Tag: thriller

Book review: The Simple Art of Killing a Woman by Patrícia Melo

The simple art of killing a woman book coverFor about six months now I’ve been subscribing to the Good Book Club. Their ethos is intersectional feminist fiction from women, queer men and writers who identify as non-binary. They only choose books from indie publishers and celebrate diverse stories, often in translation. Since March, in addition to being a monthly postal subscription, they run an online book group to discuss that month’s book.

Their April book exemplified all the above. The Simple Art of Killing a Woman by Patrícia Melo (translated by Sophie Lewis) is a Brazilian novel about violence against women, with a particular focus on Indigenous women. It’s angry, funny, provocative and gave us a lot of fodder for discussion in the book group.

An unnamed young lawyer from Sao Paolo narrates this story. After she is hit by her boyfriend she takes a temporary project on the other side of Brazil. It’s a study of femicide cases in Rio Branco, a small city near the border of Bolivia in Acre, a rainforest region. The narrator attends court cases, interviews fellow lawyers and the families of the deceased.

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Book review: The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Godfather book coverBack in early 2019 I received a smart hardback copy of The Godfather by Mario Puzo in the post. I hadn’t bought it. Penguin Classics was issuing a new edition for the book’s 50th anniversary and had sent me (along with many other book bloggers, I’m sure) a free review copy. I put it on my shelf of unsolicited review copies figuring that in one of my periodic clearouts I’d probably get rid of it. But it stayed there, an intriguing option for the right occasion.

Three and a half years later, I have COVID and am isolating from Tim (which sucks) and the rest of the world (less bothered). The one positive is that by not spending my evenings with anyone else, I am flying through books. After finishing the two books I had already started, I asked Tim to select some books for me from my TBR shelves. He left me a stack of three very different books: If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha, A Map of Tulsa by Benjamin Lytal and The Godfather by Mario Puso. Well, if there was ever a time to read a 600-page saga…

I’ve seen the films (albeit a very long time ago) and had heard many times that they’re far superior to the source material. Even Francis Ford Coppola, in his introduction to this edition, calls it a “potboiler”, albeit one with Shakespearean-level plotting. And I am averse to the romanticisation of violence, murder and the other terrible behaviours in this story. But I figured I’d give it a go and if it was awful then I would finally add it to the charity pile.

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Piece by piece, we put the shells back together, reencasing ourselves

Siracusa book coverSiracusa
by Delia Ephron

I never used to care about liking the characters in the books I read, but I must admit that I spent the first quarter or so of this novel wondering if it was worth persevering with four irritatingly self-involved narrators. I’m glad I did, because I enjoyed it overall.

I’m pretty sure the self-absorption of the four main characters is the point, and the extremity of their smug egotism is by turns funny and tragic. They all narrate the same events from their different viewpoints – which if they were less self-absorbed would mean they actually noticed the same things at least some of time, rather than these wildly different accounts.

The story is simple: a small group of Americans travelling abroad don’t get on very well. Two married couples, Michael and Lizzie, and Finn and Taylor – plus Finn and Taylor’s 10-year-old daughter Snow – travel to Rome and then Siracusa in Sicily for a week’s holiday together. Lizzie and Finn are old friends – former lovers, in fact – but otherwise the group aren’t close at all. The holiday was suggested on a whim while having dinner together, the kind of suggestion that usually wouldn’t be followed up on by mere acquaintances.

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K-drama review: Memories of the Alhambra

Memories of the Alhambra poster

For a while Memories of the Alhambra (a 2019 joint production of tvN and Netflix) was being heavily trailed on Netflix (at least, it was being advertised at me, but I guess I’m the target audience). It got lots of online hype (and apparently a petition for a second season), which I’m a bit bemused by. Honestly, this was beautifully filmed, well acted, had an original sci-fi thriller concept and unexpected plot twists, but I wound up disappointed overall.

It starts out well. Park Shin-hye (Doctors, Pinocchio, Heirs) plays Jung Hee-joo, a woman running a hostel for Koreans in Granada with her grandmother. She supports her younger sister Min-joo (who is still at school) and her brother Se-joo (a freelance game developer) by working two other jobs in addition to the hostel management. She has a Korean best friend who’s in love with her and a secret talent for playing classical guitar. It’s all very cosy and lovely.

Then along comes Yoo Jin-woo (played by Hyun Bin of Secret Garden) – the CEO of a tech company called J-One. He receives a mysterious phone call begging him to go to a certain hostel in Granada to discuss a business deal. When he gets there, he finds no sign of the man he was supposed to meet (who turns out to be Se-joo), but he does have an e-mail with a game attached to it – a game designed to work with J-One’s augmented-reality contact lenses. A game that could be worth billions.

The bulk of the first two episodes is establishing the game – in which users walk around real Granada collecting virtual weapons and fighting virtual warriors (think Pokémon Go but with almost realistic graphics). It’s pretty impressive, makes good use of the Granada setting and provides a source of some comedy as the camera view switches between Jin-woo’s point-of-view and what the rest of the world sees (i.e. some tourist flailing his arms around mysteriously and pulling strange faces).

