My enormous thanks to Sarah at Book on the Bright Side for inviting me to participate in this blog tour for Tony J Forder’s latest book, Endless Silent Scream, the sixth book in his DI Bliss series.

It’s been my pleasure to host Tony J Forder here on Linda’s Book Bag several times. I was lucky enough to ‘stay in’ with Tony to discuss Scream Blue Murder in a post you can read here and I shared my review of that book here.

Other posts include a guest piece from Tony about The Cold Winter Sun imperative you will find here, an inspirational post about becoming a writer here when Bad to the Bone was published, and Tony also told us about writing outside his comfort zone here and he allowed his characters Bliss and Chandler from The Scent of Guilt to introduce each other here.

Published on 9th March 2020, Endless Silent Scream is available for purchase here.

Endless Silent Scream

From the author of the bestselling DI Bliss crime series comes another gripping police procedural thriller that will have readers hooked from the stunning first page to the very last.

He saved her once. Can he do it again?

When DI Bliss prevents fifteen-year-old Molly from jumping from a hotel roof, he has no idea their paths will cross again. A county lines mule, Molly is questioned by the drugs squad, but Bliss becomes convinced she is in danger and attempts to have her relocated. A local drug dealer and a London-based enforcer have other ideas.

Meanwhile, the remains of a freelance journalist are discovered alongside an archaeological find, which brings an old flame back into Bliss’s life. It’s only a matter of time before reports emerge linking the murdered journalist with the police, putting pressure on the Major Crimes team to find the killer.

Bliss is torn between the two investigations. Desperate to move Molly to safety before she can be reached by those who want her silenced, he is blinded to other dangers.

The stunning DI Bliss series of fast-paced police thrillers will appeal to fans of authors like Michael Connelly, Joy Ellis, Peter James, Robert Bryndza and Angela Marsons. Tony J Forder is also the bestselling author of Degrees of Darkness, Scream Blue Murder and Cold Winter Sun.

My Review of Endless Silent Scream

When DI Bliss rescues Molly from the roof top, a chain of events he couldn’t have foreseen ensues.

I thoroughly enjoyed Endless Silent Scream. Interestingly, during the time I was was reading the book there was a television programme about a murder and how it was solved. So many features of that programme were echoed by Tony J Forder’s writing that I was astounded by the authenticity and insight this book has. Although this is the sixth book in the DI Bliss series, the fact I haven’t read all the others made no difference. Bliss’s back story is woven in to Endless Silent Scream naturally so that I had enough information fully to understand his personality and reactions in this story.

The plot has all the elements that make for a fast paced and intriguing crime thriller and give a fascinating insight into the murky world of crime I’m glad I only have to read about. With themes and events linked to drugs, ethnicity, sex, violence, the media and everyday policing in twists and turns there’s something for every crime reader. Alongside the compelling and multi-layered plot there is such a warm underpinning of humanity through the protagonist that I thought elevated Endless Silent Scream above some other police procedurals I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed being shown the inner person behind Jimmy Bliss and the way in which his experiences in the job affected him. I felt Tony J Forder did this with such sensitivity and grace that he really brought home how human those we rely on to keep us safe truly are. Indeed, I felt quite emotional about Jimmy Bliss as the book came to a close!

I found the Peterborough setting fascinating. Although it wouldn’t have affected my view, Peterborough is my nearest city and I recognised the place so vividly through the writing. This enhanced my enjoyment further, but again, it wouldn’t matter if I’d had no knowledge of the area either because the sense of place is brilliantly created through Tony J Forder’s excellent writing.

Endless Silent Scream is a hugely entertaining crime story with enormous heart that is carefully crafted. Reading it has made me want to catch up with the entire series. I really recommend it.

About Tony J Forder

Tony J Forder is the author of the bestselling crime thriller series featuring detectives Jimmy Bliss and Penny Chandler. The first four books, Bad to the Bone, The Scent of Guilt, If Fear Wins, and The Reach of Shadows, were joined by The Death of Justice, on 9 September 2019 with book number six, Endless Silent Scream, on 9 March 2020.

Tony’s dark, psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, featuring ex-detective Frank Rogers, was also published by Bloodhound Books. This is a stand-alone serial-killer novel. Scream Blue Murder, an action-adventure thriller, was published in November 2017, and received praise from many, including fellow authors Mason Cross, Matt Hilton and Anita Waller. The sequel, Cold Winter Sun, was published in November 2018.

Tony lives with his wife in Peterborough, UK, and is now a full-time author. He is currently editing a new novel, and has also started on Bliss number 7, Slow Slicing.

You can follow Tony on Twitter @TonyJForder, visit his website and find him on Facebook.

You’ll find all Tony’s books here and he’s also on Goodreads and Fantastic Fiction.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

Way back in 2015 when I’d first begun blogging and my posts were pretty poorly designed (sorry Alison), I had the privilege of interviewing Alison Layland all about her novel Someone Else’s Conflict. You can read that interview and my review of Someone Else’s Conflict here.

Today, in what I hope will be a much more visually appealing post, I’m delighted to be staying in with Alison to hear about another of her books.

Staying in with Alison Layland

Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag, Alison. Thank you for agreeing to stay in with me after the awful looking post I gave you before!

My pleasure; it’s lovely to be back here – you’ve supported me since the beginning of my journey as a published author. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than a cosy evening in, talking about books and stories in such lovely company!

You’re most welcome Alison. Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it?

I’ve brought along my second novel, Riverflow – because it’s my latest and because it plays out against a background of environmental issues, which are incredibly important to me.

And to me Alison. I’m delighted to have a copy of Riverflow on my TBR awaiting reading. What can we expect from an evening in with Riverflow?

I was thrilled when Waterstones picked Riverflow as their Welsh book of the month in August 2019, with the description: “The devastating effects of climate change are brought terrifyingly close to home in a gripping psychological novel exploring family, community and loss.”

