to mean anymore or forever. I would hazard a guess that these are colloquialisms from the area that he is writing about.

The storyline often wanders off on detours but never for too long before rejoining the narrative thread. Many of these sojourns are pointless but nonetheless often chuckle inducing. As I was reading along, due to the idiosyncratic writing I could not help myself. I just had to read in the style of the narrator voice over in the Dukes of Hazzard. Read the selected quotes and you'll see what I mean. It is very...American.

An interesting book but more for the unusual writing style rather than the story arc.

The style is laid back, verbose, socio-politically informed and darkly comic.

Glad I read it but don't know if I would be tempted to read another in the series.

• Selected Quotes

"Even as a younger woman, that Bolick was prone to be peevish and ill, but here in her golden years she has settled into accomplished sour displeasure which she sustains with an admirable rigor and impeccable thoroughness."

"That Gullick was merely a type that Ray had seen too awful much of by then— a citizen in the sorry latter- day American vein. He was staunchly opinionated and pretty exhaustively misinformed, got all of his news off the television where they’d rather be first than right and don’t so much own up to mistakes anymore as rework and improve them until, in any given moment, almost anything might be true."

"We’ve few black people about in the uplands, no people much of any dusky hue. There’s a black fellow out by Afton who finishes cement and a little nut- colored woman up by the salvage yard in a trailerhome. Mostly because we don’t know how else to go about it, we tend to talk to them like they’re simple, or at least not the sorts of people we like to think ourselves to be."

"Then, of course, there was his dog as well, an ancient mongrel named Monroe. She was sullen and unfriendly, greasy, matted and vaporish in a grand and foully intrusive sort of way. She broke treacherous wind, that is to say, with a kind of ceremony. She would still herself and hunker and tauten, and there would come upon her features an expression of devout concentration as if she were running the figures to reconcile the national debt in her head."

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Raylan by Elmore Lenoard

• About The Author...

Thomas Reid Pearson is an American writer born in 1956 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.Pearson was a student at North Carolina State University, where he earned a B.A. and M.A. in English. He went on to teach at Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. He started work on a Ph.D. in Pennsylvania but soon returned to North Carolina, where he worked as a carpenter and a housepainter while he began writing his first two novels, A Short History of a Small Place and Off for the Sweet Hereafter. Neither was published until 1985, when he moved to New York City, where both books were issued by Linden Press.

His novels are set in the South, in the imaginary small town of Neely, near Winston–Salem, or, in his recent novels, in the Appalachian areas of Virginia, where he now lives. His writing captures a uniquely Southern social order, outlook, and voice and has been compared to the work of Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

Perhaps most notable in Pearson’s style is his writing as if he were capturing a back-porch discussion of events, which leads to long sentences and paragraphs. His vivid humor is woven throughout his writing.

A Short History of a Small Place, Off for the Sweet Hereafter, The Last of How It Was, Cry Me a River, Polar and Blue Ridge were New York Times Notable Books.

Pearson also collaborated with John Grisham on early drafts of the screenplays for The Rainmaker (1997) and Runaway Jury (1998), films based on two of Grisham’s novels.

Pearson is married and lives in Virginia.

The Venetian Game by Philip Gwynne Jones

 

287 Pages

You can buy The Venetian Game...Here

You can follow Philip Gwynne Jones...Here

 This Review is by Adele Powell

• The Blurb...

A game of cross and double-cross in Venice, one of the most beautiful cities on earth.

From his office on the Street of the Assassins, Nathan Sutherland enjoys a steady but unexciting life translating Italian DIY manuals. All this changes dramatically when he is offered a large sum of money to look after a small package containing an extremely valuable antique prayer book illustrated by a Venetian master. But is it a stolen masterpiece - or a brilliant fake?

Unknown to Nathan, from a vast mansion on the Grand Canal twin brothers Domenico and Arcangelo Moro, motivated by nothing more than mutual hatred, have been playing out a complex game of art theft for twenty years. And now Nathan finds himself unwittingly drawn into their deadly business . . .

