Review : The Bursar's Wife (A George Kocharyan Mystery) - by E.G. Rodford

Published by : Titan Books

25 March 2016

Copy : Paperback received from Publisher

The Blurb

Meet George Kocharyan, Cambridge Confidential Services' one and only private investigator.  Amidst the usual jobs following unfaithful spouses, he is approached by the glamourous Sylvia Bookers.  The wife of the bursar of Morley College, Booker is worried that her daughter Lucy has fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Aided by his assistant Sandra and her teenage son, George soon realises that Lucy is sneaking off to the apartment of an older man, but perhaps not for the reasons one might suspects.  Then an unfaithful wife he had been following is found dead.  As his investigation continues - enlivened by a mild stabbing and the unwanted intervention and attention of Detective Inspector Vicky Stubbing - George begins to wonder if all the threads are connected...

The Very Pink Notebook Review

One in a series of George Kocharyan, private investigator, novels I enjoyed George's world.  I really liked the mainstay characters of George, Sandra and Sandra's teenage son, Jason and the relationships between them.  George, being a private investigator, you would assume to be a confident man but in reality he isn't, suffering still from the blow of his wife leaving him which has lead him to question his ability in most aspects of life.  But this isn't portrayed in a sad (annoying woe is me way) it is done very comically.  As are a lot of the things in this book, which given some of its subject matter is very dark, turns it from what could be a real stomach turning drudge, into something very readable.

The plot is very thick and complex and the author has woven the threads together in a well paced and clear manner.  It is difficult to try and review the storyline without giving anything away so I won't try and say anything more than the blurb, apart from by the end you do feel as if there has been a real journey for George in many ways, not just with the investigation and piecing together the case he is working on but in his family and private life too.

Sandra and Jason both provide extra light for the dark side of this book and I do not think the story would work anywhere near as well without them, and I am glad they will be returning in further novels within the series.

With its dark comical narration and plot that twists and turns this is an enjoyable read and as such gets a Very Pink Notebook rating of :

About the Author

E.G Rodford is the crime-writing pseudonym of an award-winning author living in Cambridge, England.  Rodford writes about the seedier side of the city where PI George Kocharyan is usually to be found.

Tour and Review : Two Lost Boys by L. F. Robertson

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of the Two Lost Boys by L. F. Robertson

blog tour.  With thanks to Philippa at Titan Books for involving me in the tour and for an advance copy of the book.

Published by : Titan Books

16 May 2017

Copy : Paperback provided by Publisher

The Blurb

She knows he's guilty, but guilty of what?

Janet Moodie has spent years as a death row appeals attorney. Overworked and recently widowed, she's had her fill of hopeless cases, and is determined that this will be her last. Her client is Marion 'Andy' Hardy, convicted along with his brother Emory of the rape and murder of two women. But Emory received a life sentence while Andy got the death penalty, labeled the ringleader despite his low IQ and Emory's dominant personality.

Convinced that Andy's previous lawyers missed mitigating evidence that would have kept him off death row, Janet investigates Andy's past. She discovers a sordid and damaged upbringing, a series of errors on the part of his previous counsel, and most worrying of all, the possibility that there is far more to the murders than was first thought. Andy may be guilty, but does he deserve to die?

The Very Pink Notebook Review

Two lost boys is a well written legal drama.  Being a big Grisham fan I was really happy to be asked to review this title and it did give me the nostalgia of reading a JG novel.  It is what it says, it is a legal drama, and we are taken through it via female protagonist Janet Moodie. 

Moodie is living a lonely life following the death of her husband and flying of the nest by only son Gavin.  She has retreated to a quieter world, away from the city and death row and stares that make her feeling guilty about her husbands suicide.  What the reader is left with is a very simple women who is just trying to recover from a massive trauma. 

I think it is her own life upsets which compels are to tackle the case of Marion 'Andy' Hardy.  She is convinced that although guilty for sure of some part in his crime the truth has not actually come out.  She is convinced his past is the key to his way out of a death penalty.  And that is what the book investigates.  The reader is merely on the journey with Moodie and fellow investigator Dave as they try and delve into the family history and events that could have made Andy the person he is today. 

