Review: Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly

An excellent police procedural in its own right, and a definitive novel in the Harry Bosch series. This is crime writing at its very best.

Dark Sacred Night and the last handful of Michael Connelly’s novels — Two Kinds of Truth, The Late Show, and The Wrong Side of Goodbye — were clearly influenced by the superb Bosch television series. Which is not the derisive comment you might think it is; far from it, in fact. As necessitated by the medium, every season of the Bosch TV series merges various plot elements from two or three of Connelly’s books into one cohesive narrative; Bosch might be working more than one case, for example, and these two plots twist around each other like the double helix of a DNA strand. Connelly has adopted this technique with his last few books to great effect, and has ensured the recent Bosch novels, and the first Renée Ballard thriller The Late Show have felt very different to his earlier output. As exemplified by Dark Sacred Night, Connelly’s work is tauter — leaner and meaner — than it ever has been. And it’s great. It’s not that he’s reinvented his style or storytelling devices; rather, he’s just completely reinvigorated his writing. And it takes a very good writer indeed to modify a formula that’s garnered critical acclaim and landed places on bestseller lists worldwide for so long.

When Connelly introduced Renée Ballard in The Late Show, most readers would’ve assumed it was only a matter of time before she crossed paths with Harry Bosch. Few would’ve thought we’d witness that so soon. When Ballard meets Bosch, late one night during another graveyard shift, he’s rifling through an old filing cabinet, desperate for information on a cold case that’s sunk its teeth into him. Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway who was brutally murdered almost a decade ago, whose mother he met — as did readers — in Two Kinds of Truth. Ballard is initially suspicious of Bosch, but it quickly becomes clear: they’re both driven by the same desire for justice. So, still not entirely bonded, they agree to assist each other: Bosch on the outside, Ballard on the inside.

Meanwhile, Ballard is repeatedly distracted from the Clayton case by various callouts on her midnight shift. Most of these serve as momentary distractions, offering cool insights and anecdotes into Ballard’s history, and life in the LAPD. Bosch, too, can’t give the case his all: still attached in a part-time capacity to the San Fernadno Police Department, he is ready to serve a warrant on his prime suspect in the murder of veteran gang member Cristobel Vega. But things immediately go south, and Bosch finds himself facing the wrath of the Varrio San Fer 13, one of the oldest and deadliest gangs in the San Fernando Valley.

Dark Sacred Night is Connelly in fine form. It’s very rare when the thirty-second book by an author leaves you desperate for the next one, but Connelly delivers every time. The first Ballard & Bosch novel is a multilayered and multifaceted mystery, chock-full of moments of heart-pounding suspense, and a conclusion that rocks Bosch’s world to its core. Hours after I’ve put the book down, I’m still recovering from its reverberations. Michael Connelly — the proven master of the genre — continues to astound.

ISBN: 9781760528553
Format: Paperback (234mm x 153mm x mm)
Imprint: Allen & Unwin
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Publish Date: 29-Oct-2018
Country of Publication: Australia

Review: In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin

Classic Rankin — top-notch police procedure merged with deft characterisation.

Having conjured twenty-two novels worth of exploits for the irascible and incomparable John Rebus over the last thirty years, it would seem entirely reasonable for Ian Rankin to begin repeating himself, or for his series to start running out of steam. Indeed, even Rebus references the “managed decline” of his post-retirement life in In a House of Lies, and his treatment of the Saab that’s been as much an ever-present in these books as Rebus himself. But even as Rebus gradually succumbs to a lifetime of bad habits — not just the drinking and smoking, but integrating himself into trouble, and his recurrent dalliances with vigilantism — Rankin’s novels go from strength to strength as he shows a greater willingness to dive deeper into the moral ambiguity of his protagonist. Rebus was always an anti-hero — hard as nails, roguish; but always convinced of his own moral code — but as he faces us to his own morality, with the burden of empty years spent ruminating on his actions, Rankin paints a powerful portrait of a man lacking the assuredness that defined him.

Rebus’s ‘old school’ methods are thrust back into the spotlight when the skeletal remains of a private investigator are discovered more than a decade after the man’s disappearance — in a location that was, apparently, searched during the initial investigation. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of the new inquiry, tasked with combing through the mistakes of the original case; while Malcolm Fox, formerly of Professional Standards, has the job of specifically looking for misdemeanours, of which there were evidently many — several of which can be tied back to Rebus’s nemesis, the wily, power-hungry crime boss, ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty.

Rankin’s insight into character and motive is as keen as ever. He deftly cuts between his three primary leads as they follow wonderfully woven, unspooled threads that eventually tie together. As always, the resolution is incredibly satisfying, but is almost besides the point: we’re here for the characters, especially Rebus, whose wit remains as razor-sharp as ever. In A House of Lies encapsulates precisely why Rankin is the grandmaster of the genre, and why Rebus remains one of its most iconic and complex creations.

ISBN: 9781409176893
Format: Paperback (234mm x 153mm x mm)
Pages: 384
Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
Publish Date: 4-Oct-2018
Country of Publication: United Kingdom

Review: Second Sight by Aoife Clifford

A superbly constructed, tautly-paced, wrenchingly suspenseful mystery by an author who has earned a place among the top tier of Australian crime writers.

