Book Review: SCRUBLANDS by Chris Hammer

Title: Scrublands

Author: Chris Hammer
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Read: August 2018

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!

Book Description:

In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself. 

A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.

Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal.

Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.

A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.

My musings:

I had a feeling that this book would be good, but I had no idea how good! It sucked me into its vortex like a crazy tornado wreaking mayhem and destruction and slammed me back to Earth – dazed and disorientated – a few hours later. It’s possible that I stayed up all night reading to find out the answers! Now comes the moment when I should admit that I initially bought this book for my husband for his birthday, but seeing he had not picked it up immediately to lose himself in an all-night read-a-thon (which drove me crazy), I thought that a day was a sufficient cooling-off period to ask to borrow it!

So here I am, raving about it, whilst he is eyeing it suspiciously as it has resumed its rightful place on his bedside table again. “It’s got everything you like!” I gush, “A middle aged, footloose and fancy-free protagonist! A beautiful young woman! Action, murder, bikies, sex, conspiracy theories! Some crazy wild men living in the bush! A deliciously claustrophobic setting in small-town Australia amidst a drought!” I may be raising my voice slightly as I am saying all this. “This book is BRILLIANT!” - “And”, I add, diving in for the final strike, “it was written by a male author!” (My husband has a strange aversion to reading books by female authors. Don’t ask ....)

Okay, so my husband may be a lost cause, but here you are, reading this review and thinking to yourself: “Hmmmm, this book doesn’t sound half-bad!” It’s BRILLIANT! (I may be repeating myself here). Scrublands is exactly the type of book I love reading, from its aforementioned claustrophobic setting that is so quintessentially Australian, to the compelling mystery at the heart of the story which includes quite a few historical and contemporary issues skilfully woven into the tale. I rounded the many twists and turns like an out-of-control rollercoaster, almost getting thrown at every corner but somehow surviving to tell the tale. To say that I had no idea how this one would play out is an understatement – don’t you love it when all the threads tie together in a Celtic-knot like formation that would confound even the most astute armchair detective? Why DID the priest open fire and kill five local men before killing himself? Well, you are in for a treat finding out.

Australian and overseas readers alike will appreciate the details Hammer includes in his tale that bring rural Australia to life. One of my favourite scenes was as Martin drives into a raging bushfire, only surviving by the skin of his teeth – the descriptions of this inferno were so vivid that I could feel the heat, smell the smoke, hear the creaking of the roof as the old homestead is on the brink of collapse. Then there are the characters – the loners living in cabins in the woods, the townfolk trying to eke out a living in a dying town, the families of the priest’s victims searching for answers. And even though Martin was a bit of a self-centred d**head at times, I found him to be an enigmatic and interesting character who drove the story along.

Summary:

So let me sum it all up for you in a few words – this book was ... yeah, yeah, you guessed it ... pretty damn good. So whether you are in the mood for a good murder mystery, some armchair travel to rural Australia or just a good yarn, you can’t go wrong here. I certainly look forward to reading more from this author in future!

Audiobook Review: TOTENFRAU (WOMAN OF THE DEAD) by Bernhard Aichner

Title: Woman of the Dead

Author: Bernhard Aichner
Read: August 2018

Published: 2015

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

How far would you go to avenge the one you love?

Blum has a secret buried deep in her past.

She thought she'd left the past behind.

But then Mark, the man she loves, dies.

His death looks like a hit-and-run. It isn't a hit-and-run. Mark has been killed by the men he was investigating.

And then, suddenly, Blum rediscovers what she's capable of...

My musings:

Let me just start this review with a disclaimer – even if I had not liked this book, I would never be game to say so, after reading about the many different ways the author has come up with to dispose of his troublesome characters. I would DEFINTELY not be stupid enough to upset this guy! Lucky for me that I love my thrillers dark and disturbed and really enjoyed it, though it should come with a heavy trigger warning: this is one twisted tale. I’m not sure if I should admit that I got a certain satisfaction from the vigilante-style revenge the main character wreaks on all the “bad guys” in this story (but yes, secretly I did), some of which still haunts me in my nightmares. Listening to the audio version whilst driving home from work on a dark, lonely country road may not have been the best idea.

