JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.

You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.

You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.

You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.

You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.

Assume nothing.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen is a chilling novel about the complexities of marriage and what we fail to see when we’re so blinded by love.

Vanessa Thompson has recently split from her husband, hedge fund manager Richard. She is devastated to hear that he’s now engaged to the woman he left her for. She’s a bit of a mess. She can’t seem to hold a job, she’s living with her Aunt, and she’s obsessed with Richard’s new fiancé. Vanessa becomes so obsessed with Richard’s fiancé that she starts to stalk the two of them. And then just when the reader feels like they understand what’s going on, the story starts to twist and turn and you realise that what you thought you knew was wrong.

“I hurry across town, ignoring the man who tries to shove a flyer into my hand. My legs feel shaky, but I press on toward the entrance to Central Park…Maureen is probably at the restaurant by now. Richard would have ordered a nice wine; savoury bread would be placed on the table. Perhaps the three of them are clinking glasses, toasting to the future.”

This novel is not what it seems, with more surprises than I thought there would be. Vanessa is broken; Richard’s new girlfriend is hopeful, happy and in love. The two characters seem to be pretty stereotypical at first, Vanessa being the bitter wife and the new girlfriend being the victim.

But as the reader continues to delve into this tale, they learn that things are not as clear cut as they first appeared to be. These women are not as clear cut as they are first portrayed.

I won’t give anything away, but I will admit that I guessed the first twist. About halfway through the novel, the reader realises something about these women, and I saw it coming. Not because of the writing, though. Greer and Sarah have done a marvellous job of weaving this tale. I saw the twist coming because of the blurb (above). The way the book is described means that I was on the lookout for any way that this plot could be misleading. And as a result, I was able to guess one of the major twists within the first couple of chapters.

“This is good.”
“I remembered you told me once lamb vindaloo was your favourite dish.”
“I said that?” Richard bent his head to take a forkful of rice.
I’d felt puzzled. Hadn’t he?

Greer & Sarah have done a great job with the pacing, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat and enticing us to turn every page hastily. I was desperate to find out how they would wrap up the book, and I found it rather satisfying.

This is a quick read, with short chapters and a lot of shifting back and forth in time. Interwoven throughout the books are flashback scenes so that we come to understand why Vanessa’s marriage to Richard ended so abruptly. After a series of failed attempts at conceiving a child, their marriage deteriorated and Vanessa started drinking a lot and Richard ended up having an affair and leaving her.

The Wife Between Us reminded me of The Girl on the Train, and just like with that book, any reader who picks up this book will have no trouble following the story. The Wife Between Us is haunting and harrowing. All of the characters are flawed, and we are also dealing with an unreliable narrator so the reader has to work hard to determine what is real and what is fake. All of this allows for an addictive read!

I recommend this to readers of crime and thriller fiction. But if you’re a frequent reader of that genre you may see the twist coming like I did, so perhaps don’t think too much of the blurb or the twist will be spoiled for you as well.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Wife Between Us
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Redemption Point by Candice Fox

In a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Fog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on a beer-sodden floor. Only the night-time animals in the surrounding forest were close enough to hear their screams.

Crimson Lake’s resident private detectives are hired to take on the case. Disgraced former police detective Ted Conkaffey and convicted murderer Amanda Pharrell are uneasy allies working alongside DI Pip Sweeney on her first homicide investigation.

For Ted, a new case serves as a welcome distraction from his fight to clear his name over the abduction of a teenage girl.

For all three, the hunt for the truth will draw them into a violent dance with evil. Redemption is certainly on the cards – but it may well cost them their lives…

Redemption Point by Candice Fox is a crime novel set in Far North Queensland in Australia. The novel follows on from the events in Crimson Lake, after Ted Conkaffey has been released from prison and has returned to work as a police detective.

I hadn’t read Crimson Lake, and I was still able to follow the plot of this novel. There’s a fair bit of backstory to be learnt, but thankfully Candice wove it into this plot so that it didn’t matter if you hadn’t read Crimson Lake.

And for any reader out there who has read Crimson Lake but your memory has faded, there is plenty of information dropped into the book that will help you jog your memory just in case it’s been a while since you finished the last book.

