Second Shot – Zoë Sharp

Second Shot from Zoë Sharp is a Charlie Fox thriller and what a thriller it is too.  This is the sixth novel in the series and here Charlie is charged with providing bodyguard services to a recent lottery winner Simone, mother of four year old Ella.  Simone is estranged from her partner Matt and is hell-bent on finding her ex-SAS soldier father with whom she lost contact when a child.  Simone needs protection as her now tempestuous relationship with Matt following the lottery win makes her life and story wonderfully delicious fodder for the hunt-as-a-pack tabloids.  Someone has become quite close to locating Simone's father in the States, but he then dies in suspicious circumstances and it appears that her father wants to remain resolutely hidden, up to a point.  When the action moves from London to Boston, Charlie discovers that Simone makes a difficult subject, as she simply cannot grasp the risks she's under…

This is an easy read and a page turner of a novel; the plot competes heavily with the strong characterisations and tetchy relationships to drive you forward.  Even minor characters are strong and well drawn.  There's a perfect old school City private banker.  There's a father-in-jeopardy not about to allow his child to be taken out of his life for good.  There's a father who can only function as he does at work: controlling and with clinical precision.

At the centre, there's an engaging, sometimes sweet but always typical four year old caught up in what becomes a maelstrom of events.  And it's seeing the impact on young Ella that brings home the reality of the impact of crime on innocent victims.

Like all good crime novels, Second Shot also tests perception versus reality, removing another layer of the onion as the chapters are read.  Is all what it seems?  Well, you have to read it to find out.  Like Charlie, you'll feel protective of Ella and develop a bond with her; she's as strong on the page as she would be in flesh and blood and she grabs you emotionally.  At the end of this novel you'll want her to be safe.  Is she?  Again, you have to read to find out and I hope that you do.

Zoë Sharp has garnered a great following in the US for her novels and it's now time that the UK's crime readership contingent joined the bandwagon in legions.  Well, you wouldn't want to miss out, would you?
 

Last Rituals – Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

I have to admit to listening to this Icelandic author at the Hay Festival and thinking 'she's my kind of woman'.  I loved her humour, her honest and direct approach, and her ability to drop in the word 'bloody' without a moment's hesitation.  Icelandic?  Hey, she could be a Brit, easily.

But what of her first adult novel Last Rituals which has now been translated for and published in the UK?  (As well as in 35 other languages across the world.)  Did this translated dark-side of noir captivate me in my crime fiction reading world?  You bet. I thought it was fantastic.  Read on.  Please.

It's also great to learn something when you're reading and in Last Rituals we learn of Iceland's history in respect of the witch hunts of the 1600s and, interestingly, the fact that Iceland only burnt one woman at the stake - alongside 20 men – unlike the rest of Europe which embraced a misogynistic spree.  But, Last Rituals has a contemporary setting and the historical element is very successfully woven in.

Last Rituals opens with the discovery of the body of German student Harald Guntlieb at the University of Iceland.  The police arrest a drug dealing friend of his, but Harald's very wealthy Bavarian parents feel there is insufficient evidence, so they send their security man, Matthew Reich to Iceland to perform an investigation.  As he doesn't speak Icelandic, they seek out the services of local lawyer, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir to assist him.

Murder Most Fab – Julian Clary (loosely crime fiction)

I wasn't sure what to expect of Murder Most Fab, which carries the tag line 'You'd kill to be that famous'.  It looked like it could be crime fiction, but it's not really; even though Ebury Press (an imprint of Random House) categorised it as 'crime and mystery'.  It's also difficult to talk about the novel without giving too much of the plot away, so let's start by saying it's the life story of one fictional Johnny Debonair, formerly TV's Mr Friday Night, who, when completing his story, has found himself in a bit of a predicament.  Having a high risk lifestyle, Johnny D's life has caught up with him.  The questions are who, what, when, how and why and what is the outcome?

