My Year in Books 2022: December

It's my final book review post of the year, and - as quite often happens with December - it's a long one. I took a lot of books away on holiday in December, and then I read quite a lot in the week between Christmas and New Year. As you'll see, my December habit of reading either festive books or murder mysteries was strong this year!

In case you're interested, here are my other posts from 2022: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

Villager by Tom Cox (2022)

I’ve read a bit of publicity for Villager, so I knew it was Cox’s debut novel, his previous writing being non-fiction, memoir and short stories. I was a bit surprised when I started reading it, though, as it felt (at first) more like a collection of short stories, loosely linked by a sense of place. And, in some ways, that’s what Villager is. The place is a fictional Dartmoor village called Underhill. Each chapter is a snapshot of Underhill at a particular time (each is subtitled with a date, from past to present to future). Alternatively, each chapter is a standalone story about a particular resident of Underhill, told in first-person from multiple perspectives. Nevertheless, this is very much a novel. There’s an overarching story linking the stories together – that of the land itself and the way it is both changing and unchanging over time (and one of the narrators is the land itself) – but there’s also a very human story about the ways in which the lives of the various narrators intersect and coalesce around the life and music of folk musician R.J. McKendree. I really enjoyed the quirky way the stories gently and gradually came together, and I also really liked the different storytelling styles used to conjure the world of Underhill, particularly the use of diaries and (at one point) an online messageboard that was so convincing it made me laugh out loud. An idiosyncratic tale that really does justice to the landscape that has inspired it.

Violet by SJI Holliday (2019)

The next book was one I stumbled upon when I was researching content for my radio show, and it looked like it was right up my street. And, on the whole, it was. Violet takes place during a journey of the Trans-Siberian Express. Two women meet up and travel together, but one of them isn’t who she says she is. Intriguing. Holliday’s book begins with Violet finding herself alone in Beijing after falling out with her boyfriend in Thailand. She meets up with another solo traveller, Carrie, who was meant to be on the holiday of a lifetime with her best friend, but her travelling companion broke her leg shortly before they were meant to make the trip. Violet and Carrie agree to travel together, but – as I’ve said – one of them isn’t being honest about who she is. To be brutally honest, it is pretty obvious from the start which one of them isn’t being honest. Violet has strong shades of another book that I’m worried about mentioning for fear of spoilers (though at least one of the blurbs on the cover namechecks it), and once you have that in mind, you can work out exactly what’s going on. Nevertheless, the book makes up for the rather obvious plotline with some wonderfully evocative descriptions of the journey Carrie and Violet take through Mongolia and into Siberia. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book, which really focuses on the way the two women’s relationship builds as they travel.

Don't Look Back by Ben Cheetham (2018)

I bought this one ages ago, but I saved it for our pre-Christmas holiday to Cornwall, as it’s set in Lizard (and that’s where we were going). Cheetham’s novel is about Adam Piper, a writer who, at the beginning, is living in London with his wife Ella and their twin sons Jacob and Henry. In the first chapter, a horrific accident kills Jacob and almost kills Henry, leaving Adam grief- and guilt-stricken. The next chapter picks up nine months later, when Ella spots a strange advert in the paper. A woman named Rozen Trehearne is looking for tenants for her house (Fenton House) in Lizard. Prospective tenants are asked to complete a questionnaire and, not only with the successful applicant secure tenancy of Fenton House, but they will also live their rent-free for the rest of their lives. Adam completes the questionnaire and is surprised to be offered an interview with Miss Trehearne. He’s even more surprised when his family is offered the tenancy. Is Miss Trehearne’s offer too good to be true? Well, yes, of course it is (otherwise it would have been a very short book). It’s not long after the Pipers move into Fenton House that strange (and quite unsettling) things start to happen. I have to say, the ultimate explanation stretches incredulity a bit, but (as with Violet) the book makes up for it with its description of location. I particularly liked the depiction of Lizard Village on the day of the Pipers’ interview – very memorable!

Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson (2021)

This next one is a book I talked about on my radio show last Christmas, but I didn’t get chance to read it for fun until this year. Stay Another Day (as the title might hint) is a Christmas book. The McAllister siblings (twins Fern and Rowan, and younger sister Willow) are back together in the family home for Christmas, but secrets under the surface are threatening to spill out all over the turkey. Fern and Rowan have been living away from home for the past year, and they’ve each returned with a new friend/partner and a new sense of their own identity. Willow has been at home, as she’s recovering from an eating disorder, and isn’t looking forward to a big family Christmas. What I enjoyed about this book is that it’s sort of the literary equivalent of a Christmas film – not the sort of thing I’d choose for most of the year, but just right for the festive season. Obviously, I’m reading as someone older than the target audience, but that really didn’t matter. There’s a lot for the forty-something reader to enjoy in Stay Another Day, as the affectionate (but gently critical) portrayal of the newly independent nineteen-year-old twins bursting back into the family home with their ‘adult’ identities will evoke plenty of nostalgia (and cringe) in those of us looking in the rear-view mirror (or is that just me?). Ultimately, the book is both joyous and honest about Christmas, and I really enjoyed it for that.

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz (2019)

I’m reading this series out of order, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I read A Line to Kill, the third in the series, back in May, and I really enjoyed it. This month, I read The Sentence is Death, which is the second in the series. (I still haven’t read the first one, by the way.) Have to say, I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to read this series. I fell in love with this book from the very first page – I think I liked it even more than A Line to Kill. The premise of the series is that ‘Anthony Horowitz’ (the fictionalized version of the author who serves as the series narrator) teams up with a former police officer called Hawthorne to solve puzzling crimes. The series is very meta – in the second book, ‘Anthony Horowitz’ is in the process of writing the first book in the series – and chock-full of references to Horowitz’s actual writing career. This book starts with a just beautiful description of filming of an episode of Foyle’s War that’s a treat for fans of the series (like me!). But, the series is more than just a gimmick. These are really good murder mysteries, with great clues and some wonderful red herrings. In this book, Hawthorne and Horowitz have to solve the baffling murder of a high-profile divorce lawyer. There are some very clever touches here, one of which made me shout out loud when realization hit. Highly recommended!

The Gift by Louise Jensen (2021)

This is one that I picked up on the charity bookshelf at my local supermarket. I’m not sure why I added it to my festive reading pile (as it was quite clear from the blurb that the titular ‘gift’ was definitely not a Christmas present). I think I just knew that I’d want a bit of a change of pace at some point during our holiday. Jensen’s novel is a domestic thriller. The protagonist is Jenna, a young woman who is given a heart transplant. Against all instructions, Jenna makes contact with the family of the donor, who she discovers was a woman called Callie. Jenna comes to believe that Callie’s death – supposedly the result of a car crash – wasn’t an accident at all, and that there’s something suspicious going on behind closed doors in the family, particularly with Callie’s sister Sophie. This was a pretty quick and easy read, but I don’t think it’s one that’ll stick with me. The pacing and style are just right for the genre, but the story itself is pretty overblown and implausible. Character behaviour and motivation is generally hard to swallow, and the overall plot relies on a fairly ‘out there’ theory and a hefty dose of cliché. As a result, it’s quite difficult to really get behind Jenna’s story, or even to really connect with her as a character. It’s not a bad book by any means, and Jensen’s writing really isn’t bad. However, I’m not sure it was really for me.

Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict (2022)

This is a book I talked about on my radio show Christmas Special this year, but I wanted it to read it for fun as well. On the surface, this book looked like it was tailor-made for me. A locked room murder mystery set on a train that gets stuck in a snowstorm at Christmas? Sounds perfect. It also sounds a lot like a mash-up of Murder on the Orient Express and Mystery in White, so I was curious to know how Benedict managed the balance of homage and originality. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t really live up to its promise. The mystery here is the death of an influencer (and then a subsequent murder that I won’t spoiler here), who is a passenger on board a snowbound sleeper train to the Highlands. Fortunately, one of the other passengers is a recently retired police detective, Roz Parker, so at least there’s someone there who can manage the crime scene until help arrives. The problem, for me, was that the mystery is actually quite insipid. There are a few decent clues, but comparisons to Agatha Christie are overstated. The Christmas and train angles are also downplayed, as most of the interactions between passengers take place in the ‘Club Car’, which could just as easily be a bar. Overall, Murder on the Christmas Express focuses on personality, character and motive, rather than means (there’s a handwave of the ‘locked room’ element later on), and so the puzzle itself didn’t really work for me.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2016)

