THE WILDER AISLES
It has been a while since I read a Fred Vargus and I’d forgotten how good they are. A colleague gave me a copy of the latest and I was delighted to find that Vargus has not lost her touch with her latest—This Poison will Remain. I had forgotten how much I loved Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsburg, head of the Paris Serious Crimes Squad. Another of my favourite fictional policemen, who love their food and wine, and rely on instinct and feelings to solve crime. Much against his will Adamsburg is called back to Paris’ 13th arrondissement from a holiday in Iceland to clear up the attempted murder of a woman by her husband—a liar and a cheat, and altogether highly disgusting person he takes great delight in charging. On returning to the squad room, he finds a really obnoxious smell belonging to a large moray eel, that one of his idiosyncratic colleagues Voisenet has tucked under his desk. Adamsburg, who rarely misses anything, notices that Voisenet is cagey about what’s on his computer, and he asks resident computer whiz, Froissy, to investigate—quietly. What she finds is the story of three elderly people dying from a spider bite—the recluse, Loxosceles Reclusa, a shy, timid brown spider, that rarely bites humans. When more people die from the spider’s bite, Adamsburg joins Voisenet in thinking something odd is afoot. What follows is a weird and wonderful journey into the world of spiders, the medieval female ‘recluse’, rape, murder, terrible crimes against women and historic child abuse. This incredible journey leads the squad up many a false inlet, like Magellan trying to find his way through to the Pacific Ocean. Magellan never stopped trying, so Adamsburg tells his officers that they must not stop either. This reference to Magellan is charmingly explained in the story. False trails abound, and Adamsberg is hampered by an unexpected betrayal coming from his second-in-command, Danglard’s, and to his great shame, is duped by the one person he never suspected. This is a great read, full of great characters, including Mathias, an archeologist from a previous series called The Three Evangelists, which I also highly recommend. Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is the story of Kya Clark, known locally as the Marsh Girl—because she lives in the marsh area of Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. When we first meet her Kya is living with her family, in a shack, sheltered by oak forests, that also shelter the closest lagoon. One morning Kya sees her mother walking down the road, wearing her best shoes and carrying a blue case. One by one everyone leaves until Kya is left with her father, a drunk and gambler, who disappears for days on end, and eventually doesn’t returrn. At the tender age of 7 she has to learn to fend for herself. She is made to attend the local school by the truant officer, where she is teased and tormented by the other children, and so escapes back to the marsh. At 15 she is befriended by local boy Tate—her first real contact with the world beyond the marsh, apart from her visits to the store, and she tentatively opens up. However, when a popular local man, Chase Andrews, is found dead, the ‘Marsh Girl’ is immediately a suspect and Kya is charged with murder. The future looks bleak, but things have a way of changing and when all looks dark, sometimes the light shines again. Recently I recommended a book called The Day of the Accident by Nuala Ellwood—a thriller about a woman who wakes from a coma to find her world completely unrecognisable. I really enjoyed this book, and chose the book I’m currently reading because it looked to be exploring similar themes. And so far I looked Away by Jane Corry is paying off. Young grandmother, Ellie looks after her grandson Josh every Monday. She knows that her husband, Roger, has been unfaithful—but he assures her that his indiscretion is over. One Monday Ellie is with Josh and Roger when hubbie gets a call from his supposed ex. A betrayed Ellie looks away for a moment, and her world changes forever. The book is not just about Josh’s disappearance—Ellie also has secrets, which she is desperate to keep close. This, like Day of the Accident is a small (B format) paperback. It surprises me that Penguin didn’t publish them in the large format edition, as in my opinion they are as good as, if not better, than some of the more well-known authors released in ‘Trade’ format. A good read, although I’m not sure about the title. Janice Wilder
6
Crime Fiction
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves ($30, PB)
In North Devon, where the rivers Taw & Torridge converge & run into the sea, Det. Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father’s funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too. Now he’s back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region. A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew’s new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The first in a new series from Ann Cleeves.
