The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten is a haunting tale of faith, belief and loyalty. It is also a stirring tale of what happens when you break the bounds of all three as well.

Summary –

The mining village of Silvertjam keeps it’s past and secrets hidden from the rest of the world. Since 1959, when police were called to the small remote village to find the scene of a horrific murder and the remainder of the village’s population missing. Save for a lone baby, left in one of the empty homes. The murder victim, a young woman tied to a post in the village square; she appeared to have been stoned to death. But the remainder of the townspeople, were never heard from again.

Alice Lindstedt is obsessed with Silvertjam. The mining town is now called “The Lost Village” and has become even more remote and secluded as nature has begun to take back as much of the village and surrounding countryside as it can. Alice has a connection to the small town. Here grandmother’s entire family disappeared in Silvertjam in 1959. The mystery of what happened is not only the mystery of “The Lost Village”, but of Alice’s own family.

Gathering a small crew together, Alice has decided to make a documentary film about “The Lost Village”, in hopes that she might uncover just what happened. But the friendships that hold the group together are strenuous at best. Alice has a past of her own. As dark and tragic as Silvertjam. This search for the truth is a search for herself.

The small crew sets up camp in the abandoned village and soon, the oppressive remains of the mining town begins to take its toll. Items get misplaced and malfunction. But when one of the crew goes missing, Alice begins to believe there is something else happening in Silvertjam. But the secrets Alice has kept is dividing her small crew and soon no one knows just who they can trust.

Alice has come to Silvertjam in search of the truth. But the horror of searching for the truth is that sometimes you find it.

Review –

The Lost Village, like so many Nordic Noire mysteries is somewhat slower paced, but its momentum is powerful and relentless. The sense of dread that turns slowly darker and more dangerous with each passing page is like a snake uncoiling endlessly. You know as a reader it will raise its head in time and strike but you just don’t know when. Camilla Sten unravels the mystery of The Lost Village layer by layer and in doing so erodes the foundation of facts you start you had at the beginning of the tale.

As startling as the truths that are unraveled about Silvertjam, are the ones that are slowly revealed about Alice herself. Her past, her fears and her own bitterness that drive the project. Much of the danger of the project come about because she refuses to see the truths that are right in front of her. One of her companions refers to her as selfish and that is so true. She puts the project above the safety and well-being of her crew. Yet she is angry and bitter that her feelings and well being are not the utmost importance to others.

The secret of The Lost Village is horrifying and tragic. A town ravaged when the mining falls apart and there are no other means of support. A charismatic and young Minister who begins to divide the people of Silvertjam and the blind faith that turns deadly. Friend turns against friend and mother turns against daughter. Until the thin line between sin and sacrifice are horribly blurred. The attempts to save themselves ends up being what dooms the people of Silvertjam.

That is the truth that will eventually try to condemn Alice and her crew.

Camila Sten has written a near perfect mystery of dread and pulsing fear. It is a horror story and in some sense a true ghost story. It has all the elements of a haunted house, only the entire village is the haunted house and the ghosts that haunt it are lost to time. The mystery of Silvertjam is a body, bloody and broken tied to a post in the center of town; a baby left wailing in an abandoned home and the entire village gone missing.

This book will haunt you.

A terrific read!

The Searcher by Tana French

The Searcher by Tana French is a departure from her Dublin Murder Squad series, but fear not, French does not stray far at all. A dark mystery in a sleepy little Scottish village has a retired American Detective searching for answers that may be better left alone.

SUMMARY

“…They’ve been painting for about twenty minutes when Trey says, out of the clear blue sky, ‘My brother’s gone missing.’
Cal manages to freeze only for a half a second before his roller starts moving again. He would know from the tone, even if he hadn’t heard the words: this is why Trey is here.
‘Yeah?’ he says. ‘When?’
‘March.’ Trey is still rollering his patch of wall, meticulously, not looking at Cal. ‘Twenty-first.’
‘OK,’ Cal says. ‘How old is he?’
‘Nineteen. His name’s Brendan.’
Cal is feeling his way, toe by toe. ‘What’d the police say?’
‘Didn’t tell them.’
‘How come?’
‘Mam wouldn’t. She said he went off, and he’s old enough if he wants.’
‘But you don’t think so.’
Trey’s face, when he stops painting and looks at Cal at last, has a terrible, tight-wound misery. He shakes his head for a long time.
‘So what do you think happened?’
Trey says, low, ‘Think someone’s got him…”

Cal Hooper retired form the Chicago PD after twenty-five years. The job had changed over time and it had cost him his marriage and strained his relationship with his grown daughter. Cal moves from the States to a small rural village in Ireland. He has plans to rebuild the cottage and spend his days walking the mountains and putting the past behind him. Hoping that somehow, by centering himself and finding the man he was without being a cop, he can rebuild the damaged bridges with his ex-wife and daughter.

