Holy Terrors

Image credit: Amazon

After what seems like an age since I discovered that Little Thieves is a trilogy and ecstatically bought the remaining two books, I have now been able to hunker down and read the final instalment in the thrilling adventures of Vanja Ros: Holy Terrors.

After banishing the vengeful ghost of her mother who has haunted her for years, Vanja is slowly coming to terms with who she is as a person. Still unable to believe that she won’t be used against Emeric in his career, she has chosen to go it alone and has made a new name for herself as the Pfennigeist: helping those that the law cannot. After one particularly irksome job, Vanja discovers that there is a serial killer tearing through the country’s royalty. Normally this would not concern her, except that the killer is leaving her signature red penny on all the victims and the Pfennigeist is fast becoming a villain rather than folk hero. In order to save her name (and herself), Vanja has to team up once again with Emeric Conrad after breaking his heart a second time.

The final instalment in Margaret Owen’s Little Thieves trilogy is every bit as exciting and intriguing as its predecessors: a ghoulish fantasy-whodunnit with an underlying love story and journey of self-discovery. All our favourite characters return for a thrilling final adventure in which everyone is in mortal peril every single minute.

Image credit: Bookrelease.com

Following the classic themes and formula of the whodunnit, Holy Terrors elevates the genre by being a noir thriller set against a delightfully macabre Scandinavian fantasy background. While a few modern musical throwbacks jerk you out of the world for a minute, Owen’s delightful banter between characters as well as her rapidly flowing prose guarantees total immersion and memorable scenes that cause you to exclaim out loud.

If the book falls down anywhere, it would probably be with the introduction of a comic-book narrative trope that is just everywhere at the moment (obviously I don’t want to spoil anything). There are also a number of places in which major plot twists or dramatic reveals don’t feel like they land the way there were intended to, either because they were nonchalantly dropped onto the table or were not sufficiently set up to achieve the desired response.

But having said that, Holy Terrors is still a wonderfully intriguing and action-packed end to a refreshingly different type of YA fantasy novel. Filled with suspense, gore, humour, romance, solid character development, and practically everything in between, it’s very easy to fly through its five hundred plus pages in no time at all!

Author: Margaret Owen, 2025

Published: Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette Uk Company, Great Britain, 2025.

Unbury the Dead

Image credit: Simon & Schuster Australia

The crime novel is a genre that has been through a plethora of transformations over the years. From the sophisticated detective novels of Conan Doyle to the gritty noir of Chandler, names like Poe, Harris, Christie, Du Maruier, Larsson, Le Carre, Collins, etc. trample over each other as they traverse the genre landscape. When we pick up a crime novel, we are promised a challenge in trying to solve the mystery before the protagonists, as well as the added thrill of a race against time to tie everything up. We expect charismatic characters, immediate intrigue, and (often) a pace that keeps us on our toes. It’s thus, deflating when we get to the end of a crime novel and feel that it hasn’t delivered.

Unbury the Dead follows ‘heroines’ Alice and Teddy: best friends and hired hands with flexible moral boundaries who provide a variety of services from chauffeurs to bodyguards, to private detectives, to crime scene cleaners. Teddy is searching for a missing teenager while Alice is driving one of Australia’s richest men to his final resting place. When their individual cases suddenly collide, sparking a large and sinister mystery, the girls go rogue to find the truth about who is dead who shouldn’t be, who’s alive who should be dead, and how it all ties together.

My overall thoughts on this novel is that it needed flavour. I feel like it maybe could make a very good TV series with the added spice of music, moody lighting, and diverting camera angles. The story, characters, and landscape are perfectly solid, but there is something about the prose that just leaves everything feeling flat and bland. Hardy writes in short, to-the-point sentences, many of which don’t employ the flavour-enhancing power of adjective or adverbs, and while this certainly lets people know what’s happening it doesn’t really lead the reader on a journey: instead it lets you sit still while it just hands you mounds of stuff to hold. It reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s work, another crime writer with solid stories but a similarly nourishing but flavourless way of telling them.

But to give credit where it is due, there is enough intrigue in the mystery itself that inspires you to keep turning pages (after persevering with the 150-page setup). Classic genre tricks are employed to encourage the brain to store information and form theories: things like red herrings, repeated incidents, and vague dialogue.

Image credit: Bendigo Writer's Festival

It felt that Hardy was trying to explore the nature of criminals and exploring the nitty-gritty of labelling people into the binary of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ when a person doesn’t really fall into either of those categories. She starts to build on this with internal monologues and emotional self-processing of the heroines during traumatic scenes and it finally comes to a more pronounced head in the story’s third act. Sadly, I feel like this social commentative part of the book just didn’t really gain any traction. Perhaps it’s because the blunt prose also served to dull down the charisma that the girls could have had. You know how Phil Spector was famous for the ‘Wall of Sound’ that managed to bury Tina Turner’s voice in River Deep Mountain High? This is the literary equivalent of that.

