Worthless Men - Andrew Cowan

How would you feel if you returned home one day to find that none of your family or friends could see, hear or touch you?  In Worthless Men by Andrew Cowan, Walter Barley finds out exactly how it feels as he drifts into his home town one hot summer day.  It is market day, so the town is bustling with people and traffic, as farmers try to get their beasts to market, housewives go out to shop at the market stalls and the town's pubs and tea rooms are full to bursting.

Although it might look, sound and smell like the market days Walter remembers from his childhood, the big changes that have taken place in the outside world have found their way even to this very ordinary market town in England.  Changes that will leave a devastating and lasting scar across the lives of everyone who lives in the town and the surrounding countryside. His first visit is to his family home, where the women of his family are now employed in the barbed wire factory owned by the Beckwith family, because most of the town's men are now away fighting in the trenches on the Western Front or have already been killed.  Walter's mother alone has been deprived of a husband and adult sons and has to work even harder to keep her younger children fed and clothed.

But Walter has really returned to find the girl he fell in love with, the pretty and innocent Gertie Dobson, daughter of the local pharmacist.  But as he roams the hot streets, unseen and unnoticed by anyone except the others who are like him, he realises that the girl he loves is being drawn into the web of the Beckwith's son and heir who has returned from the Western Front broken in mind and body.

What secrets do Walter Barley and Montague Beckwith share?  What does Walter know that would make him want to keep his beloved away from the injured officer?  Montague Beckwith also has history with Gertie's pharmacist father, as they shared an interest before the war in stock breeding and eugenics, trading opinions on how to best improve the human race and standards in society.  But Mr Dobson also has secrets that he wouldn't like to get out, secrets that closely concern Gertie and could affect her future.

So as the blisteringly hot day builds towards a mighty thunderstorm, will Walter be able to find his lost love and avert further tragedy?  Or have events been set in motion that are now unstoppable?  A series of events, coincidences and decisions that will culminate in the scenes that play out over a few short minutes in the wind and pouring rain, changing things forever.

Worthless Men is a very descriptive book that really brings alive the sounds, noises and smells of a busy market town during the Great War.  It depicts a time of change, where women are going to work out of the home in greater numbers, because they need to earn a wage to support their families and because of the shortage of male labour.  It also describes very vividly the grinding poverty that many of the town's families still lived in with few of the amenities that we now take for granted, such as running water, inside toilets and enough bedrooms for the family.

The relationship between Mr Dobson the pharmacist and Montague Beckwith is also interesting, as we tend to forget these days just how accepted the idea of eugenics and controlling who could have children was. The idea of somehow improving the human race, just as farmers sought to develop their livestock breeding programmes, was openly discussed in meetings, pamphlets and journals across the whole of Europe.

But Worthless Men is a slow book to get into.  If you prefer action and excitement to lengthy description, then this is probably not the book for you.  The slaughter of livestock in the local abattoir is especially well described, providing a metaphor for the carnage that was being wreaked on the men who were enduring life in the trenches, so perhaps also a book to avoid if blood and gore is not your thing.

I award this book three sandwiches, mainly for evoking so well the spirit and essence of a busy English market town on a hot summer day.  One to read with a roast beef sandwich and horseradish sauce and a pint of beer or pie and mash.  Any dish that is typically English and transports you back to an earlier time.

Star Island - Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen books are an acquired taste, but if you have a bit of a twisted sense of humour you will find them original and laugh out loud funny. Star Island is no exception and is a tale of good and evil set in the steamy, tropical heat of Miami and the Florida Keys. Low life paparazzi Claude 'Bang' Abbott has few work ethics, no morals and a realistic view of his attractiveness to the female race.  He spends his life taking pictures of celebrities in compromising situations and, as he views any star as just a way to make a quick buck, no one is more surprised than him when he becomes dangerously obsessed with a wild young starlet called Cherry Pye, who has more than a few unhealthy habits that are spiralling out of control. And after all, how often does a guy like Bang get his first taste of the mile high club in a private jet with said hot, blonde pop singer?

