Flaxmere Library Book Chat Recommends

Just because it’s getting close to Christmas doesn’t mean the reading is slowing down! Flaxmere Book Chat had another bumper harvest of recommendations this month, with gripping crime fiction, sweeping historical tales, and a few romantic escapes. Here’s what caught our attention:

Among the crime fiction were a couple of gripping Aussie outback mysteries. Skull River is the second book in Pip Fioretti’s series about a mounted trooper in New South Wales gold mining country. It’s the autumn of 1912 when Gus Hawkins is ambushed by a gunman, his junior officer shot dead, his police station burnt to the ground. Still traumatised from service in the Boer War, Gus is going to have to dig deep to find who is responsible. The Book Chat members love this series for its historical interest and characters.

Mischance Creek by Garry Disher is the latest mystery featuring Paul (Hirsch) Hirschhausen, a sole-charge officer in a small outback town, who is just checking firearms around the community when he discovers a clueless tourist who has run her car into a ditch. Only Annika isn’t really a tourist, she’s trying to find the body of her mother who went missing seven years ago. A bungled initial police investigation has Hirsch taking on a cold case to help bring Annika some closure. Another brilliant read.

Another highly rated novel was An Inside Job, a thriller by Daniel Silva, part of a series following retired spy turned art restorer Gabriel Allon. The discovery of the body of a woman connected with an important portrait from the Vatican museum sees Gabriel in a race to recover a lost artwork by Leonardo da Vinci. There’s a ton of action moving from Rome to the auction houses of London, the French Riviera and back to Venice, so plenty to enjoy here.

Many of Karin Slaughter’s mysteries deal with sexual abuse, which is the case with This Is Why We Lied. The setting is a mountain lodge where people escape their everyday lives, and even their identities, for some luxury accommodation. Two of the guests have experience in crime: GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, who are on their honeymoon. But when the lodge manager Mercy McAlpine is murdered, suddenly they’re back on the job.

Nora Roberts is well-known for her romantic fiction, but her occasional mysteries are well worth picking up. In Hidden Nature, Sloan Cooper is a cop on sickness leave, back in her hometown. When a local woman mysteriously vanishes from a supermarket carpark, Sloan’s interest is piqued. Convinced this is an abduction, she begins to investigate, finding other disappearances of people with nothing obvious in common. This was a brilliant story, says our reader.

Identity, also by Nora Roberts, follows Army brat Morgan, taken in by a conman targeting particular kinds of woman and stealing their assets and identity. When Morgan’s roommate is murdered, she flees to her mother’s home and tries to rebuild her life. This was a promising story, ruined by poor editing and a character who behaves like an idiot.

Along Came a Spider is one of the Alex Cross series by prolific author, James Patterson. When two children are kidnapped from a private school, Cross is on the case. The kidnapper is their maths teacher, but as Cross investigates, he finds he’s not all that he seems. Our reader enjoyed the character of Alex Cross, and felt the psychology of the perpetrator was better developed than in other Patterson novels they'd read.

In The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans, Estella has returned to the home she ran away from years before, picking up the work of her late, domineering father, a college teacher who had hosted artists and scholars for decades. Her mother has disappeared and there are rumours and secrets about them both. Can the answers lie in her father’s library of rare books? This is an interesting read, a spy story taking you back to WWII.

Danielle Steel is another prolific author, still coming up with interesting stories. Silent Night follows a showbusiness family, with young Paige Watts a child star by the age of nine. Tragedy sees Paige being adopted by her Aunt Whitney, a psychologist who determines to help heal her niece, now left unable to speak. The book delves into the world of stardom and follows a character trying to make a new life for herself.

A Beautiful Way to Die by Eleni Kyriacou also takes us to Hollywood, but this time we’re in 1953. Ginny is the latest starlet to turn heads, including legendary actor Max. His wife Stella was once a famous actress too, but now ousted to Ealing Studios following her divorce. Blackmail and an historic mistake bring the two women together. This thriller was a brilliant and original story with a shocking ending.

The historical fiction continued with The Winter Belle by Dilly Court, which takes us back to Victorian England. Kitty’s family has fallen on hard times, their father ill on another continent, and money falling through her mother’s fingers like sand. Kitty plans to make use of her talents as an artist, selling her portraits at a Soho bazaar. Things worsen when Kitty’s sister makes an error of judgement and their mother is swindled out of everything they have. Can Kitty rescue her family?

Madeleine Bunting takes us to Guernsey in the Channel Islands during WWII in Island Song. Helene, young and recently married, farewells her husband who has enlisted in the British army. When the Germans invade, life changes enormously for those left behind. Forty years later, Helene’s daughter Roz is eager to discover the truth about her father. The book explores the psychological toll of living with the enemy. Much recommended by our reader.

In The Midnight Secret by Karen Swan we’re swept off to Scotland and the island of St Kilda at the time when many islanders were leaving to resettle on the mainland. Jayne Ferguson has a kind of second sight, but she only foresees the deaths of other people on the island. Caught in an unhappy marriage, Jayne keeps her gift to herself, but the tension rises with a needless death and she makes an unlikely friend. Another brilliant read in Swan's series of Wild Isle novels.

A Caribbean island is the setting for The Honeymoon Affair by Sheila O’Flanagan. Izzy is here on a vacation that ought to have been her honeymoon, only her fiancé broke her heart. Charles is a successful writer also on holiday, following a recent split from his wife who is also his agent. The two find themselves drawn to each other, but are things too complicated for their affair to be a good idea? An interesting read with lots of detail about the world of publishing.

One reader wasn’t planning on reading a Mills and Boon novel and picked up The Viscount Who Vexed Me by Julia London. This historical romance follows plain-Jane Harriet who is trying to make a life for herself. Mateo is the newly minted Italian viscount society is talking about who needs help with his correspondence. The two meet over books and penmanship. A complicated romance ensues in true M& B style.

That's it for Flaxmere Library Book Chat for another year. Our next meeting is January 6th at 10:30am. All welcome!

Posted by JAM

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