As crime novels go, Unbury the Dead leaves a bit to be desired, but it does provide an engaging mystery that does set the brain whirring and pages turning at a reasonable pace.

Author: Fiona Hardy, 2025

Published: Affirm Press, Melbourne Australia, 2025.

The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a triple murder trial

Image credit: Penguin Books Australia

Stories are everywhere and, whether we truly realise it or not, they make up who we are and how we navigate the world. Everyone is the protagonist of their own story, and we seek to absorb more and more stories over the course of our lives to have goals to works towards, add sweetness and spice to our existences, and fill the free moments when we don’t have to be ‘on’.

One story that has caught the majority of Australia in a paralysis grip in the last year has been that of Erin Patterson, a stay-at-home mum who invited her ex-husband’s devoutly Christian family to a special lunch, from which three of the four attendees died from poisoning from death cap mushrooms. Of course I was aware, but did not follow the story myself – true crime is not particularly something that I am drawn to – but for many Australians the court trial of Patterson was the hot topic for conversation, discussion, analysis, and dissection.

The Mushroom Tapes is a collaborative work of non-fiction from Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, and Sarah Krasnostein – a narrative transcript of their various conversations they have with each other over the course of the trial.

This is a true-crime analysis like no other. These three intelligent and inquisitive women do not only discuss the trial proceedings, the characters in the courtroom, and the motives/meaning behind the crime. The book is also a unique exploration into the country’s collective obsession with Patterson’s crime. Absolutely everything from marital disappointment, to the female fascination with true crime, to intimacies of the kitchen, to the tendency to make retro dishes for special occasions is put under the microscope and poked and prodded to see just how many ways they can be reshaped.

The read itself is very easy and digestible. Being transcripts of their recorded conversations in the car as they drive to the trial, in the hotel room after court, on the phone when other commitments kept them separated, the book reads as intelligent and artistic banter between friends; like one might have around the lunch table. Simple, narrative descriptions of the people and places they visit over the course of the trial help to build the world and add the visual element that draws us into the voyeuristic world of the book, and like any conversations the tone swivels and swerves between the curious, the sympathetic, dramatic, humorous, morbid, and melancholy.

Image credit: Text Publishing

While I’m not sure if this is a book that I would read again, it was different and certainly fascinating to hear down-to-earth voices talking about the bigger picture that sits in the background of a courtroom drama.

Author: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, & Sarah Krasnostein, 2025

Published: The Text Publishing Company, Victoria, 2025

The Empress Murders

Image credit: Allen & Unwin

So it’s early days of having joined a real book club – I attended my second meeting this week- and I have already become that person who totally mistook the date and ended up in the position of having one day to read the book! Thankfully, our book this month – The Empress Murders- is such a fast-paced and engaging read that I was able to get through to thirds of it before the meeting!

Aboard the Empress of Australia, a plethora of passengers are crossing the Atlantic and heading for New York. It is smooth sailing until a dead body is discovered. It quickly falls to house detective Archie Daniels to find the killer but as soon he begins, it escalates into a case of solving not just one murder, but two, and then three, and then more. Suddenly Daniels is on the trail of a serial killer and no passenger, from the wealthy 1^st classers to the societal dregs below deck, is safe from being either victim or villain. 

Beginning life as a play, The Empress Murders is the debut novel from actor and writer Toby Schmitz and it’s a book that promptly catapults you into its world and mirrors the plights of the characters in that it keeps you hostage. While I had other reasons for wanting to read through it as fast as possible, the fragmented prose, compelling take on the genre, and delightfully despicable characters really aid you in absolutely powering through its pages.

The events are uniquely chronicled with the ship (or the idea of the ship) as the narrator, an omniscient being that still has a direct connection to the unfolding events. While Daniels’ hunt for the serial killer is undoubtedly the main story, the book is fleshed out with wispy side hustles featuring a revolving cast of select characters: all of them pretty pitiful. The fragmented style in which Schmitz chooses to tell the story not only gives the book its machine-gun pace but also makes it read in a more visual manner with events being crafted to read more like a script or screenplay. On top of this novelty, the book is also a farcical take on the detective-noir genre. There are definitely vibes of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, while at the same time the language and character dialogue is spliced and very modern. We then have increasing levels of ridiculousness that manifest in the form of the murders – these paragraphs are not for the squeamish. I personally found the thick and bloody layers of gore added to the nonsensical farce of the narrative, but they can seem gratuitous and not really adding anything to the story – how you interpret it depends on the type of reader you are.