Gosh. Congratulations and tell me more.

Those family secrets, and the mystery revealed as the plot progresses, mean I won’t want to give away too much about the content. However, it unfolds against a background of rural life, including my central characters’ off-grid smallholding, and environmental protest, so there will still be plenty to talk about, from the flood-prone local riverside pub that inspired the location, through to my own growing involvement in environmental activism. This began with a visit to the Preston New Road anti-fracking protests, both to lend my support and as a bit of hands-on research for the novel.

Now I am intrigued. I can’t wait to read Riverflow and see what happens!

What else have you brought along and why?

As well as a nice bottle of wine, I’ve brought a couple of my home-made cordials – rosehip and elderberry – for you to try.

I’m not so good with wine, but I love the sound of those cordials. Rosehip takes me back to my childhood!

Over the last couple of years I’ve really got into foraging and getting food and drink from plants many of us know as weeds, thanks to our lovely local forest school, Woodland Classroom, who have expanded to run bushcraft, wild food and foraging days for adults. Who knows, if it’s a mild night, maybe we can buck the “staying in” trend and go outside for a while to enjoy a campfire (I’ll bring our portable firepit if necessary!) – just the kind of evening my central characters, Bede and Elin, would enjoy.

That would suit me perfectly. I’d much rather be outside than in if I can!

And if you fancy it, we could round off the evening with a wee dram of Riverflow whisky – not made especially for the book, I’m afraid, but I was delighted to discover it, nevertheless!

That’s brilliant. What a happy coincidence!

You’ll notice I’m wearing an Extinction Rebellion badge.

I wondered about that. Why Extinction Rebellion?

Despite my central character Bede’s growing disillusionment with the effectiveness of protest, as I wrote about past and present environmental campaigns in Riverflow, which are fictional but loosely based on real events, it increasingly made me want to get more directly involved myself.

As  Extinction Rebellion emerged in late 2018, I joined my lovely local group and have never looked back. Like the activist community portrayed in the novel, XR groups are warm, friendly communities – far from the antisocial extremists they are sometimes portrayed to be. Here in Oswestry & Borders, as well as protest we do a lot of practical work for the community, such as repair cafes and tree planting.

I do have some entertaining stories from the spring and autumn actions in London as well, though!

I bet! That takes me back to my university days when I was in environmental groups.

I’ve also brought some photos of various places I stayed while writing the novel. My writing process includes occasionally going away for a few days at a time to immerse myself in the world of my book. I was very lucky to be awarded a fellowship at the beautiful Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, which involved a whole month’s writing retreat together with five other authors and poets in the wonderful setting of the castle and its surrounding woodland; I wrote a substantial part of the first draft of Riverflow there. However, that was an exception; my writing retreats are usually a bit more down-to-earth. As well as house-sitting for friends, a couple of my AirBnB stays have included a permaculture farm, and a gypsy caravan on an offgrid smallholding, which my daughter and I later revisited when looking for settings for the book trailer video she made for Riverflow. I think she captured the atmosphere brilliantly, and I’m very proud of her and her film-making skills!

I loved that trailer video. It’s hugely atmospheric and made me want to read Riverflow even more. What a talented daughter you have.

Alison, it’s been lovely hearing all about Riverflow and I am very much looking forward to reading it. Thanks so much for staying in with me to chat all about it. You pour us a glass of something and I’ll give Linda’s Book Bag Readers the information they need about Riverflow.

Riverflow

Deep water. Dark secrets. Dangerous neighbours.

After a beloved family member is drowned in a devastating flood, Bede and Elin Sherwell want nothing more than to be left in peace to pursue their off-grid life. But when the very real prospect of fracking hits their village, they are drawn in to the frontline protests. During a spring of relentless rain, a series of mysterious threats and suspicious accidents put friendships on the line and the Sherwells’ marriage under unbearable tension. Is there a connection with their uncle’s death? As the river rises under torrential rain, pressure mounts, Bede’s sense of self begins to crumble and Elin is no longer sure who to believe or what to believe in.

Published by Honno, Riverflow is available for purchase in all the usual places, including directly from the publisher here.

About Alison Layland

Alison Layland is a writer and translator who has told herself stories for as long as she can remember. She first started writing them down for others to share when she moved to Wales in 1997 and a Welsh language course led the way to creative writing classes. She won the short story competition at the National Eisteddfod in 2002.

She studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge University, and after a brief spell as a taxi driver worked for several years as a chartered surveyor before returning to her first love – language. She translates from German, French and Welsh into English, and her published translations include a number of award-winning and best-selling novels. She also writes fiction, published by Honno Press.

Someone Else’s Conflict, her debut novel, was a Debut of the Month for January 2015 on the Lovereading website. Her second novel, eco-themed psychological thriller Riverflow, was chosen as Welsh book of the month for August 2019 by Waterstones.

You can find out more by visiting Alison’s website, following her on Twitter @AlisonLayland and finding her on Facebook.

With Sarah Jasmon’s The Summer of Secrets one of my earliest reviews here on Linda’s Book Bag, I was thrilled when Sarah got in touch to see if I’d like to read her latest book You Never Told Me. I loved the quality of The Summer of Secrets (even if I hadn’t a clue then how to set out a blog post) and jumped at the chance to read You never Told Me. My enormous thanks to Sarah and Black Swan for my very early copy.

You Never Told Me will be published on 19th March by Transworld and is available for pre-order here.

You Never Told Me

A year ago, Charlie’s life seemed to be following a plan: she had a beautiful house, a lovable dog and an upcoming wedding. But she felt trapped. A few months before the big day, ignoring the warnings from her family, she abandoned her life and fled to the other side of the world in a bid for freedom.

But when her mother unexpectedly falls ill, Charlie has to cut her trip short. She flies home, but by the time she gets to the hospital, it’s too late.

