Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid.

Follow psychiatrist Charlie Flint as she solves the mystery surrounding the death of a groom on his wedding day plus other deaths that maybe linked.

Although this novel involves Val McDermid’s trademark storytelling about profiling offenders, Trick of the Dark is a standalone.

I found Trick of the Dark to be a good mix of offender profiling, psychology, mystery, authoring skills, characterisation, attraction between people, love and lesbianism.

I loved how Val explored the psychology of offenders and the challenges they pose to profilers. So many things can go wrong and although Charlie Flint acted in good faith, she got the blame from the media. I quickly developed an empathy for Charlie as she does her level best, believes strongly in justice and is willing to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I liked how Val told her story. One of the central characters is called Jay and to tell her backstory, is writing her memoir. This is a nice move for 2 reasons - it threads background into the mystery AND explores the authoring skills used to produce a memoir that may have some tweaking of the truth to make it a better read.

I loved the range of characters in Trick of the Dark. Don’t get hung up on gender as there is only one man in this story, a friend of Charlie’s. So apart from Nick, Trick of the Dark is ALL about women. But don’t let that put male readers off, women are not from a different planet, they just like shops. All the women’s characters are fully developed and there are more lesbians than you can shake a stick at. Val fully explores how lesbians get psychically attracted to each other, how their love grows and the many problems that can occur within lesbian relationships. Lesbianism plays a big part in Trick of the Dark and I liked its openness to a lifestyle that can be misunderstood by the ignorant.

As a hetrosexual male, I was not discouraged by all the lesbianism in Trick of the Dark because I understand how two people are attracted to each other and can fall in love. There was nothing uncomfortable or vulgar about the lesbian scenes within this story. The Prusik loop was NOT used in the bedroom but whilst climbing on the Isle of Skye. There are no cheap sexy thrills in Trick of the Dark but a mature understanding of what makes people tick.

There are some nice snips of humour along the way, for example…

She gestured with her knife towards a large padded envelope by the bowl where Charlie’s two Weetabix sat. ‘Postman’s been. Still don’t know why you gave up cornflakes for those,’ she added, pointing at the cereal bars with her knife. ‘They look like panty shields for masochists.’

...Sorry folks but once you have read that, you can’t get the image out of your mind!

The plot of Trick of the Dark is a good one and I enjoyed it far, far more than The Last Temptation. I found Trick of the Dark to be a GOOD read and it gets 4 stars from me.

Trick of the Dark was written in 2010 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Last Temptation (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #3) by Val McDermid.

It has been 9 years since I have read a Tony Hill & Carol Jordan book by Val McDermid. I read and reviewed Beneath the Bleeding, the 5th book in the series and my friend John commented “I can recommend "The Last Temptation" by V McDermid. I read this book back in 2003 whilst on a government paid excursion in the sun and was enthralled plus a little shocked by the graphic detail of the sexual mutilation of the bodies. “

So here I am in 2018 reading and reviewing a book written in 2002. What did it have to offer me?

The Last Temptation explores the relationship and workplace dynamics between Tony and Carol. This time it is an international quest and they both travel to Germany. It is a steady mix of people, psychiatry and police work. Tony is his usual self and is profiling a serial killer. Carol has gone undercover to catch a criminal mastermind involved in human trafficking. It does not matter if you have not read the previous 2 Tony and Carol books, as this can be read as a standalone.

I found The Last Temptation an okay read. The serial killer’s method of murder was unusual and their signature was very obscure. There was lots going on in this novel with lots of characters to follow. The characterization of all the characters was good, including the serial killer. There were plenty of bits to spice up this novel, for example having lesbian police officers and the need to debrief Carol as she was working undercover, by holding their meetings naked in a sauna.

I followed these 2 lines of enquiry by the police with the help of Tony and Carol. But as the novel went on, my enthusiasm waned. All the details were laid out and the story then became a regular joining up the dots. The entertainment value of this novel then began to drop. My empathy for the characters dwindled and the only shock I got was when Carol got caught up in a tight spot. My normal reaction would have been of abhorrence at the situation Carol was thrown into but because of my dwindling interest in the story, coupled with my reducing empathy for her, made me feel glad she had this rough experience. For me to feel happy about Carol’s experience made me feel rather uncomfortable, yes this is only fiction but I can’t condone the actions of another character towards Carol. I felt Carol got what she deserved working undercover but feel ashamed because I do.

Overall I found The Last Temptation to be an okay, 3 star read. I would not recommend it to anyone but it is a bread and butter read. This is NOT one of Val McDermid’s better books, I enjoyed both Beneath the Bleeding and The Distant Echo far, far more.

The Last Temptation was written in 2002 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Swap by Nancy Boyarsky.

Nicole Graves engages in a summer long house swap of her Los Angeles condo with a strangers’ house in London. What could possibly go wrong?