Image credit: The Sydney Morning Herald

Despite the very serious and gruesome events that unfold, I found The Empress Murders to be an extravagant and often hilarious farce, a bit like The Master and Margarita. It’s filled with action, characters that you love to hate, intriguing little histories that you want to find out more about, and plenty of drama. There is certainly a lot packed into it and the machine-gun pace does make the reading experience akin to staring out the window of a speeding train. I’m certain there are things that I missed, no doubt a revisit is warranted.

Author: Toby Schmitz, 2025

Published: Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2025

Daisy Darker

Image credit: Pan Macmillan Australia

I won’t use the word ‘sad’ to describe this, rather ‘tiresome’ or ‘unsatisfying’. Those readers’ ruts one can fall into where they read book after book and enjoy the stories well enough, but don’t get those emotional tingles that can only be mollified if the book is in your hand and your hand is turning its pages. It seems I have been in one without really knowing it for… I don’t even know how long now… but I am happy to report that I have just broken it! With our latest book-club book, I might add, which makes it an even better victory. The book is Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney.

A dysfunctional family is brought together to a celebrate Nana’s eightieth birthday in her secluded, Cornish house perched on its own private island. The night is civil enough, but the mood sours when Nana reveals what’s been left to whom in her will and then is later found dead in the kitchen with a dark poem and a strange videotape left behind. Stuck in the same house for eight hours until the tide goes out, the Darker family’s tensions, angers, and fears reach breaking point, as their numbers dwindle.

I powered through this book in four days, intermittent bouts of reading, but could have very happily given up work and food for one day just to be able to sit on the couch and read non-stop. A recognisable gothic whodunit with a surprise twist at the end, Daisy Darker really gave me the good-read tingles.

Feeney very cleverly uses the building blocks of the genre to manipulate the reader, so it’s a delightful ping-pong reading experience of going back and forth between family members to decide who is the killer. While many of the deaths and red herrings can be a little cliched, it all works with the book’s characters, so no harm done.

Image credit: Facebook

The characters themselves, while definitely recognisable from any dysfunctional family setting, are still compelling enough to want to read about and see what sort of poetic deaths befall them. And the prose is very easy to traverse through, clean and unencumbered by pretentious adjectives or verbiage, while also exploring the misdirecting nature of the unreliable narrator. In fact, the first-person narration from Daisy is what really works to blind you to the clues and while the reveal and explanation at the end can feel a little hand-wavey or tacked on, there are enough character hints dropped throughout the story, that work to back it up.

I found Daisy Darker really compelling and have already promised to lend it to two friends now that I’ve closed the cover on it. It’s a bit of a return to the classic, noir, whodunnit, a la Agatha Christie, and I enjoyed absolutely every minute of it!

Author: Alice Feeney, 2022

Published: Macmillan (London), 2022

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

 

Image credit: Goodreads

After a run of period classics in Moby Dick and Orlando, I determined that the next novel I read had to be completely different; a real turnaround from what I’d gotten used to. So, off the shelf came John le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. 

I found this book a challenge. Perhaps I am just not particularly geared towards the spy novel –though to be fair I have not exposed myself to very many- but I found that I had to read a little extra stuff (the introduction and the author’s note at the end) to really appreciate what this book was and what it was doing. I can’t honestly say that it’s now a favourite, but I absolutely can appreciate why this book is so celebrated within literary circles. 

The book tells the story of Alec Leamas, a tired and cynical member of the British Secret Service who has been spying in the shadows of the Berlin Wall for years. After so long a time out in the cold, Control finally wants to bring him in: after one last assignment. Convinced to turn double agent, Alec travels deep into the heart of Communist Germany, smoothly eluding the wrong people and rubbing shoulders with the right ones. But disaster strikes when another agent attempts to help a woman whom Alec has befriended, and a shocking truth about the wider game comes to light. 

Spy is probably most celebrated because it redefined the spy novel genre. Up until the 1960s, the spy was the suave and smooth-talking James Bond type of character who went on adventures with action and exciting high stakes. The stakes are indeed high in Spy, but the setting is nowhere near as glamorous. Set against the harsh and grey background of the Cold War, Spy depicts the world of spies and espionage as a horrible game of chess where everything from humanity, morals, ideals, and indeed life are expendable and can be bought or sold for the right price. There’s a high level of cynicism, both in the plot and the book’s protagonist.

Image credit: The Washington Post

Alec Leamas is as far from a James Bond as one can get. Ragged, exhausted, dishevelled, and rough in every sense of the word, he is the protagonist that readers are saddled with, not emotionally attached to. The book’s central thrills and excitement do indeed come from the events that take place within its pages, which eventually all pool together to form the bigger picture. Given that the setting and characters are so sketchy to begin with, the reader takes all promises, events, and bouts of dialogue with a grain of salt, but even so it still comes a shock when the story –and the game- ends. 

