THE PERFECT LIE by Jo Spain

 Quite a compelling thriller, with a ripper first few pages which sets in motion a roller coaster of a ride as our lead lady tries to figure it all out. Erin is married to Danny, a detective in the local police department. They have been married for just on a year, happy as, life is going very well. Then Danny is dead - in the first few pages. What the...? His detective partner Ben is of no help and it seems Danny was being investigated for some unexplained matters. Erin, in her extreme grief is left completely on her own to try and figure out what on earth has been going on, and more importantly who her husband really was, what, if anything, was he hiding, and how come she didn't see any of this. 

Parallel to this line of story, is one that took place a few years prior at a residential house attached to Harvard University. A young woman student is attacked, her life destroyed by the attack and the aftermath as she seeks help. 

Then there is third story line concerning Erin, who some 18 months after Danny's death, is on trial for the murder of her husband. Huh? Yes, it is a little puzzling. During the previous 18 months, Erin has found some new friends who have taken her under their wing, helping her in her quest to find out what was going on with Danny, and then her defence team after her arrest. 

It is quite a trip this thriller. Clever in its make up, plot development, and with so many balls to keep juggling, it all holds itself together quite well. I liked Erin, I liked her lawyer Carla. I found Danny a bit of an enigma - we only see him from Erin's point of view and I guess if you are madly in love with someone it is easy to overlook any flaws, and possibly difficult things going on their lives. Nevertheless, I did think this was a good read, with some great twists. 

THE VANISHING SKY by L. Annette Binder

 

You know what, I wish that the leaders of countries who want to wage war on each other, would just lock themselves up in a room somewhere and just sort it out, instead of involving millions and millions of ordinary and blameless people in their power games. Because the war is never fought in the leaders' dens, bunkers, high rise buildings, flash offices. It is fought and felt out there in ordinary citizen land. Conquerors and conquered - all lose much to get the result. 

So it was interesting to read the online reviews by readers of this novel about a very ordinary German family living in a semi rural community in the south of Germany during WWII. The author is German, but has been living in the US since a child. This story is based on events and stories told in her own family that took place during the war. And probably typical of millions of other families throughout all of Europe at this time. Quite a lot of reviews are damning of the book because it doesn't address at all the complicity of the German people in the terrible things that happened to populations the high command wanted to get rid of - Jews, gays, gypsies, communists, mentally ill and impaired and others. The list is huge. We ourselves don't really know how much the general population knew about what was really going on, and in a time where all news was strictly controlled, propaganda was the name of the game, you had to be careful who you expressed opinions to, it may well have been that the average person, especially out of the towns and cities did not fully know what was going on. 

In this novel, it is the latter stages of the war. People don't really know but the war has started to turn in favour of the allies,  the German war machine has been fatally damaged, but that is not stopping the hierarchy from eking every ounce of blood and muscle from every male in the country, young, old, infirm, ill. The Huber family consist of mother Etta who is doing the absolute best she can feeding her family on rations, keeping her morale up as much as possible. Husband Josef fought in WWI, and has never fully recovered from that trauma. They have two sons Max who has just arrived back home on some sort of leave from the army. He is severely traumatised, a shadow of his former self. But there is little or no means of giving him the care he needs. Younger son Georg is at Hitler School, only 15 years old, being trained up to be a perfect third Reich soldier. The chapters move primarily between Etta and Georg as they deal with the grimness of their predicament. Etta is determined to keep son Max from going back to the front line. Survival of the fittest is the name of the game for Georg, as he seeks to find a way out of the hopeless and dangerous living situation he is in. 

Being war of course, with Germany at its centrepiece, we already know the outcome of this story is not going to be a happy ever after ending. But it is a story so heartbreakingly magnificent in its telling, so tragic and sad. The struggle every day Etta has to make life as normal as possible for herself, Josef and Max; her neighbours and friends all struggling together to make life bearable, food of course being at the heart of all this effort. For Georg, his awakening sexuality causes its own problems, and then his own struggle for survival, the kindness of strangers. It is like so many WWII novels that have come out in recent years of the lives of the ordinary people. But not many have been written sympathetically from the German point of view. I really liked this. It got better as it went along, I especially liked Georg's story.  As for the comments from reviewers about the lack of acknowledgement in the story of what Germany did in the war, this isn't actually what the story is about. It's about a family, trying to survive, pure and simple. 