This is not a story that is going to set your world alight with twists and turns.  But, if you enjoy reading about the structure and routine that goes into the legal world in something such as a death penalty appeal, then you will enjoy this book.  It's writing flows easily and clearly, it keeps a steady pace and you really do get a good feel for the characters.  It really is quite a sad and morose story.

On occasion I did find some of the chapters a little repetitive and wasn't quite sure how they had moved the plot forward, but on the whole I did thoroughly enjoy the tale told my L. F. Robertson in this book.  The ending I at first found a little flat, but as the day wore on I realised it was a very realistic ending and, actually, I quite liked that.

Two Lost Boys by L. F. Robertson receives a solid :

About the Author

L. F. Robertson is a practising defence attorney who for the last two decades has handled only death penalty appeals.  Linda is the co-author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Unsolved Mysteries, and a contributor to the forensic handbooks How to Try a Murder and Irrefutable Evidence.  She has had short stories published in the anthologies My Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes : the Hidden Years and Sherlock Holmes : The American Years. 

Follow The Tour

Review : The Vinyl Detective - The Run-Out Groove by Andrew Cartmel

Published by : Titan Books

9 May 2017

Copy : ARC copy received from publisher

The Blurb

His first adventure consisted of the search for a rare record; his second the search for a lost child. Specifically the child of Valerian, lead singer of a great rock band of the 1960s, who hanged herself in mysterious circumstances after the boy's abduction.

Along the way, the Vinyl Detective finds himself marked for death, at the wrong end of a shotgun, and unknowingly dosed with LSD as a prelude to being burned alive. And then there's the grave robbing... 

The Very Pink Notebook Review

The second in a trilogy, The Vinyl Detective - The Run-Out Groove, is another well written, laugh out loud (well, I did) confident offering from Andrew Cartmel.

Thrust back into the world of the Vinyl Detective (name of the character is, as yet, not revealed - which must be quite tricky for the author to work around!) I did wonder how similar the storyline would be to the first, given essentially at the beginning the protagonist was after another rare record.  I need not have worried, it is vastly different and again, despite the humour running throughout it is actually a serious plot.

Packed with another set of punchy characters, I was glad to see the return of some others, namely Nevada, Tinkler, Stinky and Fanny and Turk (the cats) and to travel around the rocker scene of past era's in the search for the truth about wild child Valerian.  We are given a colourful history of the women in question via people who were close to the singer, and discover some uncomfortable truths about her family along the way.

Of course, when the truth is somewhat misty, it is usually so for a reason and the Vinyl Detective and Co quickly discover there is someone that wishes for it to remain that way.  Not quite sure if they are in 'Paranoia Heights' after their last dramatic escapade, the gang must try and determine who they can trust, if anyone.

Although it didn't have me quite as 'on the edge of my seat' as book number one, I did thoroughly enjoy book number two and would again highly recommend it.  I also learned what, exactly, a Run-Out Groove is.

As such The Vinyl Detective - The Run-Out Groove by Andrew Cartmel receives a Very Pink Notebook rating of :

About the Author

Andrew Cartmel is a novelist and screenwriter.  His work for television includes Midsomer Murders and Torchwood, and a legendary stint as Script Editor on Doctor Who.  He has also written plays for the London Fringe, toured as a stand-up comedian, and is currently co-writing with Ben Aaronovitch a series of comics based on the bestselling Rivers of London books.  He lives in London.

The Vinyl Detective Books

The Vinyl Detective Written in Dead Wax is available NOW.

The Vinyl Detective The Run-Out Groove is out on 9th May 2017.

The Vinyl Detective Victory Disc is out May 2018.

    

Review : The Vinyl Detective - Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel

Published by : Titan Books

10 May 2016

Copy : Paperback - Received from Publisher

The Blurb

He is a record collector — a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the “Vinyl Detective” and some people take this more literally than others.

Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording — on behalf of an extremely wealthy (and rather sinister) shadowy client.

Given that he’s just about to run out of cat biscuits, this gets our hero’s full attention. So begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all…

The Very Pink Notebook Review

Behind the slapstick style jacket of Written in Dead Wax lies an extremely complex plot which Andrew Cartmel delivers with both ease and humour.

