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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

Find In Strangers’ Houses on Goodreads

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.

Connect with Elizabeth

Website ǀ  Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads

 

Buchan of the Month: John Macnab by John Buchan

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Buchan of the Month

John MacnabAbout the Book

Three high-flying men – a barrister, a cabinet minister and a banker – are suffering from boredom. They concoct a plan to cure it. They inform three Scottish estates that they will poach from each two stags and a salmon in a given time. They sign collectively as ‘John Macnab’ and await the responses.

Format: Hardcover (277 pp.)  Publisher: Thomas Nelson & Sons
Published: June 1936 [September 1927]  Genre: Adventure, Humour

The details above are for the hardback edition in my Buchan collection (pictured above).  Those below are for a modern ebook/paperback edition.

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

Find John Macnab on Goodreads

My Review

John Macnab is the second book in my Buchan of the Month reading project.  It’s also a book from my Classics Club list.  Again, it’s a book I’ve read several times before.  To read more about my Buchan of the Month reading project, click here.  For a spoiler-free introduction to John Macnab, including details of its real life inspiration, click here.  Please be aware that the book includes depictions of hunting and shooting deer.

“The function of man is to live, not to exist.” Jack London, Tales of Adventure

This is a quote John Buchan would probably have agreed with, as the need for constant challenge in order to prevent decay of the body, mind and spirit is a common theme in his books.  In fact, he would probably take it even further, seeing lack of challenge as the first step towards a weakening of civilisation.  (He has one of his characters expound this view in John Macnab.) In just such a state of ennui do the three protagonists of John Macnab – all men in prominent public positions – find themselves at the beginning of the book.   Rather than steal a horse (which is Leithen’s doctor’s light-hearted advice to him) they embark on an adventure that will test their stalking and fishing skills, their physical stamina and risk their public reputations if unsuccessful.  ‘You’ve got to rediscover the comforts of your life by losing them for a little.’

Lawyer Edward Leithen (whom we met in The Power-House) along with banker, John Palliser-Yeates, and politician, Charles Lamancha, decamp to the Highlands basing  themselves clandestinely at the estate of mutual friend, Archie Roylance.  Then the fun begins as they attempt to outwit the forces arrayed against them.  The setting gives Buchan the opportunity to display his love of the Scottish countryside with some wonderful descriptions of the scenery.  ‘The strong sun was tempered by the flickering shade of the trees, and, as the road wound itself out of the crannies of the woods to the bare ridges, light wandering winds cooled the cheek, and, mingled with the fragrance of heather and the rooty smell of bogs, came a salty freshness from the sea.’

Although a Borderer by birth, Buchan has fun reproducing the Highland dialect of the local ghillies.  John Macnab is a light-hearted book and I certainly choose not to take as snobbery the delight the three men take in ‘dressing down’ as tramps or to be offended by some of their more unreconstructed views about social status.

As a backdrop to the exploits of the collective named ‘John Macnab’, there is a charming love story.  This features another familiar Buchan theme: the man who’s had little to do with women but falls head over heels when he meets someone who is his intellectual match.  ‘He saw in that moment of revelation a comrade who would never fail him, with whom he could keep on all the roads of life.’  [Isn’t that lovely?] In an echo of Mr Standfast (which is next month’s Buchan book) the gentleman concerned is attracted, amongst other things, by the fact the lady resembles ‘an adorable boy’.

I really enjoyed revisiting John Macnab.  It’s light-hearted and charming and all relayed in Buchan’s elegantly effortless prose.

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In three words: Entertaining, light-hearted, romance

John BuchanAbout the Author

John Buchan (1875 – 1940) was an author, poet, lawyer, publisher, journalist, war correspondent, Member of Parliament, University Chancellor, keen angler and family man.  He was ennobled and, as Lord Tweedsmuir, became Governor-General of Canada.  In this role, he signed Canada’s entry into the Second World War.   Nowadays he is probably best known – maybe only known – as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  However, in his lifetime he published over 100 books: fiction, poetry, short stories, biographies, memoirs and history.

You can find out more about John Buchan, his life and literary output by visiting The John Buchan Society website.

Look out for my introduction to next month’s Buchan of the Month: Mr Standfast