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JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

February 13, 2022

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

February 13, 2022

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. Only I know the truth of her disappearance.

I’m no Hercule Poirot. I’m her husband’s mistress.

Agatha Christie’s world is one of glamorous society parties, country house weekends, and growing literary fame.

Nan O’Dea’s world is something very different. Her attempts to escape a tough London upbringing during the Great War led to a life in Ireland marred by a hidden tragedy.

After fighting her way back to England, she’s set her sights on Agatha. Because Agatha Christie has something Nan wants. And it’s not just her husband.

Despite their differences, the two women will become the most unlikely of allies. And during the mysterious eleven days that Agatha goes missing, they will unravel a dark secret that only Nan holds the key to . . .

Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is an enjoyable reimagining of the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of famous crime writer Agatha Christie in 1926. This psychological thriller offers a compelling and concocted tale of why Agatha disappeared and what transpired during the days she was gone.

In December 1926, Agatha’s husband tells her he wishes to divorce her, so he can marry his mistress Nan O’Dea. After disappearing that night, Agatha resurfaces eleven days later at a luxurious hotel under a false name. In between those two events we come to understand more about Agatha and O’Dea, as their stories interweave and storylines are thrust into the past. A mysterious double murder also weaves its way into the novel — its resolution offering one of the biggest twists in the book.

“My father had grown up on a farm just outside the fishing village of Ballycotton. Since I’d been born he’d gone back to visit once or twice when his brother paid the way. But there’d never been enough money for us all to travel there.The thought of my going at all, let alone for a whole summer, was thrilling.”

Both Agatha and O’Dea are relatable, liked characters. One might start the novel sympathising only with Agatha, but over time, as we come to discover why O’Dea is desperate to marry Agatha’s husband, we learn to empathise with her plight.

Nina weaves different storylines and time periods together with ease, crafting a really great novel. The writing is slick. Observations are stark and dialogue is realistic. She does well to capture setting and atmosphere, transporting us back to the 1920s with this emotionally charged story.

“Once I became her stepmother I’d encourage her to be the sort of person who folded her clothes and put them away, who attended to her own discarded wrappings. But for now it wasn’t my place to say a word.”

There’s an omniscient angle to every chapter, allowing the story to travel beyond just Nan’s first person narration. Whilst sometimes the narration and Nan’s point of view grew confusing — Nan talks about others as if she knows everything, delving into their minds and observations and this can sometimes feel disorientating and like we were shifting POV — Nina was an incredibly complex and well-rounded character, and perhaps my favourite in the book.

In saying that, the storyline I enjoyed the most was Nan’s childhood flashbacks — 19, pregnant and living at the convent. I found her to be a lot more raw in these scenes, because she’s young and naive, and trapped in this lion’s den. I almost wished we spent more time in this setting, or perhaps if these flashbacks came earlier in the novel. It provides more context around Nan’s character, and weaves together the reasons why she’s so determined to end Agatha’s marriage.

“I thought Finbarr wouldn’t mind seeing tears. I’d never known him to mind anything. Still, I smiled dutifully at the camera, sitting on the photographer’s stool, sincere in my happiness as I imagined looking at Finbarr’s cheerful face. Some day later I went on my own to collect it. It was a pretty picture, so much prettier than I was in real life…”

Inventive, clever and engaging, The Christie Affair is recommended for readers of historical fiction. The crime element to this novel is quite small and does not take up much of the book, so this isn’t the book to pick up if you’re just looking for a crime to solve.

Readership skews female, 30+

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


The Christie Affair
Nina de Gramont
February 2022
Pan Macmillan Book Publishers

Leave a Comment · Labels: 8/10, Adult Fiction, Book Reviews Tagged: adult fiction, book review, crime, fiction, mystery, review, thriller

February 10, 2022

The Gosling Girl by Jacqueline Roy

February 10, 2022

Michelle Cameron’s name is associated with the most abhorrent of crimes. A child who lured a younger child away from her parents and to her death, she is known as the black girl who murdered a little white girl; evil incarnate according to the media. As the book opens, she has done her time, and has been released as a young woman with a new identity to start her life again.

When another shocking death occurs, Michelle is the first in the frame. Brought into the police station to answer questions around a suspicious death, it is only a matter of time until the press find out who she is now and where she lives and set about destroying her all over again.

Natalie Tyler is the officer brought in to investigate the murder. A black detective constable, she has been ostracised from her family and often feels she is in the wrong job. But when she meets Michelle, she feels a complicated need to protect her, whatever she might have done.