But the course of true obsession is not destined to run smoothly for poor Bang, as unbeknownst to him the wayward Cherry Pye has a body double, an unknown actress called Ann DaLusia, who takes her place at public engagements when Cherry's wild lifestyle puts her out of action.  Bang makes one of the worst mistakes of his life when he kidnaps the wrong Cherry Pye and finds that he has no famous starlet and one very unamused Ann DaLusia on his hands, setting off a chain of unfortunate events that leads to the loss of his prized cameras and blackberry, damage to several of his body parts and  his dreams and aspirations plunging into a terminally downward spiral.

For Ann DaLusia proves to be not your average kidnap victim, giving Bang more than a run for his money.  Also he is blissfully unaware that after a crash on a dark, lonely road in the Keys, that Ann has acquired a most unusual knight in shining armour, who will stop at nothing to rescue her and keep her safe, even taking to the ocean waves and braving the crowded streets of Miami, which he hates, on her behalf.

Star Island is a very funny book, set in the murky underbelly of Florida society and the tawdry celebrity scene.  Hiaasen has a knack for making his character's outrageous behaviour seem normal, and getting you to believe that it is an everyday occurrence to meet someone with a weed strimmer for an arm prosthesis  or an ex state governor living in a camp in the swamps and living off road kill.  It is a cleverly wrought story of plots, manipulation and counter-plots, where many of the characters are more than happy to lie, cheat and even kill to further their own plans.  But somehow right manages to triumph over evil and many of the characters in Star Island end up finding out the hard way that crime does not pay and that karma always catches up with you in the end.

Star Island brings back some of Carl Hiaasen's most memorable characters such as Skink, aka Clint Tyree, the former Governor of Florida who takes Ann DaLusia under his wing and Chemo, former bent mortgage adviser and prison inmate turned celebrity bodyguard who wields his strimmer prosthesis to great effect.

The great thing about Hiaasen's characters and plots is that they are so implausibly over the top that they become believable and you very quickly fall into his wacky world of tarnished celebrities, corrupt politicians and petty criminals. Hiaasen's universe is a twisted but seductive place where the best laid plans and the highest of intentions are always going astray.  And I promise that you will never look at a sea urchin in the same way again!

To go with Star Island's tropical theme, I suggest that you mix yourself a pitcher of frozen margaritas and chuck some jumbo prawns on the barbie, as this is a great book to chuckle through as you are sunning yourself on a lounger by the pool.

As I now have a new rating system, I award Star island 4 sandwiches out of five for being such a ridiculously funny, off the wall read.

The Deceit – Tom Knox

Rating:  Three Sandwiches out of five

I was very wary of picking up another Tom Knox title after ‘The Genesis Secret’.  This was not because I didn’t enjoy the novel; it was more to do with the fact that some of the violence and ritualistic murders were very gruesome and graphically described.  But the plot of ‘The Deceit’ sounded interesting, so I thought I would have another try.

‘The Deceit’ is a thriller set in Egypt and Cornwall where in two seemingly separate stories Egyptologist Ryan Harper joins the search for some priceless, ancient papyri known as the ‘Sokar documents’ and DI Karen Trevithick investigates an incident where cats are burned in a grisly, ancient ritual. The documents Ryan Harper is seeking were found on the corpse of his old tutor Victor Sassoon after he had deliberately walked out into the desert and hid in a cave until he died.  Dating from the time of the earliest Christians in Egypt, The Copts, what secrets did the documents contain that Sassoon felt were so important they remain hidden that he was prepared to die rather than they be found?

After recovering some of the documents, Harper finds himself on the run in Egypt with the attractive German filmmaker Helen Fassbinder, desperately trying to translate the obscure Coptic script in order to solve the mystery they contain. As he deciphers the clues, what is revealed leads them to Bubastis and the ancient underground necropolis of the mummified cats.  Violence soon erupts however, and they are taken prisoner by a small band of what appear to be mercenary soldiers.  But are they really there to save them and protect them as they say or do they really have more sinister motives?  Their quest takes them next to Luxor and then down to Aswan and the temple of Philae. But everywhere they turn they are faced with more attempts on their life and a mysterious illness.

Back in Cornwall the hideous ritual of the sacrifice of the cats is followed by the discovery of a body at the bottom of an old mine shaft.  CCTV footage shows that the young man apparently committed suicide, but what drove him to such a deed?  For DI Trevithick a disturbing encounter with a young woman who seemingly had been driven to psychosis by her exposure to these rituals puts her on the trail of a frightening young man, who is experimenting with dangerous ritual magic to achieve his ends.  But just how far will he go?