HOW THE ONE ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE by Cherie Jones

 

Baxter's Beach, Barbados - tourist holiday heaven - delicious sand, beautiful beach to laze and sun on, warm gentle waters to bathe in, holiday homes larger than the average house, cafes, restaurants, beautiful people. And like all holiday tourist spots the world over, the lush exotic exterior only lightly covers the sleazy, dangerous, violent and poor underbelly. 

The title refers to a local legend concerning what happens to young women who disobey their mothers and become bad girls. She is then burdened for the rest of her life of having to do everything with only one arm - handicapped for her impetuousness, her foolishness. No morality tale of course for young men who get themselves into trouble. Nothing changes the world over!

The young woman in this story is Lala, who works the beaches braiding hair for the tourists. She has been brought up by her grandmother - the story of what happens to her mother is told through the story. As you expect, life is tough for the women in this family, burdened with useless and appalling husbands and fathers. Lala is now married to her own awful man - Adan - and in the first few pages of the story gives birth to her daughter. The birth takes place against the back drop of an act of violence with Adan breaking into one of the huge holiday homes, where he is confronted by the owners - local woman made good Mira and her wealthy British husband. A shot is fired. 

Adan is clearly unhinged, too many drugs, crazy, unable to control himself or his urges. Lala is clearly abused, a home of violence is her normal, and she sees no way out. A terrible incident involving the baby leads to a whole new catastrophe in Lala's life, with Adan hell bent on finishing off his bungled burglary. His partner in crime is Tone, a gigilo who works the wealthy women coming to Baxters looking for a good time. Tone is actually a good man, and to up the anti in this little morality tale, deeply in love with Lala. 

Well, you can see a whole bunch of different world views heading for a full on collision in this story. And let's not forget the local head policeman hellbent on solving at all costs the shooting referred to above. There is a pervading air of powerlessness in this whole story, for all of the characters, even the bullet proof Adan. For poor and powerless people, life is never really going to reach the heights of the wealthy tourists they pander to. But one of these characters will make it out, will have the courage to see a future for themselves. And this, in the end,  is what makes the story so powerful and successful. 

The writing too is wonderful. Written almost in the wonderful way people from the Caribbean speak, not just the dialogue between the characters, but also in the story telling. I loved the way it was written: you can feel the heat, the humidity, see the palm trees, the delicious sea, the sand. This book won't be everyone's choice purely because of the subject matter, but it is still a marvellous and vivid read. 

THE CROW TRAP by Anne Cleeves

 Vera on the tele - one of my all time favourite TV women, brought to life by another fave - Brenda Blethyn. Have I watched all the Veras? I most certainly have. Tough old bird with a heart of marshmallow, stomping around Northumberland in her enormous coat with bottomless pockets, gumboots and that hat. What a treasure. However I have never read a Vera novel, although I did know that Anne Cleeves writes a cracker whodunnit. Number 1 seems like a good place to start, and it was! I can't remember the TV series of this story, which is just as well, as the plot is not quite the same, characters from the book are missing, minor threads in the book are more important in the series. 

But it doesn't really matter, either way, the characters are still well drawn, very human, and intricate. Their relationships to each other are also realistic and complicated, as is the stunning and bleak landscape they live and work in. We'll just call it 'somewhere in Northumberland'. Vera herself does not make an appearance until halfway through this 500+ page tome. So the novel is really less about Vera, and more about the those who are murdered and who are the murderers. Of which there could be several. And most importantly setting the scene, continuously as it happens, for the why of the murders. Such intricate plotting, plenty of threads that could be important but you find out later aren't. I was constantly putting 'clues' into my memory bank, thinking aha, this is it here. But no... one of the many however did prove to be the key to unlocking the murders. And Vera's marvellous mind too. We get glimpses on screen of Vera's early life, what shaped her. Here, in Vera's first outing, the story takes place in the area she grew up in. She knows the landscape, the wildlife, the seasons, even the house where much of the action takes place  - as a small motherless child, she would visit it with her bird egg stealing father, in cahoots with the crazy Constance. Now all those memories, good and bad, are revived but also helpful to Vera in solving the murders. And as always, things are much much more complicated than would first appear. 

As this was my first meeting with Vera, I was curious to learn about her. I think Brenda Blethyn does a very kind Vera compared to the Anne Cleeves' version - very TV and screen friendly. Maybe she softens in later books. I found her frankly terrifying! Enough to make small children cry, and it would feel like a torture session being questioned by this Vera as to your whereabouts. I still love her, will now scrounge the shops for the other five Vera novels. Five... oooh, what a treat! 

