Tag: ARCAugust

Book Review: In The Blood by Ruth Mancini

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In the BloodAbout the Book

In southeast London, a young mother has been accused of an unthinkable crime: poisoning her own child – and then leaving him to die.

The mother, Ellie, is secretive and challenging – she’s had a troubled upbringing – but does that mean she’s capable of murder?

Balancing the case with raising her disabled five-year-old son, criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman sets out in desperate pursuit of the truth. But when her own child becomes unwell, Sarah realises she’s been drawn into a dangerous game.

Unsettling and compulsive, In the Blood is a chilling study of class, motherhood and power from a new star in crime fiction.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (400 pp.)                          Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 9th August 2018 (ebook, 1st May 2018)   Genre: Thriller, Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

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My Review

I remember being a fan of the Granada TV series Crown Court that was broadcast in the afternoons in the 1970s and 1980s.  It was a treat for days off sick or during school holidays and, yes, I’m aware that dates me.  So I found the details of the court proceedings in In The Blood especially fascinating.  There was a real sense of authenticity, no doubt informed by the author’s own experience as a criminal defence lawyer in real life.

The same sense of authenticity was evident in the depiction of single mother, Sarah, as she struggles to hold down an important and stressful job whilst coping with a young child with special needs.   I found her an immediately sympathetic figure and, sadly, the pressure she encounters from her boss and some of her co-workers seemed only too believable.  Sarah’s made to feel she’s not ‘pulling her weight’ because her caring commitments and lack of any family support system means she can’t drop everything at short notice or work unsocial hours in the way her colleagues can.   On the other hand, when she takes on Ellie’s case, whose circumstances in a lot of ways mirror Sarah’s own, the reader is forced to wonder if it’s possible for Sarah to retain the correct degree of professional detachment.

If you’re anything like me, from the start, you’ll find Ellie an unsympathetic figure who seems deliberately designed to raise the reader’s suspicion about her involvement in the harming of her son, Finn.  She comes across as shifty, evasive and unwilling or unable to accept the seriousness of the position in which she finds herself.    You’ll probably also find yourself wondering if you’re being deliberately manipulated by the author into believing Ellie guilty.  But surely that’s the part of fun of a book like this, isn’t it?

And if someone seems too bad to be true perhaps it’s equally possible for someone to be too good to be true as well.  Unfortunately manipulators come in all guises and, as the author skilfully shows, seem able to home in instinctively on a person’s weakness.  And in Sarah’s case, her weakness is definitely her son.

The author kept me guessing throughout the book, peopled as it is with a host of characters whose motives and credibility seemed questionable.  My one reservation is that I wasn’t completely convinced by the motivation of the person finally revealed to be responsible for the poisoning of little Finn.  Their preoccupations and belief system did seem like something out of an earlier age.

In The Blood is a compelling, accomplished thriller sure to delight fans of courtroom dramas but is also a book which explores some contemporary social issues with insight and acute observation.  Oh, and it would have made some terrific episodes of Crown Court…

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Head of Zeus, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, twisty, suspenseful

Try something similar…A Mother’s Sacrifice by Gemma Metcalfe (read my review here)

Ruth ManciniAbout the Author

Ruth Mancini is a criminal defence lawyer, author and freelance writer.  Ruth’s own son is severely disabled, so Sarah’s experiences are based on her own.  She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two children.

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Book Review: A Quiet Genocide by Glenn Bryant

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A Quiet Genocide [Amsterdam Publishers] by Glenn Bryant COVERAbout the Book

Germany, 1954. Jozef grows up in a happy household – so it seems. But his father Gerhard still harbours disturbing National Socialism ideals, while mother Catharina is quietly broken. She cannot feign happiness for much longer and rediscovers love elsewhere. Jozef is uncertain and alone. Who is he? Are Gerhard and Catharina his real parents?

A dark mystery gradually unfolds, revealing an inescapable truth the entire nation is afraid to confront. But Jozef is determined to find out about the past and a horror is finally unmasked which continues to question our idea of what, in the last hour, makes each of us human.

A terrifying and heartbreaking story.

Format: ebook (240 pp.)             Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Published: 22nd August 2018     Genre: Historical Fiction

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
Publisher | Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

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My Review

The Quiet Genocide contains a wealth of fascinating information about the rise of Hitler and National Socialism that was certainly new to this reader. The author chooses to impart these facts largely through the classes Jozef attends at school and university, so I did feel at times that I was sitting alongside him in a series of history lectures – a case of telling rather than showing.  This contrasted with the sections of moving first-hand testimony, for example from Professor Zielinski, which felt much more vivid and powerful.   I also confess that I found it difficult to identify with the adolescent drinking exploits of Jozef and his university friends that take up some of the book.

Jozef’s experiences at school and university are interspersed with insights into the troubled marriage of his parents, Catharina and Gerhard.   Gerhard finds refuge in drinking sessions, either alone or with his acquaintance Michael, who seems to exercise a strange hold over Gerhard and exudes a general air of malevolence.  Catharina finds refuge from her unhappy marriage in a quite different way; a way that will have unforeseen and tragic consequences.

The subtitle of the book, The Untold Holocaust of Disabled Children in WW2 Germany, means the subject matter of the book is clear to the reader from the start but of course what the reader doesn’t know is how Jozef’s personal history is connected to this terrible atrocity.  I think it’s fair to say that it takes quite a while for the mystery surrounding Jozef’s past to be revealed.  However, as the book draws towards its shocking conclusion and the true nature of the connection is revealed, it provides an explanation for the strained relationship between Jozef’s parents and demonstrates how the malevolent influence and twisted belief systems of Nazism persisted in some quarters even beyond the end of the war.  I found this latter section of the book the most compelling and, for me, it had the pace that was perhaps lacking in earlier parts of the book.

Although I have read a number of books about atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War Two, the shocking nature of those events never seems to lose its impact.  Most shocking of all, I find, is the ruthless efficiency and organisation with which such terrible acts were carried out: paperwork completed, records kept, numbers tallied, targets set.  Books such as A Quiet Genocide perform an important role in ensuring that such atrocities are never forgotten.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, factual, chilling

Try something similar…The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford (read my review here)

Glenn Bryant PORTRAITAbout the Author

Glenn Bryant was born in 1976 and grew up in Grimsby, the north of England. He has a Masters degree from the University of Dundee, Scotland in modern history where he studied in detail the Warsaw Ghetto 1940-43. He trained in newspaper journalism and is a qualified and experienced senior journalist.

His wife champions disability rights and is experienced working closely with people with complex disabilities.

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