Her mother is gone, but she’s left a mystery behind. Why did she buy a canal boat, and where did the money for it come from? As Charlie attempts to work through her grief and pick up the pieces of her life, she follows the threads of her mother’s secret past – but has she missed her chance to learn the truth?

My Review of You Never Told Me

Charlie’s on her way home – if only she knew what that meant.

I just loved You Never Told Me. It’s not a fast paced visceral thriller or a bright and breezy uplit, but rather a mature, thoughtful, luxurious and beautifully written exploration of identity and belonging that I found utterly convincing and affecting. It may sound a strange way of articulating it, but You Never Told Me feels like a high quality, enduring, product in a throwaway world.

Sarah Jasmon writes with such persuasive authority. Her descriptions appeal to the senses so that reading You Never Told Me is a very visual experience. Her personal boating experience means that every aspect relating to the canal and the boat is exquisitely defined with the effect that the reader feels transported to her settings so vividly. The boat and its surrounds are every bit as important as the people in this story. I loved too the natural direct speech and the extended, integral and organic metaphor of water and life. There’s a richness here that is so satisfying as it underpins an intense, claustrophobic atmosphere that made me feel quite wistful.

Initially I thought Charlie was reckless, selfish and immature, but as Sarah Jasmon gradually uncovered Charlie’s personality, her background and her thoughts, I found her an incredibly human, flawed and believable character whom I cared about without question. Charlie embodies what so many women think and feel, as she struggles not only with her own identity, but that of her mother. Since I finished reading the book I have been thinking about her, wondering how she is getting on!

Indeed, it is the theme of identity that makes You never Told Me so absorbing. Sarah Jasmon explores how well or little we know ourselves, let alone others, how we make assumptions about others and how we never really ask the right questions until it is too late. It is through this exploration of identity that the mystery of Britta and the past is so skilfully portrayed. I found it mesmerising.

I thoroughly enjoyed You never Told Me. It is the kind of book that slides deeper and deeper into the reader’s mind the more it is read until it is impossible to put down or to forget once it is read. It’s moving, atmospheric and elegantly written and I really recommend it. It’s fabulous.

About Sarah Jasmon

Sarah Jasmon lives on a canal boat in Lancashire, which is also the setting for her two novels – The Summer of Secrets and You Never Told Me. She has written short stories for a wide selection of publications and in 2018 was shortlisted for the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition. She is an Associate Tutor in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Geography.

You can follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahontheboat. You can also visit Sarah’s website for more information.

Last year I was away touring Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia and I wasn’t able to participate in Boekenweek so I’m delighted to take part again this year and would like to thank Ruth Killick for inviting me. If you’d like to see which book I featured in 2018, please click here! Boekenweek has been celebrating Dutch fiction since 1935 and with so much wonderful writing in translation I knew I had to be part of this year’s celebrations.

Today, alongside my review, I have the opening to share with you from The Blessed Rita by Tommy Wieringa, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett, so that you can see the poetic quality of the writing for yourself.

Published by Atlantic imprint Scribe on 12th March, The Blessed Rita is available for purchase here.

The Blessed Rita

In a certain sense, nothing had changed two men in a house and a half-century passing without a ripple but seen with the light from a different angle, none of it had remained the same.

What is the purpose of a man? Living in a disused farmhouse with his elderly father, Paul Krüzen is not sure he knows anymore. The mill his grandfather toiled in is closed, the glory of the Great Wars is long past, and it has been many years since his mother escaped in the arms of a Russian pilot, never once looking back. What do they have to look forward to now?

Saint Rita, the patron saint of lost causes, watches over Paul and his best friend Horseradish Hedwig, two misfits at odds with the modern world, while Paul takes comfort in his own Blessed Rita, a prostitute from Quezon. But even she cannot protect them from the tragedy that is about to unfold.

In this darkly funny novel about life on the margins of society, Dutch sensation Tommy Wieringa asks what happens to those left behind.

An Extract from The Blessed Rita

Paul Krüzen spat on his hands, seized the handle, and swung the axe over his head. The log on the chopping block burst open, but didn’t cleave. Birds seeking evening shelter in the trees fled into the dusk. Furiously twittering blackbirds burst through the undergrowth. Paul Krüzen brought the axe down, again and again, until the chunk of oak parted. Then it got easier. The pieces flew. Woodchips everywhere, spots of light on the forest soil. Let the axe do the work, his father had taught him long ago, but what he liked was to put some power behind it.

A few pale stars appeared in the sky. Deep below that, in the clearing in the woods, the demon swung his axe. He made it crack like a whip. Blocks tumbled through the air. The beeches all around, strong and smooth as a young man’s arms, shivered with each blow.

This was his life: he put wood on the block and he split it. His shirt stuck to his body. Jabs of pain in his lower back. Each blow found its mark. He had been doing this for so long, all with measured, controlled haste. He had to sweat; it had to hurt.

He swiped his armpits with roll-on and put on a clean check shirt. ‘I’m off,’ he told his father, who was reading in his chair beneath the lamp.

The evening air was chilly, with a whiff of celery above the grass. With the car window open, he drove to the village. Three jarring speedbumps. Speed ramps and roundabouts were a mark of progress, of a jacked-up pace of living that had to be slowed down, even in Mariënveen, where the clodhoppers tended to get themselves killed at the weekend. Once every couple of years, Paul Krüzen would sit straight up in bed, awakened by the impact, the sirens, and the whine of chainsaws a little later, the play of phantom light on the oaks along the curve. The next morning, he would see that yet another wedge had been ripped from the bark. In recent years, the bereaved sometimes placed flowers and photographs beside the tree.

Paul pulled up in front of Hedwig Geerdink’s place. He rang the bell and went back to wait in the car, the door open. He had no thoughts at all. Early June, the last light on the western horizon. A little later, Hedwig slid in beside him. ‘Good evening, one and all,’ his friend said in his high voice. Hedwig had two voices: the high squeaky voice, or his low, hoarse, chesty one. Anyone hearing him for the first time immediately saw him split in two: the high Hedwig and the low Hedwig. Horseradish Hedwig, as they called him in the village.