The novel opens with Johnny D's open letter to a former lover, Timothy, and it's clear that JD has never got over this lost love.  JD, a very beautiful boy, born to a somewhat flaky and hippy mother with father unknown, has an idyllic childhood with his mother, apart from when she has 'funny turns' and disappears for a while – suggesting depression or bipolar disorder.  Mother Alice is a free spirit who likes to roam the fields of Kent, speak to the birds, have innumerable affairs and who converses with her son in poetry.  During her 'turns', JD finds home, time and attention with his stalwart, maternal (& wealthy) grandmother, Rita, in Blackheath.  She provides some structure to his life – which he sorely needs.

JD moves on to the Lewisham School of Musical Theatre (unsuccessfully) and becomes a rent boy before finding success as a TV presenter.  Along the way, there are 'unfortunate deaths'.

Even though there is a great deal of humour in the narrative of this novel, overall I found it to be a sad tale.  The tag line suggests a driving ambition to be famous, but JD came across as someone who simply fell into things along the way: a follower and not a leader.  In addition to the precarious and jittery presence of a moral compass (often lost as easily as an umbrella), JD seemed to lack any sort of compass when it came to his life, apart from when travelling geographically.

The sections of the novel on his TV stardom were outweighed by his days as a rent boy, with the TV part of his life catching the short straw in the race to end the story.  More evidence of a drive to stardom would have been more credible to match the tag line, but the story did not match the marketing pitch, for me anyway, and I'll take the novel as read.  JD himself is a victim of sorts, not a slave to ambition, and I'll run with that, thanks.

Clary can certainly write fiction and I look forward to reading more.  He says his next novel concentrates on evil, but there is plenty of evil in Murder Most Fab, too.  Major plotting curve balls?  I saw two.  One I had anticipated and one that really came from the left, catching me unawares.

As for the humour, given that Clary himself would be deemed a 'celebrity' in this age, he makes more than one very intelligent swipe at the culture, as well as the impact of laminate flooring.

If you enjoy Clary's humour then you will find it in this novel, albeit it's a story that is not humour itself.  Not a classic 'whodunnit' scenario, this novel will still keep you guessing.  If you baulk at scenes of homosexual sex, skim and skip over please, because the satisfaction comes from the final pudding.

I honestly can't say I Ioved Murder Most Fab because I was left feeling a certain way. If you read it and feel as I did, you may see my point.  To disclose anything further would give the plot away and that's not something I am prepared to do; it's sheer stupidity.  I hope we meet JD again, though.  And I hope he finds a constructive compass…

Dead Lovely – Helen Fitzgerald

Dead Lovely by Helen Fitzgerald is published by Faber and Faber on 5 June.  Billed as "a dark tale of friendships gone bad…" it starts with a whacking great kick that has you wondering where this tale is going to go:

"Some people find themselves all at once, like an explosion.  Backpacking in the Himalayas maybe, or tripping on acid.  Some people study the art of finding themselves, and graduate – or not – after years of diligence.  I found myself bit by bit, through a series of accidents really.

The first bit I found was in a tent in the West Highland Way.  My best friend Sarah was asleep.  Her husband was lying beside her, and I was swallowing his semen.

I discovered the next piece of me at the bottom of a cliff, where I dragged Sarah's dead body, bumping her head from rock to rock.  Sarah, my best friend since we were little girls, who I'd betrayed and murdered.

And then, in the darkness of my parents' attic, I found the rest of me."

In a nutshell: Krissie and Sarah have been best friends since early school days.  But as adults they could not be more different, especially when it comes to relationships.  Where Sarah became a nurse, married a doctor and sought to start a family with no result, Krissie has jumped from one quick gratification liaison to the next.  Then, when on holiday in Tenerife, she conceives in a liaison in a loo cubicle.  Now, Krissie has something that Sarah desperately wants – a child – as well as having more than she can cope with and no clear vision of how she wants her future with her son to pan out.  Post-natal depression and alcohol dependency don't help, so a holiday is suggested.  While baby Robbie is looked after by Krissie's loving parents, Krissie joins Sarah and her husband Kyle for a week of walking and camping.  This is when things really start to implode…