Back in August, I read Moonflower Murders, and loved it. I don’t know what it is with me reading Anthony Horowitz’s series out of order, but Moonflower Murders is actually the second book in a series, so I thought I should probably go back and read the first one. As with the Hawthorne and Horowitz books, there isn’t a massive problem with reading the series out of sequence, as the later books don’t have too many spoilers for earlier instalments, though if you’ve read Moonflower Murders then you’ll know what the case is in Magpie Murders. Susan Ryeland is an editor, working on the latest (and last) murder mystery novel by the somewhat difficult author Alan Conway. Susan reads the manuscript, but the final chapter is missing. Before she can get hold of it, the author is found dead. Conway’s death is ruled a suicide, but Susan begins to suspect there’s something fishy going on. As with Moonflower Murders, this is a story-within-a-story; the reader gets to read Conway’s manuscript in full as Susan reads it. Not only are we invited to solve the puzzle of Conway’s death, but we also have the puzzle of his novel to ponder as well. I fell in love with this novel – I think I enjoyed it even more than Moonflower Murders (though it’s a close thing). It’s such a perfect piece of mystery writing, with spot-on clues and a reveal that made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended, particularly for Agatha Christie fans.

Gifts by Laura Barnett (2021)

Time to switch from murder mysteries back to Christmas books. The next book I read was another one I talked about on last year’s radio show, but that I wanted to enjoy properly afterwards. I didn’t get chance to read this one last year, so I saved it for this Christmas instead. Gifts is set the year it was published, 2021, and it is quite direct about its context. The Christmas described is the first Christmas after lockdown, as people were tentatively trying to rediscover normality in the COVID19 pandemic. The book’s conceit is that twelve people are looking to buy the perfect Christmas present for someone in their life. Each chapter is a near-standalone short story, in which the gift-giver reflects on their relationship with the receiver, and the reasons why they are choosing them a gift. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ‘gifts’ of the title aren’t really the main focus. While there are a couple of chapters that dwell a little more on the search for a specific item to be bought (and the shopping that takes place), the stories generally focus on far less materialistic concerns. It’s the relationships between people that matter here – whether it’s a newly divorced father and his teenage daughter, or a carer and her client, or old friends reunited and tentatively considering romance – Gifts offers a series of vignettes that underscore the need to recognize and value those arounds us. As such, it’s pretty much a quintessential Christmas book!

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (2020)

Okay, so this wasn’t the plan at all. I bought The Ink Black Heart as soon as it came out (in fact I pre-ordered it), but then never quite got round to reading it. My plan was to read it in the week between Christmas and New Year. But then, feeling tired after an epic Boxing Day walk, I decided to watch the new TV adaptation of Troubled Blood. It was great – I love the Strike TV series – but it really hit me how much they’d had to cut out or streamline to fit the story into the TV format. I expected that, of course. The book’s over 900 pages long, so there was no way the whole thing would fit into the TV format (even with the extra episode this story has). It’s hard to explain, but I really missed the things that had been cut for TV, and before I knew it I’d decided to reread the book again. And I’m glad I did. It’s by far my favourite of the Strike novels – although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The cold case storyline means that there’s a different sense of pace to this one, and the clues are expertly done. Even having read it before and watched the adaptation (so the killer was by no means a surprise), it was a joy to reread this one. It’s such a rich and complex murder mystery, and I actually felt sad when I finished it (for the second time!).