“Three or four weeks after I was arrested for Claire Bingley’s sexual assault and attempted murder, my wife gave up on me. She surrendered to the relentless pursuits by 60 Minutes and gave them an interview distancing herself from me, stopped visiting me as often in remand, stopped appearing in the gallery at my committal hearings.”

Redemption Point is a crime novel that offers relief from the usual tropes found in this genre. Amanda Pharrell is as bizarre as she is skilled, and her comic dialogue is entertaining for the reader. Ted Conkaffey is working hard to clear his name of rape and attempted murder, whilst also working to solve the murder of two young people in a bar. He is wounded, but also defiant.

“I’d watched Dale looking over the pages for a little while, knowing exactly the kind of dark thoughts that were swirling through his brain. It’s a shock to learn for the first time that there are far more sex offenders around in polite society than the newspapers report.”

This book has two storylines running parallel — there is the investigation into the double-murder in the bar, and then there’s the investigation into Claire Bingley’s assault and attempted murder.

Claire’s father Dale hunts down Ted, but then when he realises that Ted may actually be innocent, the two of them pair up to try and find the real perpetrator. And in addition to this, interwoven throughout the book are first-person diary entries from the real criminal, Kevin.

With this many layers to the book, it’s almost impossible for the reader to be bored.

“Dear Diary,
I walked to Penny’s front door with the dog in my arms like a peasant come to put an offering before my queen. I remember the feeling of her, warm and struggling against my chest, a young dog who just wanted to explore the new sights and smells of the front of the house.”

I do think that the weakest element of this book was actually the investigation into the murder of the couple in the bar. It was still entertaining to read, but I was far more interested in Kevin’s story and Ted’s partnership with Dale.

Crime fiction readers will love Redemption Point; they’ll love the characters that Candice Fox has crafted. The novel is thrilling and maintains the interest of the reader and entices them to keep turning the page. Redemption Point is punchy and pacy.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Redemption Point
Candice Fox
February 2018
Penguin Random House

The Confession by Jo Spain

You find out who did it on the very first page.On the last page, you’ll find out why.

Late one night a man walks into the luxurious home of disgraced banker Harry McNamara and his wife Julie. The man launches an unspeakably brutal attack on Harry as a horror-struck Julie watches, frozen by fear. Just an hour later the attacker, JP Carney, has handed himself in to the police. He confesses to beating Harry to death, but JP claims that the assault was not premeditated and that he didn’t know the identity of his victim.

With a man as notorious as Harry McNamara, the detectives cannot help wondering, was this really a random act of violence or is it linked to one of Harry’s many sins: corruption, greed, betrayal?

The Confession by Jo Spain is an absolute page turner — a gripping psychological thriller that will leave you guessing for the entire book.

This book is not about trying to discover who committed the crime; it’s about discovering why they committed the crime. The reader ventures into the story knowing everything about the present. Harry is a disgraced banker and together, he and his wife Julie hold many secrets. And then JP bashes Harry late one night and it seems like it was for no reason.

Over the course of the novel, we are thrown into both the past and the present. We are taken back years to when Julie and Harry first met, and we discover all about their marriage troubles and Harry’s indiscretions and the crimes he committed whilst the CEO of his bank.

In the present, Alice is the detective assigned to the case and she’s having trouble believing that JP’s assault was not premeditated. She delves deeper into Harry’s past in an attempt to uncover his secrets.

The plot and structure of the book allows for an addictive read. Just when you’re reading about Harry and Julie’s wedding and the suspicious activities going on, you’re then thrust back into the present where Alice is uncovering evidence about the attack. The way this book is written means that I was desperate to keep going, and eager to get to the end of each thread to find out what happened.

“Toby was wrong. Harry wasn’t back within the week. I let him stew for a whole month…I was consumed with guilt but too full of self-pity and heartbreak to do anything about it.”

None of the characters in this book are likeable. Harry is manipulative and controlling. He may never physically harm Julie, but he does mentally. He is incredibly conniving, lying to her and twisting his words. He also encourages her to work less so that they can spend more time together, but then he isn’t home with her and she has to spend a lot of time alone. Additionally, Julie struggles to get pregnant for the years that they are together and Harry grows incredibly distant. Soon, Julie grows paranoid and becomes an alcoholic.

