Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review – The Ghosts of Paris by Tara Moss @VERVE_Books

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About the Book

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of WWII, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie to London and Paris, where painful memories of her own husband’s disappearance also lurk.

As Billie’s search for her client’s husband takes her from the swanky bars of Paris’s Ritz hotel and to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she’ll need to keep her gun at the ready. Something even more terrible than a few old memories might be following her around the City of Light…

Format: Paperback (352 pages) Publisher: Verve Books
Publication date: 21st November 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

The Ghosts of Paris is the second book in the author’s historical thriller series featuring Australian private enquiry agent Billie Walker. I definitely think it’s possible to enjoy The Ghosts of Paris without having read the first book, The War Widow, since the descriptions of the main characters and references to events in the previous book are sufficient to bring new readers up to date.

As in The War Widow, the legacy of the Second World War is never far away. Whether that’s physical scars, such as that of Billie’s assistant Sam, or continuing efforts to being Nazi war criminals to account. The terrible atrocities committed during the war, particularly on the population of Poland, are illustrated in the dramatic prologue.

Billie’s involvement in hunting down a criminal on the run has brought her notoriety and plenty of new clients, many of them women seeking evidence about errant husbands. Her latest client, Vera Montgomery, has a case that is a little too close to home, concerning as it does the unexplained disappearance of her husband Richard. That’s because the mystery of what happened to Billie’s husband, Jack, also remains unresolved. Can he still be alive having been missing for over two years or is he, as Billie has come to believe, dead?

The new case takes Billie and Sam to London and then Paris, a place Billie spent some time in during the war. There she is truly is surrounded by the ghosts of the past. More than she realises, as it happens. Their enquiries take them from the glamour of the Ritz hotel to the back streets of Montmartre. All the time, Billie can’t shake off the feeling that she’s being watched. But by whom and with what motive? She’s made plenty of enemies in her time, that’s for sure. Lucky then that she has her trusty pearl-handled Colt revolver tucked in her garter and loyal Sam at her side.

The standout scene in the book for me was Billie and Sam’s visit to the Paris morgue as they attempt to rule out the missing man’s disappearance is not the result of accident or foul play. It is utterly chilling.

All the different threads of the story are wrapped up pretty rapidly in the final chapters. But some things are left to be picked up in a future book, notably the changing relationship between Billie and Sam, and the lingering threat from those who still cling to Nazi ideology.

I could have done with a few less mentions of Billie applying her ‘Fighting Red’ lipstick, donning her sturdy Oxford shoes or exclaiming ‘Good Goddess’ but that’s probably just me. However, the twists and turns of the story, including a perilous encounter at Notre-Dame cathedral, and Billie’s tenacious pursuit of the truth kept me absorbed. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Corinne Davies who captured Billie’s feisty nature really well.

I received a review copy courtesy of Verve Books.

In three words: Intriguing, spirited, dramatic
Try something similar: The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

About the Author

Author Tara Moss

Tara Moss is an internationally bestselling author, passionate and inspiring chronic pain and disability advocate, human rights activist, documentary and podcast host and former model. Her crime novels have been published in nineteen countries and thirteen languages, and her memoir, The Fictional Woman, was a #1 international bestseller. Moss is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has received the Edna Ryan Award for significant contributions to feminist debate and for speaking out on behalf of women and children. In 2017, she was recognised as one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Figures in Public Life. (Photo: Goodreads)

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Book Review – The Mouthless Dead by Anthony Quinn

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About the Book

One night in 1931 William Wallace was handed a phone message at his chess club from a Mr Qualtrough, asking him to meet at an address to discuss some work. Wallace caught a tram from the home he shared with his wife, Julia, to the address which turned out, after Wallace had consulted passers-by and even a policeman, to not exist.

On returning home two hours later he found his wife lying murdered in the parlour. The elaborate nature of his alibi pointed to Wallace as the culprit. He was arrested and tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang, but the next month the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the verdict and he walked free.

Fifteen years on, the inspector who worked the case is considering it once more. Speculation continues to be rife over the true killer’s identity. James Agate in his diary called it ‘the perfect murder’, Raymond Chandler said ‘The case is unbeatable. It will always be unbeatable’. And on a cruise in 1947, new information is about to come to light.

Format: Hardcover (288 pages) Publisher: Abacus
Publication date: 6th March 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

The Mouthless Dead is inspired by a real case – the murder of Julia Wallace in 1931. It’s a crime which remains unsolved to this day. Quite a few people, including the author P. D. James, have had a go at trying to identify the culprit without ever coming up with a definitive answer. I had never heard of the case but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. Frankly, the author could have invented the case and the book would still have made a gripping read.

Although many of the characters are real and events such as the trial follow the historical record, the author has created a fictional character, Detective Inspector Key who was involved in investigating the case many years before but has now retired from the police force. It is from his point of view the story unfolds as he ponders writing a memoir about the case, for his own personal satisfaction rather than with any intention it should be published.

What is particularly brilliant is the detailed back story the author creates for Key. The cruel treatment he suffered whilst a pupil of a Jesuit college. His traumatic experiences during the First World War during which he lost comrades in the most dreadful fashion. His personal life, that has been a series of disappointments, leaving him living alone. He misses the camaraderie of the police force and, although a keen member of a chess club, he has time on his hands. Hence his decision to take a transatlantic cruise to New York.

On board he meets a young woman, Lydia Tarrant, who is travelling with her rather over-protective mother and they strike up a friendship. Two becomes three when aspiring film maker, Teddy Absolom, joins their conversations around the swimming pool. Discovering Key’s involvement with the celebrated Wallace case, both Teddy and Lydia are eager to learn more about it. It soon emerges that Key has an unique perspective on the case. But how much of what he reveals is the truth and how much the product of his imagination born out of a desire to impress Lydia or provide Teddy with the perfect screenplay for a suspense film?

It’s difficult to say more for fear of spoilers but safe to say the author will keep you guessing until the end. Possibly even after that.

The Mouthless Dead is an imaginative and compelling take on a true crime story. It’s also a fascinating social history of middle-class life in Liverpool in the 1930s.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Abacus via NetGalley.

In three words: Gripping, atmospheric, clever
Try something similar: The Dublin Railway Murder by Thomas Morris

About the Author

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he was the film critic for the Independent. His novels include The Rescue Man, which won the 2009 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award; Half of the Human Race; The Streets, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Walter Scott Prize; Curtain Call, soon to be a feature film starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton; Freya, Eureka, Our Friends in Berlin and London, Burning. He also wrote the recent Liverpool memoir Klopp.