I absolutely loved the way this book has been written, it is plain, straight-forward and down to earth.  Even though it has a lot of information about vintage record collecting, all it's quirks and anomalies, it is never once dull, boring or pretentious.  This is all down to the protagonist, the Vinyl Detective himself - an ordinary, run of the mill, cat loving chap - who happens to have an absolute and complete obsession with finding and collecting / selling (depending on how broke he is) - you guessed it - Vinyl.  And not just any vinyl, Jazz, which as it turns out can turn into a rather sinister business.  And it is the Vinyl Detectives plain ordinariness which makes him so endearing to the reader.

Scraping by on lucky finds of unusual vinyl's and selling them on the net is a far cry from where he finds himself when beautiful, intelligent and sharp-witted Nevada enters his life with the opportunity of a lifetime - unfortunately for him, he finds that because of the opportunity it could possibly be a short lifetime because the more involved he gets in finding the elusive vinyl he is commissioned to track down, the higher the body count becomes... but he is so honest and normal about everything the title of 'hero' is not out of place.

Add to the mix a couple of geeky and typical guy friends, you have a mix perfect for a good injection of humour to punctuate what actually becomes a fairly serious storyline including murder most foul, robberies and sabotage.

Now, when I started reading 'Side One' (clever huh!) I was enjoying it most certainly, but you quickly realise there is going to be far more to this book than merely the hunt and race to find the vinyl, then you reach 'Side Two' and a whole different pace begins.  'Side Two' I read in one sitting - I could not put it down and was pleased that the humour I was enjoying so much did not dissipate.

I liked how complete this book felt, it had a clear beginning, middle and end with all questions getting answers.  I thoroughly enjoyed all the dialogue between the characters and at one point or another I questioned them all, which again demonstrated confident and tight plotting and writing.

I am already looking forward to reading more in the first person eyes of The Vinyl Detective and discovering if Nevada sticks around, if Tinkler still has an obsession for grapes and if the cats manage to survive the 'road to rehab' (see opening chapter of book!)

The Vinyl Detective - Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel gets a must read Very Pink Notebook rating of :

About the Author

Andrew Cartmel is a novelist and screenwriter.  His work for television includes Midsomer Murders and Torchwood, and a legendary stint as Script Editor on Doctor Who.  He has also written plays for the London Fringe, toured as a stand-up comedian, and is currently co-writing with Ben Aaronovitch a series of comics based on the bestselling Rivers of London books.  He lives in London.

The Vinyl Detective Books

The Vinyl Detective Written in Dead Wax is available NOW.

The Vinyl Detective The Run-Out Groove is out on 9th May 2017.

The Vinyl Detective Victory Disc is out May 2018.

Tour and Review : Follow Me Down by Sherri Smith

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of the tour for Sherri Smith's psychological thriller Follow Me Down.  With thanks to Philippa Ward at Titan books for involving me in the tour and for an advance copy of the book.

Published by : Titan Books

21 March 2017

Copy : Paperback - Received from Publisher as part of blog tour

The Blurb

THEY SAY ONLY THE GUILTY RUN

Mia never intended to go home again, but has no choice when her twin brother goes missing.  Back to the people she left behind, the person she used to be, and the secrets she thought she'd buried. 

Her brother Lucas, a popular teacher, has disappeared on the same day as the murdered body of one of his students was pulled from the river.  Trying to wrap her head around the rumors of Lucas's affair with the teenager, and unable to reconcile the media's vicious portrayal of Lucas with her own memories of him, Mia is desperate to find another suspect.

All the while, she wonders, if he's innocent, why did he run?

The Very Pink Notebook Review

If you like gritty psychological thrillers combined with the dynamics of messed up families then this is a book for you.  Follow Me Down is a very dark and twisted tale and when I say twisted I mean it, in every possible sense.

The reader is thrown right into the story from the first page, when protagonist Mia, a Chicago based pharmacist, receives a call from the police alerting her to the fact her twin brother Lucas, popular school teacher who still lives in the small minded town they grew up in, is missing.  However, not only is he missing, he is wanted.

Smith has cleverly filtered the story through the mind of Mia, you are in her head and go on the journey of discovery as solely seen through her eyes.  The problem with her eyes is they are often tainted by abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol - unreliable narrator alert.  Obviously Mia is convinced of her brother's innocence, or is she?  Even as an unreliable narrator, the author manages to pass every conceivable idea through Mia's mind, who tries to weigh up the probability of these things happening.  She then starts piecing together parts of the puzzle that is the situation and finds things and people in the small town are not always what they seem.  Slowly, and a little crazily, she starts to form a picture of what was going on right up to the day the body was discovered and her brother went missing. 