But when a young kid named Trey starts hanging around, Cal finds that being a Detective is not something you can just put aside. Trey’s brother has gone missing and no one seems to care. Not the family, not the local cops, not the small village as a whole. They either don’t care, or to Cal, what they really seem like is just scared.

At first Cal is reluctant to get involved, he is new to the country and the village and asking questions of this nature is not going to endear him to the locals. They have already set up a betting pool to see just how long he is going to last before leaving. But when Trey shows up one night on his doorstep, beaten and bloody, Cal knows he can’t stay on the sideline any longer.

But a small village in Ireland lives by it’s own laws. They police themselves and keep tight their own secrets. Trey’s family has a long history of being on the wrong side of everything and one of their family going missing is nothing the village is going to mourn. Cal is realizing, that this new life he is hoping to build, seems a lot like the one he is trying to leave behind.

Review –

Tana French is one of the few writers that when one of her books comes out, it supersedes anything on my TBR list and becomes an immediate read. She is also one of the very few authors who have never disappointed me either. While her most popular novels are certainly been the ones that have circled around the cases and characters of the Dublin Murder Squad (these novels are the basis for the crime series on BBC of the same name), French branches out with her writing, but she never strays too far from her setting of the peoples and places of Ireland. She is so good at taking the reader directly into the locale and mindset of the characters that drive her novels.

In The Searcher, the departure from her other novels is that the reader does not know if there is in fact a crime. There is no body, no police investigation and no suspects. Just a sense, a feeling that something is just not right. The conflict is in the mind and heart of Cal. He is being pulled back in to be the kind of man that destroyed his previous life. The Policeman that took precedence over being a husband and a father.

The youngster, Trey, is a character who by fault of her birth into a family of ill repute, has no one to turn to when her brother goes missing. Her mother is surprisingly quiet and accepting of Brendan going missing and one of her family going missing, is no loss to the village as a whole. But Brendan is the only one that Trey feels cares and Trey knows that Brendan would never leave without saying something first. Her would not just disappear. Trey knows, that something has gone terribly wrong.

French takes the reader deep into the idyllic world of small village Ireland and into the dark underbelly of a tight knit community. The Searcher builds slowly but gathers momentum as it moves forward until it becomes a freight train of mistrust, suspense and the foreboding sense of danger.

A really good read. Don’t miss any of it!

I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney is an intense and twisting thriller that will keep the reader up all night and then trembling with release at the early light of dawn. It is a book not to be missed and my first 5 star review of the year!

Summary

Aimee Sinclair is an actress of the verge of becoming famous. She is also a woman whose past is shrouded, and Aimee has gone to great pains, to keep secret. But her upcoming fame is having a disastrous effect on her marriage and the once romantic whirlwind of love has turned cold and bitter. There have been rumors of an affair and Aimee finds herself on the end of accusations and anger.

After a particularly long day on the set of her latest movie, Aimee returns home to find her husband’s cell phone and wallet on the dining room table. Aimee finds this odd as he never goes anywhere without them. Initially Aimee is not too concerned. They had had a horrible fight the night before and he is probably just out for a walk, blowing off steam, they both said and did things she knows they really didn’t mean.

The next morning she goes for a run and stops at her favorite coffee shop. When she pays for her order, her card gets declined. Aimee calls her bank to find out that her account had been emptied of all funds. She asks when the bank representative when her husband did this, only to be told, that the person who withdrew the funds, was Aimee herself.

Aimee’s husband is missing, someone is stalking her, and her past is easing back into her life, poisoning her chances at happiness and success. The police begin to suspect that Aimee is responsible for her husband’s disappearance and Aimee can’t prove her innocence, because sometimes, Aimee doesn’t remember everything she does.

Review

Okay first I have to say I really liked Alice Feeney’s debut novel, Sometimes I Lie, but holy shit! This second novel is the one you have to read! I Know Who You Are alternates between present day and the childhood of Aimee Sinclair, painting the picture of a damaged and traumatized little girl. But is Aimee really the victim here or is Aimee really a killer.

