Death By Intent By Jacqueline Harret

Rating 4⭐s

You can buy Death By Intent...here

You can find out more about Jacqueline Harret...here

• The Blurb...

A woman’s decomposing body. The Church of ‘Forgotten Souls’. A dubious priest.

Di Mandy Wilde has a new case on her hands.

Was the death natural? Can she solve the mystery under the critical gaze of her ex-fiancé, DCI Lucas Manning?

And who hated Barbara Vixen enough to kill her?

• Our Review...

Death by Intent is book 4 in the D.I. Mandy Wilde series and yes I have read all 4! and in order! 

First up what a brilliant cover! Very memorable. 

We open with the putrefying corpse of an old lady. Another of those terrible cases you hear of, where an elderly person, all alone in the world with no friends or family dies on their own of natural causes and lays for weeks until by chance they are discovered. Or was it natural causes and what was this old lady like. We automatically think of old ladies are gentle, caring and benign. But who was this woman in her life.

This is the challenge for Mandy and her team. Josh, Olivia and Helen. each with their own skill-set and personality. However this time Mandy is hampered by the appointment of a DCI to follow and scrutinise her every move following her maverick ways on previous investigations. Mandy needs to up her game and this time stay the right side of the line. There is one major obstacle to this in that the watchdog DCI is her former fiance. In addition Mandy has issues at home. Mandy looks after her teenage niece Tabitha, and now Tabitha's mother and Mandy's errant, black sheep of a twin sister is back on the scene. It cant get any more powder keggy can it? Oh yes it can and its all going to kick off! 

I'm trying not to give spoilers, suffice to say numerous suspects are investigated and false paths explored and red herrings swallowed whole. One of the characters, Father Michael, a long haired, tattooed con man who had turned to God and seen the light and became a preacher in particular resonated. He reminded me of Russell Brand. 

I must say I'm very impressed by the work ethic of the South Wales Police force in the Mandy Wilde universe. No stone, no matter how minute is left un-turned, no trivial piece of information left un-scrutinised. I know its fiction and in the real world cases like these would be basically binned. Which brings me to the essence of the Mandy Wilde novels.

In the Mandy Wilde novels the writing conveys throughout a sense of reverence for justice, and not just black and white legal justice. They revere the full rainbow spectrum of all encompassing social justice. When we get to a denouement in a Mandy Wilde novel we don't just get to find the perpetrator and the reason why they did it but more than that again we get the heritage of that person, the difficult decisions in terrible circumstances, that eventually led to that fateful decision to commit a crime. Situations that could have been vastly different if only someone or society as a whole cared. Often in Mandy's world, and i should think in real life too, the perpetrator is actually the biggest victim. If we all lived in a world with the pervading feel of the justice in  Mandy Wilde novels the world would be a much better, more caring place. 

I must say it took me a while to get into the groove of a Mandy Wilde novel. I was used to more dramatic novels, with big explosions, car chases and gruesome murders but as I read more I found myself settling into and enjoying Mandy's world. If you drew a Venn diagram with Columbo, and Cathy Come Home, then Mandy Wilde is the sweet spot in the middle. On first impression a Mandy Wilde novel is like a placid pond but once you go under the surface you see the fight for life in society in all it's glory and all it's heartache. 

Looking forward to Mandy 5

• Selected Quotes...

Barbara Vixen was dead long before the fireworks announcing the New Year exploded across the Cardiff sky. It was the second of January

You can’t charge someone for not caring enough. It’s not like a neglected child.

Damn. A boa constrictor couldn’t feel more controlling than Lucas hanging closer to her than spandex.

You try to poach my best detective, make him think you’re the best thing since bloody chocolate massage cream,

Hi, I’m Michael. I’ve done some bad things in my life, and I’ve been punished for them. Men punished me but God saved me. He made me see the error of my ways. Through the love of God and his son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, I have seen there is a different path. A path where I can do some good in the world and help others

 

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• About The Author...

