Tag: crime

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

Find In The Blood on Goodreads

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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Throwback Thursday: The Last Train by Michael Pronko

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme originally created by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

Today I’m revisiting a book I reviewed in December 2017 but which had been on my author review pile for quite a long while before that – The Last Train by Michael Pronko – the first in the author’s Detective Hiroshi series set in Tokyo.  The Last Train was published in May 2017 and you can find purchase links below.  It is also now available as an audiobook.

The Moving BladeAs you will see from my review below, I really enjoyed The Last Train so I was thrilled to learn from the author’s July newsletter that the next book in the series, The Moving Blade, is due out on 10th September 2018.  Find out more about it here.

TheLastTrainAbout the Book

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. He’s lost his girlfriend and still dreams of his time studying in America, but with a stable job, his own office and a half-empty apartment, he’s settled in.   When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer was a woman, but in Japan, that seems unlikely. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step – or a push – away. Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of Tokyo in search of the killer. To find her, Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s intricate, ominous market for buying and selling the most expensive land in the world. Hiroshi’s determined to cut through Japan’s ambiguities – and dangers – to find the murdering ex-hostess before she extracts her final revenge – which just might be him.

Format: Audiobook/ebook, paperback (348 pp.) Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Published: 5th May 2017                                          Genre: Crime, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Last Train on Goodreads

My Review

When I interviewed Michael on my blog last year (click here to read the full interview), he described The Last Train as ‘more whydunit than whodunit’ and having now read the book I can certainly understood why he said that.  Much of the excitement of the book comes from following detective Hiroshi Suzuki in his attempts to identify and track down the woman who committed the murderer.  The trail leads him from the flashy malls and smart high-rise buildings to the decidedly seedier world of hostess clubs and bars.  As the author explains, “…in the novel, I wanted to look beneath the surface. The giant skyscrapers and constant construction are amazing, but there’s a lot going on behind the go-go big-city bright-lights, and a lot of it not so good.”

As the investigation progresses, Hiroshi begins to understand the threat he faces from vested interests who may be involved in the shady dealings he starts to uncover.  He also starts to realise just what a clever and ruthless opponent he is up against and to get an inkling into the motivation that drives her.  When the full facts are revealed you may find yourself questioning where true justice lies.

What really set The Last Train apart from other run-of-the-mill crime thrillers for me was its Tokyo setting.  I loved learning all about Japanese culture and customs.  Take this scene in which Hiroshi and his boss, Takamatsu, drink sake together in the traditional manner.

‘The master pulled back a brown curtain over a glass-sided refrigerator filled with sake bottles.  He pulled out two small chilled glasses from the top shelf and set these on the upper counter inside small, square, cedar wood boxes.  The master shuffled the dozen or so bottles inside the fridge until he found the ones he wanted.  Carrying these to the counter, he hoisted the large bottle of cold sake and, cradling it in the crook of his arm, poured out the clear, clean liquid.  The sake flowed gently over the top of the lip of the glass into the box, arousing the aroma of cedar and fresh rice.  He poured out sake from a different bottle for Hiroshi and placed both bottles on the counter so that each displayed the artful calligraphy of their labels.

They bowed down like penitents to take the first sip without spilling.  Then they plucked up the small, thumb-sized glasses for a silent toast before downing the second gulp.  Finally, they poured the spill-over from the cedar box into the glass, took another sip, and set their half-full glasses back inside the wet cedar boxes.’

The book cleverly brings to life the intriguing juxtaposition of ancient and modern that exists in Japan.  So you have the temples and prayer rituals, the elaborate customs for greeting and drinking tea.  But at the same time you have the flashy malls full of shops selling designer goods and the latest technology and the packed subways and sidewalks of Roppongi.

‘People streamed out of subway exits, slid out of taxis, and stepped off bus after bus.  Hordes of office workers in dull gray pants and dark skirts blocked corners, shouting directions into their cell phones to those yet to arrive.  Fashion-conscious hipsters, mini-skirted amateurs, and yakuza wannabes walked to their favourite places to play, eat, drink, or work.’

The work culture with its emphasis on drinking with colleagues after work, to my eyes at least, seems particularly alien and the position of women quite regressive with real antipathy in some quarters towards women whose behaviour is seen as ‘un-Japanese’.

I really enjoyed The Last Train for both its compelling storyline and its use of Tokyo as a location.  Luckily for me – and I suspect, other readers – the author is working on two further books in the series, both of which are due for publication in 2018.

In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, mystery

Try something similar… Wolves in the Dark by Gunnar Staalesen (click here to read my review)

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MichaelPronkoAbout the Author

Michael Pronko is a professor of American Literature and Culture at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo and writes about Japanese culture, art, jazz, and politics for Newsweek Japan, The Japan Times, Artscape Japan and other publications.  He has appeared on NHK Public TV, Tokyo MXTV and Nippon Television.  His website, Jazz in Japan can be found at www.jazzinjapan.com.  His award-winning collections of essays about life in Tokyo are: Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life (2014), Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo (2014), and Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo (2015). He has also published three essay collections in Japanese.  When not teaching or writing, he wanders Tokyo contemplating its intensity and waiting for the stories to come.

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