• My Review...

Having become slightly bored of the bog-standard murder mystery I asked the fountain of knowledge that is grumpy old man books for a recommendation. He suggested The Venetian Game, an exciting story about art theft in Venice. As a self-confessed Italophile this sounded right up my street!

We meet Nathan Sutherland in his office working as a British Consulate. I found this to be a nice change from the usual retired detective vibe usually found in mystery books. Immediately I warmed to Nathan and his grumpy cat Gramsci (old man would approve!). I can see that Nathan working as a consulate not only opens the avenue for the premise of this story, but also potentially lends itself to other weird and wonderful characters walking into his office in the future.

The mysterious Mr Montgomery arrives, and the adventure begins. A priceless book of the life of the virgin, supposedly illustrated by world famous Giovanni Bellini, is left with Nathan. Nathan, with the help of his two good friends, Dario and Federica, take on the perilous task of figuring out where this book came from, why it was left with him and if it truly is the work of Bellini. Federica is helpfully an art historian which makes understanding the intricate details of the art world easier to understand

through her explanation. 

Federica and Nathan have a budding romance storyline, which personally I

felt wasn’t necessarily needed and didn’t add anything to the story. However, this is just personal preference, the character of Federica herself is very well rounded and believable. I just think it would have been a nice change to have a strong female character that was credible in her own right and not used as a love interest.

As you can imagine the journey winds its way all over Venice and the descriptions of the streets and architecture are exquisite. It feels like you’re stood right alongside Nathan taking in the breath-taking scenery. The excellent description of the setting suits the grandeur of an art theft story wonderfully.

The story delivers us at the Mansion of Domenico and Arcangelo Moro, brothers who have been locked in a game of art theft for 20 years. The twist at the end is brilliantly executed, no spoilers here but I for one, did not see it coming. Make sure that once you hit this point in the book you have nothing else planned, because you will not be able to put it down until you finish the entire thing!

Overall, this book has everything, excellent characters, a wonderfully defined setting, a well thought out plot to go along with plenty of action and edge of your seat moments. I would definitely recommend this book. Reading The Venetian Game inspired me to look into visiting Venice and as a result I cannot wait to be immersed in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

 I just hope the Moro brothers don’t find me!

• Selected Quotes...

“I ran from the room. You can make people do anything if you frighten them enough”

“I leafed through it again. It seemed disrespectful, blasphemous almost, not to spend the proper amount of time looking at each one; as if I were a tourist scurrying through the Uffizi to take a selfie with the Birth of Venus then be on my way. I turned it over in my hand, felt its weight. I lifted it to my face and sniffed it. The smell of old libraries mixed with clean leather”

“The church glowed with old gold, and smelled of wood and incense. San Nicolo felt special, even in a city of over one hundred churches. There was something Byzantine about it, something ancient. The covered porch was a reminder that this had once been a place for the poor and needy to seek shelter from the elements. Directly inside, a sign on a table covered with tins of food and bags of dried pasta bore the legend Per i poveri; a reminder that we had not, perhaps, moved on as much as we should. Oh holy St Nicholas, pray unto God for us.”

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

A Quiet Death in Italy by Tom Benjamin

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon 

• About The Author...

Philip Gwynne Jones first came to Italy in 1994 when he spent some time working for the European Space Agency in Frascati, a job that proved to be less exciting than he had imagined. He spent twenty years in the IT industry before realising he was congenitally unsuited to it, and now works as a writer, teacher and translator. He lives in Venice with his wife Caroline and a modestly friendly cat called Mimi.He enjoys cooking, art, classical music and opera; and can occasionally be seen and heard singing bass with the Cantori Veneziani. His first novel, “The Venetian Game”, was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and reached number 2 in the Times paperback fiction charts.   “The Venetian Legacy”, the fifth in the Nathan Sutherland series, was published in April 2021 and reached the Times Top 10. Further titles are scheduled for 2022 and 2023.

