Book Reviews

Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I read this book a while ago but continue to recommend it to all my friends and to anybody who hasn’t yet read it. It is about a girl, Nora Seed, who gets the chance to see what her life would have been like if she had made different choices earlier on. I think we have all wondered at some point how things would have worked out if we had done things differently and made different decisions at certain moments in our lives. Whether to take a job or not, whether to move to a certain flat or house, whether to accept a date with someone or maybe end a relationship. And in this book, Nora gets to live alternate versions of her life where she made different choices, sometimes with surprising outcomes.
It is a great story and thought provoking – it makes you realise it is never too late to make changes in your life and we should never under estimate the difference that we make to the lives of others.
I totally recommend this book to anyone who would like a warm, beautifully written, hopeful book or who has ever wondered, even for a moment, what might have happened if……

Chris D

Book Review: The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

They’re at it again; the Thursday Murder Club – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim investigate yet another murder, aided and supported by the regulars, DCI Chris Hudson, PC Donna de Freitas and, of course, Bogdan.
The thread running through the story is about the disappearance and presumed murder of Bethany Waites, a brilliant young reporter on TV’s “South East Tonight” who’d disappeared in mysterious circumstances shortly after telling senior reporter Mike Waghorne that she was on the trail of a big story. Her car had been found at the foot of Shakespeare Cliff, ‘wrecked and containing her blood and clothes but not her body’, nor was there any trace of the passenger who’d been seen by CCTV cameras which had picked up the car’s journey to Shakespeare Cliff.
In a totally unrelated development, Elizabeth has been getting surprising and somewhat disturbing messages from an anonymous number. “You can’t ignore me forever Elizabeth. We have a lot to speak about” and “Elizabeth, I know what you’ve done”, which she’s not revealing to the other members of the Thursday Murder Club. Right out of the blue, while out walking with her husband Stephen, who suffers from a degree of dementia, Elizabeth is struck on the head and rendered unconscious. Blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed she is dumped into the back of a van and taken, who knows where, along with Stephen. When she comes round and is released from the hood, she finds herself in front of a man “the Viking” who reveals that he is in search of diamonds which disappeared after a police raid on the home of Martin Lomax, recorded in Osman’s first story “The Thursday Murder Club. He also tells Elizabeth that he needs her to kill Viktor Illyich for him and that this is something she must do or be killed herself, her or her friend Joyce. The thing is, when Elizabeth was spying for the British Secret Service, Viktor Illyich was very high in the KGB and ironically, from being enemies they’d become friends.
Another murder is committed when Heather Garbutt, in prison on remand on suspicion of fraud, is murdered in her cell. The killer had used Heather’s knitting needles and a message was left saying “They are going to kill me. Only Connie Johnson can save me now.” Connie Johnson being a major crime figure and drug dealer we met in “The Man Who Died Twice”.
So, in Osman’s inimitable style, the story wanders along through many twists and turns. For a murder/mystery tale, there’s a lot of romance in the air. Does Viktor Illyich die? Who is “the Viking”? How does Stephen help uncover his true identity? Does he kill anyone or cause them to be killed? Do we find out who killed Heather Garbutt? Was it Connie Johnson? Do we find out what happened to the diamonds that have led to so many killings? Most of all, what happened to Bethany Waites?
For the answers to all of these questions you’ll have to read the book!

Phil Leighton

Book Review: Murder Before Evensong by Rev Richard Coles

This is, I believe, the Rev Richard’s first foray into the world of murder/mystery writing but it’s clearly not going to be his last. Whilst being a stand-alone story, Richard is also clearly setting the scene for follow-up stories. His lead figure is Canon Daniel Clement, Rector of Champton St Mary who lives with his opinionated mother, Audrey and two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. The patron of Champton is Bernard de Floures, the latest of a long line of de Floures who’ve lived in the house and fulfilled their roles in Champton society over many years.
The tale begins with a fairly lengthy ‘scene setting’ having all the marks of an author with close first-hand experience of the workings of a rural Church of England church and community. This is revealed early in the story through the dispute between Daniel and the ladies of the ‘flower department’ over his proposal to remove some pews and install toilets and their resisting that and championing the enlargement of the room for their arranging of the flowers for the church. Opportunity is also taken to identify most of the significant players in the upcoming drama.
The plot really starts to unfold when Daniel goes to the church late one evening to find Anthony Bowness, cousin to Bernard de Floures, family archivist and something of a black sheep of the family, dead between the pews where, it seemed, he had been praying. He had been stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs, a most unusual murder weapon but which had been near to hand in the flower room. The police are called, and an investigation set in motion by Detective Sergeant Vanloo, from the local Braundstonbury CID. Daniel is not a detective in any usual sense of that word but he does have a vicar’s knowledge of his flock which comes to bear as the mystery unfolds and he brings some of that expertise to bear, helping DS Vanloo with the investigation.
There’s a second murder when the body of local historian, Ned Thwaites, is dragged from the water near the old bathhouse close to the estate’s lake. At first it seemed that he’d drowned but closer investigation showed that he’d suffered a heavy blow to the back of his head.
Another thread runs through the story, the history of officers and men of the Free French Army who were billeted at Champton House during the war. There were stories of fraternisation between the French soldiers and local girls but much of that was only local gossip. The final death in the story occurs quite late on when the boat house is seen to be on fire and, once the fire had been extinguished, the body of one of the spinster twins, Dora and Kath Sharman, is recovered from the ashes.
To know who killed who and why, you’ll have to read the book.

Phil Leighton

All of these books and many more are available to borrow now at Blackfen Community Library. Come along, sit and have a read at our community hub and enjoy a fresh coffee from Rooted Coffee House, our in house coffee shop.

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