Tag: crime

#BookReview End of Summer by Anders de la Motte @ZaffreBooks

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End of SummerAbout the Book

You can always go home. But you can never go back…

Summer 1983: Four-year-old Billy chases a rabbit in the fields behind his house. But when his mother goes to call him in, Billy has disappeared. Never to be seen again.

Today: Veronica is a bereavement counsellor. She’s never fully come to turns with her mother’s suicide after her brother Billy’s disappearance. When a young man walks into her group, he looks familiar and talks about the trauma of his friend’s disappearance in 1983. Could Billy still be alive after all this time?

Needing to know the truth, Veronica goes home – to the place where her life started to fall apart. But is she really prepared for the answers that wait for her there?

Format: Paperback (480 pages)        Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 19th August 2021 Genre: Crime, Mystery

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My Review

End of Summer was first published in Sweden in 2016 where it was shortlisted for Novel of the Year in the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Awards. Now available in English, it’s the second book in the ‘Seasons Quartet’ with Dead of Winter and Deeds of Autumn due out in January and October 2022 respectively, joining Rites of Spring which was published in April 2021, although each book is a standalone story.

End of Summer unfolds in alternating chapters, moving between past and present – the summer of 1983 and the present day. For me this structure really worked as I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next in the other timeline, although later in the book, one of the timelines predominates. Throughout the book the author’s  ability to deliver a teasing last line adds to the suspense, as does the occasional inclusion of a series of letters from an undisclosed correspondent, the significance of which only becomes evident in the closing chapters.

As the mystery of Billy Nilsson’s disappearance remains unresolved, the reader sees played out the disturbing effect it has on the family, the small community of Reftinge in which they live, and the police officer charged with investigating it, Chief of Police Månsson. Unfamiliar with investigating a crime of this magnitude, Månsson feels out of his depth but deeply conscious of his obligation to provide an answer for the Nilsson family. Månsson can’t help imagining what it would be like if it was one of his own sons who had gone missing. At one point he reflects, “I’m doing my best… I’m trying to be a good husband, a good father. A good police officer.” I found him a very empathetic character. The pressure on Månsson only increases when what evidence there is seems to point to a particular individual.

Moving to the present day, Billy’s sister, Vera, has reinvented herself as Veronica. The reasons for this remain tantalizingly unclear for much of the book; all the reader knows is that she seems to have experienced more than one traumatic event in her life. Ironically, Veronica is now working as a bereavement counsellor running grief therapy sessions at which those attending share the impact of their loss. The author shows a deft touch here, one phrase in particular sticking in my mind: the description of the tears shed by a member of the group as being ‘tiny, translucent pearls of grief’. An unxpected arrival at one of Veronica’s sessions triggers disturbing memories and sets in motion a chain of events which increasingly spirals out of control, triggering feelings of panic and paranoia.

When Veronica returns home to the family farm at the urging of her brother Mattias, Reftinge seen through her eyes is rather rundown. However, that feeling is soon replaced by the spine-tingling atmosphere the author creates as Veronica pursues her own investigation into the disappearance of her brother, heedless to the risks she runs in doing so. But how much of what she experiences is imagined, how much is real?

The author lays down plenty of false trails that certainly had me foxed. I developed several theories but the answer to the question ‘Where is Billy?’ when it is finally revealed definitely wrong-footed me. The solution was both more complex and more heartrending than anything I could have come up with.

End of Summer is a compelling mystery but also an absorbing and insightful picture of a family coping with the disappearance of a child: the unanswered questions, the dashed hopes, and the sense of absence. I found it absolutely gripping from start to finish and it’s a book I definitely won’t forget in a hurry.  I must also commend the translator, Neil Smith. If I hadn’t known, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed the book was originally written in Swedish.

My thanks to Clare Kelly at Zaffre for my proof copy of End of Summer. I shall certainly be looking out for future books in the series.

