Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘A Cold Wind from Moscow’ by Rory Clements #thriller #ColdWar

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Eighth in the Tom Wilde World War Two thriller series by Rory Clements, A Cold Wind from Moscow takes a post-conflict step towards the Cold War. This is a tale of a top secret nuclear scientist, a South London criminal gangster and a Russian hitman. Rory ClementsCambridge 1947. Life is returning to normal for Professor Tom Wilde after the war. He is teaching history again at Cambridge while his wife Lydia is a medical student in London. On a freezing cold day, he stops at the greengrocer on his way to work. In the window is displayed a rarity; a perfect fresh peach. Wilde buys it as a treat for his son, Johnny, then goes to his rooms where he is expecting a visitor from London, a man he met once before during the war. But when Wilde opens the door, Everett Glasspool is dead with an ice-axe buried in his head.
This is a transitional story set at a time of post-war stasis as global political tension pivots to the Soviet Union. Daily life in England is difficult, in some ways harsher than during the war. And the Arctic-like weather doesn’t help. Wilde finds himself drawn back into security circles where there are old familiar wartime faces and fresh ones, such as his boss at MI5 Freya Bentall. Freya fears she has a traitor on her team and charges Wilde to follow three of her officers. Then a nuclear scientist, who has evidence about the leak of secrets, goes missing. The trail leads Wilde into London’s criminal underworld and also to his old friend Geoff Lancing who is now working at Harwell, the atomic energy research establishment. Who is selling nuclear secrets to the Russians? Is there more than one traitor? And can Wilde find the missing scientist before the Russian hitman?
The end is intriguing, setting up what promises to be another Tom Wilde book. A really pacy read. Very enjoyable.

Click the title to read my reviews of the other books in the Tom Wilde series:-
CORPUS #1TOMWILDE
NUCLEUS #2TOMWILDE
NEMESIS #3TOMWILDE
HITLER’S SECRET #4TOMWILDE
A PRINCE AND A SPY #5TOMWILDE
THE MAN IN THE BUNKER #6TOMWILDE
THE ENGLISH FÜHRER #7TOMWILDE

And from the Sebastian Wolff series:-
MUNICH WOLF #1SEBASTIANWOLFF

If you like this, try:-
‘Blow Your House Down’ by Pat Barker
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback
‘Invasion’ by Frank Gardner #4LukeCarlton

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#BookReview A COLD WIND FROM MOSCOW by Rory Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8E5 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Barbara Erskine

#BookReview ‘The Other Side of the Bridge’ by Mary Lawson #contemporary #smalltown

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Mary Lawson is one of those exceptional authors whose way with language seems deceptively simple. With ease, she summarises complex feelings in few words. The Other Side of the Bridge is Lawson’s second published novel, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Mary Lawson It is the story of two brothers, in childhood, in adulthood in the remote rural Canadian community of Struan. There is little to do in Struan except farm, to do anything else means leaving for the big city of Toronto. The eldest, Arthur, is a tall farm boy, quiet, most like his father. Not great with words, nevertheless he watches and doesn’t miss much. His younger brother Jake is smaller, lithe, good-looking, the apple of his mother’s eye. With a gift for the gab, Jake thinks nothing of fibbing. He is the risk taker. Arthur, always with an eye on his mother’s fragile emotional state, tries to steer Jake from trouble. But trouble always finds Jake. When new tenants rent the neighbouring farmhouse, both brothers are interested in the teenage girl who arrives with her widowed father.
Twenty years later is the story of teenager Ian, son of Struan’s doctor. He takes a Saturday job helping Arthur, now married, on the family farm. Ian’s motivation is the chance of spending moments near Laura, Arthur’s wife, with whom he is besotted. The story moves backwards and forwards in time zones, always told from a male perspective. I most enjoyed reading Arthur’s point of view, far from being an introverted giant of a man who struggled at school, he has a strong moral core with deep emotions.
The story of the two brothers is intertwined with so much else. The cultural history of the local native American community, the role of German prisoners of war as farm workers during World War Two, the secondary role of women in the home and the dominance of the husband, the financial challenges of rural farming. The differences pre- and post-war are obvious and subtle, as experienced and observed by Ian in the Sixties.
Here are two examples of Lawson’s prose. On the onset of autumn: ‘During the day the sun was still hot but as soon as it dipped down behind the trees the warmth dropped out of the air like a stone.’ On wishing something had been left unsaid: ‘Desperate to find a way round the unalterable fact that once you have said something, it is said. Once it has left your lips, you cannot take it back.’
Picked off the to-read pile, I read this immersive book in two days. What a masterful author Mary Lawson is. A 5* read for me.

