Tag Archives: novels set in London

#BookReview ‘The Fine Art of Invisible Detection’ by Robert Goddard #thriller

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I always look forward to a new Robert Goddard book but wasn’t sure what to expect from his latest, The Fine Art of Invisible Detection. Partly, I think, because the blurb seemed more a detective novel than a thriller. Actually, this is both. Goddard has creative a heart-warming, realistic new hero, Umiko Wada, known simply as Wada. I raced through this book, full of Goddard’s clever twisty plotting, emotional dilemmas, should-I-shouldn’t-I moments. Robert GoddardWada is a 47-year-old secretary at a detective agency in Tokyo, making tea, writing reports for her technology-incompetent boss Kodaka. Widowed after her husband was killed in the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, Wada is quiet, efficient and invisible. But burning deep is a sense of righteousness. So when her boss asks for her help with a new case, she agrees to go to London to pose as the client who wants to find out if her father really committed suicide almost three decades earlier, or if he was murdered. From this point on, Wada’s life becomes unpredictable and her talent for being invisible becomes a lifesaver. Her boss dies in a car accident. The man she is due to meet in London has gone missing. Always logical, she follows the one clue she has.
Nick Miller is also due to meet the same man in London. Nick, a 41-year-old Londoner, is hoping to learn more about the father he has never met. Nick and Wada’s paths keep missing each other as they separately follow the trail of mystifying clues about the past. The action moves from Tokyo to London, Rekyjavik and the wilds of Iceland to Cornwall. There is a high-technology fraud, plus hints of terrorism and Japanese gang warfare, but this is not a violent read.
Wada is at the heart of this novel. Her logic and calm reasoning drive the narrative forward in that just-one-more-chapter way that makes this book a quick and fulfilling read. She is ordinary but extraordinary. I hope she returns in another novel.

Read my reviews of Goddard’s other books:-
PANIC ROOM
THE WAYS OF THE WORLD #1WIDEWORLD
THE CORNERS OF THE GLOBE #2WIDEWORLD
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH #3WIDEWORLD
THIS IS THE NIGHT THEY COME FOR YOU #1SUPERINTENDENTTALEB

If you like this, try:-
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Gabriel’s Moon’ by William Boyd #1GABRIELDAX
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview THE FINE ART OF INVISIBLE DETECTION by Robert Goddard https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5as via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Jellyfish’ by Lev D Lewis #crimefiction

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Genre fiction can sometimes be a bit predictable but often that is why we buy it: because we know what we are getting and we become attached to the characters. Crime series in particular fit this description, but sometimes a new voice appears which is a little bit different. Jellyfish by Lev D Lewis is such a debut novel, featuring the Philip Marlowe-obsessed private investigator Frank Bale. Lev D LewisFrank is a solicitor who lost his legal career because he liked the girls too much. Now he works as a PI but most often as a process server, tracking down individuals and giving them the legal papers they do not want to receive. But he longs to be a PI like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Classic detective fans will love this novel, I am sure there are loads of Marlowe references I missed. I love Frank’s wry turn of phrase, such as the goon who has a face ‘a bit wonky, like it had been painted on by children.’ But Frank doesn’t just have a smart mouth, there are hidden depths: he prefers the radio to television, he knows his Doric columns from his Ionic, but beneath the swagger is a gentle man. Frank’s dilemma is that when he gets into trouble, his smart mouth makes it worse.
One day he serves divorce papers on a wife who subsequently hires him to photograph her cheating husband. Frank stumbles onto a dodgy lap-dancing club and a dead body and quickly finds himself the main suspect. Sky, the dead girl, was living a double life: law student by day, exotic dancer by night. Investigating Sky’s life, Frank meets her flatmate Shreeti and the two set out to uncover the real murderer. Shreeti is the calm member of the team which is just as well as they find themselves drawn into the underbelly of South London, searching for a murderer amongst jellyfish which do more than sting.
A refreshing new voice.

If you like this, try:-
‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge #1HELENGRACE
‘The Truth Will Out’ by Jane Isaac
‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A refreshing new voice: JELLYFISH by Lev D Lewis via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2dc