The Doll's House by Evelyn Anthony

Description from Amazon:

A female Intelligence agent is dispatched to spy on a group of retired spooks engaging in international terrorism in this post–Cold War thriller

 

After three decades serving king and country, fifty-one-year-old Harry Oakham is put out to pasture with a miserly pension. But the former civil servant has his own ideas for his so-called retirement. He settles into a luxury hotel in the English countryside and rounds up a disgruntled crew of the world’s most brilliant ex-spooks, including a German expert in counter-espionage and interrogation, a KGB tactician, a former Mossad terrorist, and a lethal blond killer. Hiring themselves out to the highest bidder, their first job is the assassination of a Saudi prince.

 

Meanwhile, still smarting from a recent divorce, undercover diplomat-turned-agent Rosa Bennet has been dispatched to the Doll’s House to spy on Oakham and make sure the retired agent is adapting to civilian life. The last thing the Intelligence agent expects is to fall in love with her target. And when Oakham’s recruits get wind of his affair with Rosa—and her true identity—they will devise a plan to eliminate the traitor in their midst.

 

This was a DNF for me. I was in the library about to check out another book when it didn’t want to go through the system so I grabbed the next book under “A” and just took it because of the title. It didn’t even have a dust jacket so I had no idea what it was about.

 

I can’t believe it was only written ten years ago as the writing feels very old. It’s set post-Cold War, so I see where the interactions are supposed to fit in with the time period but the dialogue is just odd. Straight away it starts off with enemies about to work together against the countries that no longer had use for them, couples unhappy in marriages and either having affairs or about to divorce, and women being resented for wanting to pursue careers. Lots of characters and situations to keep up with from the get-go.

 

I hate not finishing books as the author has taken the time to write them and it’s usually a labour of love but in this instance I’d rather read something I know I’ll enjoy to the end and not regret having spent “wasted time”. This might be fabulous for others but just not for me…

Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan

Description from Amazon

Madame Burova – Tarot Reader, Palmist and Clairvoyant is retiring and leaving her booth on the Brighton seafront after fifty years.

 

Imelda Burova has spent a lifetime keeping other people's secrets and her silence has come at a price. She has seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Her cards had unmasked them all and her cards never lied. But Madame Burova is weary of other people's lives, their ghosts from the past and other people's secrets, she needs rest and a little piece of life for herself. Before that, however, she has to fulfill a promise made a long time ago. She holds two brown envelopes in her hand, and she has to deliver them.

 

In London, it is time for another woman to make a fresh start. Billie has lost her university job, her marriage, and her place in the world when she discovers something that leaves her very identity in question. Determined to find answers, she must follow a trail which might just lead right to Madame Burova's door.

 

In a story spanning over fifty years, Ruth Hogan conjures a magical world of 1970s holiday camps and seaside entertainers, eccentrics, heroes and villains, the lost and the found. Young people, with their lives before them, make choices which echo down the years. And a wall of death rider is part of a love story which will last through time.

 

What a magical tale! I absolutely loved it! The easy-to-read writing conjured up visions of the holiday camp at Larkins and the fabulous people who worked there. From a gin-drinking contortionist, to the enchanting mermaids, to the smoky-voiced singer, to the people who run it all behind the scenes. Each character had their place and they all fitted in perfectly.

 

The main story is around Imelda and Billie and the quest to find answers and the way that people are brought back into the picture from so many years ago who somehow still fit together is delightful. The main theme has so many side themes including bullying, sexual harassment, reaching for your dreams, and simply love, that makes the time jumps between chapters feel like you are living it all with them.

 

It was a light holiday read, which meant that sometimes things were not gone into as deeply as I would have liked, but it was still fun to read, nonetheless. A happy ending? I'm not sure... but the journey was good.

The Satanic Mechanic (Tannie Maria Mysteries #2)

Description from Amazon: (Yes I know I’m getting lazy doing my own descriptions – just been super busy!)

Tannie Maria, our crime-fighting, food-loving heroine, returns to solve another delicious caper: the mystery of her own romantic future.

Tannie Maria—recipe writer turned crime fighter—barely has time to return to her cooking and advice column for the local Gazette when she finds herself embroiled in another whodunnit—Slimkat the Bushman’s life is being threatened, and Tannie Maria is determined to find out who wants to kill him. The nature reserve beside the Kuruman River has been awarded as ancestral land to the Bushmen, also known as the San people, and a host of greedy parties, like diamond miners and cattle companies, are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them from claiming it.

Add to the mix that Tannie Maria is also trying to overcome her own hangups in love with her boyfriend, the rugged detective Lieutenant Henk Kannymeyer, and—for the first time in her life—to go on a diet, there is no shortage of conundrums personal and professional for an amateur sleuth to confront in this delightful, warm-hearted sequel. 

 

I watched the series Recipes for Love and Murder not realizing it was based on a book, and when I found the sequel (plus another two) in the library, I was so happy! It was odd reading it, though, seeing as the characters were different from how they were portrayed on tv and the main character was from Ireland and not South Africa!

I could picture the Karoo sunsets with some moerkoffie and a beskuit (I am rather partial to rusks, myself) and hear the sound of the birds in the background. Okay and the chickens too. The scenes around the fire where they were doing the healing and Maria’s visions were very well described.