Paul pulled his legs into the car, closed the door, and drove into the village.

My Review of The Blessed Rita

Paul Krüzen’s small village life contains more than he might imagine.

I so enjoyed The Blessed Rita. It’s rare outside the crime or thriller genres that I read books with a male protagonist and I found The Blessed Rita an evocative and moving portrait of a man in middle age. I don’t often make comparisons with other books, but The Blessed Rita felt rather like Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, but more literary in style.

I thought the writing was super. The book’s structure, as it moves between past and present events, needs concentration and I would recommend reading The Blessed Rita in a sustained way, but it is such a worthwhile narrative. Poetic language, frequent humour and bleak atmosphere make the story thrum with emotion. The translation by Sam Garrett has retained an authentic and particularly Dutch atmosphere, so that the entire reading experience is of quality and depth. Each chapter seems to end with a quiet poignancy that is actually curiously piercing too. I found this hugely effective and affecting. Admittedly, I found some of the sexual and racial viewpoints expressed by some of the minor characters uncomfortable, but Tommy  Wieringa is displaying all too clearly the attitudes of so many against those who are different. There are a few sexually explicit scenes too, but I thought they were sensitively handled as a means to show Paul’s loneliness and longing and they are never gratuitous.

Paul’s story has a poetic and moving understanding from Tommy Wieringa. His character shows how the complex patterns of the past make us who we are now. Personal, geographical, political and historical aspects layer into Paul’s personality making him a fascinating person. Friendship, loyalty and the almost physical pull of home underpin who Paul is and make the reader long for him to achieve a better and more fulfilled life. His relationships with his parents and Hedwig are desperately sad and because the book ends rather ambiguously, I haven’t been able to stop wondering what is happening to Paul now. I so want him to be happy.

The Blessed Rita is literary, engaging and atmospheric. It takes the reader into the heart both of a Dutch community as well as an ordinary man with scalpel sharp precision. I really enjoyed reading it.

About Tommy Wieringa

Tommy Wieringa was born in 1967 and grew up partly in the Netherlands, and partly in the tropics. He began his writing career with travel stories and journalism, and is the author of several internationally bestselling novels. His fiction has been longlisted for the Booker International Prize, shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Oxford/Weidenfeld Prize, and has won Holland’s Libris Literature Prize.

About Sam Garrett

Sam Garrett has translated some fifty novels and works of nonfiction. He has won prizes and appeared on shortlists for some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, and is the only translator to have twice won the British Society of Authors’ Vondel Prize for Dutch–English translation.

If you’d like to find out more about Boekenweek pleas follow the tour:

I’m a big fan of thrillers and so I was delighted when Caoimhe O’Brien from Sapere Books got in touch to see if I’d like to be part of the blog tour for Simon Michael’s latest book. Had life been less frenetic I would have loved to have shared a review with you today. However, I’m thrilled to be staying in with Simon Michael today as he has some interesting things to tell me!

Staying in with Simon Michael

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Simon and thank you so much for agreeing to stay in with me.

It’s an honour to be invited. I’ve spent some time looking at your back catalogue of previous guests and I’m in some pretty illustrious company.

I love staying in with authors as you can tell, and it’s great to have you here. Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it?

I’ve brought The Waxwork Corpse, the most recent in the Charles Holborne thriller series, which was published in December.

Sapere Books have republished the first four books in the series (and done an absolutely stonking good job with them too!) but this is the first brand-new title since my move. While all of the books are based upon true high-profile stories from the 1960s, often involving the Kray twins, and cases on which I worked as a barrister, this one was particularly well-known.

How exciting. 

Some of your more mature readers may remember the TV and newspaper coverage of the case of the airline pilot who killed his wife and dumped her body in the deepest Lake in England, Wastwater, only for the body to be found almost a decade later almost perfectly preserved.

Oh my goodness yes! I remember that as it wasn’t long after I got married. Hmm. That must make me one of the ‘more mature’ amongst us!

When I tell the story as part of my “one-man show” I watch people’s mouths drop open when they hear of the series of extraordinary coincidences and mishaps which led to the man’s arrest. But that’s only half of it, because he then contested the murder trial at the Old Bailey, so that’s the part of the thriller which turns into the courtroom drama.

This sounds fabulous. I can’t wait to read it. What can we expect from an evening in with The Waxwork Corpse?

It might not just be an evening! Reviewers are often kind enough to say they couldn’t put Charles down, but this time I’ve received more than one complaint that the reader kept on promising to stop after one more chapter, then another, and then another, only to find it was 4 am before they fell asleep over the book.

You must be delighted to have that kind of response to your writing Simon.

Although I’ve fictionalised it and woven Charles through the investigation and the trial, it really is one of those true-life crimes from which it’s hard to tear one’s eyes away. I first learned of the case while sitting in a robing room waiting for a jury to return with a verdict. Barristers waiting for juries will often pass the time by retelling the story of their cases, but when we heard this one you could hear a pin drop, and I knew that one day I’d have to write it as a novel.

At the same time The Waxwork Corpse is in some ways the most personal book in the series. I can’t give too much away (spoilers) but there are distinct parallels between what happens to the accused and my family situation.

You can’t just drop that in to the conversation and move on Simon! Now, of course, I HAVE to read The Waxwork Corpse as soon as I can.

What else have you brought along and why have you brought it?

Well, I’ve brought two things, both related to the story. Hold your nose for the first, because I’ve brought a piece of what they call reflected scalp, taken off the deceased during the post-mortem, and now pickled in formaldehyde.

