alysontheblog

Edge of truth is another adrenaline roller coaster ride from Brynn Kelly, the author who brought us the fantastic mash-up of thriller/romance that was Deception Island.  Edge of truth is a story of international conspiracy and war-mongering, played out in the Horn of Africa.  Tess Newell is a well -known tele-journalist, unfortunately more known for a high-profile romance break-up than for her journalism.  But Tess has uncovered a huge story of corruption and conspiracy, and is desperate to get the story out before the world is plunged into a major conflict – but she has been captured by the conspirators.

Tess is being held in a dungeon in an unknown location, and is under threat of an online streamed execution.  Her captives have decided to spice up the execution by introducing a second victim, a French soldier, adding pathos to the killings, as well as drawing another country into the conflict.  What they didn’t count on was the French soldier being a legionnaire, Flynn, who appeared briefly in Deception Island as a confrère of one of the main characters, Rafe Angelito.  Flynn, like Rafe a hunk with a tragic back-story and trust issues, decides to help Tess get her story out, despite her wanting him to leave her once they escape – as she is horrified that others have died trying to help her.

Tess and Flynn ricochet from danger to more danger.  The size of the operation working against Tess means Flynn has to use all his training and instincts to keep them safe. And of course, along the way the physical attraction between the two builds – and that on top of the adrenaline rush from being in minefields, in the sights of heavy weaponry, and from not knowing who they can trust, all adds to a pretty giddy ride.  The two characters are a good match, with Tess being a good strong player, and the narrative point of view swaps between the two.  The heightened action allows you to just roll with the more unlikely scenarios, and also accept the slight repetitiveness of some of the dialogue.

Edge of truth is a great adventure read, the conspiracy, although pretty mind-blowing, is actually quite believable given how whacky our political world has become.  And the novel deals a lot with journalistic integrity, and also personal motivation, whatever your role in war might be – soldier, journalist, materiel supplier.  As with Deception Island, we learn a lot about the main characters and why they might have difficulties trusting those around them.  Rafe and his crew also make an appearance, as do some of Tess’ colleagues, so the plotting has a nice build of both action and cast.  And add to that the wonderful location of Harar, Ethiopia, and you have a luscious read.

I understand Kelly has another volume on the way, this one dealing with two of the secondary characters in this novel – yippee!

This is an absolutely riveting debut novel.  Told from alternating points of view of two young artists, one a musician and the other a painter, whose gifts are thwarted by drugs, violence and a corrupted world view.  Zlata is a singer/songwriter who comes from a loving and supportive family, Hamish is the artist – and tagger – who is from a dismal background and who is knee-deep in self-loathing.  The two spy each other across a crowded room and in another world their love may have managed redemption.   But in Auckland with a widening gap between the haves and have nots, where drugs are pushing the natural us/them tendencies to grotesque levels, and where artistic success is seen as a cop out – there is not all that much room for redemption.

The narrative of the novel not only alternates point of view, but also tense – Zlata speaks in the past tense and Hamish in the present – so there is a sense of looming tragedy throughout.  The descriptions of a warped sense of reality provided by drugs and alienation that leads to terrible acts, allow those acts to be at once understandable and reprehensible.  And this makes the reader – at least this one – both conflicted by and engaged with the characters.  Hamish’ world view has collapsed to almost nothing – everyone and everything he encounters is stink, he can’t accept the help of friends, and the tension in the novel is whether he is going to allow Zlata to soften his rigid outlook.

Zlata is not that different from Hamish, but she does have the sliver of a sliver of light within her, which makes her the stronger of the two characters.  All of their cohort are described fully, as is Auckland and the other physical environments in the book.  The pivotal event that sends the endless round of bad decision-making flying off course, is a terrible crime that is really just a fluke, emerging as it does from a routine of posturing, drugs and violence.

The writing in Iceland verges on the poetic, but doesn’t tip into pathos, the characters are robust enough to mostly deserve the bad things that happen to them.  Hamish’ self-pity only makes sense from within his world view: “There’s nothing as hopeless as being broke.  Everyone gets a say in your life.  You’re not allowed secrets, you can’t act on your impulses, you have to turn up when you’re told, stand naked with your fucking hand out” – none of which describes the observed Hamish at all.  And Zlata with her fraction of hope: “I gorged myself at least three times and drank so much beer I was staggering by the time the shadows grew sharp. I was raw inside from where the drugs had eaten away at me, but I was happy.”

Iceland is a sad and hopeless tale about diminishing hope and expectations – but one well worth reading for its beauty and its insight.

Euphemia Sage has been receiving strange letters over the years – from her deceased aunt, the woman who raised her when her mother ran off.  The letters have been spookily aware of Euphemia’s circumstances at the time she reads them, and they speak of strange powers that she will possess once she hits menopause.  Euphemia is looking forward to seeing if the letters are true, but unsure how she will use such powers – her life being relatively uneventful.  She runs a consultancy business with her golf-crazy husband, and has two daughters, one a police detective and the other a cyber-whiz who works in the family business.  She finds enjoyment in her family, her work, running, and in Petal her pug.  But that all changes when the hot flushes start.