Here’s my review of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE, also by Mary Lawson.

If you like this, try:-
‘Amy & Isabelle’ by Elizabeth Strout
‘Natural Flights of the Human Mind’ by Clare Morrall
‘Clock Dance’ by Anne Tyler

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#BookReview THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE by Mary Lawson https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7Ta via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Rory Clements

#BookReview ‘Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt’ by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker #romance

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Oh my goodness, what an ending to the series. I admit to be intimidated by the doorstep size of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, last in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley. This, the eighth and final book, was written by Lucinda and completed by her son Harry Whittaker after her death. I’ve spent the last week enthralled by the story of Atlas.Lucinda Riley & Harry WhittakerEach of the seven books in the series concentrates on the birth story of one of Pa Salt’s daughters, each named after the seven star cluster the Pleiades. Each young woman is different, each book is immersive, unputdownable. Hovering around the edge of each book is Pa himself; an enigmatic figure, wise, wealthy, mysterious, talented, nurturing. He also has a lifelong enemy.
Atlas finally tells Pa’s own story throughout almost a century. As some questions are answered, more are posed. Where was he born. Is he an orphan too. Why is he called Atlas. Did he ever find love. And why is the mild-mannered, gentlemanly, thoughtful Pa Salt being pursued by a man who wants to kill him? One by one, we finally learn the circumstances in which Pa came to adopt each of his girls. The story criss-crosses the globe and the timeline goes back and forth between Pa’s story and 2008 as the sisters gather together to read their father’s diary after his death. There are a lot of character names recurring from the previous books – partners, children, relatives – but I stopped trying to remember who was who and went with the emotional flow. It’s also satisfying to see the early stories of Pa Salt’s staff including lawyer Georg, the girls’ nanny Ma, and cook Claudia.
A fitting end to a fab series and impossible to review without giving away key plot points. Though it is undeniably long, there are a lot of loose ends to be tied up in Atlas and missing decades to fill in. Once started, difficult to put down.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE HIDDEN GIRL 
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘Shadows in the Ashes’ by Christina Courtenay
‘The Marriage Plot’ by Jeffrey Eugenides
‘Our Souls at Night’ by Kent Haruf

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ATLAS: THE STORY OF PA SALT by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8CT via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Mary Lawson

#BookReview ‘Beautiful Ugly’ by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland #thriller #mystery

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Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney has so many twists and surprises it feels like an infinite tangle of mobius strips. I read it quickly, thinking I knew what was happening. Sometimes I guessed right, sometimes I was wildly wrong. Alice FeeneyAuthor Grady Green is having a brilliant day until his wife disappears. He doesn’t know if she’s dead or alive, kidnapped or washed out to sea. Abby, a journalist, has been receiving threats related to newspaper stories she’s written. Grady is trapped in a nightmare turmoil of grief and hope, unable to accept Abby is dead, unable to sleep, always hoping. A year later he is ill, not writing, out of money and he keeps seeing Abby everywhere. He thinks he’s going mad. His agent, in a desperate attempt to help him write another bestseller, sends him to a writer’s cabin on a remote Scottish island. Grady likes being alone, that’s when he writes best, so he agrees.
Once the action moves to the Isle of Amberly, Beautiful Ugly becomes a closed room mystery. On the ferry over from the mainland, Grady sees Abby again. Although he starts to feel a little better he still isn’t sleeping, despite copious alcohol and pots of the local herbal bog myrtle tea. He sees things, he hears things; or does he? His only companion is his dog Colombo. Amberly is completely isolated. No mobile or internet signal, no landlines, an occasional ferry to the mainland. His writer’s cabin is in the woods, miles from anyone, and is creepy. The local residents, all 25 of them, are rather strange. And there are rules. No visitor may drive a car. Only residents are allowed to communicate with each other by walkie-talkie. Although everyone seems friendly, Grady begins to feel trapped. And then old newspaper cuttings of stories written by Abby are left in the cabin for Grady to find.
Most of the story is told from Grady’s point of view, which raises the inevitable question: is he a reliable narrator. But we also have chapters from Abby before her disappearance and this fills in some back story. We see how they meet on a plane, their whirlwind romance, but as the years pass there are tensions just below the surface. Both have their secrets, both are obsessive about their work. Abby says to a counsellor, ‘Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t. Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.’
A very clever plot, even if some twists are easy to spot. An unsettling thriller that examines truth and lies in relationships, promises made, things you don’t tell your partner and secrets you don’t admit even to yourself. Throughout the book I was also getting flashbacks to films such as Hot Fuzz and Misery.

