Episode 237
(A reminder of the People’s Choice plan. Once a month or so, I shall list the four oldest books on the TBR, then the next four, and so on, and each time you will select the one you think I should read, either because you’ve read and enjoyed it, or because you think the blurb looks good. And I will read the one you pick within three months! If I begin to fall behind, I’ll have a gap till I catch up again. In the event of a tie, I’ll have the casting vote.)
OK, time for the next batch of four! These are all books that I added to my TBR in 2014 and it appears to be a crime week, purely by chance since I’m selecting them in strict order of acquisition. Three of these are authors I’d read and enjoyed before and the books were added as catch-ups (that worked well, eh?), while the fourth, The Cry, was added because it was getting so many rave reviews back then. I will read and review this month’s winner by the end of July.
Are you ready? Then, on your marks…get set…GO!
Crime
Punishment by Anne Holt
Added 1st January 2014. 3,021 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.70 average rating. 384 pages.
The Blurb says: One afternoon after school, nine-year-old Emilie doesn’t come home. Her father finds the backpack from her late mother, that would never be abandoned willingly. A week later, a five-year-old boy goes missing. And then another child.
Meanwhile, Johanna Vik, a former FBI profiler with a troubled past and a difficult young daughter, tries to overturn a decades-old false murder conviction. Police Commissioner Stubo lost his wife and daughter, has only his grandson left, and needs to solve the case. Johanna resists helping until the bodies return to their homes with notes “You got what you deserved”.
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Crime
The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald
Added 1st January 2014. 4,274 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.79 average. 307 pages.
The Blurb says: When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world.
Lies, rumours and guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna and Alistair, to slowly turn against each other.
Finally Joanna starts thinking the unthinkable: could the truth be even more terrible than she suspected? And what will it take to make things right?
The Cry is a dark psychological thriller with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart and characters who will keep you guessing on every page.
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Crime
The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Added 22nd January 2014. 3,100 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.67 average. 388 pages.
The Blurb says: An abandoned yacht, a young family missing – chilling crime from the queen of Nordic Noir.
The most chilling novel yet from Yrsa Sigurdardottir, an international bestseller at the height of her powers.
‘Mummy dead.’ The child’s pure treble was uncomfortably clear. It was the last thing Brynjar – and doubtless the others – wanted to hear at that moment. ‘Daddy dead.’ It got worse. ‘Adda dead. Bygga dead.’ The child sighed and clutched her grandmother’s leg. ‘All dead.’
A luxury yacht arrives in Reykjavik harbour with nobody on board. What has happened to the crew, and to the family who were on board when it left Lisbon?
Thora Gudmundsdottir is hired by the young father’s parents to investigate, and is soon drawn deeper into the mystery. What should she make of the rumours saying that the vessel was cursed, especially given that when she boards the yacht she thinks she sees one of the missing twins? Where is Karitas, the glamorous young wife of the yacht’s former owner? And whose is the body that has washed up further along the shore?
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Crime
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths
Added 3rd July 2014. 17,758 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.92 average. 328 pages.
The Blurb says: It’s been only a few months since archaeologist Ruth Galloway found herself entangled in a missing persons case, barely escaping with her life. But when construction workers demolishing a large old house in Norwich uncover the bones of a child beneath a doorway—minus its skull—Ruth is once again called upon to investigate. Is it a Roman-era ritual sacrifice, or is the killer closer at hand?
Ruth and Detective Harry Nelson would like to find out—and fast. When they realize the house was once a children’s home, they track down the Catholic priest who served as its operator. Father Hennessey reports that two children did go missing from the home forty years before—a boy and a girl. They were never found. When carbon dating proves that the child’s bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn ever more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer it becomes clear that someone is trying very hard to put her off the trail by frightening her, and her unborn child, half to death.
The Janus Stone is a riveting follow-up to Griffiths’ acclaimed The Crossing Places.
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(Click on title and then remember to also click on Vote, or your vote won’t count!)
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NB All blurbs and covers taken from Goodreads or Amazon UK.