Le Carre’s social commentary as well as some cheeky in-novel comments on the nature of the spy (both as a profession and a literary character) brings an extra level of intrigue to an already-heavily-laden black forest cake of a novel. This is definitely a book to read if you are into the spy genre.

Author: John le Carre, 1963

Published: V. Gollancz (London), 1963

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe

 

Image credit: Penguin Books

It’s been a bit of a long bout between reading adventures. As a reader I have been trying to exercise and strengthen my abilities by juggling. Whilst I have concluded that this is something that I can do, it is not something that I like to do. The last book that I closed the cover on was one that I had been working on solidly for months. Plucked from the shelf with the intent of serving as my bedtime reads with tea in the evening and then morning reads with coffee, sharing my attention between the two books meant that this one took me absolute ages. An epic challenge that I have finally triumphed over, this book was The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe.

Featuring absolutely everything from Poe’s gothic thrillers such as The Fall of the House of Usher and Murders in the Rue Morgue, to his Verne-esque tales of scientific adventure, classic adventures tales akin to Louis Stevenson, and of course his various poems, this book is an absolute rollercoaster of a reading experience. Being a chunky anthology, I most certainly would not recommend going through it in one sitting. My thought process behind my choice to read it was to read a tale or two before bed in nice, manageable instalments. Even so, Poe’s incredible prose, long-winded descriptions, and sometimes brain-imploding plots are definitely not the light evening read I had envisioned. 

Of course.

Image credit: Library of Congress

Most modern readers will probably only know Poe for The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven and if there is one thing that I have discovered from reading his collected works, it is that he was such a well-rounded and versatile writer. At any point within these pages one could mistake the story for one from Jules Verne or Robert Louis Stevenson. Whilst some tales are an absolute struggle, others are gripping, thrilling, and captivating from the get-go and –at the end of it all- one cannot help but feel a little smarter and more culturally enriched for having read them all. 

Author: Edgar Allen Poe

Published: Random House, Inc., New York, 1938. Penguin Books, 1982.

The Haunted Hotel

 

Image credit: Dymocks

After the various bouts of fantastical adventures I’ve recently been on, I thought this week’s book needed to be different; a real change of pace. And so I lovingly fingered the spines of my library for quite a while before I plucked this week’s choice off the shelf: The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins. 

It’s a story about murder, madness, and memories that won’t rest… even in death. When the sinister Countess Narona marries Agnes Lockwood’s fiancé, she takes him to live with her and her brother in a rundown palace in Venice. Whilst there, a servant mysteriously disappears and the husband dies. Years later the palace is turned into a lavish hotel that manages to draw the Countess, Agnes, and the dead husband’s entire family to it. As the Countess slowly descends into madness, Agnes and the family suffer from various strange events in one room of the hotel and soon an investigation is underway to find out what really happened to the late Lord Montbarry and his servant. 

 This is a delightful little ghost story that reads a bit like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Deeply dramatic, but written in quite a nonchalant tone, The Haunted Hotel has everything you could want for a good afternoon read. 

Murder, mystery and madness flavour the story immensely as well as two heroines that are chalk and cheese in character and work to scare each other more than the ghost.

Image credit: GradeSaver

But perhaps what is best about this book is that it is left to the reader to determine the nature of the goings on and whether there is logic behind them or no. A Sherlock Holmes mystery minus the great detective, The Haunted Hotel is classically gothic in its sinister and mysterious central story, all of which is excitingly revealed in the climactic 'Fourth Part'. However, the book cleverly leaves off with a grand tie-up and characters are left with only their limited knowledge of the strange events to either dwell on or simply forget. Secrets are kept, horrors are hidden, and at the end of it all there is happiness and a tender little ending. 

Despite its seemingly dramatic content, I found The Haunted Hotel to be a really light and enjoyable read: engaging, filled with great imagery, and actually rather fun. Would recommend. 

Author: Wilkie Collins, 1878

Published: First published as a penny-dreadful serial series. Published in its entirety in 1889. This edition published by Penguin Group 2009.

In Cold Blood

Image credit: Amazon AU

    Amongst the immersive worlds of fantasy and historical periods years gone by, the ‘real world’ can be just a beautiful, immersive, and horrific. While a large part of authors and reader use the novel for voyeurism and escape, the other part use the medium as a great shovel for treasure hunting and digging deep below to find the roots of society. One masterful example of this is Truman Capote’s ‘nonfiction novel’, which was the book of choice this week. 

    Built on interviews, newspaper articles, and official statements, In Cold Blood retells in ‘fictional novel form’ one of Kansas’ most brutal and disturbing murder cases of the 1950s, the massacre of an entire family in their home by two drifting misfits. Following the murder, the clueless hunt for the killers, the eventual arrest, the trial, and the execution, Capote explores the social war between ‘50s ‘ideal American culture’ and the rise of James Dean-esque ‘rebel’ culture. 