Oh. Most guests bring something to eat or drink…

One of the more gruesome things pathologists do when looking for cause of death, particularly in a corpse that has been long-dead, is to make an incision along the hair line and pull back (“reflect”) the scalp as if pulling off a swimming cap. It may, for example, reveal bruises which were not detectable on the skin surface. When I decided to write this story, the solicitor for the accused man sent me all the prosecution documents, including the post-mortem report, photos and all. The post-mortem is described in some detail in the book.

That sounds like research beyond the call of duty to me!

Secondly, I’ve brought a silver trophy cup. Watch out for it; it’s a big clue to the double twist at the end.

I definitely like the trophy more than the reflected scalp. Thank you so much for staying in with me to tell me all about The Waxwork Corpse Simon. You’ve thoroughly intrigued me. I think Linda’s Book Bag readers might need to see the full blurb and where they can buy the book:

The Waxwork Corpse

Charles Holborne is back – with his strangest case to date! Perfect for fans of John Grisham, Robert Bailey, Michael Connelly and Robert Dugoni.

A deadly crime has been dragged to the surface…

London, 1965

Charles Holborne, maverick barrister, will never fit in at the Bar; he is too working-class, too Jewish and too dangerous.

But that makes him the perfect outsider to prosecute a shocking murder case which has already made its way to the press.

By chance, a body was found, dumped in a lake. It had clearly been there for some time, but the conditions in the water have meant that it was nearly perfectly preserved.

The police have managed to match this ‘waxwork corpse’ to a missing woman and if her husband — a senior judge — was the one who killed her, the scandal threatens to rock the British justice to its foundations.

The waxwork corpse is not the only thing to be raised from the past. The investigation also dredges up a violent mistake made by Charles in his youth which, if revealed, could put his own life at stake…

The Waxwork Corpse, based on a real Old Bailey case, is the fifth crime novel in an exciting historical series, the Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers — gritty, hard-boiled mysteries set in 1960s London.

The Waxwork Corpse is available for purchase here.

About Simon Michael

Simon Michael is the author of the best-selling London 1960s noir gangster series featuring his antihero barrister, Charles Holborne.  Simon writes from personal experience: a barrister for 37 years, he worked in the Old Bailey and other criminal courts defending and prosecuting a wide selection of murderers, armed robbers, con artists and other assorted villainy.  The 1960s was the Wild West of British justice, a time when the Krays, the Richardsons and other violent gangs fought for control of London’s organised crime, and the corrupt Metropolitan Police beat up suspects, twisted evidence and took a share of the criminal proceeds.  Simon weaves into his thrillers real events of the time,the cases on which he worked and his unusual family history in the East End.

Simon was published here and in America in the 1980s and returned to writing when he retired from the law in 2016.  The Charles Holborne series, The Brief, An Honest Man, The Lighterman, Corrupted and the latest, The Waxwork Corpse, have all garnered strong reviews for their authenticity and excitement.

For more information, follow Simon on Twitter @simonmichaeluk or visit his website. You can find Simon on Facebook, and there’s more with these other bloggers too:

It was a privilege last year to help announce the Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Award longlist in a post you can read here and to attend the shortlist evening at The British Library. You can read about that evening here.

You can find all the latest news about this year’s award on Twitter by following #IDTP20 or @dylanthomprize. The Swansea University website has all you need to know too.

When I was asked by the lovely folk at Midas PR if I’d like to feature one of 2020’s longlisted books I immediately chose Surge by Jay Bernard because I hadn’t heard of the author before and wanted to find out more.

This year’s longlist comprises seven novels, three poetry collections and two short story collections:

• Surge – Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus)
• Flèche – Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber)
• Exquisite Cadavers – Meena Kandasamy (Atlantic Books)
• Things we say in the Dark – Kirsty Logan (Harvell Secker, Vintage)
• Black Car Burning – Helen Mort (Chatto & Windus)
• Virtuoso– Yelena Moskovich (Serpent’s Tail)
• Inland – Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Stubborn Archivist – Yara Rodrigues Fowler (Fleet)
• If All the World and Love were Young – Stephen Sexton (Penguin Random House)
• The Far Field – Madhuri Vijay (Atlantic Books)
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape, Vintage)
• Lot – Bryan Washington (Atlantic Books)

Worth £30,000, it is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes as well as the world’s largest literary prize for young writers. Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama.

The 12 longlisted titles will be judged by a bumper guest panel chaired by Swansea University’s Professor Dai Smith CBE, including annual judge Professor Kurt Heinzelman, the award-winning writer and founder of Jaipur Literature Festival Namita Gokhale, acclaimed writer and 2011 winner of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize  Lucy Caldwell, the British-Ghanaian writer, poet and critic Bridget Minamore, celebrated writer and presenter of BBC Radio 3: The Verb Ian McMillan and national arts and culture journalist Max Liu.

The shortlist will be announced on the 7^th April, followed by a British Library Event, London on the 13^th May and Winner’s Ceremony held in Swansea on International Dylan Thomas Day, 14^th May.

My choice of book for review, Surge by Jay Bernard, is published by Vintage imprint Chatto and Windus, part of the Penguin group, and is available for purchase through the links here.

Surge

*Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2019*

*Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019*

*Shortlisted for Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2019*

*Winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry*

Jay Bernard’s extraordinary debut is a fearlessly original exploration of the black British archive: an enquiry into the New Cross Fire of 1981, a house fire at a birthday party in south London in which thirteen young black people were killed.

Dubbed the ‘New Cross Massacre’, the fire was initially believed to be a racist attack, and the indifference with which the tragedy was met by the state triggered a new era of race relations in Britain.

Tracing a line from New Cross to the ‘towers of blood’ of the Grenfell fire, this urgent collection speaks with, in and of the voices of the past, brought back by the incantation of dancehall rhythms and the music of Jamaican patois, to form a living presence in the absence of justice.

A ground-breaking work of excavation, memory and activism – both political and personal, witness and documentary – Surge shines a much-needed light on an unacknowledged chapter in British history, one that powerfully resonates in our present moment.