Okay, let’s gather my thoughts and bring this into some sort of coherent format. Woman of the Dead features one of the most kick-ass female heroines I have ever encountered in a thriller, bestowed with the awkward name of Brunhilde by her cruel adoptive parents (don’t worry, they will pay for that one in due course). Hating her name (and who can blame her), she goes by “Blum”, a much more palatable and gentle moniker. Be warned though that this woman is no wallflower, but someone who will fight for what she believes is right and not shy away from dishing out her own kind of justice. After a sad and lonely childhood, where she is forced to work in her parents’ mortuary from a young age, she has finally broken free from her past and is happily married to policeman Mark, with two adorable small daughters. However, her happiness is cruelly destroyed when Mark is mowed down by a hit-and-run driver and instantly killed a mere few metres from their home. Devastated, Blum finally resigns herself to sorting out Mark’s belongings, in the process coming across some recordings on his phone that hint at something darker behind his death than just an accident. What follows is a woman’s search for truth and revenge as Blum blazes across the country like an avenging angel, a comet of destruction bearing down on the persons responsible for the evil acts Mark uncovered shortly before his death, which led to his own demise.

It is here that the book takes a very dark and sinister turn, and the more faint-of-heart may get palpitations and cold sweats as they read about Blum’s handiwork in carrying out her mission. Blum is an undertaker and has no fear of death, or corpses, which shows in the methods she employs to rid the world of the evil people that have destroyed her family. Psychopath or avenging angel? Vigilante or criminal? Whilst I found myself fearing for Blum and secretly hoping that her mission would succeed, I was also disturbed and sometimes disgusted by her actions and screwed moral compass. Was this justice? Revenge? The actions of a psychopathic killer?

Aichner delivers a story that is truly original, as it is dark and twisted. His writing style is like no other I have read before (and I read this one in its original language), and it not only serves well to ratchet up tension and suspense that drives the story along but also beautifully conveys Blum’s grief and despair at the events unfolding in her life. I was happy that he didn’t fall for any stereotypes and wrote a story so completely breaking the mould that it will stick in my mind for a long time to come. There was one moment close to the finale when I thought it was going to follow a been-there-done-that path, but luckily he veered off course at the last minute and gave us a truly satisfying finale. I am surprised that I have not come across this author before, seeing how much I love dark and twisted thrillers! Perhaps it was the concept of a serial killer as main protagonist that turned me off, but this is no ordinary character and I came to empathise with Blum in a way I didn’t think I would. From loving wife and mother to ruthless killer – and back again – this is one heroine you are not likely to forget in a hurry.

So, now for the trigger warnings: I am not afraid of corpses, can handle a fair bit of gore and have seen a few things in my time (including autopsies), but even then some scenes were pretty graphic. If these are triggers for you, then please delve in with the knowledge that some parts of this story may be upsetting. Even for the brave, reading this alone at night may not be the sort of adrenaline rush you had in mind. But for anyone looking for a dark, disturbing and very original thriller, I fully recommend giving this one a go. Apparently, it is the first part of a trilogy, and I have already got the next instalment lined up, if that tells you anything about how much I enjoyed it. Is “enjoy” the right word when it comes to a story of mayhem and murder? Well, those of you who like this particular genre as much as I do will surely know what I mean! 

All in all a disturbing but utterly addictive and engrossing tale!

Book Review: I KNOW YOU KNOW by Gilly Macmillan

Title: I Know You Know

Author: Gilly Macmillan
Publisher: William Morrow
Read: July 2018

Expected publication: 18 September 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!

Book Description:

Twenty years ago, eleven-year-olds Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol, their bodies dumped near a dog racing track. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger.

For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence, and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings. But there are many people who don’t want the case—along with old wounds—reopened so many years after the tragedy, especially Charlie’s mother, Jess, who decides to take matters into her own hands.

When a long-dead body is found in the same location the boys were left decades before, the disturbing discovery launches another murder investigation. Now Detective John Fletcher, the investigator on the original case, must reopen his dusty files and decide if the two murders are linked. With his career at risk, the clock is ticking and lives are in jeopardy… 

My musings:

I first came across the “book within a book” concept in Emily Carpenter’s The Weight of Lies, and I totally fell in love with it. Since then there have been a few books that have featured social media or podcasts in their stories, such as Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber and Our House by Louise Candlish, and I have hoovered them up hungrily. I love Gilly Macmillan’s writing, and her new book was one of my most anticipated new releases this year, but when I discovered that it, too, features a true crime podcast I was ecstatic (and threw my whole reading schedule up in the air by snatching it up before my other books from my TBR pile patiently waiting for attention)! You may have gathered my adoration for this book from my star-crossed rating – this was one very clever mystery!