Having escaped the confines of her small, coastal hometown, Eliza Carmody had few reasons to ever return. Feeling betrayed and isolated by her family who’ve remained in Kinsale, and haunted by the events of New Years Eve in 1996 when one of her closest friends — Grace — disappeared, Eliza has reinvented herself in the big city as a successful lawyer. Unfortunately for Eliza, her career-defining case — defending a large cooperation against a bushfire class action by the town decimated by the flames — forces her to confront her past. That town, which was almost wiped off the map? It’s Kinsale.

As Eliza travels into town to meet up with an expert witness, a horrendous road rage incident unfolds before her eyes, climaxing with a deadly assaulted perpetrated by her childhood friend, Luke Tyrell. Already offside with the locals as a consequence of the looming legal battle, Eliza’s natural curiosity to determine precisely what propelled Luke onto this dark path leads her into confrontations with various figures from her past: her sister; her brother-in-law, now the local cop; and her father, a former police officer, now unresponsive after a car accident. When bones are discovered at a historic homestead in town, Eliza is certain they’re linked to that fateful New Year’s Eve.

The overriding theme of present-day Australian crime fiction, as evidenced by recent blockbusters such as The Dry, Scrublands, The Dark Lake, and the soon-to-be-published Greenlight, is small towns haunted and mutated by buried secrets. In this regard, Second Sight maintains that trend. What impressed me most about Aoife Clifford’s novel second novel is: (a) how well-concealed those secrets are, (b) how much perfect sense they make when they’re revealed, and (c) the devastating impact the exposure of these secrets has on the parties involved.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it” — a Flannery O’Connor quote that constantly resonates in my mind when I’m reading good crime fiction — could be this novel’s tagline. Second Sight is a virtuoso exploration of guilt and remorse; and a darn fine page-turner.

ISBN: 9781925596892
Format: Paperback (234mm x 153mm x mm)
Pages: 368
Imprint: Simon & Schuster Australia
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Publish Date: 1-Jul-2018
Country of Publication: Australia

Review: The Other Woman by Daniel Silva

The best spy novel you’ll read this year, The Other Woman is a tour de force of slow-burn tension and intrigue.

In a year of quite brilliant tales of espionage — Charles Cumming’s The Man Between and Henry Porter’s Firefly, to name just two — Daniel Silva’s new Gabriel Allon thriller supersedes everything that has come before it. Reminiscent of the great Cold War thrillers from yesteryear — a reflection of current events rather than exaggeration on the author’s part — The Other Woman is superb work of espionage from a skilled interpreter of all things topical.

In The Other Woman, Gabriel Allon — the legendary art restorer and assassin who serves as the chief of Israel’s vaunted and deadly secret intelligence service — and his trusted team are tasked with discerning the identity of a Russian mole who has reached the highest echelons of Britain’s MI6. It is a search that thrusts Allon back in time, to one of the 20th century’s greatest intelligence scandals, a period British Intelligence would rather forget, and are therefore resentful of its resurrection. Whether or not Allon identifies the mole, his relationship with the Western intelligence agencies will never be the same again.

The book has everything for the spy fiction aficionado: ample adrenaline-surging action, endless bureaucratic infighting, and plot-twists you won’t see coming. It works perfectly as a standalone, too: although this is Gabriel Allon’s eighteenth mission, The Other Woman resets the board for the series. Silva writes smart, sophisticated, grounded thrillers: less Ludlum and Flynn (whose explosion-filled, breakneck thrillers I adore), more akin to the fine work of le Carré and Greene. His endnote, too, is rather chilling, as he details the current state of the world, and Russia’s place in it.

Deftly plotted and elegantly written: The Other Woman might just be the spy novel of the year.

ISBN: 9781460755471
Format: Paperback (235mm x 155mm x 37mm)
Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
Publish Date: 23-Jul-2018
Country of Publication: Australia

Review: Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo

An exquisitely crafted standalone sequel to the brilliant Raymie Nightingale.

Although I’m not a children’s book specialist, I take great pleasure in reading a truly brilliant book aimed at younger readers. There’ve been a few in my time — having missed the truly transformative Harry Potter years — including most recently Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor, and before that, Kate DiCamillo’s Raymie Nightingale. There is no greater feeling as a bookseller — and certainly I can make no greater impact in my role — than putting a truly remarkable book in a child’s hands. I can safely say Louisiana’s Way Home will another one of those books.

Raymie Nightingale told the story of ten-year-old Raymie Clarke and her plan to make her father return to his family after he eloped with a dental hygienist. Set in 1975, in Florida, Raymie was determined to learn how to twirl a baton in order to win the title of ‘Miss Central Florida Tire 1975.’ She figured by winning the title, her photograph would make it into newspaper and be seen by her father, which would make him so proud, so desperate to see her, he’d want to return home immediately, and life would resume as before. But also aspiring to win the competition were two girls, Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski, both of whom had also lost parents and were seeking ways to move on with their lives. And while this triumvirate started off as competitors, their particular quirky personalities soon merged into friendship, worthy of being tagged as the “Three Rancheros” by Louisiana — whose journey we follow in Louisiana’s Way Home, set two years later in 1977.