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (2022)

After I finished my reread of Troubled Blood, I went straight into The Ink Black Heart. I read them both in under a week, so it’s safe to say I couldn’t put either of them down. The Ink Black Heart is even longer than Troubled Blood, but I’m in two minds as to whether it sustains its long length as well as its predecessor. It’s also a very different type of story from the rest of the series. Robin Ellacott is approached by the creator of a popular YouTube/Netflix cartoon, Edie Ledwell, who wants her to investigate the identity of a prolific and abusive internet troll. Robin turns the case down, but shortly afterwards Edie is murdered, and Robin (and Strike) are hired by other interested parties. The main reason this book feels different from the other Strike novels is that the reader is party to certain information that the detectives never see. The story is peppered with transcripts of chatlogs from an internet game, a fandom-produced response to Edie’s cartoon, which was co-created by the notorious troll at the centre of the case. Having a head-start on the detectives feels weird, and the world of anonymous trolling means there are some reveals that we would never have worked out, no matter how many clues we had. Nevertheless, this is a fun read – Galbraith (aka Rowling) paints an unsettlingly plausible online world, and the ultimate reveal of the murderer has a beautifully Christie-esque quality that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.

My Year in Books 2020: January

I've decided to carry on with my monthly book review posts (can you believe this is the third year now!). I'm finding it a good way of keeping track of the books I read for pleasure - much more useful than using an external site - so you're kind of stuck with these posts for now!

First post of the year, so it's my short reviews for January! Here's what I read...

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (2018)

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, as I really like Robert Galbraith’s fiction. (Weirdly, I don’t like any J.K. Rowling books – a fact that baffles me.) Lethal White is the fourth book about private detective Cormoran Strike, and his secretary – then assistant – now partner – Robin Ellacott. The story opens with a prologue that follows on directly from Career of Evil, but then it jumps ahead to the following year. After the events of the earlier book, Strike’s detective agency has been thrust into the public eye (well, even more so, as the events of The Cuckoo’s Calling also brought it some notoriety). As well as juggling multiple cases, Strike is offered two intriguing puzzles to solve. Firstly, an apparently mentally ill man called Billy arrives at his office claiming to have witnessed a murder when he was a child. Secondly, an MP asks for Strike’s help, as he’s being blackmailed. Of course, it’s not long before there’s a hint that the two cases might be connected somehow. I will admit, I was dubious about the length of the book before I read it. The paperback is a bit of a doorstop, and way longer than is usual for the genre. However, as with the other Strike novels, it’s incredibly readable, and so it really didn’t feel overlong. Yes, perhaps, some of the sections about Strike and Robin’s relationships could have been cut down slightly, but there’s an excellent mystery (with well-placed clues) at the book’s heart.

Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas (2016)

This next one is a book I picked up in a charity shop in Aberystwyth when we stayed there last November. I thought I’d read another book by the author, but I realized afterwards that I’d got confused about that. Still, the blurb was intriguing enough, even though I had a suspicion it might be a domestic noir-type thriller (and I’ve still got a strange relationship with that genre). Local Girl Missing is the story of Francesca (and it’s partly told from her perspective), who grew up in a small seaside town in the South-West. Twenty years ago, Francesca’s best friend Sophie fell off the old pier, in an incident that has haunted her ever since. Now Sophie’s brother has called Francesca to drop the bombshell that Sophie’s remains have finally been found, and he wants her to return to Oldcliffe to help him find out what happened. Francesca’s narration is interspersed with entries from Sophie’s diary in the run-up to her disappearance. As she and Daniel speak to Sophie’s old friends, Francesca feels increasingly (and almost tangibly) haunted by the past – is there something else going on here? I’ve got to admit, I did twig what was going on a bit before the end, but I still enjoyed Local Girl Missing. It’s a quick read, but it’s well-paced and Douglas builds the suspense effectively, plus I found some of the flashbacks to Francesca and Sophie’s relationship both nostalgic (as I’m roughly the same age as the characters) and convincing.

The Wych Elm by Tana French (2018)

I was looking forward to this next one, but ultimately it was a teeny bit of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, The Wych Elm is excellently written and has a compelling story. It’s just that I’m such a huge fan of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels that this one had a lot to live up to. The Wych Elm is a standalone –a mystery thriller rather than a detective novel. The central character is Toby, a privileged (and rather charming) man in his late twenties, looking forward to a happy future with his girlfriend Melissa. One night, everything changes, as Toby suffers a life-altering and traumatic assault. In recovery, he returns to his old family home (now his uncle’s), as his uncle has developed terminal cancer. Toby needs to heal, but he also needs to take care of his relative. However, a chance discovery in the garden upends Toby’s life even further – a skull is found in the eponymous wych elm tree. Perhaps Toby’s happy conception of his life – and his family – aren’t strictly accurate. As I say, the story is pretty compelling, but I found it didn’t grip me quite as much as the Dublin Murder Squad novels. Some of the revelations are a little far-fetched, though I did like the way in which Toby’s patchy memories become tangled and uncertain. The idea that a family history might be misremembered or experienced differently was definitely interesting, but there was something a little flat about this particular family.