My Review of Surge

A slim collection of poems concerning historical events including the 1981 New Cross Fire.

Now, as a white, heterosexual middle aged woman approaching 60 you’d think I have little in common with someone young enough to be my child who identifies as black and queer and likes to be described under the pronoun they, rather than he. You’d be completely wrong. Jay Bernard’s collection Surge spoke to the very heart of me and I feel privileged to have read it.

At less than 70 pages, Surge provided an uncomfortable and moving insight into a world of which I was mostly ignorant and unaware. I can’t decide whether the fire at New Cross, that so much of the writing refers to, more or less passed me by because I as at university and living a cocooned life, or whether, at the time, the loss of so many young black lives didn’t warrant the attention it deserved. Either way, in Surge Jay Bernard creates a vivid memorial to those lives lost that left me feeling deeply saddened and not a little ashamed. Surge is political and fierce and deserves to be read far and wide.

I loved everything about Surge, especially the structure of the work and the quality of the writing. I was challenged by some of the language, especially the more dialect words and felt this reflected the challenge endured by those represented in the pages of the collection, such as those spat upon by office workers in Patois, for example. I found the often fragmented layout and the use of blank space illustrated the lack of cohesion in society and lack of esteem in which the lives of non-white people can be held. Blank, in particular, exemplifies this so perfectly. It also seemed to echo the author’s personal disjointed identity. So much here in Surge made me think and brought me up sharply that it has depth belied by the slimness of the volume.

I was moved by the echoes of society and history I take for granted so that whispers of Peter and Jane Ladybird books, Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen, religious ceremonies and so on all swirled around my reading to the extent that Jay Bernard has achieved exactly what they claim in their introduction; they might be haunted by the history but they are certainly haunting it back. Finishing reading Surge isn’t the end of the book. So many references sent me scurrying off to find out more, especially the notes at the end. I’m discomfited that, in spite of all the news coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire, I probably would never have heard of photographer Khadija Saye who died there without Jay Bernard’s writing.

I’ve read Surge several times over now and each time I return to it I find something new. Jay Bernard’s writing has engendered so many emotions in me as a reader. I was floored by the rawness of grief in + and -, angered and shamed by so many entries, and yet despite this I found it comforting to know Jay Bernard cares enough to have written Surge. It’s no surprise to me that Surge has been so critically acclaimed. I loved it.

About Jay Bernard

Jay Bernard is the author of the pamphlets Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl (Tall Lighthouse, 2008), English Breakfast (Math Paper Press, 2013) and The Red and Yellow Nothing (Ink Sweat & Tears Press, 2016), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 2017. A film programmer at BFI Flare and an archivist at Statewatch, they also participated in ‘The Complete Works II’ project in 2014, mentored by Kei Miller. Jay was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2005 and a winner of SLAMbassadors UK spoken word championship. Their poems have been collected in Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009), The Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt, 2011), Ten: The New Wave (Bloodaxe, 2014) and Out of Bounds: British Black & Asian Poets (Bloodaxe, 2014).

You can find out more on Jay’s website.

My enormous thanks to Josh Smith for inviting me to be part of the launch celebrations for Peter Swanson’s Rules for Perfect Murders.

Out today from Faber and Faber, Rules for Perfect Murders is available for purchase through the publisher links here.

Rules for Perfect Murders

If you want to get away with murder, play by the rules

A series of unsolved murders with one thing in common: each of the deaths bears an eerie resemblance to the crimes depicted in classic mystery novels.

The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled ‘My Eight Favourite Murders,’ and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list – which includes Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.

Can the killer be stopped before all eight of these perfect murders have been re-enacted?

An Extract from Rules for Perfect Murders

I’d worked in bookstores ever since graduating from college in 1999. First briefly at a Borders in downtown Boston, then as both an assistant manager and a senior manager at one of the few remaining independents in Harvard Square. Amazon had just won its
war for total domination and most of the indies were folding up like flimsy tents in a hurricane. But the Redline Bookstore was sticking it out, partly due to an older clientele not yet savvy enough to figure out online shopping, but mostly because its owner, Mort Abrams, outright owned the two- story brick building the store was housed in and didn’t have to pay rent. I was at Redline five years, two as an assistant manager, then three as senior manager and part- time book buyer. My specialty was fiction, and in particular, crime fiction.

During my time at the store I also met my future wife, Claire Mallory, who was hired as a bookseller shortly after she’d dropped out of Boston University. We got married the same year that Mort Abrams lost his wife of thirty-five years to breast cancer. Mort and
Sharon, who lived two streets over from the bookstore, had become close friends, substitute parents really, and Sharon’s death was hard, especially since it robbed Mort of any remaining zest for life. A year after her death he told me that he was shutting down the store, unless, of course, I wanted to buy him out, take it over myself. I considered
it, but at that point Claire had already left Redline, going to work at the local cable access station, and I didn’t necessarily want to take on the hours, or the financial risk, of running my own store.

I contacted Old Devils, a mystery bookstore in Boston, and John Haley, the owner at the time, created a job for me. I would be the events manager, but also create content for the store’s burgeoning blog, a site for mystery lovers. My last day at Redline was the store’s
last day in business, as well. Mort and I locked the front doors together, then I followed him back to his office, where we drank from a dusty bottle of single malt that had been given to him by Robert Parker. I remember thinking that Mort, without his wife, and
now without the store, wouldn’t make it through the winter. I was wrong. He lived through the winter and spring, but he did manage to die the following summer at his lake house at Winnipesaukee, a week before Claire and I were planning to visit.