The book chronicles 12-year-old Louisiana’s travels from Florida to Richford, Georgia, with her kooky grandmother, who forcibly plucks her from her happy, contended life with her friends, and unintentionally propels her on a journey of self-discovery, and the unravelling of “the curse of sundering” she believes has been her fate since birth. Were it not for Louisiana’s biting observations about the adults around her (which had me chuckling on several occasions), Louisiana’s Way Home would be mortifyingly sad — but Kate DiCamillo’s lucid prose and her ability to craft tales that are simultaneously poignant and triumphant make this a book to cherish.

We can only hope this is a trilogy in the making, and the third and final of the Three Rancheros, Beverly Tapinski, finds herself the protagonist in a story of her own, too.

ISBN: 9781406384208
Format: Hardback
Pages: 240
Imprint: Walker Books Ltd
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Publish Date: 1-Oct-2018
Country of Publication: United Kingdom

Review: Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

All the ingredients are here to make Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers another standout — brilliant characters, sharp insight into human relationships, and laugh-out loud wit — but this time round, an unconvincing, and in my eyes, an outlandish plot twist — the actions of a certain character, preposterously villainous, almost James Bond-ish — marred the final third. Don’t get me wrong; Nine Perfect Strangers is as addictive a page-turner as Moriarty’s other work, and I loved spending my time in the heads of these nine (perfect) strangers during their ill-fated ten-day retreat; but this time round, the plot just felt a little too obviously manipulated.

As always with a Liane Moriarty novel, the plot is deceptively simple. In the case of Nine Perfect Strangers, nine stressed city dwellers — burdened by a smorgasbord of worries — arrive at Tranquillum House, which promises healing and transformation. Every attendee hopes to be transformed and reinvigorated: romance novelist Frances, for example, has just been mightily stung by an online scammer; while Napoleon, Heather and their daughter are still struggling to come to terms with the death of their son. The resort director watching over them is a woman named Masha; and she is not to be trifled with. A former hot-shot corporate type with a tragic past, she is determined to reshape her clients — no matter what the cost.

Although it deals with some heavy themes, the laugh-out-loud humour that regularly punctuates interactions between the cast makes Nine Perfect Strangers an absolute blast from start to finish. It’s a sharp-eyed, often touching portrait of the fractured lives of disparate strangers, and the unlikely ties that bind them together. Despite my misgivings about a certain plot element, there is no denying Liane Moriarty’s irresistible storytelling. This is pure, riotous entertainment from start to finish.

ISBN: 9781743534922
Format: Paperback (233mm x 154mm x mm)
Pages: 512
Imprint: Macmillan Australia
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Publish Date: 18-Sep-2018
Country of Publication: Australia

Review: The Man Between by Charles Cumming

ManBetween At first I wondered whether its setup might be a little too on the nose — a spy novelist drawn into real-world espionage — but Charles Cumming’s sophisticated treatment of the narrative, combined with his polished prose, make The Man Between a winner. This is a taut and exciting tale of spy craft, reminiscent of genre masters John le Carré, Mick Herron and Daniel Silva, that’ll have you turning the pages in a frenzy to learn the fates of its characters.

Kit Carradine is a successful thriller writer who has grown tired of days spent in front of his desktop computer, conjuring fictional scenarios for imagined heroes. He envies the life of his father, a British spy whose career was cut agonisingly short because of Kim Philby’s betrayal — so when British Intelligence invites him to enter the clandestine world of espionage for the good of Queen and Country, Kit willingly becomes embroiled in a terrifying plot to destabilise the West. Not that he expected to play such a vital role in proceedings; or in fact become a pawn in a game played by duelling intelligence services.

Lara Bartok is a leading figure in Resurrection, a violent revolutionary movement whose attacks on prominent right-wing politicians have spread hatred and violence throughout the West. Kit’s objective is to make contact with her in Morocco — a simple handover, nothing more — and return to his life as though nothing happened. Of course, things don’t pan out as Kit, or his handler (who has secrets of his own) expect.

Kit Carradine is an interesting protagonist. He is genre-defying, in that he is a civilian thrust into the life of a spy, but acutely aware he’s living the realisation of a trope of countless thrillers we’ve all read. Having made a career of imagining narratives and writing his characters out of dangerous scenarios, he has unconsciously trained himself to have the mental fortitude for the life of a spy; a quick-thinker, often able to talk his way out of trouble. But there are occasions when Kit comes across as a little too cool-headed, and his persona a tad contrived; when he seems impossibly placid given the life-or-death situation he funds himself in. Thankfully Cumming rarely allows the reader time to draw breath; just when you begin to question (and envy) and deliberate over Kit’s exceptional bravery, the story veers in a new direction. And ultimately, this is a genre that demands, at the very least, a slight willingness to accept the improbable.

The Man Between is a smart, gripping, torn-from-the-headlines page-turner. And quite possibly the beginning of a new series, which you’ll want to jump on board with from the start.

ISBN: 9780008200329
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publish Date: 5-Jun-2018
Country of Publication: United Kingdom