Tag: mystery

Book Review: In Strangers’ Houses by Elizabeth Mundy

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In Strangers' HousesAbout the Book

There are some crimes you can’t sweep under the carpet . . .

Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner working in London, knows all too well about cleaning up other people’s messes. When her friend Timea disappears, she suspects one of her clients is to blame. However, the police don’t share her suspicions and it is left to Lena to turn sleuth and find her friend.

Searching through their houses as she scrubs their floors, Lena desperately tries to find out what has happened. Only Cartwright, a police constable new to the job, believes that this will lead to the truth – and together they begin to uncover more of Islington’s seedy underbelly than they bargained for.

But Lena soon discovers it’s not just her clients who have secrets. And as she begins to unravel Timea’s past she starts to wonder if she really knew her friend at all.

Format: ebook, paperback (272 pp.)      Publisher: Constable
Published: 8th February 2018                  Genre: Mystery

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

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My Review

In Hungarian cleaner Lena Szarka, the author has come up with a great premise for a detective because of course cleaners have unparalleled access to the homes of their clients.  They learn things – possibly intimate things – about their clients from the way they keep their houses to what’s in their cupboards.  They can get to know all about their dirty laundry – and I’m not just talking about yesterday’s socks.

Of course, a cleaner may only know their client from their house but if, like Lena, you’re smart and observant, there’s a lot you can tell about someone from their home. There’s a great scene in the book where Lena, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, is able to deduce a long list of facts about a client she’s never met just from their flat.

“It is a woman, “ said Lena.  “She is thin and short. With long dark hair But I have seen her hair brush, full of long dark hairs.  Her clothes are size eight.  The trousers have been shortened.  She always wears high heels.”

As someone who employs a cleaner (and always tidies up before they come), I had to laugh at some of the double standards Lena observes in her clients.   For instance, expecting cleaners to clean more thoroughly than we do ourselves. ‘People would never look under the sofa, she’d learnt, unless they’d hired a cleaner.  Then they’d be checking every week.  Lena couldn’t understand it.  If they didn’t want dust in their houses, they shouldn’t live in places built a hundred years ago.’

I liked the cast of supporting characters reflecting the range of immigrants who come to London in search of work from Eastern Europe and beyond.  I have to pick out Greta, Lena’s quite appalling mother as a personal favourite.

I really enjoyed getting to know Lena.  She’s clever, resourceful, perceptive and determined…very determined.  However, her deductions are not always spot on and can send her off on a tangent.  Sometimes there is an innocent explanation, Lena!  However, it’s understandable that she gets caught up in her desire to get to the bottom of her friend’s disappearance, especially when the police initially show little interest.

There were a couple of scenes in the book that I found a bit too melodramatic and which rather stretched credibility but overall I really enjoyed In Strangers’ Houses.  It was a fun read.  If you enjoy it, you’ll be pleased to know Elizabeth is working on a second book in the series due for publication later in 2018.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Little, Brown Book Group in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Engaging, amiable, mystery

Try something similar…Madam Tulip by David Ahern (click here for my review)

Elizabeth MundyAbout the Author

Elizabeth Mundy’s grandmother was a Hungarian immigrant to America who raised five children on a chicken farm in Indiana. An English Literature graduate from Edinburgh University, Elizabeth is a marketing director for an investment firm and lives in London with her messy husband and baby son. In Strangers’ Houses is her debut novel and the first in the Lena Szarka mystery series.

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Book Review: The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin

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The Wicked ComethAbout the Book

The year is 1831. Down the murky alleyways of London, acts of unspeakable wickedness are taking place and no one is willing to speak out on behalf of the city’s vulnerable poor as they disappear from the streets.  Out of these shadows comes Hester White, a bright young woman who is desperate to escape the slums by any means possible.  When Hester is thrust into the world of the aristocratic Brock family, she leaps at the chance to improve her station in life under the tutelage of the fiercely intelligent and mysterious Rebekah Brock. But whispers from her past slowly begin to poison her new life and both she and Rebekah are lured into the most sinister of investigations.

Hester and Rebekah find themselves crossing every boundary they’ve ever known in pursuit of truth, redemption and passion. But their trust in each other will be tested as a web of deceit begins to unspool, dragging them into the blackest heart of a city where something more depraved than either of them could ever imagine is lurking . . .

Format: ebook, hardcover(352 pp.)  Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 1st February 2018             Genre: Historical Fiction

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

Find The Wicked Cometh on Goodreads

My Review

Following a narrow escape from under the wheels of a carriage, Hester is taken under the wing of a handsome young surgeon, Calder Brock, who, in an echo of Pygmalion, sets out to prove that the poor are capable of education.  Hester finds herself drawn to Calder’s sister, Rebekah, who is charged with her tuition.  Soon Hester becomes eager for any excuse to be in Rebekah’s presence, daring to hope that her own feelings might be returned.   ‘Then something changes – the meeting of a kindred spirit, the potency of mutual trust – and the tender graces of self-belief once more visit themselves upon us and we are as complete as ever we may be.’

The author concentrates on building up the atmosphere of the period and the various locations in the first half of the book.   The writing conjures up the sights, sounds and smells of the seedier parts of London: dank cellars, dark alleyways, mire-strewn streets, secret thoroughfares used for illicit purposes.

The pace of the story really picks up in the second half as Rebekah and Hester embark on their investigation into the disappearances, risking everything as they enter the realm of individuals who have few scruples in dealing with those who get in their way.  Soon they are in parts of London without light both literally and metaphorically. ‘Dark with the business of the people who live here.  Dark with the deeds that are done.’  With the benefit of historical hindsight, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on so the interest was mainly in watching Hester and Rebekah feel their way slowly towards the shocking truth.

I enjoyed The Wicked Cometh and thought it was an assured debut.  I admired the writing and the way the author skilfully evoked the atmosphere of the dark underbelly of London.  There were also some intriguing plot elements revealed at the end.  I’ll confess I was left with the slight sense at the end that I’d read it all before in other books (admittedly a bit of an occupational hazard if, like me, you read a lot of historical fiction).  However, I would definitely look out for further books from this author.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Hodder & Stoughton in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Atmospheric, Gothic, mystery

Try something similar…The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh (click here to read my review)

Laura CarlinAbout the Author

Laura Carlin left school at 16 to work in retail banking and it was only after leaving her job to write full-time that she discovered her passion for storytelling and exploring pockets of history through fiction. She lives in a book-filled house in beautiful rural Derbyshire with her family and a Siamese cat called Antigone. When she’s not writing she enjoys walking in the surrounding Peak District. The Wicked Cometh is Laura Carlin’s first novel.

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