Julie is a weak character. She is portrayed as a person who has been so manipulated by her husband that she chooses to turn a blind eye to his bad behaviour. However, I felt like the characterisation wasn’t really there. Instead of really showing us how Julie has been brainwashed by Harry, Jo Spain tells us through Julie’s internal monologues. There’s a point in the novel where it’s really obvious that Harry is cheating on her and yet Julie decides not to witness it because once she witnesses it, then it becomes real.

“I knew I was being a coward, but I couldn’t bear physical witness to my husband cheating. I’d wait until he came back and confront him,once I’d got everybody out of the house. Once I’d summoned up the courage.”

As you can guess, she never really does confront him. She prefers to act blind to it, even though this doesn’t fit the character she was first introduced to us as. At the beginning of the novel, she’s portrayed as a strong character who refuses to be pushed around. But there seems to be no transition into this weak, timid character. Straight away, she’s being cowardice and it makes no sense to the reader. It’s actually incredibly frustrating. And then Julie says things like this and I realise she’s actually my least favourite character in the entire book:

“She’s not an ugly woman, I realize, despite her pear shape. Her hair is awful, sure. Greasy and thin, an insipid brown scraped back in a severe, unforgiving ponytail. But her face is very pleasant.”

I definitely think the second half of the book is stronger than the first half. Until about midway through the book, the reader is still blind to a lot of things, so I felt a little in the dark. Plus, Julie is so unlikable and at times I wish she were the one who was attacked. But as you read the second half of the book and Harry’s manipulation grows and Julie’s state of mind fractures even further, the details of JP’s history comes to light. We start to understand why he was there that night and how his life intersected with Julie and Harry’s. And the ending is rather satisfying.

I read this book in a matter of days. Once I’d hit that turning point halfway through the novel where things started to fall into place, I was desperate to get to the end. If you love crime and thriller novels, then you’ll love this. Just be warned: you won’t warm to any of the characters and Julie is just as frustrating as she is naive.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Confession
Jo Spain
January 2018
Hachette Publishers

Fallow by Daniel Shand

Two brothers elude a press witching by hiding out in the remote wilds of highland Scotland. As they travel, they move from one disturbing scenario to the next, eventually involving themselves with a bizarre religious cult. The power between the brothers begins to shift, and we realise there is more to their history.

One of them is a murderer. But it’s the other you have to watch out for…

Fallow is a darkly comic novel about the evolving relationship between two brothers — Paul and Mikey — and the terrible crime that both of them were involved in when they were young boys. This is a tense psychological thriller, deliberately making the reader feel uneasy and anxious about what is to come.

“My main concern that morning had been the tube of newspaper jammed into Sam’s armpit. I wasn’t able to make out the title but if it was a tabloid then Mikey was almost certainly somewhere inside.”

The cover of Fallow is incredibly striking, with orange and brown colours and a single image of a stag in an open field. It’s an inviting book, and I was intrigued. Fallow is under three hundred pages, so it doesn’t take too long to read the entire thing — in fact, I imagine some readers would be able to get through it in one sitting.

Fallow explores unreliable narration, manipulation and control. Paul lies and twists his explanation of events in order to control Mikey. In some parts of the novel, Micky commits horrific acts because he thinks he needs to, even though he doesn’t. Paul has lied to him and made Mikey fearful, to the point where Mikey has committed a crime for no reason.

And then, because of this, Paul has yet another thing that he can hold over Mikey. It’s a twisted relationship because Mikey feels guilty, but also confused. And over the course of the novel, he starts feeling indebted to Paul, even though he doesn’t need to.

“Mikey reached over and got him by the head and neck and I pulled his legs out from beneath him and we held his body and pushed and carried him out into the deeper water…we held the body until the water held it by itself.”

The strengths are Daniel’s writing. The prose flows so well and the imagery is beautiful. Just one sentence can say so much about the relationship between these two brothers; Daniel Shand has a real talent for using as few words as possible to convey the most meaning.

There are a few things about this novel that I know some readers won’t like. The pace is deliberately slow, to draw out the characterisation and to force the reader to anticipate what’s coming next. The plot is also a little stagnant, so there are a few times in the book where I was wondering where the story is going and why certain events were important to the overall plot.

But, the writing is beautiful and the two main characters are incredibly well-crafted and three-dimensional. Daniel Shand has done an excellent job of characterisation through actions, attitudes and dialogue.