    Understandably controversial when it came out, considering that the trial was actually happening at the time of writing, Capote’s inspiration to make something artful out of something morbid and horrific is a touch pill to swallow. But In Cold Blood is a truly fascinating book! The prose is a wonderful mixture of poetic and factual language that reads like a fiction until it suddenly brings you back to earth with a reminder that this is a true story.

    I would image the controversial edge of the novel comes from the scenes in which Capote writes about the two villains, writing intimately from their POV, humanising them. Such literary treatment delightfully conflicts with the brutal and motiveless murder at the heart of the book.   

Image credit: Wikiquote

 But Capote does much more than just write a great nonfiction novel. Also skimming over other, similar murder cases, the book is an exploration into the protruding rifts in American society during the time, the main being the butting heads of the idealistic, wholesome, 1950’s ‘fellow American’ and the James Dean rebel. While there is also a slight exploration into mental illness and the criminally insane, the central theme of the book is simply the jealousies, resentments, and impatience of human nature and how even the most ‘normal’, socially stable, and mentally organised person can be brutal and cold. 

    An intriguing, rich, and compelling book, In Cold Blood certainly earns distinctions as one of the greatest examples of the nonfiction novel and true crime novel ever written!

Author: Truman Capote, 1965

Published: Random House (New York), 1966.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Image credit: Goodreads

Having completely loved the literary choice of last week, I decided to keep to similar realms this week and opted for Joan Lindsay’s Australian mystery classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock. What seemed like a good idea at the time, quickly turned into a spell of mystification, confusion, and wonderment, which I loved of course.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, written in 1967 with a statement charging the reader to decide whether the events are fact or fiction, is set in rural Australia in the year 1900 and considered a true classic mystery in Australian literature. It tells the story of a school excursion that ends in tragedy when three girls and a teacher mysteriously disappear whilst climbing the volcanic wonder that is Hanging Rock. One girl from the group returns in hysterics with no memory of what has happened to the others, and as no further clues are found to shed light on the mystery, the darkness and sinisterness of the affair begins to eat away at those involved with Appleyard College.

While it has been established that the events of Picnic at Hanging Rock are fictional, Lindsay’s geographical and period factuality brings an even deeper level of mystery to the already confusing narrative. As the tragic event of the disappearance takes place very early on, the remainder of the novel is devoted to how the mystery affects the girls’ college and those who work there. Gossip, scandal, and fear are the true villains of the piece, having some devastating effects on various supporting characters and causing the book to transcend the borders of crime fiction and mystery, into a whole new, undiscovered literary realm.

Image credit: Wikipedia

The writing itself is blended impressively between poeticism and ‘Aussie’ crassness and brutality, perfectly depicting the country’s history of colonialism, culture clash, and class discrepancies in education, economy, and social etiquette; in short, an unbalanced cultural identity. This too, brings some feelings of authenticity and reality to the piece, making one wonder whether the events detailed are true or not.

While it certainly goes in the opposite direction to what I was expecting coming from Lord of the Flies, nevertheless I found Picnic at Hanging Rock to be a most intriguing and fascinating book and a must-read for any advocates of Australian literature!

Author: Joan Lindsay, 1967

Published: First published in Australia by Cheshire Publishing, 1967. First published in Great Britain by Chatto and Windus, 1968.

Artemis Fowl

Image credit: Wikipedia

After some weeks of more ‘serious’ reading, I decided to jump back in to my little project of reading children’s classics that I missed out on. This week, my partner was kind enough to visit his parents and dig out his copies of the Artemis Fowl books. So that’s where I’ve been the last week, watching in fascination as a 12-year-old criminal genius extorts the faerie world.

Coming out round about the same time as J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Eoin Colfer treats young readers to a completely different type of adventure with Artemis Fowl. The book tells the story of a pre-pubescent criminal mastermind on a mission to steal a large sum of gold from the People, i.e. fairies. However, Artemis’ plan flawless plan take a turn he never expected when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon unit and Fowl Manor is placed under siege. Can Artemis outwit the fairies, or has he bitten off more than he chew?

Like Terry Pratchett and Derek Landy, Colfer’s novel is a truly fun reading experience for those starting out independently, taking a number of beloved genres and morphing them together into one great adventure. In this case, the result is an exciting fantasy heist novel.

Delightfully easy to read, and putting a modern twist on a lot of recognisable fairytale creatures and realms, the book is the perfect young-reader experience. It’s filled with instantly likeable characters, has a refreshing twist, as the protagonist is technically a bad guy, and there’s enough eloquently described toilet humour to keep it funny for everyone.