The Swap is told from Nicole’s point of view, an American staying in Britain. In her own style she forms opinions of the British way of life and her spelling is American English. So it was quite funny for me being British, living and working in Britain, reading a book set in Britain BUT written by an American, centred around an American character using American English spelling! Still, I would NOT allow the cultural and spelling differences to spoil my enjoyment of this book. So I started this book with an open mind. And WOW! Right from the start, this book is a cracker!

The Swap is a psychological thriller, not only is Nicole having doubts about everyone around her but these doubts niggle the reader big time as warning flags fly up on every page. Who can be trusted and can Nicole muddle through her summer in London?

I really engaged with this story and it got my mind buzzing. Everybody Nicole came into contact with, including her husband Brad, had my suspicions raised. Was everybody in this tale dodgy?

I found the pace of this novel good and the plot was very involved indeed. I liked all the little hints here and there, this doesn’t seem right and that doesn’t seem right. The story made me alert to all those little details as Nicole muddled around.

I found it nice that Nancy has done her homework on London and has used real locations for her story. It is one of my pet hates when authors use real place names but invent the local scenes.

Many things within the story made me chuckle for example…

She took the tube to Harrods. By the time she got there is was almost 3:30 p.m., and she remembered she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She sought out the escalator and headed up to the enormous dining room. The sign read “Afternoon Tea; £29.” Why not?

...Gosh! Woman, £29 for an afternoon tea! Why not live like a local and pop into Greggs or Wetherspoons?

...And also this brought back memories…

The she remembered what Muriel had explained in one of her messages. The car had a choke she was supposed to pull out as she started the engine. Or was she supposed to push it in? She stared at it a moment, then jumped at the sound of someone tapping on the car window.

...Oh that brings back memories, old petrol engined cars with a manual choke. I doubt if there are any petrol cars in London nowadays so old that they have a manual choke fitted to a carburettor, as most petrol cars are now petrol injected. Things have come on a long way in the last 30 or 40 years. I remember the old days when you used to push the cold start button in on the right hand side of the injector pump to start a Ford R114 coach - these turbo powered diesel engines produced 140bhp - don’t laugh, they were always better to drive than a Bedford YMT.

...Then I found an American expression that we do not have but would be more word efficient for us to use…

On the other side, the card offered a twofer coupon for an Indian restaurant.

...Ah? A “twofer” - oh, yes, I get it now, a two for one coupon!

The Swap is a contemporary novel set in present day London, however…

In the kitchen, she sat down at the table and dumped out the contents of the purse-her wallet, makeup case, a few loose coins, a pack of Kleenex. Next, she emptied the wallet, pulling out her dwindling supply of pound notes, receipts, credit cards. No slip of paper.

...Sorry Nancy, but pound notes were withdrawn from circulation in 1988. But that would be nitpicking and takes nothing away from my enjoyment of The Swap.

I loved reading The Swap and found it a pleasure to read. I can find nothing wrong with this book, so it gets the top score of 5 stars from me.

The Swap is Nancy’s debut novel and she ticks all the boxes for me. I look forward to reading another novel from her as she clearly has the talent to write an engaging and well plotted novel.

The Swap was written in 2017 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

Mort (Discworld #4) by Terry Pratchett.

Mort is a young lad who gets a job as an apprentice for Death on Discworld. This is the story of how he gets on as he learns his craft.

I have NEVER read a Terry Pratchett novel before and was curious to find out why he had become a top selling author. Fantasy novels are NOT my regular reading genre but like Real Ales, I like to try different ones to see if I like them.

There are 40 novels in the Discworld series, they do NOT have to be read in sequence and are all stand-alones. Why did I chose Discworld #4 as my first book? Unashamedly, it was on special offer for just 99p and the price was right!

Mort was written in 1987, so I wondered what a book written over 30 years ago has to offer. Well, Discworld is a fantasy planet, so very different from Earth. Discworld is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the enormous star turtle Great A’Tuin, and which is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space.

Mort is a fantasy tale involving wizards, magic and spells. There are 5 central characters in this tale, the main being Mort, a young lad moving into the world of work. Death is his boss and the tone of his speech is one of authority and appears “IN CAPITALS”. His daughter also has a role to play, so has a princess and a wizard. There is one animal taking a vital role, it is a horse. This is not any old horse but a special horse that belongs to Death which can fly into the air to travel extensive distances across Discland at great speed. This horse has great power and is very strong because later in the story Mort, Death’s daughter, the princess and the wizard climb onto its back and fly away! Oh yeah, whatever, this is a fantasy.

No time period is mentioned but the feel is of the dark middle ages. There is no mention of technology or modern infrastructures, far far away from our modern obsession with social media, smartphones, cars and CCTV. Yet the dialogue and attitudes between characters is relatively contemporary. For example…

The piercing blue eyes glittered at him. He looked back like a nocturnal rabbit trying to outstare the headlights of a sixteen-wheeled artic whose driver is a twelve-hour caffeine freak outrunning the tachometers of hell.