Alice Feeney keeps the twists coming and the reader will flip from page to page never knowing who or what is the truth. But when it comes, when it hits…holy shit!

It has been a long time since a novel took me by surprise and I Know Who You Are absolutely took me by surprise. The reveal, that stunning moment is so out of the blue, but when it comes…you will think oh my God, how did I not see this coming!

Only two books as a storyteller and Alice Feeney has established herself as a voice to be heard. Pick this one up! It is not to be missed!

Third Grave Dead Ahead by Darynda Jones

Third Grave Dead Ahead is book #3 (in case you hadn’t guessed it from the title) in the Grim Reaper series by Darynda Jones. What separates these tales from the glut of paranormal hot chick lit that is filling up the marketplace is undoubtedly, Charley Davidson, the Grim Reaper herself.

“…My name is Charlotte Davidson. Charley to some, Charlotte the Harlot to others, but that was mostly in middle school. I came with a decent set of curves , a healthy respect for the male anatomy, and a slightly disturbing addiction to brown edibles. Other than that-and the fact that I’d been born the grim reaper-I was about as normal as a surly girl with a private investigator’s license could be…”

After binding her lover and son of Satan boyfriend, Reyes to his corporal body in hopes of saving him from being ripped apart by a band of demons (see book #2), Charley is trying to desperately to stay awake because every time she doses off, Reyes comes for a visit in her dreams. Living off of copious amounts of coffee, Charley gets a new case. A rich and powerful doctor whose ego is as big as his house wants to hire her to find his missing wife. Only Charley knows there is much more to it than just that. Add to the mix a motorcycle gang who wants her to find out whoever is poisoning their dogs and Charley’s father who suddenly finds her chosen line of work to be more than he can handle, it is all getting to be a bit much for a grim reaper who hasn’t slept in days.

Add to it that Reyes has escaped and is on the streets hunting down the man he killed. The man that he went to prison for. The man that Reyes believes is still alive.

Charley has a full day ahead of her, if only she can get a good cup of coffee.

The narrative and irreverence to her position as Grim Reaper make Charley a very likable character. She doesn’t take herself too seriously and as a reader, we are encouraged to not do so either. She sees the dead. She is able to allow them to pass through her to the other side. She has untapped powers. She is the lover of the Son of Satan. But besides all of this, the reader is far more encouraged to see Charley as a private investigator, helping her clients and the dead find justice.

In Third Grave Dead Ahead, with the exception of passing on a message for a dead clown, Charley is focused on the living. The motorcycle gang whose dogs are being poisoned. The missing wife of the rich doctor. The man who Reyes is supposed to have murdered, but somehow, is actually alive. All of this and dealing with her own dysfunctional family that is yet to come to grips with who she really is.

Jones writes and entertaining and yet poignant tale of the daughter who doesn’t quite fit in. Of a supernatural being whose greatest challenge is her human persona, and of the crimes that need to be solved.

Fun and funny. A really good read that has me ready to pick up the next one in the series!

The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Greene

The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Green is a novel of love and deceit and the collateral damage that comes from the dark secrets we keep to ourselves. It is also a reminder of the past and its ability to return and take back those things that we have stolen from it.

Susannah was a young widow and single mother when she met Max, a charismatic up and coming artist who’s views on modern art were turning him into a rock star. He was everything she didn’t even know she wanted. After the death of her first husband, a much older man, Susannah was left rudderless and drifting. But Max came along and moved her to a small college town where is speaking tours and tenure in the art department made him a local celebrity. Susannah feels as if her life has just been blessed, Max is a strong provider and her teenage son seems to have a great relationship with Max as well. But the loss and memories of her first husband’s death haunt her still.

Max has a past. It’s one he’s worked very hard to keep hidden. His life now is a product of that past but he knows full well that it would take very little to bring his life down around him. He has a great career, plenty of money, a beautiful wife and a stepson that adores him. For once in his life, Max has more to lose than ever before. But he has taken precautions and Max knows he has to protect his new life by any means possible.

Then one morning, while Max is away, Susannah finds a note taped to her door.

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Max convinces Susannah that it must be a prank but she knows in her heart that it must be more to it than that. Max knows that there is more to it than that and he knows he needs to find out who left the note on his door. Then days after a neighborhood couple share a dinner with Max and Susannah, the husband ends up dead. A victim of a tragic accident while on a run with Max.

Days later, another note ends up on their door.

DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT?