Image credit: HarperCollins Publishers

However, there are multiple thin layers to it that make it more than a mere fun, children’s fantasy book. Whilst Colfer doesn’t delve too much into the emotional makeup of his characters, there are certainly moments of deep emotional turmoil that occasionally come to the surface, and which promise to get developed in later novels, keeping readers on their toes.

While I read Harry Potter at the impressionable age of 11, I did not ever get around to Artemis Fowl, so now I am making up for lost time, and I have to say that I do regret not reading this at that tender age of independent literature consumption. This book is cute, fresh, funny, exciting, basically everything that a young-adult modern fantasy book should be.

Author: Eoin Colfer, 2001.

Published: Viking, the Penguin Group: Penguin Books (England), 2001.

The Godfather

Image credit: Amazon.in

This week on the couch, I took a walk on the wild side in with an Italian-American family living in post-War America and playing by their own rules. That’s right, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse and knuckled down to read The Godfather.

Mario Puzo’s classic gangster tale tells the story of the Corleone Family, a group of mafia living peacefully in New York until they are thrust into war with the other mafia Families when an assassination attempt is made on Don Vito Corleone’s (a.k.a. the Godfather’s) life. While he’s recovering from his injuries, the Family Business suffers and an all-out war ensues between the ruling mafia Families of New York, putting the Don and his sons in very real danger, both of death and of meeting their destinies.

I truly was not expecting to like The Godfather. I have seen the movies, liked them but can’t really remember much of what happens in them, and have come to the conclusion that, while the gangster genre is fun and full of intrigue, it’s not really my thing. However, I might need to rethink my stance on the genre when looking at it from a literary perspective.

Mario Puzo does this amazing job of creating the most incredible villain. Despite the fact that he has no respect for official structures of authority, women, and most of his fellow man, Vito Corleone is a man that you’re gunning for from page one. There’s this fantastic reflective symmetry in the way that Puzo describes his character as having immaculate charm and authority to gain the trust and respect of the inhabitants of the novel, and this works just as well on the reader, creating this dangerous attachment to a truly villainous man.

Image credit: Costa Nostra News

Alongside enveloping the reader in this intricate world where no one trusts one another (not even within blood families), Puzo does this remarkable job of completely perverting and subverting social ideals of right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad. By bringing the criminal syndicate into the spotlight, The Godfather poses so many questions about the nature of social attitudes, immigrant culture, and it then explores the effects of those questions in a sinister and, sometimes gory, way. The entire thing is marvellous!

The Godfather is a truly surprising book. With its crisp and accessible prose that makes intricate and complex plotlines readable, as well as its uncanny ability to make us gun for the bad guys, it’s one of those rare books that satisfies its readers with that feeling of being proven wrong by an incredibly smart person: there’s no shame or bitterness at liking this book even if ‘gangster’ is not your thing.

Author: Mario Puza

First published in Great Britain in1969 by William Heinemann Ltd.

The Dark Half

Image credit: Wikipedia

Creator signatures and styles are something that I always find fascinating in both film and literature. That excited spark of recognition as you see something from an author or director that is similar to their other works is a stamp or a token that –because you recognise it- gains you entry into this community of fandom and a certain deeper relationship with the creator.

There was definitely a large bit of that sort of thing happening this week, as I sat down and read Stephen King’s The Dark Half.

The book tells the story of writer, (classic King protagonist) Thaddeus Beaumont who has been publishing novels under two names and recently come out and laid his pseudonym to rest –literally. After a staged, metaphoric burial for the author formerly known as George Stark, a series of grizzly murders begin to happen. While the fashion of the murders is like something out of one of Stark’s novels, the real clincher is the fingerprints left at the scene: Thad’s. Suddenly Thad and his family are in very real danger, as it appears that Thad’s pseudonym has come to life and is intent on hunting down Thad in the hopes of forcing him to write him back into existence.

Straight away, the idea is very Stephen King right? A mixture of the scientific (though sometimes it feels like you need to suspend your belief a little bit) and supernatural, The Dark Half is an interesting exploration into the creative mental cavities of the writer’s mind as well as being something of a metaphor for irrational jealousies that can come with art, namely this idea that audiences can love the characters or the works you create under a false name more than the ones that are ‘truly’ you. I imagine there’s a fine, mental tightrope being walked in those cases, especially when it comes to fans of series. King explored this idea of ‘Sherlock Holmes Syndrome’ in Misery where the ‘number 1 fan’ of Paul Sheldon become none-too-friendly when she realised he’d killed off her favourite character. While The Dark Half levels up and makes the pseudonym both the villain and the catalyst for the narrative events, the idea of creator fragility and fan pressure stands starkly evident, driving the story and providing all of the drama.