Jacqueline Roy’s The Gosling Girl is a psychological thriller that explores the after-effects of a crime committed in childhood, and how hard it can be to reintegrate back into society. Additionally, the novel tackles systemic, institutional and internalised racism and how one’s story can be controlled by those around them.

We meet Michelle after she’s been released from prison. She’s known for killing a young girl when she was also just a child, and she’s served her time for the criminal act. But now that she’s out, attempting to find work, lay down roots, and form some sort of life with anonymity, she’s realising that others aren’t going to let her forget what she did anytime soon — there’s her probation officer, who she’s required to see on a regular basis, there’s the media, who are reluctant to leave her out of the press, and there’s writer Zoe, who is so desperate to pen Michelle’s story, she just might blackmail her to get it done.

“Of course she would, even though she knows she’s being bribed, paid for her memories in cake. She’s told to help herself. She chooses a macaroon and a slice of Swiss roll, not the kind you buy at supermarkets, the kind that has real cream and homemade jam.”

Written in third person, Jacqueline does well to craft an unreliable narrator in Michelle — she hides more from us than she reveals, and the only time we really feel like we understand her history or her emotions is when she’s in a session with Zoe for the book.

And on that note, I found Zoe to be the most interesting character in the novel. The cagey, slightly odd writer who wants to pen a book about Michelle’s side of the story. She’s questionable the entire way through, and to be honest I was expecting something major to happen with Zoe’s character — a big revelation, or a significant betrayal of Michelle. But everything that happened felt a little lacklustre. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever grasped Zoe’s desperation for doing the book — she acted like she was on a timer, and the book had to be done as quickly as possible. Why? Why is Zoe so chaotic in her home life, and why does she seem to be so financially strapped? There were definitely a few missing elements to her character that I hoped would be fleshed out some more.

“Tyler lets herself out and walks down to the car. She realizes she’s been holding her breath since leaving the house, keeping herself reined in. She leans against the side of the vehicle, trying to stay calm. She pictures Julie gouging pieces out of herself because the physical pain is so much easier to bear than the loneliness of grief.”

Despite devouring this novel in a short span of time, there were elements of the novel I’m still working to process. Michelle’s characterisation felt flat and underdeveloped to me, like the writer was trying to keep her so unreliable and withdrawn that she actually felt too thin on the page. Is she a violent person? Capable of change? I don’t even know, because the original crime isn’t ever really tackled and Michelle seems quite placid for most of the novel.

The second crime that is hinted in the blurb resolves itself rather quickly, and Michelle isn’t even a suspect for long. In fact, she’s never a suspect. She’s merely questioned. So I never felt that concern or worry for Michelle because I know that her past conviction wasn’t going to mean a false conviction this time around (which is what I suspected after reading the blurb).

“It makes a change, having someone to be with on a day when she isn’t at work. She can’t believe her luck, bumping into Lucy after all this time.”

Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. Readership skews female, 25+

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

The Gosling Girl
Jacqueline Roy
February 2022
Simon & Schuster Book Publishers

Leave a Comment · Labels: 7/10, Adult Fiction, Book Reviews Tagged: adult fiction, book review, crime, fiction, review, thriller

January 31, 2022

The Fields by Erin Young

January 31, 2022

It starts with a body — a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture.

For Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations at the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, an already horrific crime takes on a personal edge when she discovers the victim is an old friend, from a dark past she thought she’d left behind.

Rumour travels fast in small towns, while sweltering heat and state-wide elections only add to the pressure-cooker atmosphere. When another body is found, Riley is in danger of being engulfed by the fear and the frenzy. Something deeply disturbing is out there – and it reaches far beyond Black Hawk County.

Erin Young’s The Fields centres around a series of unexplained murders in a small Iowa town, and the local police sergeant in charge of solving the mystery.

The Fields falls neatly into the rural crime genre, set in a small American town with resemblance of tropes easily registered in this genre — close-knit communities, a closed-off, guarded police detective with past trauma and a chaotic family life, multiple unexplained murders that aren’t easily connected, and there’s even a moment in the novel where the protagonist is suspended from her job and must continue on regardless.

“As she crossed to the house, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had come. Before she reached the porch, Riley heard something down near the creek. A soft rustle of grass. She peered into the darkness but saw nothing. Maybe a woodchuck?”

Erin Young establishes pacing and setting immediately — from the first chapter, we’re thrust into the hot, desolate Black Hawk County. And before long, another body is discovered. Additionally, Erin has crafted a complex, layered protagonist with Riley. She’s still holding onto trauma from an event years earlier, and the discovery that one of her high school friends has been murdered brings back a lot of memories from that time in her life. I don’t feel that any of this is resolved by the end of this novel, but I believe more books featuring Riley are planned.