Euphemia’s annoying but efficient receptionist turns out to be running a loan shark business along with her obnoxious husband – using the Sage’s business to target clients.  And an old school rival, Jane, ends up at risk of having her legs broken by the loan shark’s heavies.  When Kenneth, Euphemia’s husband, goes off on a golf trip with a group that includes Jane’s husband, Euphemia thinks she has everything under control and can help Jane.  But that is before she sees Jane beaten and bundled into a car at gunpoint – and before the heinous baddies take Petal as an additional hostage.  After that, things go from terrible to dire, and Euphemia can’t go to the Police, so from the Police point of view she is starting to look like part of the problem.

Hot flush is a great romp, you find out more and more about the characters as you read, and the story is unveiled layer by layer, with things turning out to be not at all what they first appear to be.  Greed, manipulation, and playing the long game, all underpin the story.  The writing is very funny, and it is great having the drivers of the plot for the most part being strong women – and having ageing, change of life, and mitochondrial inheritance focussed on in a positive way.  There are also unanswered questions and lots of unfinished business, which promises there are more adventures of Euphemia Sage to come – excellent!

Miller Hatcher is getting over a relationship and the recent death of her mother, with the help of alcohol, when she gets the opportunity to write a feature story that might land her the job of head reporter for the national magazine she works for, First Look. Sergeant Kahu Parata is a local cop at the small Coromandel town of Castle Bay, where Miller will hopefully write her masterpiece.  Kahu knows all the locals and turns a blind eye to some of their misdemeanours, and he is annoyed when a team from Auckland are sent to work the case that Miller intends to cover – the discovery of the body of a missing tourist, Bethany Haliwell.

Miller in her sensitive state, and Kahu with his local knowledge, end up trying to get justice for Bethany amidst the prejudices and complacency of the locals, and the arrogance and impatience of the outsider cops and journalists.  The only place Miller can find to stay is a local retreat, Haven, and when another woman goes missing from there, the possibility that the murderer is still around the town increases.

Nothing bad happens here creepily highlights the level of danger women face in our society – how so many people can become suspects when harm is done to a woman, and how often women don’t feel able to come forward and speak out about abuse, but just put up with it as part of life.  It also – echoed in its wonderful title – deals with the tendency of tourist spots to downplay local danger in order to maintain business, the irresponsibility of the press when boosting circulation comes before reporting facts, and the way people are drawn to gruesome tragedy at the same time as being repelled by it.

It is a well plotted mystery, and just when you think you have guessed the final twist you are gazumped with a totally unexpected scenario.  The characters are great, and are given enough background to give you a chance at understanding some pretty outrageous behaviour.  I particularly liked Miller, she rapidly moves from being just one of the visiting journalists to being a concerned human being, and at times works more like a PI than a journo, and her compassion for the victims stops the story from just one where the female body count keeps clicking up.  The writing is very straight forward, but this in a way works nicely against the complex plotting.  A good New Zealand murder mystery.

I have enjoyed the C.J. Carver Forrester and Davies series from the first installment, and I am thrilled to be part of this Know me now blog tour.  The date list for the tour is at the end of my review.

In Know me now, partial amnesiac Dan Forrester is back, back in another adventure for our enjoyment, and also back with his wife, Jenny, and their daughter Aimee. The family is eagerly awaiting the imminent birth of Dan and Jenny’s second son.  Dan is also dealing with the sudden death of his father, Bill, who was visiting Germany when he had a massive heart attack.  In the midst of making arrangements for the repatriation of his father’s body, Dan hears that his 13-year-old godson, Connor, has also died.  Connor’s death is being dealt with as a suicide, but the local doctor in the Scottish village where he died is not so sure.  Two deaths so close together – and as the delightful DC Lucy Davies says: “In my job, we don’t believe in coincidences”.

C.J. Carver certainly does believe in coincidences, the local GP who is suspicious about Connor’s death is none other than Dr Grace Reavey – one of the main characters in the first Dan Forrester outing Spare me the truth.  I have come to realise that through this series Carver is weaving us a maypole of connections between her central characters.  Given her skillful plotting, I am sure there are more reveals and connections to come, and with Dan’s dodgy memory, goodness knows what he has forgotten from his past!

Dan wants to go to Scotland to look into Connor’s death, but is thwarted when he is told his father’s death is unnatural, and he decides to go to Germany instead.  Dan asks Lucy Davies to go to Scotland in his stead.  In Germany, it turns out Dan didn’t know the whole truth about Bill’s work after the war, or about the project his father and his close friends had been involved with.  As with the previous two installments of the series, we have some great plotting, and large picture conspiracies – this time involving some pretty precocious post-war research.

And we have thrills aplenty.  Another character back from Spare me the truth, is the sinister Sirius Thiele – the centre of some truly scary scenes, and of another tantalising ribbon being wrapped around the coincidence pole.  Dan, Lucy and Grace are all back in fine form.  And when Lucy gets into a bit of a hole, and gives herself the advice regarding her supervisor DI Faris MacDonald that I have been yelling at her for three books now, I whooped for joy.

If you haven’t read any of the series, Know me now could be read as a standalone novel, but my recommendation would be to read them from the beginning (Spare me the truth, Tell me a lie then Know me now) and that is a strong recommendation!