Image credit: Yankee Magazine

While the idea itself is very interesting and enough to inspire readers to open the cover and dive into the world within, The Dark Half is far from one of the best of King’s works. While there is a level of fun in recognising author’s signatures in their characters or narrative tones, there’s also a level of ‘ugh, this again’, which can lead to a little bit of a soiled reading experience. There were many, many parts to this novel that made me groan and feel like it was a little bit too Stephen King. A few unique, but pretentious phrases here and there, a not so cohesive blend of science and supernatural, and blunt descriptions of graphic violence that characterised the scene, but didn’t really offer much else. In certain areas the prose feels clunky and somewhat forced, but to be fair one can argue that this gives the tale a certain sort of symmetry, mentally reflecting the fractured creative states of the two writers… though this is a thin argument.

Ultimately I enjoyed The Dark Half fine; it was an interesting idea that was succinctly transformed into a visually vibrant piece of literature, but some of King’s signature tricks and traits have a tendency to break the spell of voyeurism and bring you back down to earth with a thump, as you think ‘oh this just makes me want to reread Misery’ or ‘man, I feel like watching The Birds now.’

The Dark Half was written by Stephen King and first published by Viking Penguin in 1989.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Image credit: AbeBooks

Whilst I am a complete sucker for basically any form of literature, if I had to pick a favourite genre in a life-or-death situation, it would be gothic all the way. As old as the 1800s, gothic literature has evolved drastically over time, but has always retained its characteristic traits of excitement, macabre, sinister, and beauty. Secrets, mysteries, and unreliable narrators are a foolproof good read for me and with this passion at hand I recently plucked a copy of Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle from my shelf and buried myself in it…

Narrated by 18 year-old Mary Katherine ‘Merricat’ Blackwood, Castle tells the story of Merricat, her older sister Constance, and her Uncle Julian’s simple happy life in their isolated family home. Protective of Constance and slightly eccentric, Merricat devotes herself to preserving their delicate way of life, especially since Constance was on trial and acquitted of murdering the rest of their family six years ago. But distressing disruption occurs when their cousin Charles appears out of the blue for a visit and while he’s all smiles and charm, he appears to have an ulterior motive in coming.

I honestly might have to read this book again because I’m still not sure I understood what was going on. It’s wonderfully gothic with its themes of isolation, social anxiety, and fear of the Other, but it’s actually a very tricky book to grasp because of its myriad of intense deceptions: namely the unreliable narrator. Like James and Poe, Jackson instantly sets readers up for a bumpy ride with the book being written in the first person perspective of a character that, we quickly realise, is not entirely ‘normal’. While Merricat’s narration is crisp and sophisticated, there are hints of a fractured mind and her actions also indicate a disturbed mental state. Her strategic placing of protective talismans around the house as well as her constant burying of objects are characteristic of OCD and the sincerity and rationality with which she communicates her mind hint at schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder. The interesting, or frustrating, thing about the book is that no concrete evidence is given to tell you what Merricat actually is: mentally disabled, a witch, or dead? I’m still trying to decide.

This character and language deception is the car that Jackson drives us in through to the final page where there is still no destination in sight. Because of Merricat’s skewed perceptions of things and the isolation of the setting, it’s almost impossible to determine which characters to put our trust in. Uncle Julian is physically disabled and suffering from dementia, which throws a number of spanners in the works, and Constance also seems to suffer from OCD and PTSD as she spends all her time cooking and cleaning. Although Charles is obviously the villain he appears to be the only ‘sane’ person in the piece, which is actually not a very comforting thought.

Image credit: Time

Although the story centers on Merricat’s struggles to preserve her remaining family’s delicate existence when it’s threatened by Charles’ appearance, there is an ever present ripple of mystery throughout the book: who killed the rest of the family? It’s this compelling need to find the truth of the tragedy that keeps you reading on.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, despite being so small, is a rich and seriously complex book, one that (for me anyway) definitely warrants multiple readings. Perhaps I’ll research and reread it and then come back with a more concrete idea as to what is actually happening within its pages. Then again, where’s the intrigue if there’s no mystery?

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the final book written by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962 by Viking Press. Jackson died three years after it was published.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Following on from the weird and wonderful mess of interconnectedness that is the first Dirk Gently novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul again creates a recognisable London, but one where the strangest and sometimes most horrific things can happen. 

Beginning with a mysterious explosion at Heathrow airport, the book chronicles a bizarre chain of events that encompasses Dirk in a tangled case of impossible and legendary proportions including a bed-ridden Odin, an enraged Thor lumbering around town with a Coca Cola vending machine, strange eagles causing domestic disturbances, the delivery of pizza, and the removal of an old fridge. 

Praise of Douglas Adams. In a literary world where paranormal love triangles, and oppressive or dystopian stories are swallowed to prepare us for the impending apocalypse and awkward social interactions with vamps and werewolves it will obviously entail, fresh, funny, intelligent, and indeed weird is truly the way to go. 