Through its plotting and ultimate resolution, The Fields provides commentary on America’s agricultural industry and genetic engineering, and the price that organisations will pay to maintain their stake in the system. Whilst the book doesn’t come across preach-y, the ending is quite convoluted and at times hard to follow. Perhaps a little overstuffed.

“It wasn’t long before she smelled it — the rot-sweet stink of death. A few yards later, she heard the bleep of a camera. Flies buzzed her face. Ahead, she picked out Bob Nolan’s bulk. The crime scene investigator was crouched among the roots.”

Whilst the premise of the novel and subsequent mysteries were enough to keep me engaged, I did feel like there were two elements in this book that were working against each other — is this a thriller novel? Or is this a book trying to take a stand on America’s agricultural industry and how big corporations are bulldozing small businesses into extinction? I’m not sure, and that’s what I struggled with.

The ending was so chaotic and convoluted, and I found it hard to keep track of all the side characters. Additionally, the chapters move between POV (mostly it’s Riley, but it does shift to other secondary characters), which I can see is required to give readers greater understanding of the complex plot, but it does slow down the novel and pull the reader away from the primary investigation.

“Twilight brought the bugs, followed by reporters from The Courier and a local news crew, hovering at the edges of the tape, cajoling the officers they knew for information. Things like this didn’t happen in Black Hawk County, where stores still closed on Sundays and strangers were noticed.”

Whilst this is marketed as a debut novel, it is actually a crime debut from an already established author writing under a pseudonym. Grisly and gritty, The Fields is recommended for readers of crime, thriller and mystery. Readership skews 25+. Note: there’s a lot of graphic detail in this book. It didn’t bother me, but if you prefer to shy away from detailed murder victims, maybe this isn’t the book for you.

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

The Fields
Erin Young
January 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

Leave a Comment · Labels: 7/10, Adult Fiction, Book Reviews, Thriller Tagged: adult fiction, book review, crime, fiction, mystery, review, thriller

January 29, 2022

Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka

January 29, 2022

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.

He knows what he’s done, and now awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago. Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.

But this is not his story.

As the clock ticks down, three women uncover the history of a tragedy and the long shadow it casts. Lavender, Ansel’s mother, is a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation. Hazel, twin sister to his wife, is forced to watch helplessly as the relationship threatens to devour them all. And Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, is devoted to bringing bad men to justice but struggling to see her own life clearly.

This is the story of the women left behind.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes On An Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our cultural obsession with crime stories, and asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the minds of violent men.

Danya Kukafka’s Notes On An Execution offers a reprieve from the stereotypical ‘serial killer’ novel. We meet Ansel Packer in a Texan prison on the day he is scheduled to be executed for murdering multiple women. There is no doubt that he’s the murderer — he’s confessed to it, he acknowledges it. But who did he hurt and how did events unfold?

To fully understand this, we meet three women whose lives interacted with Ansel’s at titular moments in his life. The story toggles between multiple storylines, traversing different points of view and moving between the past and the present. As someone who devours serial killer stories, I found this book to be an incredible read.

“That night, Lavender slept sitting up in the storage room, an iron paper towel rod clutched in her hand like a gun. She found it when she reached for her sweater — a cold lump in the breast pocket. It was the locket she’d given to Ansel, curled up regretful. She’d unclasped it from his neck the last time she’d given him a bath and pocketed it thoughtlessly.”

Danya’s writing is beautiful —poetic and addictive. Her characterisation is skilled and flawless. It’s rare for me to give such glowing praise for a novel but I really did love this one (I completed it in half a day, I was so desperate to finish).

We are driven forward by Ansel’s inevitable death — the countdown to his execution. These other stories, offered intermittently and almost chaotically, are a glimpse into the past.

The three women we meet in this novel are Lavender, Ansel’s mother, Hazel, the sister to Ansel’s wife, and Saffy, the detective who lived with Ansel in foster care and is now tasked with proving he’s responsible for the murders. Each shift in POV isn’t for very long, and we move through the past with quick pacing and little time to reflect. This novel is designed to paint a portrait of Ansel’s life to dates so that we might come to understand his rocky descent into murder.

“If there was a before, it began with Lavender. She was seventeen years old. She knew what it meant, to bring life into the world. The gravity. She knew that love could swaddle you tight, and also bruise. But until the time came, Lavender did not understand what it meant to walk away from a thing she’d grown from her own insides.”