“To Venice with Love”, a non-fiction account of moving to and living in La Serenissima was a Reader’s Digest Book of the Month. He has written for both the Sunday Times and the Big Issue, and is a frequent guest on BBC Radio Wales. Philip is published by Little, Brown under the Constable imprint. He is proud to be a member of the Society of Authors, the Crime Writers’ Association and the Welsh crime writing collective Crime Cymru

A Line To Kill by Anthony Horrowitz

 

368 Pages

You can buy A Line To Kill...Here

You can follow Anthony Horrowitz...Here

• The Blurb...

Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony Horowitz have been invited to a literary festival on the island of Alderney to talk about their new book . . .

Very soon they discover that dark forces are at work.

Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour.

And the visiting authors seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets.

When the festival's wealthy sponsor is found brutally murdered, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows he doesn't have to look too far for suspects. There's no escape. The killer is still on the island.

And there's about to be a second death . . .

• My Review...

This is the third book in the Hawthorne investigates series (book 4  A Twist of The Knife is out this August) Having written some Sherlock Holmes novels, the author has updated the format. There is still a "consulting detective" who is frustratingly idiosyncratic but with a forensic eye for detail.  (As an aside Hawthorne is played in my head by Phillip Glenister and has been in the first two books as well 🤷) The semi-bumbling sidekick now though is no longer an ex army doctor. The sidekick is an author, actually it's the author! The prose is therefore in the first person. I must say I really enjoy the format. It may be heresy to say so, but I like them better than the original Sherlock Holmes tales, which can be a bit odd ( I'm looking at you A Study in Scarlet!)

As well as solving whatever is the current murder, our protagonist author slowly uncovers more of Hawthorne's past in each book. So both our main characters are working on mysteries. This book is no exception, we find snippets of our hero's dark past, with the promise of more to come in the next book.

I chose this book to get me out of reading slump (see Here to read about my slump and how I got out of it.) Why? because of the standard of quality that the author consistently produces. A Horrowitz book is like a Marks & Spencers pair of pants, they'll never let you down.

The plot centres around a Literary Festival on the island of Alderney. The author believes he us on home ground at a literary event and Hawthorne will lean to him for guidance. How wrong he was!

Numerous characters have motives for the murder. The characters never jumble themselves up in my head reading a Horrowitz book. We pick through each suspect in turn. Yet again I failed to get the whodunnit. He is very good at hiding the wrong uns.

Another quality murder mystery from one of the big guns.

• Selected Quotes

"I’m afraid they’ll look for someone else who will.’ ‘They can’t do that, can they?’ ‘You don’t own Hawthorne, Anthony. If anything, he owns you."

"I’ve described many deaths in the course of my work, in books and on TV, but I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to capture the absolute horror of the real thing. It’s the smell that hits you first, sickening and unmistakable. Dead actors look nothing like dead people. Once the blood has settled and life has drained away, the human body doesn’t look remotely human."

"Hawthorne was far from straightforward, but he was always honest."

"The next thing I knew, it was morning and I was aware that I was no longer alone in the room. Someone had woken me up. I opened my eyes and then closed them again. Hawthorne was standing at the end of my bed. I couldn’t believe he was there. How had he even got into the room? ‘Hawthorne…’ I muttered. It was outrageous. I was asleep, unshaven, in my undershorts, in bed. ‘Tony, mate, get up and get dressed,’ Hawthorne said. ‘There’s been a murder.’"

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The List by Graham H Miller... (click Here for our review.)

The Nesting Place by Jacqueline Harret (click Here for our review.)

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

• About The Author...

Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers working in the  UK and is unique for working across so many media. Anthony is a born polymath; juggling writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism.

