First chapter
There’s murder and mayhem this week and a touch of dark academia.
The author, born and raised in Belfast, is already an established serious crime novelist and here he keeps the crime vein, but introduces comedy. Though there’s nothing funny about murder…is there? This book is funny and mysterious and deadly all at the same time. There’s a strange gang of oddbods on this transatlantic cruise liner, they call themselves The Midnight Chorus, but this isn’t a choir who like to burst into song after closing time. It’s actually a group of serial murderers and their fans, anxious to outshine each other in their deadly craft. Also on the boat are two mis-matched ‘frenemies’, Jacqui Dulac who stars in the TV show Lady Detective and her ghost writer, Martha Hammond. Martha witnesses a brutal murder on deck, and the two women must put aside their differences to become real-life detectives, which is tricky business when you’re trapped on a boat full of killers. Great fun.
Cavanagh was also born and raised in Belfast and still lives there. He practices law but hopefully doesn’t bend and break as many rules as his hero lawyer Eddie Flynn. Eddie’s a former baddie turned good, an ex-con who has turned sides and is now a very successful New York attorney. When a young woman, Molly Green, is found dead in her apartment, suspicion immediately falls on her boss who’s also her lover, Patrick Vanderpool, a wealthy and entitled type who happens to be running for public office. (Well, they did vote Trump in, didn’t they?). What’s really grisly about this murder is that Molly’s head has been removed. From Molly and from the building. When Patrick doesn’t deliver, suspicion then falls on his wife, who after all is the betrayed woman in this threesome, ergo she has plenty of motive. She hires Eddie and he’s convinced she’s innocent but not convinced of much else. Vanessa is hiding something. Actually, the whole Vanderbilt family is hiding quite a lot, but I won’t spoil. This is typical Cavanagh, and his 10th Eddie Flynn novel. There are plot twists galore but the truth outs in the end, as it usually does. Fast-paced, very New Yoik and thoroughly entertaining.
This is a powerful but disturbing memoir from a black writer from Boston, whose first book ‘Man Gone Down’ won the IMPAC literary award back in 2009. This award made him what he calls ‘quasi-successful’ but also had an effect on him that he couldn’t quite contain, leading eventually to mental illness and a spell in a psychiatric hospital. Although he is, if you like, all better now, he has a lot to say about racism in America. He was raped at the age of 7 and afterwards burned his clothes and told nobody. Something was bound to give, at some stage. But maybe a reader would expect that literary success (he’s a literature professor) would at least salve the wound, if not make it more bearable. The exposure his first book brought him seems to have had the opposite effect and as well as suffering a breakdown he suffered from alcoholism and chemical dependence. This is a very personal and intimate memoir but it’s also a scathing critique of white America and the plain-as-day everyday slights suffered by Americans who aren’t white. It’s an unsettling read but an essential one.
This is Woods’ second dark academia novel of a duo, the first being Nightshade and it’s recommended the reader might read Nightshade first. Alex and Ophelia have up to now been lovers, but now Alex Corbeau-Green must leave Scotland and return to New York, not least because his father has gone missing. He must leave Ophelia behind, which is probably a good thing because their relationship has gone south. Ophelia is left behind in Scotland, aware that Alex thinks she’s the root of many of his problems, although also aware she’s not. But someone is watching Ophelia and it’s not long before they start tormenting her, which sends her looking for Alex’s help. The pair are soon drawn to one another once again, except there’s no guarantee that love alone will be enough for them to survive. This is a heated, sexy romance for the young wans (and by young I do mean over eighteen!) and is part of a real trend in genre fiction at the moment. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but its targeted audience is swooning!
Up to now, DS Lucy Golden has been working on murder cases mostly on Achill Island, having been expelled from her Dublin position and forced to leave her job in the capital under a cloud. But this current case brings Lucy back to Dublin, and onto the cold case of two children who went missing in Dublin years ago. Two six-year-olds, one taken from their back yard in Dublin 4, and one from a car in Stoneybatter, have never been found. Until Lucy, who’s investigating a spate of robberies in Mayo, finds that DNA on a coat presumably belonging to one of the criminals, is that of one of the missing kids. The team moves to Dublin to investigate further. Interviews with the parents of the two kids are revealing, to say the least. But Lucy and the team are hopeful they’ll crack this case, despite discrepancies in statements, dead ends, and Lucy getting creepy calls and texts late at night, warning her off the investigation. Vintage Murphy and a sad farewell to DS Lucy Golden. This is her final book in the series.