Here’s my review of SOMETIMES I LIE, also by Alice Feeney.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Hunting Party’ by Lucy Foley 
‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley
‘The Ice’ by Laline Paull

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BEAUTIFUL UGLY by Alice Feeney @alicewriterland https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Dd via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker

#BookReview ‘Death down the Aisle’ by @BrightVerity #cosymystery #crime

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Death down the Aisle is the most complicated plot so far in this wonderful series by Verity Bright. More red herrings, more danger, more mystery and more humour. I had my suspicions about the murderer and was only partly correct. Verity BrightFirst of all, the aisle in question is not the scene of Lady Eleanor Swift’s own wedding to a certain detective chief inspector. Instead Ellie is due to be bridesmaid at the wedding of her friends Constance and Peregrine, but with a lawsuit and a dead body in the week prior to the service, the wedding is in doubt.
The groom, Lord Peregrine Davenport, is being sued for breach of promise by a young woman he was once engaged to. In order to settle the claim he must sell the family estate. Now this first fiancé Daisy is dead, Constance doesn’t know she exists and both families are in uproar. The first few chapters move quite slowly, setting up the inter-linking stories. But as soon as the bride’s father is attacked on the golf course, the speed picks up and it is a race to the end. A variety of people are set to benefit from Daisy’s death including the bride, groom and their relatives. Eleanor’s policeman beau, Hugh Seldon, sensitive to the delicate emotions of the female witnesses he must question and not wanting to cause undue distress, asks her to accompany him to the interviews. Of course Ellie jumps at the chance. She is drawn into more serious investigations, leading her and ever-present multi-talented butler Clifford to the dodgy end of town. This highlights a serious theme about poverty, post-war building and unemployment after the Great War.
A sub-plot involving the Women’s Institute’s planned petition demanding women be admitted to the police force comes into its own towards the end. Seldon is struggling to manage two cases at once and the determination, bravery and cleverness of the WI members is key in the final fight scene. And of course Ellie’s determination to catch the murderer without thought to her own safety makes a point about female officers.
Once I start reading one of these books, I don’t want to stop until the end. They are addictive, thanks to the wonderful combination of characters. If you’re new to them, please start at book one to fully appreciate the long-running story arcs.

Read my review of other books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series:-
A VERY ENGLISH MURDER #1LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH AT THE DANCE #2LADYELEANORSWIFT
A WITNESS TO MURDER #3LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN THE SNOW #4LADYELEANORSWIFT
MYSTERY BY THE SEA #5LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER AT THE FAIR #6LADYELEANORSWIFT
A LESSON IN MURDER #7LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON A WINTER’S DAY #8LADYELEANORSWIFT
A ROYAL MURDER #9LADYELEANORSWIFT
THE FRENCH FOR MURDER #10LADYELEANORSWIFT

If you like this, try:-
‘Murder at Catmmando Mountain’ by Anna Celeste Burke #1GEORGIESHAW
‘A Cornish Recipe for Murder’ by Fiona Leitch #5NOSEYPARKER
‘Murder at the Wedding’ by Helena Dixon #7MISSUNDERHAY

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEATH DOWN THE AISLE by @BrightVerity https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8qv via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Alice Feeney