MIND THAT CHILD by Dr Simon Rowley

 

We have just had the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours announced, and it thrilled me to see that this man has been recognised for his service to the people of NZ in the field of paediatrics. Having just finished reading his book, I would say such recognition is well overdue. We are so lucky, in this small country of ours, to have such extraordinary people with amazing brains, depth of character, courage, compassion and to keep these skills and talent in this country. He could so easily have been tempted away to more money, greater recognition in some other country's medical system, but no, it is us that have benefitted from his work in both the public and private health sector. Thousands of babies he has seen over the decades including my own new born baby. 

This book is a memoir of his life as a medical professional - how he got into medicine, his choice to specialise in paediatrics, in particular neo-natal/premature babies. Nowhere is life more fragile than in keeping alive babies born as early as 23 or 24 weeks gestation. Fascinating, terrifying, expensive, emotional and heart rending. He talks about the families he looks after, the challenges they face with their tiny babies, how years later these now grown up babies turn up to visit him. He touches on other child health issues such as autism, hyperactivity, the long term and harmful effects of alcohol and drugs on the developing baby.  

He shares what makes him tick, what keeps him doing this often heart breaking work. The frustrations he feels with the politics of public health care, the lack of understanding by the media in its ignorance dead keen on hanging someone out to burn when things go wrong, his intense talent and desire to share and pass on his knowledge and experience in order to bring this country more brilliant paediatricians. So lucky are we.

EXIT by Belinda Bauer

 Wonderfully entertaining yet deep and profound all at the same time. With characters having names like Felix Pink and Shifty Sands, you could well think this is a bit of a comedy. But it isn't, well, it is in a very dark way. This writer is clever enough to tie in the important and current ethical issue of choice about one's end of life, with the most human like characters who grow and evolve as the plot goes, and finally with a plot that twists, twines and has surprises galore. It is a gem to read. 

Felix Pink is an Exiteer. Not a musketeer, although there are distinct similarities! Felix, aka John in Exiteer world, is one of a small group of people who assist people wishing to end their lives. They don't actually do the deed, but sit and be a companion to their clients. A task that requires some strong nerves, deep compassion and patience. Until one day Felix and his Exiteer partner, the much younger Amanda realise that unwittingly, the wrong person in the house they are in has died. A truly intriguing and alarming premise that poses so many questions about this well-argued issue. 

The police become involved, naturally, with lead investigator PC Calvin Bridge at the helm. Calvin has his own life issues going on, the highlight of his day being the local betting shop and the somewhat dodgy characters who pass their days there. So many great and intriguing characters.  Felix must stay one step ahead of the police, and yet he knows that something is not quite right with the people in the house where the wrong client died. So many inconsistencies....  how can he solve all this without being caught?

Wonderful book, loved it. Can totally imagine this as a darkly funny British comedy-drama. 

ASH MOUNTAIN by Helen Fitzgerald

 

So many Australian authors in the last few years placing the harsh drought-ridden and tinder-dry landscape at the center of the story. Those devastating bush fires that Australia deals with every summer touch something very primal in us human beings, any story taking on an extra edge with out of control fires lurking.  Here is another novel where daily life happens against the backdrop of a terrible fire. Daily lives like we all live, but fortunate enough not to have a fire threatening to take all that away - family, friends, pets, homes, businesses. 

In this quite short and easy to read novel, Fran is returning, unwillingly, to her home town Ash Mountain. Her father is quite unwell and there is no one else to care for him. She has two children - a grown up son who lives in the town, and a  teenage daughter who she shares custody with her ex partner, Vincent. Fran's return to her childhood town, home, school, neighbourhood dredges up far too many memories, rekindles old friendships and relationships. And the fire of course which changes everything. The plot moves around very frequently between the past and over the days before the fire. Despite the jumping around, it is easy to read and the chapters are short!  

The writing is very good, characters well developed. Fran herself is very real having to juggle her daughter and her father, she is at a low ebb having thrown in her job, her relationship. No one likes moving home, and Fran feels exactly how we would all feel - instantly relatable! Tension is tightly held with the looming fire, the fragility of relationships, the chance to make amends for past mistakes. The fire is terrifying by the way.