Anthony has written over 40 books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, which he adapted into a movie that was released worldwide in 2006. The Alex Rider series is estimated to have sold 19 million copies worldwide. His highly anticipated novel, Oblivion, the epic conclusion to the Power of Five series, was published in October 2012. Anthony is also an acclaimed writer for adults and was commissioned by the Conan Doyle Estate and Orion Books to write two new Sherlock Holmes novels. The House of Silk was published in November 2011 and was internationally lauded as the top title of the autumn. The sequel, Moriarty, was published in October 2014 with similar success. Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis, which was published on 8th September 2015.

Anthony is responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series, producing the first seven episodes (and the title) of Midsomer Murders. He is the writer and creator of award-winning drama series Foyle’s War, which was the Winner of the Lew Grade Audience award for BAFTA. DCS Foyle was voted the nation’s favourite detective in 2011. Anthony has also written other original complex dramas for ITV, particularly thrillers. Collision, a major five part “state of the nation” piece was transmitted on ITV1 in November 2009 to seven million viewers a night. He followed this with the equally successful legal thriller Injustice, also for ITV 1 - transmitted in June 2011. Foyle’s War returned in March 2013 as a Cold War thriller and was greeted with such critical acclaim and demands for more that he wrote one final series, bringing the show to an end in January 2015. Anthony's latest show New Blood will premiere on BBC iPlayer later this year.

Anthony is on the board of the Old Vic Theatre. He regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines on subjects ranging from politics to education and currently has a travel column in The Telegraph. He has been a patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices and the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape, since 2008.

In 2019 Anthony became a Patron to Home-Start in Suffolk, a small local family support charity working with families across the Suffolk county, as they navigate through challenging circumstances such as mental health issues, bereavement, long term or terminal illness, isolation, domestic abuse, poverty and so much more. The valuable work the organisation does right in the heart of the community – bringing together trained volunteers into families lives to support them both practically and emotionally, helping them to grow in confidence and empowering them with the skills to raise their children to flourish – is why Anthony chose to support this dedicated and hardworking charity. And in Anthony’s own word – “For me, charity begins at Home-Start.”

Anthony was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.

The Family Man by KimberleyChambers

 

491 Pages

You can buy The Family Man...Here

You can follow Kimberley Chambers...Here

Reviewed by Owen Powell 

• The Blurb...

Meet the Bonds

Kenny Bond is finally out of prison after doing a long stretch for killing a copper, and is determined to get back to life on the straight and narrow.

A family like no other

Kenny’s son Donny might lack his father’s edge but his twin grandsons, Beau and Brett – well, they are Bonds through and through. Like him, they won’t let anyone stand in their way.

But they’re about to meet their match

Family comes before everything else for Kenny, but there’s a feud brewing that could cause murder, and a new family on Dark Lane might bring the Bonds to their knees. Kenny’s determined that nothing, and no one, will threaten his family. But can the Bonds stick together when someone’s out to take them down?

• My Review...

I have never been more caught off guard by a book than I was with The Family Man. At first, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this British gangland drama would entail. Dodgy dealings, elaborate heists, ruthless kingpins etc. Basically I was envisioning a novelisation of Guy Ritchie’s ‘Snatch’. However, this book completely subverted these naive expectations by offering something else entirely. This is not some dark comedy action romp. This is a tragic story of love, death, and most of all, family. 

I say story, but there are in fact many stories within this book. The same can also be said about its main characters. There is nothing that truly predominates anything else within these pages. The focus shifts from story to story and from character to character. The one thing that unites them all, however, is the Bond family. Unsurprisingly, ‘family’ is a major theme throughout The Family Man. However, despite it’s aptly-named title, a family friendly story this is most certainly not. This book deals with a lot of dark and explicit material and it is definitely not for the faint of heart. There are also no shortage of graphic sexual depictions, although thankfully these are brief. The story also spans multiple decades, we see how these characters have evolved from the often traumatic events they endured in years past, which I found rather interesting. The characters themselves are well-written and believable, with clear motivations for each one. They aren’t entirely likeable, but that was probably the point. The dialogue between them was definitely the standout of this book for me. You truly get an insight into who these characters are based solely on the way that they speak. There are also a few scandalous plot twists scattered throughout this book, which I am always a fan of. I feel that if a book can physically make your jaw drop, then it’s doing it’s job well.

