Category: Reviews

My Week in Books – 2nd February 2025

whatcathyreadnext3 Comments

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared five books that deal with aspects of the Holocaust to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was New-To-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme.

New arrivals

Three ARCs and a book club pick...

Traitor’s Legacy by S.J. Parris (eARC, Hemlock Press via NetGalley)

Front cover of Traitor's Legacy by S.J. Parris

England, 1598. Queen Elizabeth’s successor remains unnamed. The country teeters on a knife edge.

When a young heiress is found murdered at the theatre, the Queen’s spymaster Robert Cecil calls upon former agent Sophia de Wolfe to investigate.

A cryptic note found on the dead girl’s body connects to Sophia’s previous life as a spy, and her quest soon takes her into dangerous waters. Powerful enemies emerge, among them the Earl of Essex: the Queen’s favourite courtier and a man of ruthless ambition.

This is a murder that reaches directly into the heart of the court. And Sophia is concealing a deep-buried secret of her own. She must uncover the truth before her past threatens to destroy her.

That Which May Destroy You by Abda Khan (eARC, Chiselbury)

Front cover of That Which May Destroy You by Abda Khan

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…?

Miriam Hassan stands in the defendant’s dock at Birmingham Crown Court charged with the cold-blooded murder of her well-known, rich, charismatic husband Zaf, to which she pleads not guilty. However, nothing is straightforward.

There is conflicting witness testimony. The couple argued on the day in question, and Miriam was overheard threatening him. A witness places her at the scene of the crime. Miriam’s evidence casts doubt on her guilt, but no one can corroborate it.

It soon becomes apparent that both Zaf and the marriage were not as they seemed. Miriam discloses details about the ‘gaslighting’ and emotional abuse she suffered, and the court also discovers that Zaf in fact had a number of enemies. On the other hand, Miriam stands to inherit Zaf’s vast fortune if she walks free.

Through the moving testimony in the courtroom and dramatic flashbacks of the two-year marriage, the reader is taken on a gripping and thought-provoking journey, but when the shocking truth is finally revealed, the reader will be left with a moral question that may be difficult to answer.

A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow (eARC, Headline via NetGalley)

Front cover of A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow

Berlin. May 1940. As Hitler prepares to invade Western Europe, there is bloodshed closer to home.

CI Horst Schenke is an investigator with the Kripo unit. Powerless against the consequences of the war, he fights to keep criminals off his patch. But with doubts growing about his loyalty to the Nazi regime, he is walking a tightrope. If his relationship with a Jewish woman is exposed, a dreadful fate awaits.

Berlin’s gangsters run their crime rings with impunity. Decadent senior Nazis protect them. Schenke is different. He won’t turn a blind eye when innocents are caught in the crossfire between warring gangs. But dangerous enemies know everything about him. They will do whatever it takes to bend him to their will . . .

Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton (audiobook)

Front cover of Butter by Asako Yuzuki

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay by Flora Johnston
  • My Five Favourite January 2025 Reads
  • Book Review: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  • Book Review: The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor

#WWWWednesday – 29th January 2025

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)

Front cover of The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O'Connor

February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome.

Inside the beleaguered city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.

During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.

Meanwhile, Hauptmann’s attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him – one where the consequences could be lethal.

The Ghosts of Paris (Billie Walker Mystery #2) by Tara Moss (Verve Books) 

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator.

When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie’s own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie’s wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

As Billie’s search for her client’s husband takes her to both the swanky bars at Paris’s famous Ritz hotel and to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she’ll need to keep her gun at the ready, because something even more terrible than a few painful memories might be following her around the City of Lights…

Recently finished

The House With Nine Locks by Philip Gray (Harvill Secker)

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Penguin)

The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay by Flora Johnston (eARC, Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

What Cathy Will Read Next

A Cold Wind From Moscow by Rory Clements (Zaffre) 

Winter, 1947. Britain’s secret services have been penetrated. The country is more vulnerable than ever – and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knows it. He decides it is time to send his master of ‘Special Tasks’ to create extra chaos.

But Stalin has a more important motive than mere disruption. He has a man on the inside who must be protected at all costs – a communist super-spy who has the secrets of the atomic bomb at his fingertips.

Freya Bentall, a senior MI5 officer, no longer knows who to trust and is left with one to bring in an outsider whose loyalty is beyond question – Cambridge professor Tom Wilde. His task: to find the traitor in MI5.

Bentall has three main suspects and Wilde must get close to them all. That means delving deep into the criminal underworld, attaching himself to the cultural elite of the arts and finding a way into the extreme reaches of British politics.

As winter bites and violence erupts, Wilde faces an uphill battle to protect those he loves from merciless killers. And he knows that one slip will spell disaster for the country – and his family.