Come And Find Me by Sarah Hilary

Come And Find Me
By Sarah Hilary
Published by Headline (22 March 2018)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher

Publisher's description

On the surface, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull have nothing in common, other than their infatuation with Michael Vokey. Each is writing to a sadistic inmate, sharing her secrets, whispering her worst fears, craving his attention.

DI Marnie Rome understands obsession. She's finding it hard to give up her own addiction to a dangerous man: her foster brother, Stephen Keele. She wasn't able to save her parents from Stephen. She lives with that guilt every day. 

As the hunt for Vokey gathers pace, Marnie fears one of the women may have found him - and is about to pay the ultimate price.

My verdict
I admit that I wrote no review notes when reading Come And Find Me, as I was simply too engrossed to pick up a pen, so I'm writing this 'blind'. Yet even a month on, I can still feel the chilling nature of this intelligent police procedural, as if I've only just finished reading it - I suspect that will be hard to shake off!

Come And Find Me is Sarah Hilary's best book yet - and I know I keep saying that every time I read her latest novel! But seriously, this is a compelling and addictive read, pulling the punches from the very first page. It's also dark - very dark - and certainly her darkest yet, focusing on a prison riot and subsequent escape, with a violent man (Michael Vokey) now on the run.

DI Marnie Rome is back to fighting her own demons, struggling to focus on her search for Vokey. Her mind keeps swinging back to her foster brother Stephen, who killed her parents and has been injured during the prison riot. To understand her relationship with Stephen fully, you'll need to read the previous books (although this isn't essential for the plot of Come And Find Me, I would recommend you do so anyway). Marnie is concerned that Vokey could be a danger to two women he befriended while in prison and who have been writing to him, craving his attention, so the race is on to find him before he finds them.

There's a real mystery at the heart of Come And Find Me, shielded by so many layers that need to be torn away one by one to discover the truth. Most of the book is set in the prison or a hospital ward, yet despite these potentially neutral settings the writing is filled with descriptive brilliance and some subtle (and not so subtle) humour at times. I felt like I was there in that prison riot, not only seeing the gore and the violence, but feeling it too.

I can't recommend this Marnie Rome series high enough. It's everything I want in crime fiction - dark, powerful, emotional, gripping and filled with surprises from beginning to end. It also feels very authentic - with plausible realistic plots and no far-fetched plot devices simply there to keep the reader reading. Each book touches on human nature and complex social issues and I always feel that I see the world slightly differently by the time I reach the end.

Close to Home by Cara Hunter

Close to Home
By Cara Hunter
Published by Penguin (14 December 2017)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher

Publisher's description
HOW CAN A CHILD GO MISSING WITHOUT A TRACE?

Last night, eight-year-old Daisy Mason disappeared from a family party. No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything - or at least that's what they're saying.

DI Adam Fawley is trying to keep an open mind. But he knows the nine times out of ten, it's someone the victim knew.

That means someone is lying...
And that Daisy's time is running out. 

My verdict
I raced through this cleverly plotted crime novel, which combines psychological thriller and police procedural. It's a very twisty, fast-paced read, with plenty of intriguing characters.

Eight-year-old Daisy Hunter went missing from a family party and no one saw her leave, or so they say. With no strong leads, DI Adam Fawley struggles to unravel this complex case to find the missing girl, questioning her dysfunctional family, neighbours, school teachers and even friends.

I loved the use of social media, with Facebook posts and tweets reflecting modern culture and the public's opinions, giving the book a very 'up-to-date' feel. This also made the story feel very real - and the characters too. I found myself questioning everyone's intentions and actions as I turned the pages.

Cara Hunter certainly keeps readers guessing all the way through Close to Home. This is a great debut, so I was delighted to discover that it's the start of a series. I'm looking forward to the next book!

MY PUBLISHING LIFE with Aimee Coveney

Welcome to my latest MY PUBLISHING LIFE feature, an interview with a literary agent, publisher, publicist or editor about their publishing career to date. Some serious questions, and some just for fun!

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

AIMEE COVENEY

Co-founder and
Head of Design and Digital Marketing

at
Bookollective

What and when was your first job in publishing?

I always say that I fell into publishing. I originally worked as a website designer for a self-publishing company, working on designing author websites.  After some training and experimentation in another role, I started book design and fell in love with the process. It’s still the favourite part of my job. Taking the written word and successfully creating a visual representation, much to an author’s delight, is very rewarding. 

How long have you been working in your current job/role?

Bookollective is heading for its second birthday and continues to thrive. We’re consistently building on our goals and adding to our extensive service expertise. 

Which books have you worked on recently/are you working on?

Some of my favourite recent cover designs have included Nice Guys Finish Lonely by Rachel Dove (Manatee Books), Broken Ponies by Sophie Jonas-Hill (Urbane Publications) and two new sets of series covers for Hannah Ellis and Emma Salisbury. 

Which qualifications/life skills/experience have helped you get to where you are today?