Ansel’s chapters are written in second person — the confronting ‘you’ triggering a sense of dread and unease as the reader settles into Ansel’s story. Whilst we never feel like we understand him or his actions, his life and his story is the centrefold of this tale — everything else merely revolves around him as we are propelled towards his death.

Overall, the pacing and character development drew me in and kept my engaged throughout the entire novel. i did find the climax of the novel to be a little skimmed over — Ansel’s sudden deterioration into the final murder didn’t feel natural or realisitc. But when it comes to murder, and even multiple murders, a person’s actions don’t always make sense do they?

“Here is what you remember of your mother. She is tall, and she is mostly hair. She crouches in a garden, lazes in a rocking chair, sinks into a rusty claw-foot tub. Sometimes the tub is filled with water and your mother’s long dress floats wet like a jellyfish. Other times she is dry — she holds out a strand of her own hair, a gift, glistening orange.”

Haunting and ambitious but addictive, Danya Kukafka ’s Notes On An Execution is recommended for readers of literary fiction, thriller and crime fiction. Additionally, readers looking for serial killer stories or female-centric writing will enjoy this. Readership skews 25+

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

Notes On An Execution
Danya Kukafka
January 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

Leave a Comment · Labels: 10/10, Adult Fiction, Book Reviews Tagged: adult fiction, book review, crime, fiction, review, thriller

December 10, 2021

The Russian Wife by Barry Maitland

December 10, 2021

When the Russian wife of the owner of one of the most valuable private collections of modern art in the UK is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock is drawn into a high-stakes world very different to his own. From the dealers and galleries in London’s West End, his investigations take him to Hanover, Miami and New York on the trail of international forgery and fraud.

At the same time, his old colleague Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla, who now leads one of the Metropolitan Police Murder Investigation teams, finds herself at the wrong end of a corruption charge. With her whole career in the balance, she will do almost anything to clear her name.

Barry Maitland’s The Russian Wife is an extension of his well-loved crime series, following UK detectives David Brock and Kathy Kolla. Whilst this may be the 14th novel featuring these characters, Barry offers required explanation when referencing old storylines so that new readers don’t feel lost.

A standard police procedural, the core crime is about the apparent suicide of a Russian woman. But soon, when her lover also appears to commit suicide, it becomes clear there’s more to the story than what’s on the surface.

“They moved back out to the hall and Julian went upstairs to continue his search. Brock waited in the hallway, wondering what Miki had taken from the house in such a hurry; his mother’s computer?”

The Russian Wife is heavily embedded in the world of fine art and art fraud. Strengths include characterisation, particularly the secondary characters. Whilst it’s clear that the Russian wife’s death was not suicide at all, there are quite a few people in her life that could’ve been responsible so it does provide quite a bit of intrigue.

Whilst Barry’s writing style appears quite direct and perhaps flat, it does suit the genre well because it keeps the story stripped and fast-paced. We’re not bogged down by the writing or the prose — only relevant information is kept.

“The following day, Friday, Brock sat at his computer studying Miki Babington’s police record — three separate convictions for drug possessions and supply, two as a juvenile. He’d been lucky to avoid jail time.”

The book is let down by its Kathy Kolla storyline — it doesn’t tie in with the rest of the novel at all. She’s hunting a serial killer, and then suddenly suspended from her job over suspicion of corruption, but the problem appears to solve itself rather quickly without Kathy really doing anything. And then the storyline ends.

It’s incredibly lazy writing and completely unrealistic. The monologue confession is almost too easy, and then when the storyline wraps up Kathy merely moves on and it feels like the entire first half of the book was for nothing. It doesn’t feel like the two characters — Kathy and Brock — are working seamlessly in the book. They’re in conflict, and I think readers will feel disappointed with the plotting.

“Molly listed the three things that were necessary for an artwork to be recognised as authentic: an expert scholar of that artist’s work would have to agree that it looked right; forensic tests would have to confirm that the age and character of the work’s materials were appropriate; and there should be documentation connecting the present owner back to the artist in order to establish provenance.”

Fans of Barry’s works will enjoy this latest offering, but I do think seasoned crime and thriller readers will find themselves a little let down by the plotting of The Russian Wife.

Readership skews male, 30+

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

The Russian Wife
Barry Maitland
December 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Leave a Comment · Labels: 7/10, Adult Fiction, Book Reviews, Thriller Tagged: adult fiction, book review, crime, fiction, mystery, review, thriller

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