“Eight Perfect Murders” was the first piece I wrote for the Old Devils blog. John Haley, my new boss, had asked me to write a list of my favorite mystery novels, but instead I pitched the idea of writing a list of perfect murders in crime fiction. I don’t exactly
know why I was reluctant to share my favorite books yet, but I remember thinking that writing about perfect murders might generate more traffic. This was right around the time that several blogs were taking off, making their authors rich and famous. I remember someone doing a blog about making one of Julia Child’s recipes every day that was turned into a book, and maybe even a movie. I think I must have had some delusions of grandeur that my blog platform might turn me into a public and trusted aficionado of crime fiction. Claire added fuel to the re by telling me repeatedly
that she thought this blog could really blow up, that I’d find my calling— a literary critic of crime fiction. The truth was that I’d already found my calling, at least I thought I had, and I was a bookseller, content with the hundreds of minute interactions that make up a bookseller’s daily life. And what I loved most of all was to read— that was my true calling.

(And I don’t think any of us would argue with that sentiment!)

About Peter Swanson

Peter Swanson is the author of five novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year. His books have been translated into 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine.

A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College, he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife and cat.

You can follow Peter on Twitter @PeterSwanson3 visit his website for more information. You’ll also find him on Facebook and Instagram. There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I’m absolutely thrilled to be starting off the blog tour celebrations for the paperback of Messy Wonderful Us by Catherine Isaac because this novel was my book of the year last year. You can read my review of Messy, Wonderful Us here, but today I have an extract to share with you so that you can see for yourself what a lovely book it is.

As well as loving Messy, Wonderful Us, I adored Catherine Isaac’s You, Me, Everything which I reviewed here and was delighted to chat with her about that book on Linda’s Book Bag in a post you can read here.

Messy, Wonderful Us

One morning in early summer, a man and woman wait to board a flight to Italy.

Allie has lived a careful, focused existence. But now she has unexpectedly taken leave from her job as an academic research scientist to fly to a place she only recently heard about in a letter. Her father, Joe, doesn’t know the reason for her trip, and Allie can’t bring herself to tell him that she’s flying to Italy to unpick the truth about what her mother did all those years ago.

Beside her is her best friend since schooldays, Ed. He has just shocked everyone with a sudden separation from his wife, Julia. Allie hopes that a break will help him open up.

But the secrets that emerge as the sun beats down on Lake Garda and Liguria don’t merely concern her family’s tangled past. And the two friends are forced to confront questions about their own life-long relationship that are impossible to resolve.

The dazzling new novel from Richard & Judy book club author Catherine Isaac, Messy, Wonderful Us is a story about the transforming power of love, as one woman journeys to uncover the past and reshape her future.

An Extract from Messy, Wonderful Us

There were certain scents that could whisk her back to that sultry night at any moment. It would happen for months afterwards. She’d be getting on with her life, trying to keep her head down, when she’d breathe in and a rush of memories would follow. Of hot skin and the spike of perfume. The fug of cigarette smoke and hairspray. The musky aroma that had clung faintly to his neck, as he’d slipped his hand around her waist and whispered to her. And the pollen- rich grass that infused the darkness as she’d followed him, until the boom of music grew faint and they were out of sight, heading towards a tangle of woodland.

She hadn’t set out to be reckless that night. But then, she hadn’t set out to tell all those lies so she could be with a boy – no, a man – she shouldn’t have been with. In the preceding weeks, she’d found herself floating towards this point, unable to stop herself. Unable to think about her betrayal and the pain she had the capacity to inflict on theone man who really loved her.

From the moment this stranger had swept into her life, everything about him had bewitched her. The lilting way he spoke, in an accent that captured the intrinsic beauty of words. The muss of hair around the nape of his neck. The way he looked at her, as if every other girl was invisible. She’d glanced up at the shadows on his face as the moon glowed behind him, trying to pretend she was more experienced than she was. But he can’t have failed to notice that she was trembling.

His features were unusual, striking rather than handsome. But this wasn’t about his looks.It was about what she saw behind his eyes, the antidote to every humdrum thing in her life, a world of adventure, a foreign land. He was leading her to a new place inside herself, away from the person everyone thought she was.

They followed a secluded path beyond the trees and found a spot where the air had stilled. Nobody could see them or hear them. She knew what was about to happen and it made her chest burn. His lips felt like velvet as his mouth travelled along her jaw, her temple,the stretch of her collarbone. Bark scratched through her dress into the damp flesh on her spine and her hem rose to the top of her thighs.All she could do was abandon herself to the exquisite ache in her belly. The weightlessness of the moment. The sky-high feeling of being a woman.

I love this scene setting extract and hope you do too!

About Catherine Isaac

Catherine Isaac was born in Liverpool and was a journalist for many years before she wrote her first book, Bridesmaids, under the pseudonym Jane Costello. She wrote nine novels under that name – all bestsellers – before You Me Everything was published under the name Catherine Isaac in 2018. It was selected by the Richard & Judy Book Club,
has been translated into 24 languages and a movie is in development by Lionsgate and Temple Hill. In 2019 she won the Romantic Novelists’ Association award for Popular Romantic Fiction. She lives in Liverpool with her husband and three sons.

You can visit Catherine’s website for more information and follow her on Twitter @CatherineIsaac_. You’ll also find Catherine on Facebook.

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Back in October 2019 I went to a wonderful Quercus books Word of Mouth Best Seller blogger event that you can read all about here. At that event I was lucky enough to get a copy of Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years. Now I’m thrilled to be invited to participate in the launch celebrations for In Five Years and would like to thank Milly Reid for asking me.

Published by Quercus on 10th March 2020, In Five Years is available for pre-order here.

In Five Years

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has been in possession of her meticulously crafted answer since she understood the question. On the day that she nails the most important job interview of her career and gets engaged to the perfect man, she’s well on her way to fulfilling her life goals.

That night Dannie falls asleep only to wake up in a different apartment with a different ring on her finger, and in the company of a very different man. The TV is on in the background, and she can just make out the date. It’s the same night – December 15th – but 2025, five years in the future.

It was just a dream, she tells herself when she wakes, but it felt so real… Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four and a half years later, when Dannie turns down a street and there, standing on the corner, is the man from her dream…

My Review of In Five Years

Dannie finds life isn’t all about numbers.