Spending years in the industry within different roles has given me invaluable insight into author’s gripes around different aspects of publishing and enabled me to explore avenues to help make their journey a smooth and exciting one! 

How do you relax after a busy working day?

Having a young baby means relaxing is a little scarce these days(!), but I genuinely enjoy reading whilst doing the evening feeds. When I have time to myself, I love to cook, experimenting with recipes and creating flavours is my therapy. 

What was the last book you read for pleasure?

I recently finished Between You and Me by Lisa Hall, which was incredibly gripping! It certainly kept me up past my bedtime! Without a doubt, I’ll be reading more of Lisa’s books in the near future! 

Describe your job in 15 words or less...

Creative services for authors and publishers. Bringing an ease and personal edge to publishing! 

What have been the highlights of your publishing life so far

Last year I (and the rest of the Bookollective team) were chosen as The Bookseller’s Rising Stars. It was an incredible surprise and an amazing accolade from the industry. 

If you could try out any other job for one day (with no limits on money, travel etc.), what would you choose?

Given my love of books and cooking, I think combining the two to be a cookery writer would be a fantastic experience and one I’d love to try given the chance, and heaps of luck! 

If your publishing life was a book, what would the title be?

Oh that’s a tricky one! Life on Planet Publishing could be good, as I’ve had a hand in so many different aspects of the publishing journey and could reveal some strange but true happenings behind the scenes! 

Thanks so much for taking part, Aimee!

Look out for more MY PUBLISHING LIFE features coming soon.

Click here to read more MY PUBLISHING LIFE features.

If any literary agents, publishers, publicists or editors would like to take part, please contact me through my blog or Twitter for the full list of questions.

It Was Her by Mark Hill

It Was Her
By Mark Hill
Published by Sphere (17 May 2018)
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher.

Publisher's description

Do you want a thriller where nothing is as it seems?

Twenty years ago, Tatia was adopted into a well-off home where she seemed happy, settled. Then the youngest boy in the family dies in an accident, and she gets the blame. 

Did she do it?

Tatia is cast out, away from her remaining adopted siblings Joel and Poppy. Now she yearns for a home to call her own. So when she see families going on holiday, leaving their beautiful homes empty, there seems no harm in living their lives while they are gone. But somehow, people keep ending up dead.

Did she kill them?

As bodies start to appear in supposedly safe neighbourhoods, DI Ray Drake and DS Flick Crowley race to find the thinnest of links between the victims. But Drake's secret past is threatening to destroy everything.

My verdict
Yet again, Mark Hill has written a gripping crime thriller. I loved His First Lie (originally called Two O'Clock Boy), so was excited to read It Was Her, which is the next book in the DI Ray Drake series.

It Was Her focuses on dysfunctional families (okay, let's call them EXTREMELY dysfunctional families) and toxic relationships. It's filled with unreliable characters with distorted memories, hidden secrets and disturbing pasts.

This book is VERY dark and VERY twisted, with an air of mystery throughout, not just with the main plot, but also with the lead character Ray Drake. He's a complicated character to understand (conflicted, moody and damaged), and I can't say too much without revealing spoilers. To know more about his background, and his strained relationship with DS Flick Crowley, you should really read His First Lie before this book.

Mark Hill's writing is a pleasure to read, as it was in His First Lie too, with realistic dialogue and chilling descriptions of gruesome murders. With both books, I've found myself sympathising with some dubious characters, proving that not everything in life is clearcut and there's a definite grey area between 'good' and 'evil'. Can people really atone for the past?

It Was Her certainly kept me on my toes, trying to figure it all out (who was really to blame for events in the present and in the past?) and also left me wanting more (in a good way). Bring on the next book in the DI Ray Drake series!

Highly recommended!

Follow the Blog Tour

What makes the best crime fiction? by Paul E. Hardisty

I am delighted to be today's stop on the blog tour for Absolution by Paul E. Hardisty. Absolution is the fourth book in the Claymore Straker series, which is published by Orenda Books, and will be published in paperback on 30 May 2018.

What makes the best crime fiction? 

By Paul E. Hardisty

Realism, to me, makes the best crime fiction. When I read thrillers and crime stories (or any other literature for that matter), I don’t want to suspend my disbelief, I want to shudder with the realisation of what is possible, and what people are capable of, good and bad. A great example is the novel-within-a-novel HHhH by Laurent Binet. It is the story of the assassination in 1942 of Nazi SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heidrich by a team of Czech soldiers who parachuted into Prague specifically for the mission. It is a novel, but the chilling reality of the tale adds a poignancy and punch that a purely invented story simply cannot.

So when I write, I go to real events for inspiration. 

In my first novel, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, I used personal experience of working as a young engineer in the wilds of Yemen as civil war erupted around me, corruption ran unchecked, and powerful men scrambled to control the country’s developing oil resources, to build the story.  Fictionalising people and events around that reality, paradoxically, allowed me to tell the truth about what was happening then in a way my official scientific reports never could. 