The Guesthouse by Abbie Frost (2019)

I picked this one up (as usual) on a whim at the supermarket. The blurb looked like it might be a bit like And Then There Were None – seven guests check into a guesthouse, but it looks like they might not all survive. And… I was right. The Guesthouse begins like a millennial version of And Then There Were None. The central character, Hannah, is a twenty-five-year-old woman who is dealing with some stuff. She checks herself into the eponymous guesthouse for a week’s holiday to take her mind off things, and also to reconnect with her past. The guesthouse is in a remote location in Ireland, and the access is not as easy as the website promised. And there’s a storm coming too… I’m in two minds about this one. I loved the way Frost updated the central conceit of And Then There Were None for the twenty-first century, and the way the guests were brought to (and kept) in the guesthouse was definitely pretty cool. I also found Hannah – in the first half of the book – an engaging and relatable character. However, the plot isn’t quite as classy as Christie’s (and I shouldn’t keep comparing the two books, but it’s impossible not to). Rather than ramping up suspense and suspicion, The Guesthouse instead ramps up the backstory to the point of (almost) implausibility. I became less invested as the story went on, and the eventual reveal(s) really stretched my credulity. It’s a shame, because the book starts well.

The Family by Louise Jensen (2019)

I bought The Family in a charity shop in Truro at Christmas. I didn’t realize until part way through that I’d chosen to read a book with almost the exact same image on the cover as The Guesthouse – that was a complete coincidence. And, cover art aside, The Family is a bit different to The Guesthouse. Laura and her daughter Tilly are left grieving and in debt following the death of Gavan, Laura’s husband. A chance kindness from a woman called Saffron (someone Laura vaguely knows through her work) leads the women to a farm in Mid Wales that’s being run as a community/commune by a mysterious young man called Alex. As the book hints from its very first page, bad things are going to happen on the farm. And they do. I’ve got to admit, I didn’t really enjoy this one. I struggled to sympathize with the characters, mostly because they weren’t plausible for the ages they were meant to be – Laura doesn’t feel like a 34-year-old, and Alex isn’t believable as a 28-year-old. I also found I was drawn out of the story a lot by little anachronisms and inaccuracies, and by a timeframe that doesn’t quite make sense. No spoilers, but the ending was probably the best part of the plot, as it moved the story back into the realms of the believable. However, it was hard to get too enthused, as I really hadn’t engaged with the characters. Overall, this one probably needed much tighter editing.

She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge (2019)

The next book I read this month was one I picked up at the supermarket because the blurb looked intriguing (I probably have to stop doing that!). She Lies in Wait is a cold-case detective novel. Teenager Aurora Jackson disappeared thirty years ago, after going camping with her older sister and her friends. When a body is discovered in the woods, it quickly becomes apparent that Aurora has finally been found. A murder investigation is launched by DCI Jonah Sheens, and Aurora’s sister Topaz and her friends are the prime suspects. She Lies in Wait is a fairly standard cold-case story, with a bit of Secret History-esque conflict between the rather privileged bunch of suspects (in fact, one of the characters actually draws attention to the similarity in an explicit reference to Donna Tartt’s novel). It’s a very readable story, and there are some interesting interactions between the police team, but I found the actual mystery at the heart of the book to be a little disappointing. The problem is that there are clues implicating all of the suspects, and nothing that points to any particular one of them. By the time the reveal came, I felt like it could have been any of them, and I felt a bit cheated as a reader, as I could only guess the answer, not solve it. Nevertheless, Lodge is a good writer, and I did enjoy the way the story unfolded. Not the best mystery, but definitely not the worst one either!