Having heard so much about In Five Years I was sceptical about its emotional impact, stubbornly deciding I wasn’t going to be affected by Rebecca Serle’s writing. How wrong could I be? I resisted as long as possible before finding myself sobbing uncontrollably as the narrative unfolded and by the time I’d finished the book I was in pieces.

I thought the setting was magnificently displayed. It’s not just Rebecca Serle’s knowledge of New York but her ability to convey its impact on her characters that makes it so effective. The delis and restaurants, the lofts and apartments form an ideal back drop to the events. At times the setting is quite prosaic and yet enhances the emotions that her characters, and readers, are feeling.

There’s a heart rending story here. It might be set in corporate New York, but In Five Years explores universal themes of love, ambition, expectation and friendship that resonate for any reader in any location. It’s difficult to explore the plot without spoiling the read for others but I will say that I was so caught up in events that I read this book in one sitting because I was so captivated. I absolutely loved it.

What I think works so well in In Five Years is that there is a reduced number of main characters so that we get to know them intimately; even more deeply perhaps than they know themselves. Dannie’s first person narrative is honest and raw making her vivid and realistic so that I was completely attuned to her emotions, decisions and life. Her relationship with Bella is simultaneously harrowing and beautiful so that I was incredibly touched by it.

I’ve finished In Five Years not able to distance myself from Rebecca Serle’s wonderful writing. In spite of my intentions, she drew me in, mangled my heart and replaced it irrevocably and irretrievably altered. I loved this book unequivocally and cannot recommend it highly enough.

About Rebecca Serle

Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives between NYC and LA. She most recently co-developed the television adaptation of her YA series Famous In Love for Freeform and Warner Brothers Television. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Her bestselling US debut adult novel Dinner List was a Book of the Month club pick, Costco bookclub pick, and Bustle Bookclub selection.

You can visit Rebecca’s website for more information, find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @RebeccaASerle.

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I have a particular fondness for Elisabeth Gifford because she was one of the authors I was lucky to read in the early days of Linda’s Book Bag. Hopefully the blog has developed since then so that I feature books and authors more effectively, but you can read a fabulous guest piece from Elisabeth about the Harris setting for her book Secrets of the Sea House, alongside my review here. I’ve also reviewed Elisabeth’s wonderful The Good Doctor of Warsaw here.

Consequently, when to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours invited me to participate in this blog tour for The Lost Lights of St Kilda I jumped at the chance because I had been desperate to get to the book for some time. My enormous thanks to Elisabeth for an early copy and to the Corvus team for a finished hardback.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda will be published on 5th March by Corvus and is available for pre-order here.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda

A sweeping novel set on the Scottish island of St Kilda, following the last community to live there before it was evacuated in 1930.

When Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda in 1927, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that desolate, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer is the bedrock of his whole life…

Chrissie Gillies is just nineteen when the researchers come to St Kilda. Hired as their cook, she can’t believe they would ever notice her, sophisticated and educated as they are. But she soon develops a cautious friendship with Fred, a friendship that cannot be allowed to develop into anything more…

My Review of The Lost Lights of St Kilda

A summer trip to St Kilda will have far reaching impact for Fred.

Having read Elisabeth Gifford before, I knew I would be in for a treat with The Lost Lights of St Kilda but I wasn’t prepared for how far this book would exceed my expectations. I absolutely loved it and have closed the pages feeling a little bit broken and then repaired by this affecting, dramatic and mesmerising story that is steeped in nature, romance and the past.

Firstly, there’s an historical depth, both in the St Kilda passages and the war episodes, that is absolutely flawless. I had no previous knowledge of St Kilda but I now feel as if I’ve been there, met the people and experienced a way of life that might otherwise have been forgotten. The meticulous research that must have gone in to the writing of this narrative makes for a smooth and convincing sense of the era. I’m not sure how to articulate what I mean except to say that this author engenders a confidence in the reader so that they are reassured about the realism of the story and can relax into the sheer pleasure of reading it. The Lost Lights of St Kilda feels intimate even when set against world events.

And what a story it is too. I felt as if events ebbed and flowed like the seas around St Kilda, equally as stormy and bleak as the winter gales at times and calm and serene at others so that this is a perfectly balanced narrative. As I neared the end of the book the tension was almost unbearable. I knew how I wanted The Lost Lights of St Kilda to end but I couldn’t be certain my wishes would be fulfilled.

Elisabeth Gifford’s writing is tangibly atmospheric and so beautifully written. The sense of place, the appeal to the senses, the total immersion in St Kilda especially, all combine into a vivid picture. I could see the birds on the crags, smell the fulmar oil, feel the texture of the tweed in my fingers, hear the gales and the crashing waves and taste the whisky and oatmeal so that reading The Lost Lights of St Kilda was an almost physical experience. in fact, I’d go so far as to say that the descriptions in The Lost Lights of St Kilda are amongst the best I’ve read by any author.

I loved the characterisation and the way the distinct voices of Fred and Chrissie form the weft and weave of the narrative every bit as tightly as the tweed is woven by the villagers. Chrissie’s blend of strength and vulnerability, the hardship of her life and her natural intelligence make her a true heroine. I thought Elisabeth Gifford was hugely skilful in making me loathe Archie and yet bringing me to tears over him too. She shows so sensitively the faults, flaws, passions, love, betrayals and loyalties that make us human. I felt there was a real sense of redemption here too that gave wonderful depth to the story.

I found The Lost Lights of St Kilda moving, enthralling, and oh so beautifully crafted. It is one of my books of the year and I’m only sorry to have finished it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

About Elisabeth Gifford

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. Her bestselling novel, Secrets of the Sea House, was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association’s Debut Crown for Best First Historical Novel in 2014. She is married with three children, and lives in Kingston upon Thames.

For more information, you can find Elisabeth on Facebook, visit her website and follow her on Twitter @elisabeth04Liz.

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