The Mangle Street Murders - a punt that paid off!

Don't you just love it when a complete punt on a book written by an author you've never heard of pays off. I am pleased to report that this has been my experience with The Mangle Street Murders, by M.R.C. Kasasian. Set in 1880s London, Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective and rampant tea-drinker, has become the guardian of his god daughter, March Middleton. He begrudgingly welcomes her into his home, but doesn't particularly like what he sees. And as far as March is concerned, the feeling is entirely mutual! He is set in his ways, opinionated, critical and unbending in his feelings of superiority to everyone else, particularly women. She is smart, sensitive and determined. Needless to say, their relationship does not get off to a good start, and it is almost a relief to them both when Sidney is called out by Inspector Pound to interview a man suspected of murdering his wife in the bloodiest of fashions. He is convinced of his guilt, but March is not. When she persuades her guardian to investigate further, she tags along and together they follow the twists and turns of what is a great plot. This is a book that really does keep you guessing and where nothing is as it seems. Lots of clues are revealed that seem to lead one way only for them to end up leading somewhere else. The back story to both lead characters is only partially revealed and leaves you wanting more. They are often at loggerheads, giving the author plenty of opportunity to give the reader incredibly entertaining and spiky exchanges. As the body count mounts (it is a crime thriller after all), and the blood starts to flow, there is still an immense amount of humour to keep things from getting too dark. The audio edition I read was presented exceptionally well by Emma Gregory, who I thought brought the correct level of vigour to this Victorian romp. The author has created an interesting and entertaining crime-fighting duo and it comes as no surprise that this book is just the first of their adventures in The Gower Street Detective Series. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 336 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.92.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; unabridged audio CD; ebook.

Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay - not always so sweet!

When she was eleven, Amory Clay's father returned from the trenches of the First World War. But his experiences had broken him, and he was no longer the father who used to stand on his head just to amuse his family. Never was this more obvious than when he came to her school to take her out on a trip, and then drove the car into a lake in an attempted suicide. They both survived the ordeal and it may have been this event which triggered Amory to live her life to the full, which she definitely goes on to do. She loves photography and, despite all opposition, sets out to become a professional photographer with the help of her Uncle Greville. This profession takes her to 1920's Berlin, 1930's New York, the blackshirt riots in London and then, as a war photographer, to the Second World War. The reader gets to view her life while she is reflecting upon them as she compiles a journal during 1977. In her memoir, she relates the most intimate moments in an unflinching and unsentimental way - the way I imagine a photojournalist of the time would indeed take a picture - you shoot what's there, nothing more, nothing less. This, for me, sometimes made it hard for me to like Amor, but I did warm to her in the end. We hear about her lovers, the near-death experiences she had trying to get the shots she needed, and also her family. We also get a bit of the Vietnam War thrown in for good measure, almost as a last hurrah for a much older Amory. Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay is by no means a perfect book and I have to admit that I wasn't totally convinced by the ending. You do get to see much of the main events of the 20th Century through the lens of a female photographer, which is different, but at the same time, not totally believable that this one character would get to be there at all those crucial moments. Don't get me wrong, William Boyd is a tremendous author, and many of the passages were a joy to read, but for me, there were not enough of these to really make me gush about this book. I wish I'd liked it more!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 465 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.92.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest - food, family and friendship

I have found Kitchens of the Great Midwest a hard book to categorise. At the beginning, it seems to be about a food loving chef whose wife leaves him, literally, holding the baby. He determines to bring his beautiful daughter up by himself, without bad-mouthing her mother ... but just as you are settling into this, the chef dies! What? Where's this going thought I. We then find out what happens to the baby ... one Eva Thorvald ... throughout the remainder of the book, by following a disparate and seemingly unconnected set of characters whose lives intersect with Eva. Each of these stories is perfectly drawn and apparently independent, so much so that you start to wonder what the heck they have got to do with the story. But somewhere down the line, up pops Eva, sometimes in person, and sometimes just in conversation. Whilst Eva features in all these "chapters", the absolute core to the book and the glue which binds them altogether is food. In fact, so important is the food element, that there is a liberal sprinkling of the recipes written out in full of the dishes cooked by the various characters. It is a study of the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people ... of whom one thing is common to all ... how important food is to our identity. We really are the food we cook and the food we eat. In this, his first novel, J. Ryan Stradal has given us what feels like a personal and enjoyable read, and I might just be trying some of those enticing recipes that got my taste buds tingling in anticipation!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 400 print pages.

Price I paid: £0.00 for the ebook which was on an offer at the time.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.