Jacqueline Harrett was born and brought up in a small village in Northern Ireland. After living in various places in South Wales she settled in Cardiff with her husband of many years, Lola the mad cat and Speedy, an ancient and territorial tortoise. Her two grown-up children – critical reader and technical advisor – live nearby.

As an only child she was a voracious reader and loved stories. Her father was a wonderful storyteller, encouraging her to tell her own stories and developing her love of oral stories. This was the inspiration behind her mini-book, Tell Me Another… Speaking and Listening Through Storytelling and her PhD on the effects of oral stories on young children’s language and imagination.

Jacqui has always been a writer but it wasn’t until 1997 that she started publishing her work with articles in English in Wales and then in the TES. A book for teachers, Exciting Writing, won the UKLA author award. As a former teacher and academic, she published and gave presentations on the value of story for children’s development.

After retiring from academia, Jacqui concentrated on more creative writing, attending classes and developing the craft. She had stories published in anthologies (Honno, MTP) and flash fiction online, and hidden in the depths of her computer are many other stories, a novel, novella and books for children. Like reading, writing is an obsession.

With her friend and colleague, Janet Laugharne, she has written a novel, What Lies Between Them, to be published in February 2022 under the pseudonym J. L. Harland.

Jacqui’s debut, The Nesting Place, was started in lockdown and the culmination of several different elements. It started with Katherine Stansfield’s excellent Crime Writing courses at Cardiff University, pre-pandemic. Then, during lockdown, a further course with Writing Magazine’s James McCreet, when the ideas began to take shape and the feedback from James helped with the process of producing the novel.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

 

Rating 5⭐s

398 pages

You can buy The Secret Hours...Here

You can find out more about the author...Here

• The Blurb...

Trying to investigate the Secret Service is like trying to get rid of the stink of dead badger. Hard.
For two years the government's Monochrome inquiry has produced nothing more than a series of dead ends.
The Service has kept what happened in the newly reunified Berlin under wraps for decades, and intends for it to stay that way.
But then the OTIS file turns up.
What classified secrets does it hold? And what damage will it create?
All Max Janácek knows is that someone is chasing him through the pitch-dark country lanes and they want him gone.

WE ALL HAVE JOBS TO DO IN THE DAYLIGHT. IT'S WHAT YOU DO IN THE SECRET HOURS THAT REVEALS WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

• Our Review...

Regular visitors to our little site will know Mick Herron is just about our favourite author. Once again he delivers an absolute peach. There are numerous finer points to hit while writing a novel. Plot, character, pacing, delivering the twist, descriptive writing, emotive writing. Some authors are very good at hitting one of these sweet spots and the result is a good book. Although it's very subjective Mick Herron seems to hit them all, in parallel throughout the story, and through every novel. The result is just joyous, effortless reading.

This novel is described as a lean-to novel ie it can be read as a standalone but you get so much more out of it if you are at least familiar with some of the characters from the excellent Slow Horses series. 

The plot is dual timeline. in the present a Government committee is tasked with finding wrong doing by the secret services.  The aim being to find some dirt and so to usher privatisation of certain aspects of national security. However Regents Park (MI5 HQ) isn't playing ball and are not offering up security files. However one file mysteriously falls into their lap. The Otis file from 1990s Berlin and this is where we split into our second timeline. We are introduced to an ensemble of characters, some new, some are clearly referenced in the Slow Horses series. While some of the Slow Horses characters can be spotted immediately, despite having different "working" names, some however emerge gradually.. Who released the file to the inquiry? what was the plan? why is an elderly man in the Devon countryside being hunted?

We come for the plot but stay for the characters. Its difficult to talk about the characters without giving away their alter egos but they are all wonderfully defined. All very real but very vibrant, they stop just at the very spot where they could over develop into caricature. From the 1994 plot the reader can see their origins, how 1994 affects how they developed, think and act in the 2020s. How they became trapped into their personalities. All becomes clear at the final denouement, who the bad guys are, how MI5 work around the restraints of potential privatisation, why Jackson Lamb trusts no-one and why he is un-sackable.

