Review Roundup: Griffiths, Law, Lipska, Sansom, Wanner, Watson

Here are six reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, all have appeared on the blog since last time*.

*I am trialling a new approach for the next few weeks in that all reviews will appear on the blog rather than being separate under the Euro Crime website. I feel this will give the reviews more exposure and make them more findable in a search engine. The reviews will appear daily ie Monday to Friday, with roundups on Sundays. This week has been British authors, next week will be Translated authors, the week after that Scottish authors and the week after that, is again Translated authors.

I'd be interested in any comments about this new approach. I think I'm the only one that worries about the distinction between blog and website! The blog is free and I currently pay to have the website. As it stands, if Euro Crime were to cease then the website would disappear after a couple of years but the blog might  remain indefinitely.

You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page and follow on Twitter, @eurocrime.

New Reviews

Michelle Peckham reviews Elly Griffiths's The Zig Zag Girl, the first in a new series set in post-war Brighton;


Ewa Sherman reviews J S Law's debut Tenacity set in a submarine;

Rich Westwood reviews Anya Lipska's A Devil Under the Skin, which is the third in the Kizska and Kershaw series;


Susan White reviews Lamentation by C J Sansom;

Amanda Gillies reviews Len Wanner's Tartan Noir: the Definitive Guide to Scottish Crime Fiction


and Michelle also reviews S J Watson's Second Life.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, along with releases by year.

Review: Second Life by SJ Watson

Second Life by SJ Watson, February 2015, 432 pages, Doubleday, ISBN: 0857520199

Reviewed by Michelle Peckham.
(Read more of Michelle's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Julia is a photographer, married to Hugh, a hospital consultant, and with a teenage son Connor. But Connor is actually her nephew, the son of her sister Kate, who had Connor when just 16, father unknown. When Kate couldn’t cope as a single mother, she asked Julia to look after Connor and what started as a temporary arrangement turned into a permanent adoption. But, the shocking news at the start of the story is that Kate, now living in Paris with a friend called Anna, has been murdered. The police seem to be unable to find out who did it or why.

Julia starts to become obsessed with finding out what she can, as a way of coming to terms with Anna’s death. She was particularly close to her younger sister, caring for her and helping to bring her up when their mother died. Anna gives Julia a box of Kate’s belongings and she finds the username and password to an online dating website, where she suspects that Kate met her murderer. Going behind her husband’s back, and not telling any of her friends, except Anna, she invents her own profile in the hope that whoever met (and possibly murdered) Kate, will gravitate to Julia.

Possibly part of the motivation behind Julia’s actions is that she is somewhat bored with her safe, middle class life, and is shocked out of her secure existence by the murder of her sister. Before she married Hugh, she had a rather wild existence, culminating in a move to Berlin just after the wall came down with her boyfriend Marcus, staying in squats and taking drugs. Something happened in Berlin that led to her precipitate departure, and subsequent marriage to Hugh, who somehow saved her. Perhaps she now wants subconsciously to overturn her quiet life and go back into something more exciting and potentially dangerous. Small steps lead to larger and larger ones, until Julia is in too deep. The secret life she has built for herself, using the excuse that she is trying to find out what happened to Kate, slowly turns on her until she is trapped, with no way out. Someone is exploiting Julia’s obsession to find out what happened to her sister, but why?

As with his first novel, BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, SJ Watson again manages to draw a picture of a slowly building obsession, with a gradual racking up of the tension until the final dramatic ending. Perhaps a normal, sensible person might go online to try to find Kate’s boyfriends, but perhaps they might not take the next, more dangerous step, of meeting the possible murderer. Or go even further, as Julia does in this book. So, there has to be at least some suspension of disbelief, as the story progresses. But, Julia is not a sensible person. She is deranged by grief, and susceptible to manipulation and deceit. SECOND LIFE is a tense book, and just as good as Watson's first one.

Michelle Peckham, July 2015

New Reviews: Baker, Bateman, Kelly, McDermid, Mercier, Watson

Win 3 Richard Nottingham mysteries by Chris Nickson (UK only).