As I said, there are so many twists and turns in this book you can get quite dizzy, but that is brilliant because every possibility is really quite feasible and I had absolutely no clue as to where this ride was going to end, and what a well executed ending it was, with all ends tied up, some of them somewhat messily for the characters.

This novel has a host of unlikeable characters and this may be a little controversial, having seen some other reviews, but I actually didn't dislike Mia at all.  I also loved their narcissistic mother Mimi as well.  In fact, in the end I really felt quite sorry for her.

This book has a complex plot that Sherri Smith has managed to deconstruct and deliver in an easy, fast paced and exciting novel.  I would highly recommend it to psychological thriller lovers that like their work on the dark side.

Follow Me Down receives a highly recommend Very Pink Notebook rating of :

Follow The Tour

About The Author

Sherri Smith spends time with her family and two rescue dogs, and restores vintage furniture that would otherwise be destined for the dump.  She lives in Winnipeg, Canada, where the long, cold winters nurture her dark side.  Follow Me Down is her first thriller.

Tour and Review : Parallel Lines by Steven Savile

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of the blog tour for new crime novel 'Parallel Lines' by Steven Savile.  With thanks to Philippa Ward at Titan Books for involving me in the tour and for an early copy of the book.

Published by : Titan Books

14 March 2017

Copy : Paperback - Received from publisher

The Blurb

How far would you go to provide for your child?

Adam Shaw is dying, and knows he’ll leave his disabled son with nothing. His solution? Rob a bank. It’s no surprise that things go wrong. What is surprising is that when another customer is accidentally shot, no one in the bank is in a hurry to hand Adam over to the police. There’s the manager who’s desperate to avoid an audit, the security guard with a serious grudge against the dead man, and the woman who knows exactly how bad the victim really was...

Eight people, twelve hours, one chance to cover up a murder. But it’s not just the police they have to fool. When many lives intersect, the results can be explosive.

The Very Pink Notebook Review

As soon as I read the first paragraph from the blurb of this book, I knew I had to read it.  I have a disabled son myself and as any parent, not just those with children with special needs knows, thinking about their future should anything happen to you is one of the most important, but scary, things you have to do as a mother / father.  It is also one of the most common things that is avoided until something shakes you up to take a stand. 

But what if that shake up call comes sooner than you expected and gives you little time to get their future covered?  What if, like the majority of the population you do not have a lifetime of funds to leave, especially when your child has disabilities?  A child who will never be able to earn their own living and the cost of having them cared for never reduces.  Your options aren't vast.

This is the crux of the book.  A desperate dying man, driven to desperate measures.  Now, I was expecting this book to be a mixture of both the heist and of protagonist Adam's life, with son Jake.  I was wrong and somewhat surprised, but not disappointed.  Apart from a few scenes at the beginning, which are essential, the novel doesn't leave the boundaries of the bank robbery.  And it works brilliantly. 

The author keeps the reader in close so the intensity of the situation is never lost.  Every character involved in the robbery has their own agenda and Savile has cleverly written on so many levels it manages to capture beautifully the dark side of human nature; when an opportunity for revenge for a life long grudge materialises will you take it?  Can money really buy silence?  If one descents from the pack should they be sacrificed?  It sets your mind thinking about a whole host of moral dilemma's.

Although this is a highly intense novel it does have some bits of dark humour which I enjoyed.  This is managed because it is written from the viewpoint of all eight people in the bank.  Each has their own little mini-story which lays the foundation for how the plot weaves together.  Savile has injected just the right about of personality into each so that one is not stronger or weaker than the other, they are just all very different.  By using this style the pace is kept moving along quickly and the variety compels you to keep turning and turning those pages, meaning you can not put the darn book down!

This is one of those novels screaming out to be transferred to screen, the writing is excellent, the characters are dynamic, the plot strong and it just leaves you asking yourself what you would do if you found yourself in the same situation (and I don't just mean in the situation of the protagonist either...)

I really can not recommend this book highly enough - but be warned, read it on a day you can just sit and read because you will not want to put it down.

Parallel Lines by Steven Savile gets a Very Pink Notebook rating of :