Whenever I read Mick Herron's descriptive prose it sets me in mind of Dickens when he describes the carriage journey over the moors in a tale of two cities. You can feel the not just the environment but also the mood of a venue or situation.

All in all a wonderful addition to a wonderful cannon. One of my biggest regrets in reading is that I didn't read the Slow Horses novels in order (not that it adversely affects my enjoyment of them). Take a tip from me read them in order, and start soon. I honestly think he is better at Spy novels than Fleming, LeCarre, Deighton et al

• Selected Quotes..

So sitting tight and calling the cavalry wasn’t an option, and wouldn’t necessarily have been a sensible move anyway. Sometimes, it was the cavalry you had to watch out for.

its garden wall, as tall as Max himself, was an ancient thing of overgrown rocks, held together by crumbling mortar and ambitious moss.

Always decide who’s to blame before anything goes wrong. It makes the subsequent investigation much simpler.

Unheard objections were like unacknowledged offspring: if no one knows about them, could they really be said to exist?

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• About The Author...

Raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, Herron studied English Literature at Oxford, where he continues to live. After some years writing poetry, he turned to fiction, and – despite a daily commute into London, where he worked as a sub editor – found time to write about 350 words a day. His first novel, Down Cemetery Road, was published in 2003. This was the start of Herron’s Zoë Boehm series, set in Oxford and featuring detective Zoë Boehm and civilian Sarah Tucker. The other books in the series are The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers, set in his native Newcastle. During the same period he wrote a number of short stories, many of which appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

 

In 2008, inspired by world events, Mick began writing the Slough House series, featuring MI5 agents who have been exiled from the mainstream for various offences. The first novel, Slow Horses, was published in 2010. Some years later, it was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as one of “the twenty greatest spy novels of all time”.

 The Slough House thrillers have won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, two CWA Daggers, been published in twenty-five languages. He is also the author of the Zoë Boehm series, soon to be adapted into a major TV series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson. Mick is also the author of the highly acclaimed standalone novels Nobody Walks and The Secret Hours.

For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Rating 3.5 ⭐s

You can buy For Whom The Bell Tolls....here

• The Blurb...

Immerse yourself in the poignant and powerful world of war with Ernest Hemingway's timeless novel, "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, this gripping narrative delves into themes of love, sacrifice, and the stark realities of conflict.

As the story unfolds, follow Robert Jordan, an American dynamiter, who is tasked with blowing up a bridge to aid the Republican cause. What drives a man to risk everything for a cause greater than himself? Hemingway's masterful prose invites you to explore the complexities of loyalty, honor, and the bonds forged in the crucible of war.

But here’s the question that lingers: In a world marked by chaos and uncertainty, what does it truly mean to be human? As Robert grapples with his mission, he encounters a cast of unforgettable characters, each struggling with their own demons, hopes, and dreams. The haunting realities of war blur the lines between good and evil, challenging perceptions and provoking deep introspection.

Experience Hemingway's exquisite writing style as he paints a vivid picture of love amid the horrors of battle. The evocative imagery and rich character development create a reading experience that resonates long after the last page is turned.

• Our Review...

For Whom The Bell Tolls (FWTBT) follows Robert Jordan an American demolition expert over several intense days in the Spanish Civil War. Jordan is fighting on the side of the Republicans and is tasked with blowing up a bridge behind enemy lines before a forthcoming offensive. However he needs the help of the local Guerilla fighters led by the experienced, surly Pablo, his robust and capable woman Pilar, Maria a young women suffering PTSD from being sexually abused by the fascists. and a cast of other fighters. Encouraged by Pilar, Jordan and Maria fall madly in love during the intense prep for the demolition of the bridge. All the while Pablo is becoming more withdrawn, knowing full well the Fascists retribution will destroy his small happy band who had been enjoying the war in a sleepy little backwater.

I chose to read this book because I had seen two very prophetic Hemingway quotes about "listening" and "darkest moments" (I will put them at the end of the review after about the author) I thought that both both were accurate and insightful facets of what it is to be human. The style clear and concise. 