While the two stories are being told separately, the book is an interesting read, very fast paced and full of action.  The stories are intriguing and I found I wanted to read on to find out what would happen.  Also, importantly for me, although fairly gory, it was not nearly as bad as the ‘Genesis Secret’.  But  I found the huge secret that Victor Sassoon was prepared to die for rather than unleash on the world a bit of a damp squib; not something most religious folks would get that riled up about to be quite honest.  The book then changes tack bringing the two stories together back in Cornwall in rather an unbelievable way.  For me the ending was a disappointment and a bit fuzzy around the edges.

As most book review sites have a ratings system, I’ve decided to introduce the sandwich rating and from now on will rate books from one (awful book) to five (awesome book) sandwiches.  I’m going to award ‘The Deceit’ by Tom Knox Three Sandwiches.  It was an interesting, thrilling read, but it petered out a bit in the last third and I thought that the ending was a bit lame and unbelievable. I know that in this type of novel nothing is ever really believable, but the really good thrillers can carry you away and let you suspend your belief as you get immersed in the story.  This book, however, is not one of those, but is still worth having a read of.

The Secrets of Pain - Phil Rickman

‘The Secrets of Pain’ is part of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series, books that tell the story of a single mother who retrains to become a vicar in village close to the border with Wales. As well as having to break into a tight knit rural community and dealing with the prejudices and opinions about women priests, she is also then appointed as diocese Deliverance Consultant (that's Exorcist to you and me!).

The books are paranormal thrillers telling the stories of Merrily’s encounters with the paranormal and the evil that can be found woven into the fabric of daily living.  The books also tend to draw on the ancient past and traditions of the area and ‘The Secrets of Pain’ is no exception.

The book starts as the village of Ledwardine is preparing for Easter.  The spring is slow coming that year and the weather is bitter.  Murders are committed that at first seem to have no connection to each other.  A prosperous local farmer is found savagely slaughtered and covered in blood in his own field, while two young migrant workers are found dead in the city.  DI Frannie Bliss has to work his way through a tangled web of crime and local rivalries to find the connection, only to discover that his own private life has been compromised and it has become personal.

Merrily is drawn into this web through an old acquaintance that seems to be hiding a dark secret that he cannot talk about but is obviously weighing him down.  He is the chaplain at the nearby SAS base and is found dead a few days later on a steep path on the hillside. Did he die of natural causes or was this suicide?  If so, what terrible knowledge drove him to his death?  Merrily discovers that some of his SAS colleagues may have embraced an old cult from Roman times that celebrated being a warrior and perhaps were even performing the ancient rites.

Merrily’s daughter Jane became involved when she got mixed up with a sleazy banker from the city who was staying at the new resort that catered for townies who wanted to become part of the hunting, shooting and fishing crowd.  But her discovery of a dead cock that he had dumped in a rubbish bin triggers suspicions that somebody in the district has revived the cruel sport of cock fighting.  As she tries to find out where this is taking place and who is behind it, will she find that her new acquaintance is actually involved in something much darker and much older?

The story takes us into the ancient Roman past of the area and the more recent history of the SAS. One of the major themes of the book is blood sacrifice as Merrily prepares for a Good Friday meditation based on the writings of Julian of Norwich about the crucifixion.  But had some of these hard bitten SAS men taken up rituals involving a very different form of blood sacrifice? Had the beliefs of the ancient Mithras cult permeated the closed, secretive ranks of the SAS? 

As Easter grows closer can Merrily unravel the tangled trail behind the deaths that have taken place before someone else gets killed? Or will someone close to her pay a heavy price for their investigations and  interference?

'The Secrets of Pain' is a long book that is heavy on detail and description, which at times feels a bit ponderous and sometimes as I was reading I wished that he would just get on with the story. The book is, however, beautifully written with a lot of interesting historical detail. However, I found that the tension didn't build was well as it could because of the length and detail and I would have preferred a little more action as they say.

