A History of My Family in Seven Sicknesses by Stephen McGann Simon & Schuster (2018) ISBN: 1471160815 The McGann brothers Joe, Paul, Mark and Stephen were Liverpool royalty in the 1980s and 90s, and Stephen McGann has achieved international stardom in the hit TV series Call The Midwife since 2012. Yet his memoir is written […]
Head of Zeus, ISBN-13: 978-1-78854-374-3 In the illusionist’s world, close-up magic is king, and eighteen-year-old prodigy Natalie Webb promised to be one of the best. Then she got burned by an unscrupulous artist who stole her heart along with her best illusion. Nine years on, honest, but grindingly poor, Natalie ekes out an existence performing at […]
Canongate, ISBN-13: 978-1-78689-376-5 A Costa Award winner, Kidd has been nominated for many more, and judging by Things in Jars, the accolades are well-deserved. She clearly delights in the written word—its rhythms, cadence and music, and her audacious playfulness with language bring to mind Dylan Thomas and Charles Dickens. Her exuberant prose conjures up the filth […]
Nosy Crow,ISBN-10: 1788004388 Athan Wilde dreams of flight. When his friend, Mr Chen, is murdered, Athan must rescue the flying machine they were building together and stop it falling into the wrong hands. The machine could be worth a lot—perhaps even enough to take his family out of poverty—but keeping it safe puts his family in […]
HarperCollins,ISBN-10: 0008245193 Gabby has spent a most of her marriage bringing up her two boys largely single-handed, running a book translation service, and fitting her publishing life around her husband Mike’s busy international work schedule. Her self-effacement and self-denial are heroic, and she has been taken shamefully for granted. Approaching her fifties, she wonders if Mike […]
Penguin, 1997 Kindle, £7.99 ASIN: B002RI9DM4 What is philosophy for? Until 1997 I’d considered the subject too esoteric, too abstract for a science-trained bod like me. Then I attended an author reading of The Untouchable, by John Banville. Alain de Botton was second billing. Banville gave a superb reading – and I do recommend The […]
Richard Montanari has long been among my favourite crime writers. In his Byrne and Balzano series, set in Philadelphia, two strikingly different and very likeable cops spark off each other. But he also pens standalone thrillers, and his latest, The Buried Girl, is darkly gothic in tone. When New York forensic psychologist Will Hardy’s wife […]
Trapeze, £5.95 ISBN-10: 9781409174134 The Craftsman opens in August 1999, the hottest day of the year. Assistant Commissioner Florence Lovelady attends the burial of Larry Glassbrook, a coffin-maker. He’s also the convicted serial killer whom she arrested thirty years earlier. A master carpenter and funeral director, Larry imprisoned his victims – alive – in caskets he […]
Doubleday ISBN-10: 0857524739 Fatal Inheritance begins in post-war London. Eve Forrester, raised by a mother who seemingly disapproves of her very existence, has escaped into a loveless marriage to an overbearing prig, and is now living a dismal life in a grey suburb. But the arrival of a solicitor’s letter changes all that – for Eve […]
Quercus, £0.99ASIN: B009S8HJ04 (Kindle edition) First published in 1999, A Little Death presents the reader with a triple murder on page two, and then leaves no room for speculation: we are told quite firmly at the outset that one of the three must have shot the others and then committed suicide. It is a testament to […]