The Other End of the Line by Andrea Camilleri
A surge of migrants have been coming into Vigata by boat, and all the town’s hands are on deck to help the arrivals. At the heart of the scene are Montalbano & crew—on the lookout for the people smugglers responsible. One night, while Montalbano is enduring yet another gruelling stint at the port, Elena, the dressmaker at the town’s famous tailors, is found dead—slaughtered by her own scissors. As a swell of desperate people arrive in search of a better life, Inspector Montalbano finds himself trying to unravel the mystery of who murdered the dressmaker. What will happen if he keeps tugging on this thread? And what will he find at the end of the line? ($30, PB)
The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz
Lisbeth Salander has been gone from Stockholm since Holger Palmgren’s funeral, & Mikael Blomkvist is worried—but perhaps he should be more concerned for himself. In the pocket of an unidentified homeless man, who died with the name of a Swedish government minister on his lips, the police find a list of telephone numbers—Blomkvist’s among them. Following the scorched trail of her twin sister Camilla to Moscow, Salander nevertheless continues to watch over her old friend—and soon he’ll need her help. But first, she has an old score to settle; and fresh outrage to avenge. ($33, PB)
Three Hours by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellström
Stockholm, Sweden. 73 refugees have been found dead, suffocated in a container at Varta harbour. Niamey, Niger. Ewert Grens arrives in a city he’s never heard of, in search of a man he never thought he would see again. Piet Hoffmann has again got himself in too deep, infiltrating a West African trafficking ring. He thinks he has two weeks to extricate himself, but will learn that his life, and that of countless defenceless people, now hangs on his actions during 3 desperate hours. The third novel in the Ewert Grens/Piet Hoffmann trilogy. ($33, PB)
Missing Person by Sarah Lotz
Missing-linc.com is a group of misfit sleuths whose macabre passion is giving names to the unidentified dead. Their latest investigations is the corpse known as the Boy in the Dress. The Boy was Teddy Ryan. He was meant to have been killed in a car crash in the west of Ireland in 1989—but there’s no grave in Galway & Teddy was writing letters from New York a year after he supposedly died. But one night he met a man in a Minnesota bar and vanished off the face of the earth. Teddy’s nephew, Shaun, joins forces with Missing-linc to hunt down the killer. Unfortunately, so too does the killer. ($30, PB)
How the Dead Speak by Val McDermid ($33, PB)
When human remains are discovered in the grounds of an old convent, it looks like someone has been using the site as their personal burial ground. But with the convent abandoned long ago & the remains dating back many years, could this be the work of more than one obsessive killer? After their last case ended catastrophically, Tony Hill & Carol Jordan can only watch from afar. As they deal with the consequences of previous actions, someone with a terrifying routine is biding their time— and both Tony & Carol find themselves closer to the edge than they have ever been before.
I Looked Away by Jane Corry ($20, PB)
Every Monday Ellie looks after her 4 year-old grandson Josh. The love she feels for him is different to anything she’s experienced before. The only thing that can mar her happiness is her husband’s affair. But he swore it was over. Then one day, while she’s looking after Josh, her husband gets a call from that woman. And just for one moment, Ellie takes her eyes off her grandson. The accident that happens will change Ellie’s life forever. Not least when the police discover that her younger brother died in suspicious circumstances 35 years ago.
The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre ($28, PB)
Meet Patience Portefeux, fifty-three, an underpaid French-Arabic translator who specialises in police phone taps. Widowed after the sudden death of her husband, Patience is wedged between the costs of raising her daughters and the nursing home fees for her ageing mother. She’s laboured for twenty-five years to keep everyone’s heads above water. The she happens upon an especially revealing set of wiretaps ahead of all other authorities, and makes a life-altering decision that sees her intervening in—and infiltrating—the machinations of a massive drug deal. She thus embarks on an entirely new career path—Patience becomes La Daronne ‘the Godmother’.Cayre’s novel casts a piercing & darkly humorous gaze on everyday survival in con-temporary France.