The book does work as a standalone read, but if you haven’t read any of the earlier Merrily Watkins books then you might enjoy it more if you start reading from the beginning of the series, as you will get to know the characters and the background.  And surely by now Jane should know not to get into cars with strange men that she doesn't trust?

You will need quite a few lunches to get through this one, so stock up the fridge or book a seat in your local sandwich bar and ask them to keep your coffee mug topped up.

The Radleys - Matt Haig

How well do you know your neighbours?  Well, as it would turn out, none of the Radley's neighbours knew the people along the street as well as they thought they did.  Tell tale clues, such as family dogs howling in distress whenever one of the Radley children tried to pet them, closed curtains on a sunny day, unnaturally pale skin and a diet high in rare meat., were missed.  True the Radley boy, Rowan was stigmatised as a freak  at school, but then that was likely to happen to anybody who was a little bit different.

But however much Peter and Helen Radley tried to follow the rules laid out in the Abstainer's Handbook, tension was always simmering just below the surface of family life and the pressures of not letting the kids know who or what they really are were steadily building towards boiling point.  This fragile balance was bound to be broken at some point and when daughter Clara was overwhelmed by adolescent hormonal rage when she was attacked by a boy from her school at a teenage party all hell was let loose. Literally.

Helen and Peter's pretence that they are a normal family was finally blown wide open and Peter had to act decisively to save his daughter.  But now the explanations had to begin and the truth faced, they were vampires not humans, and their children had to be told.for their own protection.  But there were more secrets  lurking in the background than the fact that they were a family of vampires, and when desperation leads to Peter's non-abstaining, hard living brother Will Radley being asked to help them, there is even more at stake than being revealed as blood sucking monsters.

Little do they know that Will has stirred up so much trouble and talk that he has lost the protection of the vampire community and is now a legitimate target for the secret police unit that hunts down and eliminates renegade vampires.  Little do they know that Eve, the girl at school that Rowan Radley has fallen head over heels for, lost her mother to a vampire attack and that the killer was none other than Will Radley.

So while Peter and Helen try to do everything they can to protect their precious daughter from the consequences of her blood-fuelled outburst, they are unaware that there are other dangers closing in on them.  Will Eve's frightened, grief-stricken father succeed in his plans to destroy Will Radley and the vampire family?  Will the police take reprisals against the family in the quest to take out Will Radley?

The explosive that threatens the very foundation of Peter and Helen's marriage will have to be faced before they can move forward and build a new future.  But who will survive?  How will the kid's take the news that they really are freaks? And will there be any happy ever afters?

After all the Hollywoodesque American vampire novels it was very interesting to read a British vampire horror and one that is set in suburbia.  This is no florid Gothic horror, but a tale of a family trying to fit in and be ordinary in an average British town.  But to thrive we all need to acknowledge our own natures and honour them, or eventually we will rebel. And as the Radleys find out, this can lead to tragedy and upheaval.

So The Radleys by Matt Haig is one to read while drinking a glass of deep, ruby red wine.  Put some extra garlic in your spaghetti bolognese if you are frightened and nail a crucifix of two to the wall.

Lola's Secret - Monica McInerney

If you are looking for an easy, good feeling read and you like Christmas, then why not try reading Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney.  It is a sequel to her previous book 'The Alphabet Sisters', but you don't need to have read it first, as this works as a stand alone book.  Lola Quinlan is a sprightly old lady in her eighties, who dresses somewhat eccentrically and has very strong opinions on most things, especially anything that concerns her family.

Her home is a rural motel in the beautiful wine growing Clare Valley of South Australia, where she lives with her son Jim and daughter Geraldine, whom she has never seen eye to eye with.  Lola has run motels for decades, but is now mostly retired and spends a lot of her time helping to run the local charity shop with her group of friends. Lola also likes to keep up with modern technology and has enthusiastically embraced the internet, sending emails and mobile phones.

As Christmas approaches she wants to encourage her relatives to take some time out and go off on their own holidays, without feeling that they have to stay for her sake.  But although the thought of a peaceful Christmas spent alone calls to her, she comes up with the plan of inviting a group of strangers to the motel for the festive break and creating a wonderful experience for them.  She uses her new skills on the internet to invite people, using the lure of a free stay to get a small group of people to sign up.  But does Lola know what she has let herself in for?  Because unbeknownst to her, all of the visitors she is expecting for Christmas have their own reasons for trying to escape their homes and lives for the holidays, and bringing them all together could create a very combustible mix of drama and tragedy.