Reviewing mysteries that rely on shock and surprise and unexpected developments is always tricky, because one little spoiler can ruin the book for someone. I advise to go into this one blind – you will thank me later. But for those of you who absolutely have to know a little bit about it, I will try to tread very carefully:

During the excavations for a new shopping centre, human remains are unearthed near the scene of the double murder of two teenage boys from a nearby housing estate twenty years ago. For the detectives who found the two victims all those years ago, this latest discovery brings back terrible memories – murders of children always hit the hardest. At the time, a mentally handicapped young man was found guilty of the murders and jailed, and has recently died in prison whilst serving his sentence for the crime. But with a John Doe on their hands so close to the crime scene, the detectives are left wondering: could the two cases be connected? At the same time, Cody Swift, a young filmmaker who used to be best friends with the two murdered teenagers, has returned to his hometown to look for answers to some questions that have always bugged him in the years since his friends died. Together with his girlfriend Maya, he sets out to interview all people involved in the case, and publish his findings in a true crime podcast. But as Cody gets closer to the truth, there are some people who will do anything to keep the past hidden ...

I loved the podcast element in this story, with its breadcrumb like trail of clues surrounding the murder of the two teenagers. As the red herrings come rolling in, I was ready to pat myself on the shoulder for being such a good detective and figuring it all out – only to be proven massively wrong yet again. It’s safe to say that no one in this story is as they seem. Isn’t that the best kind of mystery? I thought so. Totally engrossed, I kept turning the pages way past the time of night where I could expect to be a functioning human being the next day.

Summary:

In summary, I loved everything about this extremely clever mystery, from its flawed, believable characters to the chilling crime at the centre of the story – and of course the “book in a book” (or “podcast in a book”) theme, that added that special something to the story. Told from multiple POVs, this one kept me guessing until the “big bang” at the very end that upended all my carefully constructed theories. Brilliantly written, as is Macmillan’s usual style, it gets all the stars from me – very highly recommended!

Thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow Paperbacks for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT by Mary Kubica

Title: When the Lights Go Out

Author: Mary Kubica
Publisher: Park Row
Read: July 2018

Expected publication: 4 September 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!

Book Description:

Jessie Sloane is on the path to rebuilding her life after years of caring for her ailing mother. She rents a new apartment and applies for college. But when the college informs her that her social security number has raised a red flag, Jessie discovers a shocking detail that causes her to doubt everything she’s ever known.

Finding herself suddenly at the center of a bizarre mystery, Jessie tumbles down a rabbit hole, which is only exacerbated by grief and a relentless lack of sleep. As days pass and the insomnia worsens, it plays with Jessie’s mind. Her judgment is blurred, her thoughts are hampered by fatigue. Jessie begins to see things until she can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what she’s only imagined.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier and two hundred and fifty miles away, another woman’s split-second decision may hold the key to Jessie’s secret past. Has Jessie’s whole life been a lie or have her delusions gotten the best of her?

My musings:

A good book is one where the characters leap from the page, effortlessly drawing you into the story. A great book is one where for an instant you BECOME the character, seeing the world through their eyes, the boundary between your reality and theirs blurry and undefined. And even if you may not always totally gel with the characters’ actions and turn of events, the pull of the story is impossible to resist. When the Lights Go Out was such a book for me. Maybe because like Jessie, I lost my mother to cancer and could relate to her feelings of despair and grief as she is watching her mother draw her last breath. Or maybe because Kubica writes so well that I got very quickly drawn into the story, to a point at which I felt Jessie’s grief and slow unravelling almost like a physical pain. As Jessie’s reality blurred through lack of sleep, I also felt as if the story swirled in a kaleidoscope of images that were similarly intriguing as well as disconcerting. Perhaps even more so as I read this book in between night shifts, where my own reality is a bit blurry at best!

The book is told in a dual time frame from Jessie’s and Eden’s POVs, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I empathised with each and every character in this story. Jessie, newly bereaved and finding herself not only an orphan, but also a girl without a known identity. Eden, whose married life starts off so happy, but whose paradise turns into a nightmare when she finds that she is unable to fulfil her one wish that soon becomes her sole obsession – to have a baby. And Aaron, who helplessly watches his young wife fall apart at the seams. Even Liam, who only features briefly, was such an intriguing character. Of course Kubica manages to weave the stories of all characters together in a clever, irresistible mystery that had me totally enthralled. The dark alleys of Chicago, and especially the spooky old carriage home setting, only added to the intrigue, and I could picture them vividly. As Jessie’s life (and mind) unravels with grief and lack of sleep, the house comes into its own, taking own its own menacing personality. Some of the scenes truly made my hair stand on end!

In true Kubica style, the author spun her web slowly and methodically, reeling me in, making me so invested in the story that sleep was out of the question (maybe that was the plan, so I could sympathise even more with poor Jessie?). For me, the trap snapped shut when Jessie found out that there was something wrong with her social security number, which set a whole chain of secrets and questions into motion. I was hooked, I could not put this book down. There were so many questions that bugged me like the infamous pea under the mattress, a flea in my clothes, a stone in my sandals. What? Why? How? I had so many theories about this one, and of course I was totally wrong. You may forgive me my bad detective skills when you realise that the ending is extremely unusual. You may love it, you may hate it, but admit it – you didn’t see that one coming either, did you? 