#BookReview ‘Clown Town’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

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It’s been a while since Bad Actors so I couldn’t wait to start Clown Town, ninth in the Slough House thriller series by Mick Herron. It is like a family reunion; the grumpy uncle who says the wrong thing, the bossy aunt who tidies up around everyone, the noisy one, the thoughtful one, the silent one, the cocky one. These books are seriously addictive. Clown Town by Mick Herron River Cartwright is on medical leave after Novichok poisoning and, though suffering from occasional woosiness and vision problems, is overseeing the cataloguing of his long-dead grandfather’s library. The books of David Cartwright, once a senior spy at Regent’s Park, have been transferred to the ‘spy’s college’ at Oxford. Except a book is missing, or is it? River’s harmless visit to the archivist leads him on the trail of a former spy, the leader of a cell during the Northern Ireland troubles. CC plans to go public with a long-hidden secret that could cause explosions at the Park and Number Ten.
In London at Slough House, the slow horses are bored. Shirley Dander has turned her computer off. Lech Wicinski has inherited River’s assignment trawling endless records to identify potential safe houses. Louisa Guy is making a restaurant booking for dinner. Ash Khan is talking to her mum on the phone again. And Roddy Ho has a new tattoo which he says is a hummingbird but Lech says is a platypus, Shirley thinks is a sheep and Louisa decides is an upside-down dung beetle.
Various independent story strands bob along at the same time, the only common denominator being that the people involved are aware of each other’s existence. The slow horses, Catherine Standish and Jackson Lamb. First Desk at Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner. Former sleazy politician Peter Judd. And former dog, or Park enforcer, Devon Welles. Except in Oxford are three people new to the Slough House books; three retired spies are waiting in a safe house for their also retired team leader to arrive for a meeting. There is a link that knits together Clown Town. Can the slow horses make the connection in time to save a life? And when they decide to help, will they charge in again without a real plan?
Herron’s skill is to make this the ninth book in the series as fresh as the first. He sticks with familiar characters and a handful of ongoing storylines, kills off some horses and introduces new ones, adds tense action scenes interwoven with his trademark humour and satire. And of course Jackson Lamb is the spine that holds it all together, bored by his horses in the office but willing to go to war for them if they are hurt.
A series best read in order from the beginning, and told at a pace that barely catches breath. Clown Town finishes with a few cliffhangers which means I’m already waiting impatiently for book ten. Excellent.

Click the title to read my reviews of the previous books in the Slough House series:-
SLOW HORSES #1SLOUGHHOUSE
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
SPOOK STREET #4SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
JOE COUNTRY #6SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
BAD ACTORS #8SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Gabriel’s Moon’ by William Boyd #1GABRIELDAX
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore
‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #1ALIASEMMA

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CLOWN TOWN by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8B1 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Rebel’s Mark’ by SW Perry @swperry_history #historical #crime

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The Rebel’s Mark is fifth in the addictive Jackdaw Mysteries series by SW Perry in which intrepid doctor Nicholas Shelby and his apothecary wife Bianca are sent to Ireland where Irish rebels fight the English. What an adventure it is, full of Elizabethan politics, religious division, spying, kidnapping, fighting, the cunning of some clever women and a shipwreck. SW PerryThe story starts in 1598 with the shipwreck. A Spanish ship founders on Irish rocks and most aboard are lost, if not drowned they are murdered by the English soldiers who stumble on the wreck. Two women escape. Exactly why a Spanish ship should be so far from home is a mystery.
Robert Cecil, Secretary of State to Elizabeth I, sends Nicholas to Ireland to join Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, commander of the English army, but also as a spy. Bianca refuses to be separated from her husband and Nicholas gains permission for her to travel as part of the medical team. Their young son Bruno stays at home at the Jackdaw tavern, cared for by his mother’s landlady Rose and her husband Ned Monkton. Nicholas’ secret task is to meet with poet Edmund Spenser, he of the Faerie Queene. Spenser is annoyingly tight-lipped. There are many personality clashes which add to the divisive politics of the time. Essex hates Cecil. One of Essex’s commanders is a former admirer of Bianca and therefore sets against Nicholas. Who knows whose side Spenser is really on. How is the shipwreck connected to Anglo-Irish politics. And what of the Irish rebels, ‘men in fur pelts and broacloth gowns sit upon shaggy ponies’ led by the enigmatic Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.
As always the story moves along at a cracking pace. Nicholas and Bianca both get into trouble and have their separate adventures while at home in Bankside, stolid Ned becomes curious about the murder of a young man and starts to ask awkward questions.
I’m loving this series. To get the most out of it, start with the first The Angel’s Mark.