While I enjoyed the book, I felt the signature conciseness and clarity was lost with the archaic use of thee and thou in the dialogue. It drew the reader out of the story..

The characters of Pablo and Pilar are very interesting. Pablo is an instinctive, ruthless tactician and killer who has lost his hunger for the fight and now just wants to survive and enjoy his freedom and beloved horses. He battles within himself to decide whether his longing for life in obscurity is enough to tip the balance to betray Jordan and his former republican idealism. While Pilar is the experienced, bullish woman of the world. Lover of a semi famous bull fighter back in the day. She still believes in what they are fighting for even though she has seen atrocities committed by both sides. She acts as a mother figure and matchmaker for the troubled young girl Maria. She tries to help Pablo keep the faith in what they used to believe but she knows she is fighting a losing battle. In addition she acts as facilitator to ensure Jordan's mission is successful. She is the hero of the narrative just as much as Jordan. 

The section where Pilar describes surrounding her home village courthouse and dragging the fascists out one by one to be murdered in various ways and thrown from the cliff to be very harrowing. These fascists once being her friends and neighbours. It put me in mind of a war between say Brexiteers and Remainers in UK. It would be horrific. Civil War is in reality the least civil war. It may be my imagination but this felt as if this part of the story had the ring of truth about it. Hemingway was a journalist and was in Spain at the time. Who knows what tales he picked up with his ear to the ground.. 

The narrative deals with all the big juicy stuff of life...Love, honour, duty, death, politics, corruption, right and wrong. All the stuff I look for in a novel. I think I will read more Hemingway. Probably his short stories. 

As an aside I read The Secret Hours by Mick Heron in parallel with FWTBT. While FWTBT is very "American" eg the handsome American faces overwhelming odds and gets the girl. I suppose what you would call an All American hero. 

The Secret Hours is all cynicism, sarcasm and sniping from the side, which adds flavour. I know I'm comparing different genres from different times. But at the time it struck as good example of the difference in UK v USA writing.

• Selected Quotes...

So if you love this girl as much as you say you do, you had better love her very hard and make up in intensity what the relation will lack in duration and in continuity.

Your nationality and your politics did not show when you were dead.

How could the ‘Inglés’ say that the shooting of a man is like the shooting of an animal? In all hunting I have had an elation and no feeling of wrong. But to shoot a man gives a feeling as though one had struck one’s own brother when you are grown men.

Dying is only bad when it takes a long time and hurts so much that it humiliates you.

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• About The Author....

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899. His father was a doctor and he was the second of six children. Their home was at Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.

In 1917, Hemingway joined the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. The following year, he volunteered as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, where he was badly wounded but decorated for his services. He returned to America in 1919, and married in 1921. In 1922, he reported on the Greco-Turkish war before resigning from journalism to devote himself to fiction. He settled in Paris where he renewed his earlier friendships with such fellow-American expatriates as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Their encouragement and criticism were to play a valuable part in the formation of his style.

Hemingway's first two published works were Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time but it was the satirical novel, The Torrents of Spring, that established his name more widely. His international reputation was firmly secured by his next three books; Fiesta, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms.

He was passionately involved with bullfighting, big-game hunting and deep-sea fishing and his writing reflected this. He visited Spain during the Civil War and described his experiences in the bestseller, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

His direct and deceptively simple style of writing spawned generations of imitators but no equals. Recognition of his position in contemporary literature came in 1954 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.

Hemmingway Quotes....

When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.

In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection—a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.
Please don’t try to fix me. Don’t take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as I work through my own inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach for as I find my way.
My pain is mine to carry, my battles mine to face. But your presence reminds me I’m not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It’s a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken.
So, in those dark hours when I lose my way, will you just be here? Not as a rescuer, but as a companion. Hold my hand until the dawn arrives, helping me remember my strength.
Your silent support is the most precious gift you can give. It’s a love that helps me remember who I am, even when I forget.”