Here are this week's 6 new reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews Adam Baker's Juggernaut which has two female mercenaries as leads (for a change);

Dan Starkey is back in (Colin) Bateman's Nine Inches, reviewed here by Geoff Jones;

Maxine Clarke reviews the American edition of Erin Kelly's The Sick Rose which has been retitled to: The Dark Rose;

Michelle Peckham reviews Val McDermid's latest Tony Hill/Carol Jordan novel, The Retribution which is now out in paperback;

Lynn Harvey reviews Pascal Mercier's Perlmann's Silence, tr. Shaun Whiteside which though not a traditional crime novel, does involve some crime(s);

and Susan White reviews the paperback release of S J Watson's Before I Go To Sleep.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Colin Bateman, Gerald Jay, Pascal Mercier, Stuart Neville and Evonne Wareham have been added to these pages this week.

Birmingham's Big City Read

Birmingham's Big City Read was launched last night:

"The idea of the Big City Read is to celebrate libraries, books and reading. Through the Big City Read Birmingham Libraries would like to encourage readers to try something new, to read and share their reading experience with other readers. We would like as many people as possible in Birmingham to read the same book, post reviews and pass it on. Our Big City Read book is Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson."

The book in question won the CWA John Creasey/New Blood Dagger 2011 and is reviewed on Euro Crime by Lizzie Hayes.

Pop along to your local Birmingham library and pick up a copy. It can be reviewed via email (details on the website listed below) or on the review sheet included with the book. (NB. limited stocks of the book are available.)

More details are on the Big City Read website.

Before I Go to Sleep is released in paperback on 5 January 2012.

Before I Go to Sleep - Cover Opinions

This week's selection for "cover opinions" is the US and UK covers for S J Watson's John Creasey Dagger longlisted Before I Go to Sleep.

So what are your thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up if you were not familiar with this title?

If you have read it, how well do the covers match the story?

Read the Euro Crime review by Lizzie of Before I Go to Sleep.

New Reviews: Chapman, Hall, Hayder, Jones, Leon, Martin, Nesser, Sigurdardottir, Toyne, Villar, Watson, Winslow

Now two competitions for April:
Win a set of 5 Van Veeteren novels by Hakan Nesser UK only new
Win a copy of Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin UK & Europe only.

I've published a double set of reviews today as, due to family visits, I'll be taking the next two weekends off. The reviews will be back in May and today I have chosen reviews of very recently published books and those due out in the remainder of the month.

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Jean Chapman's A Watery Grave, the second in this Fenland-set series;

Maxine Clarke reviews M R Hall's third outing for Coroner Jenny Cooper, The Redeemed;

Michelle Peckham reviews Mo Hayder's Hanging Hill which departs from her recent series;

Laura Root reviews the second in Tobias Jones's Northern Italy set PI series, White Death;

Still in Italy, Maxine reviews Donna Leon's new hardback, the twentieth in the Brunetti Series: Drawing Conclusions;

Terry Halligan reviews the latest in Andrew Martin's railway detective series which brings Jim Stringer into the War in The Somme Stations;

Lizzie is introduced to Swedish humour in Hakan Nesser's The Inspector and Silence, tr. Laurie Thompson which is now out in paperback (and can be won - see above);

I review Yrsa Sigurdardottir's third outing for lawyer-PI Thora, in Ashes to Dust, tr. Philip Roughton;

Amanda Gillies reviews Sanctus by Simon Toyne, the first part in a trilogy, which seems to be as good as the advertising suggests;

Maxine also reviews Domingo Villar's Death on a Galician Shore, tr. Sonia Soto (I was due to review this but I was ill in the week so I'm very grateful that Maxine donated her (superior) review) ;

Lizzie also reviews Before I Go to Sleep the debut from S J Watson which has also been garnering a lot of buzz and Lizzie was very impressed

and Amanda also reviews Satori by Don Winslow a prequel to Trevanian's Shibumi and she doesn't think fans of the original author should be disappointed.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

Trailer - Before I Go to Sleep

S J Watson's debut novel, Before I Go to Sleep will be published by Doubleday on 28 April. I have a glowing review from Lizzie Hayes to publish a bit nearer to the release date. Here's the synopsis and the trailer:

'As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me ...' Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine's life.