In the third instalment of the Claymore Straker series, Reconciliation for the Dead, I take the reader back to 1980, onto the front line of a little-known war in Angola, when apartheid South Africa was fighting against the communists. One of the central plot elements of the book revolves around an obscure but bone-chilling secret program run by the South African government of the time, designed to keep the black populace in check. I had heard anecdotally of the existence of such a program many years before, when as a boy, I heard my father speaking with white South Africans who had fled the violence. Later, I heard similar stories from a hardened South African army veteran I met working in the oilfields of the Ukraine. So when it came time to write of Clay Straker’s harrowing past growing up as a child of apartheid, and found reference to these same events in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission transcripts, I knew it had to come into the story. 

The fourth Straker novel, Absolution, out now, is set in Egypt and East Africa, places I have worked in over many years and know well. Again, the key plot elements are built around true events and issues, one of which I experienced first-hand, quite intimately, and the other which (thank God) I only heard about in the news at the time (1997).  

Either way – personal experience or research – these true-life settings allow the rest of the fiction to be anchored in something which is even more thrilling, even more chilling, because it is absolutely real.  That, to me, is the best of crime fiction.

About Absolution

Absolution

By Paul Hardisty

Published by Orenda Books (E-book- available now; Paperback - 30 May 2018)

Publisher's description

It is 1997, eight months since vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker fled South Africa after his explosive testimony to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Paris, Rania LaTour, journalist, comes home to find that her son and her husband, a celebrated human rights lawyer, have disappeared. On an isolated island off the coast of East Africa, the family that Clay has befriended is murdered as he watches. 

So begins the fourth instalment in the Claymore Straker series, a breakneck journey through the darkest reaches of the human soul, as Clay and Rania fight to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances and murders, and find those responsible. Events lead them both inexorably to Egypt, where an act of the most shocking terrorist brutality will reveal not only why those they loved were sacrificed, but how they were both, indirectly, responsible. 

Here's a snippet of my review: 'The Claymore Straker series is impactful and thought-provoking, highlighting the damage humans can do, not only to each other but also to the planet. I always feel that I have learnt something by the end of each one - and look at the world through slightly different eyes.'

Click here to read the whole review.

Follow the Blog Tour

Absolution by Paul E. Hardisty

Absolution

By Paul E. Hardisty

Published by Orenda Books (E-book - out now; Paperback - 30 May 2018)

Publisher's description

It is 1997, eight months since vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker fled South Africa after his explosive testimony to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Paris, Rania LaTour, journalist, comes home to find that her son and her husband, a celebrated human rights lawyer, have disappeared. On an isolated island off the coast of East Africa, the family that Clay has befriended is murdered as he watches. 

So begins the fourth instalment in the Claymore Straker series, a breakneck journey through the darkest reaches of the human soul, as Clay and Rania fight to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances and murders, and find those responsible. Events lead them both inexorably to Egypt, where an act of the most shocking terrorist brutality will reveal not only why those they loved were sacrificed, but how they were both, indirectly, responsible. 

My verdict

Absolution is an ecothriller set against a backdrop of social and political upheaval. It's passionate, powerful and fiery - with author Paul E. Hardisty's own passions shining through the pages, in his vivid descriptions, taut writing and complex plot. 

This book took me on an emotional journey, with heartbreak from the start. Claymore Straker in East Africa witnesses the murder of a family close to him, while in Paris his former lover, journalist Rania LaTour, discovers her husband and young son have gone missing. Both Clay and Rania search for the truth, with their paths eventually converging in Cairo, Egypt, leading them to uncover a terrifying act of terrorism in a race against the clock.

Every book in the Clay Straker series provides a different reading experience (this book is the fourth one) - with each book being just as satisfying and beautifully written as the previous one. Certainly, for me, this is the most emotionally charged book in the series so far. I do think that you need to read all of the books in order (and I would recommend you do so anyway, as they're all fantastic) to get to know the main characters and understand their personal stories - together, as well as when they're apart. 

Most chapters focus on Clay's search for the murderers, but there are some particularly emotional chapters from Rania, in the form of letters written to Clay. She knows he's very unlikely to ever read these letters, but he's the only person in her head as her world is falling apart, and she pours her heart and soul into every word.

Paul E. Hardisty's action thrillers are very real and authentic. They are fast paced and gripping, filled not only with action scenes but also some reflective moments. They are graphic in places, violent too - but nothing that isn't essential for the plot. This book literally took my breath away. I read it in two intense sittings, glued to the pages - nervous about what lay ahead for Clay and Rania, but also unable to tear myself away. 

The Claymore Straker series is impactful and thought-provoking, highlighting the damage humans can do, not only to each other but also to the planet. I always feel that I have learnt something by the end of each one - and look at the world through slightly different eyes. 

Pop back tomorrow for my day on the Blog Tour