The secrets that Max and Susannah have kept from the world and from one another begin to unravel and soon they find one another to be strangers. Max knows he has to keep his secrets at any cost and Susannah begins to fear the man she loves.

The Perfect Liar is a tense and atmospheric thriller that is played out as much in the minds and past of our main characters as it is in real time moments. Who is Max and who is Susannah is central to this tale. While it is Max whose lies and deceptions are open for the reader to see, it is Susannah’s past that is integral with the where the story goes. Susannah is a complex character and the first impression of a dependent and damaged wife is misleading and it is Susannah’s growth through this tale that makes it very much worth the reading.

A good novel and fast read!

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

 

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware is another novel marketed as the next Gone Girl, or next Girl on the Train, that is sure to take the female lead thriller genre by storm. Of course it is not any of this and that’s too bad that it is marketed this way because there is a lot to enjoy and really like about this book. Ware, author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, has followed up her first novel with a book that is more mystery than thriller. More Noire than modern. Centered around the unraveling of its main characters sanity as it is the mystery it unfolds.

“…I rolled over and switched on the light and checked my phone: 3:04 a.m. Then I refreshed my e-mail. There was nothing from Judah, but I was too wide-awake now to go back to sleep. I sighed and picked up my book instead, lying splayed like a broken-backed bird on the bedside table, and opened it to the last page I’d read.
But although I tried to concentrate on the words, something niggled at the corner of my mind. It wasn’t just paranoia. Something had woken me up. Something that left me jumpy and strung out as a meth addict. Why did I keep thinking of a scream?
I was turning the page when I heard something else, something that barely registered above the sound of the engine and the slap of the waves, a sound so soft that the scrape of paper against paper almost drowned it out.
It was the noise of the veranda door in the next cabin sliding gently open.
I held my breath, straining to hear.
And then there was a splash…”

Lo Blacklock is a journalist who writes for a travel magazine but she finds her career stymied behind journalists who are more experienced and talented than she is. But suddenly she is given the opportunity of a lifetime. The assignment to spend a week aboard a luxury cruise with only a handful of exclusive clients. The cabins are luxurious and the guest list exclusive. But on the first night of the cruise Lo believes she is the sole witness to a crime. The woman in the cabin next to her is thrown overboard. But did she really see anything or did she just hear it and her mind supplied the rest? When she reports the crime she learns that the cabin next to her is empty. But that cannot be, because Lo had knocked on that cabin earlier and a young woman had answered. The Woman in Cabin 10. The woman who no one else on the cruise has ever seen. The woman who is now missing.

“…What had I done? Oh God, why had I done this, kept pushing, kept refusing to shut up. I had made myself a target, by my refusal to be silenced about what happened in that cabin. And yet…and yet what had happened…”

The Woman in Cabin 10 is reminiscent of the Agatha Christie novels of my youth. Those early mysteries that worked on character driven plot twists rather than action. In fact I thought a lot of Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window during the reading of this tale. The lone witness to the crime trying desperately to make the rest of the cast see what is happening around them. But the problem here is not the story, the story is pretty damn good. It is with the main character herself. Lo Blacklock. She does everything possible to destroy her own credibility. Getting drunk on the first night of the cruise, emotional outbursts and hysterical rants drive both passengers and crew away from her. She goes from anger to strength to tears and then to drinking and popping pills all in the matter of a few pages. She is self centered and short sighted. An example of which is early on in the book where after a traumatic episode in her own apartment she walks to her boyfriend’s home, believing him to be away and takes her clothes off and falls on her bed. He actually comes home and crawls into bed with her which she responds by smashing his face with a lamp. One hospital visit later find them back in his bed, making love and then when he tells her he loves her she gets angry breaks up with him and leaves. Then of course is upset when she is on the cruise and doesn’t hear from him. When confronted with taking pills for her depression she responds with anger and tears, because that shows people you are emotionally stable. And of course by binge drinking as well.

This was a weakness with Ware’s first novel as well, In a Dark, Dark Wood. The main character is really not able to drive the story. But that aside this is really a good book and as the second novel by Ruth Ware, it is much better than the first book and so I am looking forward to the next book with strong expectation. But can we lighten the baggage on the main character some?

The Girl On The Train – Paula Hawkins (Book Review)

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins is so good that you have to occasionally remind yourself that this is her debut novel. A fact that should have all mystery readers excited for what is to come!

Rachel rides the commuter train every morning, passing a stretch of suburbia she once belonged to. She watches the couples in their homes. One she knows too well and the other she dreams about. Her dream couple is Jason and Jess. They are idyllic. In love, young, attentive, with their whole lives ahead of them. The other couple are Tom and Anna and they are why her life is destroyed.