In three words: Gripping, moving, masterful

Try something similar: The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana

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Anders de la MotteAbout the Author

Anders de la Motte is the bestselling author of the ‘Seasons Quartet’; the first three of which – End of Summer, Deeds of Autumn and Dead of Winter – have all been number one bestsellers in Sweden and have been shortlisted for the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year. Anders, a former police officer, has already won a Swedish Academy of Crime Award for his debut, Game, in 2010 and his second standalone, The Silenced, in 2015.
To date, the first three books in the ‘Seasons Quartet’ have sold over half a million copies, with the fourth, Rites of Spring, publishing in Sweden in 2020. Set in Southern Sweden, all four books can be read as standalone novels.
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#BookReview A Line To Kill (Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery 3) by Anthony Horowitz @PenguinUKBooks

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A Line To KillAbout the Book

‘I couldn’t see the sea from my bedroom but I could hear the waves breaking in the distance. They reminded me that I was on a tiny island. And I was trapped.’

There has never been a murder on the island of Alderney. But as writers gather for a brand new literary festival a killer lies in wait. An island full of secrets is about to become an island full of suspects…

Private Investigator, Daniel Hawthorne and the writer, Anthony Horowitz have been invited to the festival to talk about their new book. Very soon they discover that dark forces are at work. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour. And the visiting authors – including a blind medium, a French performance poet and a celebrity chef – seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets.

When the festival’s wealthy sponsor is found brutally murdered, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows that he doesn’t have to look too far for suspects.

There’s no escape. The killer is still on the island. And there’s about to be a second death…

Format: Hardcover (384 pages)        Publisher: Century
Publication date: 19th August 2021 Genre: Crime

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My Review

This book is tremendous fun with plenty of in-jokes and gentle jibes at the publishing industry as well as the author himself. I particularly enjoyed the opening scene in which, with his customary self-mockery, Anthony Horowitz attends a meeting with his publishers to discuss publicity for his book The Word is Murder (the first book in the series) and finds they are much more interested in Hawthorne than they are in him.

Throughout the book, Hawthorne displays observational and deductive skills that would give even Sherlock Holmes a run for his money. Horowitz constantly reminds himself that, when it comes to solving crime, he is not in Hawthorne’s league and his role is merely that of chronicler of Hawthorne’s genius. Of course, in actuality, Hawthorne is Horowitz’s creation and therefore any brilliance displayed by Hawthorne is the author’s own. At one point, as Hawthorne examines the evidence, Horowitz asks, “Do you know who killed him?” and Hawthorne responds, “Is this for the book?” Slipping into author mode Horowitz reassures him, “Don’t worry. If there is a book, I’ll leave the resolution until the last chapter.”  So I loved the fact that the penultimate chapter is entitled ‘Keep Reading’.

Alongside the humour, A Line To Kill is also an ingenious and intriguing murder mystery. There is a plethora of suspects and possible motives, and the island of Alderney, accessible only by plane or ferry, plays the role of the ‘locked room’ so beloved of crime writers. And, of course, not everyone turns out to be who they claim to be.

The final chapter proves an author is always thinking about that next book and trying to come up with a title. In Anthony Horowitz’s case, this has to be one with a grammatical allusion like previous books in the series, having already ruled out the suggested Hawthorne Investigates. I for one certainly hope there is another investigation for Hawthorne and Horowitz before too long.

My thanks to Anna Gibson at Cornerstone for my proof copy. A Line to Kill is book 18 in my 20 Books of Summer 2021.

In three words: Clever, witty, ingenious

Try something similar: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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AnthonyHorowitzAbout the Author

The author of the bestselling teen spy series, Alex Rider, Anthony Horowitz is also responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War.

He has also written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty, two James Bond novels, Trigger Mortis and Forever And A Day, and two bestselling crime novels, The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death, starring Detective Daniel Hawthorne.

In 2016 he wrote Magpie Murders which became a bestseller around the world, and was the recipient of eight literary awards in Japan. Moonflower Murders, published in August 2020 continued the story.

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