Summary:

In short, I loved this latest novel by a writer who has become one of my go-to’s when I want a cracking good read, and whose books automatically become must-reads as soon as they come out. Kubica always delivers just what I am looking for in a psychological thriller. Anyone looking for a slow-burning, compelling and character driven psychological thriller with a twist, look no further! The only bad thing about it is that now I have to wait for her next book to come out ;)

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher Park Row for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: THE ONES YOU TRUST by Caroline Overington

Title: The Ones You Trust

Author: Caroline Overington
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Read: August 2018

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

Emma Cardwell, host of top-rating morning TV show Cuppa, is beloved by audiences and only occasionally stalked by crazy fans. She seems to have it all - fame, money, a gorgeous family - but when her tiny daughter disappears from daycare, Emma is faced with every mother's worst nightmare.

Is this a kidnapping, a product of her high profile, or is somebody out for revenge?

As the hours tick by and the pressure mounts, everything comes under scrutiny, including her own marriage, and Emma is forced to confront a terrifying question: can we trust the ones we love?

My musings:

I love it when I come across books that wrap a current affairs topic into a delicious bun of mystery, finishing it off with a dollop of intrigue and a smear of blood to make the perfect fictional hotdog. Okay, so comparing a book to a hotdog may be stretching the friendship, but this book was just as binge-worthy as comfort food when you’re on the go and too tired to steam some broccoli. And being set in Australia, dealing with current Australian topics and featuring characters modelled on real Australian celebrities was a real treat. You don’t often find gems like this, and I felt like a fossicker striking gold when I accidentally stumbled across The Ones You Trust!

Overington has a real knack for plucking some hot topics straight out of news headlines and creating captivating fiction. Even though I was prepared to hate Emma for being the sort of woman who is always in the spotlight, beautifully made up, the centre of everyone’s attention, plus the sort of person who gives her children pretentious names like Seal and Fox-Piper (another character in the book made me laugh when they asked: are they running a zoo here?), I came to adore her in the end. Emma is smart, and she is savvy. She may be presenting herself exactly the way her breakfast show viewers want her to be – the responsible, ever well-presented wife and mother – but she is far from stupid. In her forties, and past her prime as far as television is concerned, Emma is fully aware that her days on “Cuppa” are numbered, and that she is likely going to be replaced soon by some sexy young single woman, like Cassie Clay from their rivalling show “Brew”. Because on TV, ratings are everything, and a lot of scheming and foul play goes on behind the scenes to make sure the stars get headlines – even if it’s negative publicity. Emma has been the target of the paparazzi before and knows the prize she has to pay for stardom – but now that she is a mother, this responsibility rests heavily on her shoulder. When her baby daughter is kidnapped from her daycare centre, Emma finds out how costly this price may be ..... 

If you live in Australia, the parallels of Emma’s world to Australian breakfast television are instantly obvious and relatable. I found it a real eye-opener to hear what goes on behind the scenes of the show, especially the tactics Cuppa’s publicity boss Maven employs to keep the show in the spotlight. When Fox-Piper goes missing, there is a myriad of suspects to choose from that may benefit from the huge media circus that ensues. I certainly had a few theories, but was still unprepared for the way Overington brought together all the strings in the end, and the final reveal. But even if your hunches are right, the power of this novel lies not in the mystery of Fox-Piper’s abduction, but in the events surrounding the event. I loved the everyday feel of the characters’ lives and events, which made this an extremely compelling read for me (I hate making comparisons but the characters and story did remind me a bit of fellow Australian author Liane Moriarty’s books).

Overington’s journalistic skills of tackling current affairs are instantly recognisable in her knowledge about “backstage” happenings, such as the political wheelings and dealings going on in the media world to ensure high viewer ratings. I applaud her for being able to present these in a fictional content without losing their punch – making me feel that I learned a few things along the way. I also appreciated her portrayal of Emma, a woman trying to “make it” in the media, where youth, beauty and the perfect body trump brains and courage, but where smart women like Emma and Maven still find a way to excel. Despite her initial apparent pretentiousness, Emma totally won me over in the end! Emma’s marital problems added an extra layer to the story that highlighted the pressure working mothers with small children are under these days.

Summary:

In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of The Ones You Trust and sat up way too late into the night reading because I could not tear myself away. The characters were so well drawn that I felt instantly transported into their world, even though their realities are worlds apart from mine. A great read – I look forward to reading more from this author in future!

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Australia for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.