Here are my reviews of the first books in the series:-
THE ANGEL’S MARK #1JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SERPENT’S MARK #2JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE SARACEN’S MARK #3JACKDAWMYSTERIES
THE HERETIC’S MARK #4JACKDAWMYSTERIES

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lady of the Ravens’ by Joanna Hickson #1QUEENSOFTHETOWER
‘The Forgotten Sister’ by Nicola Cornick
‘The Instrumentalist’ by Harriet Constable

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE REBEL’S MARK by SW Perry @swperry_history https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8BW via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Clown Town by Mick Herron

#BookReview ‘The Hunting Party’ by Lucy Foley #mystery #thriller

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I’ve read a few of the closed room mysteries by Lucy Foley now but not The Hunting Party, one of her first. So after reading a number of intense thoughtful books, I wanted a page-turning rollercoaster. I wasn’t disappointed. Lucy Foley The Hunting Party begins on 30th December 2018. A group of friends are travelling to the wilds of Scotland by train. Their destination, Loch Corrin, is an exclusive Highlands getaway surrounded by mountains. The height of luxury. As friends since university, they know everything about each other. Or do they. As well as the original students there are the partners, incomers, who try to fit in but are conscious they’re not part of the founding gang. As well as the nine guests there are two members of staff living on site, Heather the manager and Doug the gamekeeper, a handyman, plus two unconnected guests, an Icelandic couple staying at a far-off guesthouse. Doug is an ex-marine who is ‘surviving, existing – just. Not living. That is a word for those who seek entertainment, pleasures, comfort out of each day.’ Through the voices of Doug and Heather, her previous job is hazily defined but she like Doug seems to be running from something, are the observers. Through their eyes we see the group from the outside, without prior knowledge. It adds another perspective.
Everyone, guests and staff members, has a past, something they’re not proud of, something they’re hiding. Ambition. Jealousy. Addiction. Grief. Regret. Anger. Take them out of their comfort zone and put them somewhere unfamiliar and vaguely threatening, anything can happen. And does. Especially when guns are available and a stalking party is on the list of activities.
Foley has chosen an unsettling location. The surrounding hills are beautiful, bleak, empty. The guests stay in individual lodges but socialise and eat in the central glass building, The Lodge. Its lights glare out into the dark. For the uneasy, there is the feeling that someone is outside looking in, just out of sight, watching. Seeing everything. As the New Year’s Eve entertainments commence, alcohol and drugs are consumed, inhibitions drop, long-held resentments rise to the surface. And then it begins to snow. Not just any snow, this is ‘a one-in-a-thousand weather event.’ No one can get in or out.
The story unfolds in a structure now familiar from reading Foley’s other thrillers. In each novel she creates an original world and populates her territory with characters that are each in their way troubled and hiding secrets. Then she adds murder. It’s a formula at which she excels.
Chilling. Read quickly over a weekend. I had my suspicions about the identity of the victim and the murderer, I was correct on one of the two.

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by Lucy Foley:-
THE GUEST LIST
THE INVITATION
THE MIDNIGHT FEAST
THE PARIS APARTMENT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear’ by Claire Cameron
‘Little Deaths’ by Emma Flint
‘The Girls Left Behind’ by Emily Gunnis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HUNTING PARTY by Lucy Foley https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8zN via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- SW Perry

#BookReview ‘Murder in First Class’ by Helena Dixon @NellDixon #cosymystery #crime

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Captain Matthew Bryant and his new fiancé Kitty Underhay await the arrival of the train from Paddington to Dawlish. The title of the eighth installment in the Kitty Underhay 1930s crime series by Helena Dixon, Murder in First Class, tells you what happens next. The train stops, someone screams, and a dead body is found in first class. In a closed carriage on a corridor-less train. Helena DixonThe murder is rather embarrassing for Matt. He had been asked by his old boss to provide a safe house for Simon Travers who was an important witness in the jewellery theft trial. Now Travers is dead and the trial is at risk. However the closed room nature of the murder, the man was definitely alive during the first part of the journey, should mean this is a simple crime for the local police. And of course, the crime-cracking duo quickly start asking questions.
There are a number of continuing story strands in Murder in First Class. The young lovers are enjoying a new stage in their romance, taking a few days holiday to enjoy the Devon seaside together. But a few tricky questions hang over their sunny days; where will they live when married, will Kitty continue to work at the Dolphin Hotel, and what are they going to do with Bertie, the black and grey cocker spaniel whose owner is now dead. Matt has given Bertie a temporary home but he is chewing everything and barking constantly. Ezekiel Hammett is another continuing dark shadow; Kitty has obtained permission to visit the killer of her mother, he is in prison awaiting trial.
Familiar characters reappear. Kitty’s friend Alice, housemaid at the Dolphin, provides clever suggestions about the murder based on her love of movies. Mrs Craven returns, in fact she discovers the dead body. She had travelled on the train sitting next to the victim, without realising he was dead until she rose from her seat at the station. Inspector Greville is in charge of the investigation and Doctor Carter does the post-mortem. Into this circle are introduced the murder suspects; a cocky brush salesman, a tarty cabaret singer, a titled lady, a vicar and an elderly lady just returned to England from India. Kitty is sure the brush salesman is the murderer, except he is the next victim.
There are lots of secrets, motives, alliances and hidden identities. Kitty, supported by Matt, is adept at untangling impossible murders such as this. All the key characters are likeable though I did miss Alice who has a minor role this time. A well-written mystery with a dark dramatic chase at the end. And what’s going to happen to Bertie?
Another enjoyable Kitty Underhay mystery.
Next in line is Murder at the Country Club.