… Terry Pratchett uses an extensive vocabulary in this novel, it is NOT a children’s book and he uses some obscure and very old words. For a fantasy novel, this range of vocabulary makes for an intelligent and articulate adult read.

Terry creates his scenes with great skill and has a talent for great storytelling. For example…

Ankh- Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.

….There are odds bits of dry humour scattered through this book, for example…

‘It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,’ he said. ‘Have you thought of going into teaching?’

…So Terry wrote this novel and how did I rate it as a reading experience?

Ah, I thought a change from my usual genres of reading would be a refreshing and delightful change. I found Terry’s writing talent was GOOD but this story LACKED DEPTH. I think Mort is a lightweight tale, which if it was on TV, people would have one eye on the screen and talk over the whole programme. I did not get much out of reading this book. I found the entertainment value was POOR and just continued reading to the very end because that is the type of guy I am. For such a top selling and popular author I was disappointed. I think that Mort is a POOR read and only gets 2 stars from me. I am glad I only paid 99p for this book and that I now know what pleases some people.

Mort was written in 1987 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Darkest Lies (The DI Hogarth Darkest Series Book 1) by Solomon Carter.

Follow Detective Inspector Joe Hogarth and his team as they investigate a murder at a Southend nightclub.

Right from the start, I felt at home with this book. It has an easy to get into British feel, like watching the hit drama Line of Duty on television. Solomon’s writing is sharp and includes ALL the extra details that give so much added value to his story.

I liked that some of the chapters were from the killer’s point-of-view. No clues to the killer’s identity were given, just what they observed and thought.

I liked the range of characters in this book, the police officers, support workers and members of the public who could all be the killer.

It was good that the killer avoided their actions appearing on CCTV, making the police work very hard to catch the bad guy. There were lots of suspects who ALL had valid motives to kill the victim.

I thought the plot was quite good and the pace was fair. However, later on my initial enthusiasm dwindled because the killer struck again when they could have walked away, leaving the police with an unsolved crime. From then onwards the book took on a familiar police chase against the clock and proved quite routine to the end. But I still think that The Darkest Lies is a GOOD read, so gets 4 stars from me.

The Darkest Lies was written in 2018 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

Malevolent (Cases of Lieutenant Kane #1) by E. H. Reinhard.

Follow Lieutenant Carl Kane of the Tampa homicide squad as he investigates an unusual killing.

Malevolent is a regular police procedural crime thriller and it breaks no new ground. Usual range of characters making up the ranks of the police force. Regular use of the killer’s actions and motives are told through alternate chapters.

So Malevolent is quite ordinary except the method of murder employed. I found Reinhard’s writing style quite tabloid. There was nothing sharp that made me think “this is good”. Yes, there is action but I thought “so what”. I did not engage with the detectives or the killer. I found it frustrating to read that the killer could have stopped their crimes and remained a free person. The story lacked realism and became a drag to read.

There was one creepy observation, that of a victim who survived but that in essence, was more like the plot of a B-movie.

There are odd bits of humour scattered through this novel, the best being from the killer when he asks “How is my wife? Was she still watching the television? That’s all that bitch ever did.”

I was disappointed with Malevolent, I thought it was a POOR read and only gets 2 stars from me.

Malevolent was written in 2014 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2) by Tana French.

This book can be read as a stand-alone but follows very nicely on from In the Woods, the first novel of the Dublin Murder Squad series. The author’s voice remains the same and this is another tale told in the first person, only this time it is from the point of view of Detective Cassie Maddox.

A man walking his dog finds a body and calls the police. The victim looks very much like Detective Cassie Maddox and she is persuaded to work undercover to find the killer.

I liked the tension of this novel and what psychological effects working undercover had on Cassie. I liked the dynamics of Cassie living alongside the suspects and how she grew to like them, making you wonder about the Stockholm syndrome.

As the story progressed I wondered who the killer was and if Cassie had been sent on a wild goose chase. I liked how the other detectives interviewed people and the games they played to wear suspects down. There were some nice rivalries explored between urban and rural people. The importance of having close friends and a secure home was given centre stage with a lot of philosophy to back this up.

I liked the writing style of this novel, it was exactly the same as with In the Woods. Reading The Likeness straight after the first novel was very cosy for me. The change of central detective made no difference to me and I still felt part of the team. I found this novel very engaging and the story was great to run along with. For a crime novel, this was at the character driven end of the scale. Solving the case was not by specialist technical police work but by building strong relationships between people to understand what makes them tick.

I got a lot of pleasure from reading The Likeness and it gets the top score of 5 stars from me. I think it would make a great television drama.