Meanwhile, there are problems in her own family that need sorting and wounds that need healing.  The death of her granddaughter Anna at the motel several years previously has left a huge hole in the family, and any closeness that her death had initially engendered in the family felt long gone.  Anna's two sisters were once more at each others throats, as difficulties in their marriages and family lives cause them to go back into competition with each other and revisit old disputes that they had thought they had left behind.  And Ellen, Anna's young daughter, was also facing heart ache of her own many miles away in Hong Kong, as she takes a rebellious stance when her father starts a new relationship, feeling that she is being pushed out and that her mother is being replaced.

Even Lola's home at the motel is under threat as Jim and Geraldine decide that they want to buy a smaller business in a different part of Australia, and Geraldine makes it clear that Lola is not included in their plans for the future.  So as she tries to sort out and help her family, create a wonderful Christmas experience for a bunch of strangers and keep things running smoothly in the charity shop, will Lola take any time to look into her own heart and acknowledge some of her own needs?

But Lola is going to be surprised this festive season by things from the past that she thought were long gone and lost forever, giving her another chance to put something right that went awry so many years ago.  Can this redoubtable old lady pull her family together again, help ease their pain and steer them onto a brighter path for the future?  Will her disparate group of invited guests have a Christmas they will never forget? And most importantly, will Lola discover a new direction for her own life and perhaps even find new love for herself?

Lola's Secret is a pleasant read, especially if you enjoy delving into human relationships and the tangles and predicaments that we create for ourselves. It is a book to take into the garden on a hot summer afternoon and let the hours slip by, or to cuddle up with by the fire on a cold, snowy winter afternoon.  As it is set in the 40c heat of a South Australian summer, sip an ice cold glass of Australian white wine while you are reading and have some tasty savoury nibbles to dip into.  My one niggle regards the cover of the UK edition, which is a picture of a young girl running through a lush bluebell wood.  It is an attractive image, but to me says nothing about the dry, dusty heat of an Australian summer in a wine growing region.  Probably me being too literal, but I would prefer to see a cover that was a closer reflection of what is contained within the pages.

The Darkening - Stephen Irwin

At the start of 'The Darkening' by Stephen Irwin, Nicholas Close is a happily married man living in London, when his wife dies in tragic circumstances, leaving him with an unwanted and distressing ability to see the spirits of the dead continually reliving the moment that led up to their demise.  Unable to carry on any longer he returns to Australia and the dreary suburb of Tallong where he had grown up with his mother and sister.  But as soon as he is back he becomes aware of the brooding presence of the local woods, which brings back memories of the brutal murder during his childhood of his best friend Tristram.

He soon realises that any hopes that he may have had of leaving the past behind are futile as another horrific murder of a child in the woods leads to long repressed memories flooding back about what happened on that fateful day when he and Tristram went playing among the densely packed trees and undergrowth and only one of them came back.  Especially when he discovers that it was really supposed to be him who died. As Nick starts to investigate, he finds out that there have in fact been a string of murders in those woods, stretching back over a hundred years, where the victims have all been children.

As he himself comes under suspicion from the police as another child goes missing, he has to try and unravel an ancient web of evil that seems to lead back to the local shops and one old lady who who used to do sewing and alterations and also inexorably back to the woods.  But how long can one person really live and what are they prepared to do to carry on living?

Nick has to dig deep into himself and find the courage to return to the woods to try and defeat the malignant evil that lies at its heart, before any more children have to die to keep it alive.  But is he strong enough to fight the dark magic that is sent against him? And how much does his mother and other residents of the suburb really know and how was his dead father involved?

This is a book that combines horror with magic and the supernatural, with several clever twists in the plot. It is a real page turner, and one that I read very fast.  Probably not one for readers with arachnophobia as spiders feature pretty heavily, and one of my few criticisms of the 'The Darkening' is that I found one aspect of the spider plot a bit ridiculous - but no spoilers!

Genuinely creepy in places, this is one to read under the bed covers with a torch, so make sure that you have lots of chocolate and crisps and big mug of steaming cocoa to help stop your shivering with fear.