“..I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s not just that I’ve put on weight, or that my face is puffy from the drinking and the lack of sleep; it’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move.
On night last week, when I left my room to get myself a glass of water, I overheard Cathy talking to Damien, her boyfriend, in the living room. I stood in the hallway and listened. ‘She’s lonely,’ Cathy was saying. ‘I really worry about her. It doesn’t help, her being alone all the time.’ Then she said, ‘Isn’t there someone from work, maybe, or the rugby club?’ and Damien said, ‘For Rachel? Not being funny, Cath, but I’m not sure I know anyone that desperate…”

Rachel was married to Tom once. Then Anna came along and then the baby and Rachel was left. Tossed aside. For a younger, prettier, fertile version of herself. Now every morning, as she rides the train. She watches as she passes by their lives; going on. Passing her by. But truth be told, Rachel doesn’t always just pass by. Sometimes she gets off. Sometimes she goes to Tom and Anna’s home. Angry. Hurt. Drunk. But then, Rachel is always drunk now. Drunk and broken. With a memory missing large chunks from it.

“…One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl…Three for a girl. I’m stuck on three, I just can’t get any further. My head is thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies-they’re laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone’s coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Now look what you made me do…”

Rachel is failing at moving on. Too tired and too often too drunk to make anything of her life. That is why she needs Jason and Jess. Her perfect couple. They lead the life she once had. Until the day. Until she sees something from the train that changes everything. But who will believe her. Who will trust her.

The Girl on the Train is compelling and emotionally taxing. You will be angry and at once supportive of Rachel as she tries to piece together what she believes she has seen through the fog of her alcohol impaired memories. She is at times so damaged, that there is a sense of overwhelming hopelessness, which is what makes her attempts to do the right thing so courageous. Or is she simply fighting for attention. To matter once again when she is devoid of any self worth.

There is also a real mystery here. The story told through the voices of three women. Rachel, Anna and Megan. Each with their own demons. Each with their own self afflictions. Each trying to make the most of their bad decisions.

But it is Rachel who drives the train so to speak, Rachel who must set right the wrong she knows has happened. Rachel that makes the Girl on the Train so unforgettable.

A terrific debut. A terrific read!

World of Trouble – Ben H Winters (Book Reveiw)

Title – World of Trouble

Author – Ben H. Winters

Summary –

With the Doomsday asteroid less than a week away, retired Detective Hank Palace is on one final mission. He must find his sister Nico. With only his dog and untrustworthy friend Cortez to aid him, Hank tracks Nico to a police station in New England. The station is abandoned but following the few clues he can, Palace knows that his sister has been there. He knows that the trail of blood leads to the truth and the sealed underground bunker may hold all the truth he needs.

But time is running out and with so little help on his side can Hank continue on this quest. Does Nico even want to be found.

Nico ran off with a doomsday cult, determined that the government and her big brother were lying to her. Sure that there was a way to hold off the impending impact if only they could gather the right people. Hank knows there is no way to keep the asteroid from striking the planet and that there is no chance for survival. He just wants to spend the last few days that are left with the only family he has left.

But can he use what is left of his skills as a detective to find Nico. Is there enough of a trail? And what does the body of the young girl, the same age as Nico, slashed and mutilated, and left in the woods hold for Hank. Is the truth something he can accept in these end of days?

Review –

Critically acclaimed author Ben H. Winters delivers the final book in the Edgar Award winning Last Policeman series. What began with the lost and listless Hank Palace in book one of the series comes to fruition with the Palace we find in this final installment. Determined and single minded. It’s very hard not to side with Palace. His dream of being a detective stolen from him by a bureaucracy at the end of its rope and a world that no longer wanted law and order. Hank strives to live up to the ideals that he began with, holding onto them fervently, as if maintaining this small amount of order in the face of chaos will somehow save him from what is coming. Finding Nico is his final act of absolution. Repairing what is left of his shattered family. Regardless of what is in his path, Hank goes forward. But the greatest obstacles are the ones that plague his mind. The regrets and memories that deliver the hardest blows. It has taken an asteroid destroying the Earth for Hank to realize that all that has ever mattered are those you love and the one person left that he loves, truly loves, is his sister Nico.

A compelling and dramatic read in overwhelming and dire circumstances. Winters has delivered a wonderful end to complete a very satisfying trilogy.