I recommend Fallow to literary fiction lovers. Yes, there’s a fair bit of crime in the book. But it’s not your average crime or thriller novel. It’s a slow build, and it’s more character driven than plot driven. Some of you might be wondering what the point of it all is, but the ending to this novel is just extraordinary. It was surprising but also satisfying. This is a novel you have to stick with until the end.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fallow
Daniel Shand
January 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Cull by Tony Park

One mission… countless enemies.

Former mercenary Sonja Kurtz is hired by business tycoon Julianne Clyde-Smith to head an elite squad. Their aim: to take down Africa’s top poaching kingpins and stop at nothing to save its endangered wildlife.

But as the body count rises, it becomes harder for Sonja to stay under the radar as she is targeted by an underworld syndicate known as The Scorpions.

When her love interest, safari guide and private investigator Hudson Brand, is employed to look into the death of an alleged poacher at the hands of Sonja’s team, she is forced to ask herself if Julianne’s crusade has gone too far.

From South Africa’s Kruger National Park to the Serengeti of Tanzania, Sonja realises she is fighting a war on numerous fronts, against enemies known and unknown.

So who can Sonja really trust?

The Cull is a heart-racing thriller from former army officer and bestselling author Tony Park — this is his 14th novel and once again he’s transported a real-life ‘wildlife war’ onto the pages of a novel.

This is the third novel with protagonist Sonja Kurtz, although I haven’t read the first two (The Delta and An Empty Coast) and I was able to read this book just fine, so The Cull definitely works as a standalone novel.

Sonja is resourceful, intelligent, observant and equipped to handle everything that she comes across in the African wilderness. She’s in Africa training women in an Anti-Poaching unit and they are ambushed by well-armed poachers. Two women in the team end up dead.

“Paterson watched the others. The TANAPA ranger, a young man, looked shaken. Ezekial, the preacher’s son, deliberately avoided eye contact with him and strode away. Tema walked with the fluid gait and cold stare of a leopard slinking through the long grass.”

Afterwards, wealthy businesswoman Julianne Clyde-Smith meets with Sonja and offers her a job — she wants to take down the poaching kingpins that are overtaking the African wildlife. She wants to find out who is at the top of these organisations and destroy them from the source. But once Sonja accepts the job and employs an exclusive team to help her, she realises that there’s a lot more to this job than Julianne let on. The team are suddenly entangled in a dangerous and deadly war between them and a poaching mob named The Scorpions.

“This wasn’t Sonja’s fight but her people were under fire. She could see Ezekiel lying on the ground, frantically pulling clubs from Julianne Clyde-Smith’s golf bag.”

Sonja is a fantastic protagonist. She’s really skilled and trustworthy, and she leads her team with strength and determination. At the same time, Sonja is a bit flawed. She can be a bit awkward, and she’s in a sort-of relationship with Hudson Brand and she really loves him but doesn’t act accordingly sometimes. She jumps to conclusions and makes assumptions and for a while it’s hard for the relationship to stay stable.

“Sonja sighed. She really had made a mess of this. She regretted bringing Mario onto the team, and what had gone on between them, but she was sure he would be enough of a gentleman not to put her on the spot. She had made this bed and would have to lie in it, with both of these handsome dark-haired men.”

There are plenty of sub plots throughout the novel to keep the reader engaged and entertained. The side characters are just an intriguing as Sonja, and I really enjoyed reading this book. It’d be a great Father’s Day gift, especially if your dad reads crime or thriller novels like James Patterson.

“Hudson left his camera and made for a stone pillar supporting the terrace roof and ducked behind it. Three men, each wearing a balaclava and armed with an AK-47, burst out into the restraint terrace. ‘Everybody down.’
People screamed.
The man who had given the order pointed his rifle at a family.”

Finally, Tony Park does a fantastic job of describing the African wildlife. His prose is rich with detailed description and imagery, and the reader can easily imagine everything that’s happening even if he/she has never been to Africa before.

I’d recommend The Cull to lovers of crime, thriller and adventure novels. It’s heavily embedded in African wildlife and the politics of poaching in the wilderness, so you’d have to be interested in reading about that or this may not be the book for you.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Cull
Tony Park
October 2017
Pan Macmillan Publishers