Here are my reviews of other books in the series:-
MURDER AT THE DOLPHIN HOTEL #1MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT ENDERLEY HALL #2MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT THE PLAYHOUSE #3MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR #4MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER IN THE BELLTOWER #5MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT ELM HOUSE #6MISSUNDERHAY
MURDER AT THE WEDDING #7MISSUNDERHAY

If you like this, try:-
‘A Cornish Seaside Murder’ by Fiona Leitch #6NOSEYPARKER
‘The Marlow Murder Club’ by Robert Thorogood #1MARLOWMURDERCLUB
‘Murder in the Snow’ by Verity Bright #4LADYELEANORSWIFT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MURDER IN FIRST CLASS by Helena Dixon @NellDixon https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8At via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Lucy Foley

#BookReview ‘A Good Deliverance’ by Toby Clements #historicalfiction

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A Good Deliverance by Toby Clements is many things, many stories. A story of one man’s life. Of the writing of a great courtly chronicle. Of wins and losses on foreign battlefields. Of the relationship of an imprisoned old man and the young boy who brings his food. Above all, it is about the power of story. Toby ClementsThe prison confession of Sir Thomas Malory, writer of Le Morte d’Arthur, husband, father, landowner, soldier, courtier, politician and hopeless romantic, is wittily told, bringing a new perspective to the Wars of the Roses. Thomas, an admirer of knightly tales, honorable battles, courtly love, is in his fifties when he is arrested and imprisoned at Newgate jail. These are times of political and civil unrest. His offence is unknown to him and while expecting the step of his lawyer bringing news of a pardon, he awaits his execution. The person he sees most frequently is the twelve year old son of the prison warder. This boy brings his food twice a day, he also brings gossip and curiosity. And so in his tales to this boy, Malory tells the story of his life.
For a story that essentially takes place within four walls, this is a dynamic book that I didn’t want to put down. Clements has created a fictional character from a real man of whom little is known. Historians have a variety of possible noblemen who may have been the real Malory and this gives Clements plenty of room to create a character full of love, of conflict, of ambition often misjudged or misplaced, and of optimism. His life has been a perilous one full of sieges and battles in foreign countries, of disputes with unworthy lords, of brushes with royalty, of falling in love, sometimes unwisely. It is in short an echo of the courtly tales of love and honour surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The prison boy, desperate for Malory to get to the tale about fighting at Agincourt alongside King Henry V, is treated to retellings of tourneys and swords, of ships and duels and strange lands. He also learns his letters.
When the boy is absent at his duties, Malory’s story continues chronologically for the reader as the bits between the battles and feuds are retold. The pile of papers in his coffer demonstrates that Malory is rewriting the legends of Arthur, Lancelot etc. As he tidies, amends, obfuscates, shortens and lengthens the Arthurian myths, how, we should wonder, is he editing his own life story and why. To make it more entertaining for the boy, to gild his own legacy, to prove his innocence of whatever crime of which he is accused.
This is a funny, clever, entertaining story about a well-known period of English history, told from an unusual perspective. In Malory, Clements has created a sympathetic character who means the best but often fails to live up to his own dreams.
Engaging. Entertaining. Unusual.
PS. Despite the sudden ending, this is rumoured to be the first of two books about Thomas Malory.

Read my reviews of the first two Kingmaker novels by Toby Clements:-
WINTER PILGRIMS #1KINGMAKER
BROKEN FAITH #2KINGMAKER

If you like this, try:-
‘Cecily’ by Annie Garthwaite
‘A Column of Fire’ by Ken Follett #3KINGSBRIDGE
‘The King’s Messenger’ by Susanna Kearsley 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A GOOD DELIVERANCE by Toby Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Aa via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Helena Dixon