I liked the relationship between Henk and Maria and the ups and downs it went through in him trying to protect her and her trying to face her past and protect herself. In fact, the relationships between all of the characters and how their pasts fitted into the present was quite the little puzzle. So many external factors played a part like mental health, nature conservation, ancestral land, and responsible journalism.

I still love the way Maria links a recipe to each of her “Agony Aunt” letters and how the contents of the letters might not be what they initially seem. That the recipes are included after is great, but some of the ingredients (while yes, they can be picked up at Spar,) are rather expensive to be using them as she uses them, plus sometimes eating them in one go would definitely put strain on a reporter’s salary! I like her advocating for the use of a Wonderbag™ in place of a hotbox.

The basis of the story about ancestral land and rights is an important underlying story and the “South Africanisms” used are just so lekker local! A glossary might help some people – and, as always, the inevitable explanation of now/now-now/just-now.

I can’t wait for the next two!

Sleep by MK Boers

Description from Amazon:

A marriage made in heaven, a murder made in hell.

Why kill the man you love?

A whydunnit rather than a whodunnit, Sleep follows a woman on trial for killing her husband and his lover. Was it premeditated, a crime of passion, or a moment of madness? Told through a series of flashbacks and testimony, the struggles that Lizzy Dyson faced are revealed.

A suspense-filled psychological thriller, domestic noir, and courtroom drama. Sleep is a story about heartbreak and betrayal, and reveals what can drive a woman to murder.

 

Plenty to love in this and plenty to be iffy about too. I thought the story was very well done and going into the understanding of why Lizzy did what she did made you really wonder what kind of place she was in to feel like that. How far a person had to be pushed to do what she did. Don’t get me wrong – she still committed murder and did some dodgy actions herself, but it is interesting to see exactly where the breaking point was. It makes you question what you would do if everyone around you was laughing at you knowing your husband was sleeping around and telling you to “get over” five miscarriages.

 

The things that were iffy were, first, the grammar and punctuation mistakes. Gosh, but they were off-putting. Nothing like interrupting the flow of reading when things jump out at you. Then, as other reviewers mentioned, a lot of conversations were repeated and you ended up skipping over sections. The court proceedings could have used a bit of an overhaul too.

 

But overall I enjoyed the story as it was a different take on a woman who knows she is guilty and how she got there. I guess the title had to do with her being asleep her whole life and only waking up when she is finally ready to face the truth.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

Description from Amazon:

Frances Adams always said she’d be murdered. She was right.

In 1965, Frances Adams is at an English country fair where a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. It is a prediction that sparks her life’s work—trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet.

Nearly sixty years later, Annie Adams is summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is found murdered, just like she always said she would be. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder.

Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer? As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

 

So this started off as a rollicking good detective mystery, and I loved the time changes where we got to see Frances’s diary and the events of 1966 as well as the shift to present times. The fact that some of the characters were still around and how their personalities had stayed the same or changed made for a good competition to solve the murder.

 

But then the characters and their places in the story started feeling weird. Like they had been written into spots just for their name to appear so that you, as the reader, think to link them to that section. Some were downright silly and some tried to appear all-knowing yet contributed nothing. So here you have Annie, a wannabe writer, who is somehow able to contribute more to the case than the cops themselves. And, amazingly enough, is able to find the murder weapon the cops missed and removes it from the crime scene to hand it in even though it could do the same to her?

 

The story behind the story alongside the story just became too much. Like someone had taken different puzzles and forced them into each other trying to make it fit as a pretty picture. When I got to the end, I went back to see if pages had been torn out. All of that for that ending? It was a big buildup about what Annie was going to do and then in two pages it was done. With holes in things that were huge and tangents flying wildly in the breeze. So much that was forced together just to say it was done. I almost feel cheated as I really expected something that could rival Knives Out or one of the Murder Club Mysteries… but no… (Edited to add that I wish the author had punctuated direct speech properly, too! Commas before the person being addressed is a must and the missing ones made me cringe every single time!)

Take it Back by Kia Abdullah

Description taken from Amazon:

IT’S TIME TO TAKE YOUR PLACE ON THE JURY.

The victim: A sixteen-year-old girl with facial deformities, neglected by an alcoholic mother. Who accuses the boys of something unthinkable.

The defendants: Four handsome teenage boys from hardworking immigrant families. All with corroborating stories.

WHOSE SIDE WOULD YOU TAKE?

 

I love a good legal thriller, and this one definitely hit a lot of areas, ranging from alcoholism, gender inequality, rape, religion, the media, and the judicial system.

Zara Kaleel makes for a good main character in that she has a very deep sense of justice and is focused on doing what is right, no matter how others perceive her. Her journey, both in the legal and familial sense, shows her desire to help and the lengths she will go to do this. When she is approached by Jodie, a white girl with facial deformities, who admits to her that she was raped after a party by four Muslim boys in her school, she wants justice for Jodie, not knowing the twists and turns she will be facing on her path.

Thereafter starts a she said/he said journey where Zara’s desire to prove Jodie’s story lands her in a world of hate from her own community while Jodie suffers the hostility of a hate campaign from both her mother and best friend. This moves out in waves through broader communities where religion and race take centre stage. As a reader you move back and forth between believing Jodie or not as each piece of evidence comes forward, and you find yourself disgusted by the lies and manipulation.

The depth of the hatred was vivid and made for a harrowing read. So when the end arrives, you aren’t quite sure what to expect. And even after that… well, you’ll have to read it!