That being said, there are a few aspects of this book that made me reluctant to return to it. This is a rather long book at 491 pages, and there were many rapid transitions from scene to scene which I found to be quite jarring at times. As well as this, there are a sheer abundance of characters in this book. There were so many people to keep track of that I found myself trying to remember who was who more than a few times. Finally, the ending I found to be rather abrupt and underwhelming, considering everything that preceded it.

Overall, The Family Man is a decent enough read for fans of British gangland dramas. It’s full of underhanded gambits, brutal acts of violence and heinous love affairs. It’s not a perfect book, but it does it’s job fairly well

• Selected Quotes...

‘You told us if anyone hits us, we gotta hit ‘em back twice as hard,’ Brett reminded his father. ‘I didn’t mean your bloody teacher, ya pair of doughnuts.’

Kenny took the lid off the bottle of Cognac. It had not only been a long day, it had been a long fucking month for him.

‘Me and you are the same. We’re family men. Move heaven and earth to protect our loved ones.’

• If You Like This Then You May Like...

Outcast by Kerry Barnes

Turf War by Mark Romain

Her Revenge by Emma Talon

• About The Author

Born and bred in Dagenham, I left school at sixteen with no qualifications and not a clue what I wanted to do in life. My mother was a tough woman, old school, and when she threw water over my head one morning, demanding I get up and get myself a job, I took myself off to Roman Road market.

“Need any help?” was my chat up line and, luckily for me, a lovely stall holder called Harold took a chance on me. I started around the back of the stall as a tea girl on eight quid a day. But I soon got promoted around the front when I rugby tackled a woman who ran off with a handful of our coats.

I spent many happy years selling ladies fashion down the Roman, until Tower Hamlets council decided to wreck the market by stopping free parking and by bringing in permits. In just six months, everyone was struggling and the best market ever was as dead as a dodo.

A big fan of music I fell into DJ-ing next, nothing special, just local pubs and clubs. It was a good laugh at the time but was never going to be a job for life, and I soon moved on to mini cabbing. I did that for ten years, working nights around the Romford area. I’d always been a bit of a wild child and led a colourful existence and used to joke to my pals that one day I’d write a book. And at 38, still driving a cab, I took the bull by the horns.  I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but after I got over the first chapters of Billie Jo, the rest kind of came naturally to me.

It took me a year to finish that book and then within twenty-four hours of sending it off I had an agent on the phone. Four other agents contacted me shortly afterwards and it all took off from there.

My first book deal was a small one, with a new imprint at Random House. But by the time Billie Jo hit the shelves, I’d finished my second book and signed a new contract which enabled me to give up the mini-cabbing and become a full time writer.

The Betrayer quickly followed, along with my trilogy, The Feud, The Traitor and The Victim. It was at that point that I moved to HarperCollins and penned The Schemer. My fortunes improved after I moved publisher, as my books got into the supermarkets and began to climb the charts. Getting to number 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller chart with Payback, the second in the Butler series, was literally one of the best moments of my life. It was completely unexpected and totally surreal.

However, I still can’t type and all my books are written by hand. I’m as thick as two short planks with computers and have no keyboard skills whatsoever. But I’ve tried not to let that hold me back – you can’t be good at everything.

My biggest regret is that my parents aren’t around to share my success, but I like to think that they are looking down on me.

I’d like to say a massive thank you to all of my readers, as well as my ex work colleagues and the brilliant team at HarperCollins. Each and every one of you have played a part in helping me get to where I am today.

My story is an unusual one, but I’m living proof you should never give up on your dreams.