Gods have been reappearing in contemporary culture quite keenly of late, Thor being the most prominent as he’s a smouldering specimen that makes up a part of Marvel’s Avengers. They’ve also popped up in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, as well as Gaiman’s American Gods, which has been turned into a series. 

Adams’ approach to representing immortals in contemporary society is both sad, but highly believable. In a world where no one believes or has need to believe in gods, the poor creatures just exist as tramps and bag-ladies: people without identities who must live off what they can scavenge. Without birth certificates or passports, in our world these guys literally don’t exist and it’s quite a clever scene in the book where Dirk actually ponders this and then a sadder one when he discovers that St. Pancras Station is filled with homeless immortals. 

Unlike the detective story vibe of the first novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is really more of a shit-happens novel. Whilst it begins with a clear detective beginning: a gruesome murder, it slowly takes the genre and completely dismantles it so as to become something else entirely. By the climax, you’re rather confused as to how the murder is connected to the ‘Acts of God’ that are happening around the city, the only link being a green guy with a contract and a scythe. It takes the form of more of a revenge story, building up this wonderful tension and suspense, which then somehow diffuses during the climax in a way that you don’t see coming. 

Come to think of it, that’s the brilliance of this novel: so much stuff happens and is connected by all these little things like a Sherlock Holmes story, except that Adams doesn’t let you see the connection. He doesn’t even give you a tiny insignificant lick of a hint that something might be significant to the story, so you don’t go ‘ohhh’ until right at the end. 

There are still sections that I’m confused about, but what I do know is that I absolutely was hooked by this novel: it made me laugh, exclaim excitedly in public (I read as I walk to work), and speak aloud to myself. The brilliance is in its bizarreness and if you’re a reader who can just read and let the words take you somewhere, then I would highly recommend The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. 

Author: Douglas Adams 

Published: 1988, William Heinemann Ltd

The Girl on the Train

Who doesn’t love a good thriller with an unreliable narrator? The Girl on the Train is exactly this! The first thriller from journalist Paula Hawkins, which has now been made into a great film starring Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train is a fantastic and dark whodunit mystery told from the perspectives of three different women, all of which are unreliable or biased narrators. 

The book tells the story of Rachel, a divorced alcoholic who travels back and forth from London on the train every day. Along the track she always passes her old house, now occupied by her ex-husband and his new wife, Anna, as well as that of seemingly perfect couple Megan and Scott Hipwell. One morning she witnesses Megan kissing someone other than her husband, shattering her perfect illusion of her. That same day Megan goes missing and Rachel becomes embroiled in the mystery as the police say witnesses saw her in the area around the time of Megan’s disappearance. Try as she might, Rachel can’t remember anything she did that night, it’s all lost in a drunken blackout. But as Megan stays missing, it becomes an obsession for Rachel to find out what happened to her. 

Perhaps what is best about this book is how it takes the trope of the unreliable narrator, a timeless thriller technique used my many successful authors including Poe and James, and amps it up to 11. Whilst a predominant portion of the story is told by Rachel, an obvious flawed narrator due to her alcoholism, the rest of the story is split between the perspectives of Megan; the promiscuous maiden cheating on her husband, and Anna; the woman who stole Rachael’s husband. 

All three women work against one another as well as themselves to flesh out the mystery of the story and really bring out its complexities. Rachel is unreliable because she was drunk and cannot remember the events of the evening in question. Megan as a character is unreliable, as we see by her promiscuous behaviour, but also as a narrator as she withholds a lot of information about herself from the reader. Considering that the book is written in the first person in a diary-like way, the fact that Megan is still elusive and never really opens up (until it’s too late) makes her intriguing, but flaky. And then Anna’s unreliability stems from her hatred and fear of Rachel. Her chapters read more as a rant with Rachel haunting most of her thoughts. A haunted, angry, and slightly paranoid character, Anna pins everything on Rachel and pushes the reader in that direction too. 

This technique of three conflicting narrators is really great because it actually works to dissuade you from trying to tease out clues as to what really happened to Megan and so when the truth is revealed, it comes as a pretty substantial shock. 

What I loved too about the book was its tone during Rachel’s chapters in the beginning. As soon as the thriller aspect really gets rolling, the tone changes a bit and becomes less intrinsically personal, but during the opening chapters Rachel’s sections about the state of her life, her thoughts and whatnot, actually created a depressed drunken buzz in me! It’s hard to pinpoint what stimulated such a feeling, but as I was reading I felt the same as Rachel, my emotions actually mirrored that of the character I was reading about. I applaud Hawkins for that, I really do! 

The Girl on the Train is a captivating read; a modern whodunit thriller where the classic tropes of plot misdirection and the unreliable narrator get up-scaled for extra indulgence, I absolutely loved this book!

Author: Paula Hawlins

Published: 2015