There’s also some mystery about Se-joo, namely why both he and his business partner Marco have disappeared. There’s a fight over buying the rights to the game from Se-joo’s family between Jin-woo and his biggest rival (and former best friend) Cha Hyeong-seok. There are ex-wives and hapless assistants (including the adorable Seo Jung-hoon, played by Min Jin-woong). While there’s lots of ominous music and hints of something dark and terrible, for the most part it feels like a typical set-up of love triangles and business rivalry.

Then after just a couple of episodes, everything changes. A death in the game becomes a death in real life. The tone suddenly makes sense. This show is genuinely exciting, thrilling and even at times quite scary, with some good fighting scenes and special effects.

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A dead woman was spewing blood over the car

Now you see me book coverNow You See Me
by Sharon Bolton

I like Sharon Bolton’s thrillers as a general rule. This is the first in her series about rookie detective Lacey Flint (the other books of Bolton’s I have read were one-off stories). I hungrily consumed this and immediately bought its sequels. And yet, I do have some reservations.

Lacey is young, capable and eager. She frequently ignores orders, thinking she knows better, and puts herself in danger. She’s also not the most reliable of narrators, which plays perfectly into the mystery that Bolton weaves around her.

When we meet Lacey, a woman is dying in her arms, bloodily and messily. She’s stumbled into the middle of a murder scene and is both sole witness and, briefly, primary suspect. She’s not meant to be working murder cases at all (her intention is to work as a rape specialist), but she can’t seem to shake herself loose from this one. Particularly not when the police receive a letter addressed to Lacey claiming to be from the killer – who is planning to strike again.

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Recent reads in brief

Giant Days: Volume 4
written by John Allison, illustrated by Max Sarin

I love this series. Room-mates Susan, Daisy and Esther are still battling through their first year of university. This volume opens during the Easter holidays. Esther has decided to drop out, so Susan and Daisy travel to her hometown of Tackleford (the main setting of Allison’s ongoing web series Scary Go Round) to talk her out of it. Hijinks and bonding ensue.

This volume is preoccupied by romance: break-ups, the aftermath of break-ups, the hint of something new. There is a corresponding lack of the surreal weirdness that usually characterises Allison’s work, but the story and in particular the girls’ friendship are so sweet and wonderful that I love it just the same. It’s adorable and it makes me happy.

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Relationships are about stories, not truth

Apple Tree Yard
by Louise Doughty

This got lots of great reviews when it came out, which is how it came to be on my shelves but it wasn’t until my Twitter stream was full of responses to the recent BBC adaptation that I decided to read it.

I remember the reviews gave me a sense that this was different from the standard crime novel in some way, and they were right, but even now I struggle a little to put my finger on the exact difference. It wasn’t quite what I expected.

For starters, the actual crime is held back until late in the story. The first half of the book builds up tension while filling in the back story. Biologist Dr Yvonne Carmichael has just given evidence to a Select Committee in the Houses of Parliament when she bumps into an attractive stranger who offers to show her the private chapel. Thus begins their affair. But while they are both married, it isn’t clear for a long time exactly what crime this leads to, or why the book’s prologue has Yvonne being questioned in a criminal court.

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Had he said that? Or had she just made him say it inside her head?

A Jealous Ghost
by A N Wilson

Way way back at primary school, I think for my 10th birthday, a boy in my class gave me the book Stray by A N Wilson. I hadn’t heard of the author and I wasn’t especially close friends with the boy, but it was a really well chosen gift. I loved that book (it’s about a stray cat and it’s sad and lovely and I’m pretty sure I still have it). But for some reason I never looked out for other books by the same author.

Then two years ago, Tim’s mum was clearing out some books and offered me my pick of them first. I couldn’t quite figure out why the author’s name was familiar when I picked this up but the story appealed to me, and then later I realised and was glad I was finally going back to Wilson.

The story is that of Sallie, an American student in London writing her PhD on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. She’s struggling to make friends, struggling to come up with a thesis argument that her PhD supervisor is happy with, struggling to pay rent. So someone suggests she takes time out with a summer job – perhaps as a live-in nanny so she doesn’t even have to pay rent. When at her job interview she learns that she will be looking after two young children in a country house with neither parent around – just like in The Turn of the Screw – it seems like fate.

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Recent reads: winter

Work has been crazy busy and while I have been able to find time to read, I have not been keeping notes or thinking about writing reviews while I read. So here’s some very brief thoughts.

Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty islands I have not visited and never will
by Judith Schalansky
translated from German by Christine Lo

atlas of remote islands

This might just be the most beautiful book ever made. Judith Schalansky was raised in East Germany, and in her early childhood it looked like she would never be able to travel, so maps and atlases held a fascination for her. She has created the most gorgeous object here – every detail is considered, functional, exquisite – typography, art, infographic, end papers, edging.

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She would fling these pin-pricks in the air

MyCousinRachelMy Cousin Rachel
by Daphne du Maurier

I really truly thought I had read this before and that picking it up on holiday would be a re-read, but it became increasingly clear that this was entirely new to me. It’s nice when you find a new-to-you book by a favourite author, right? This was Daphne du Maurier’s last real big success, though she wrote several more books after it, and is often held up as her greatest work (yes – even greater than Rebecca, some say).

Philip has been raised by his cousin Ambrose since he was orphaned young and together they run an estate in Cornwall. Philip is a young man, while middle-aged Ambrose has never married. Until, that is, he travels to Italy for his health and meets his distant cousin Rachel. She’s a half-Italian widow in her 30s who shares Ambrose’s love for gardens and he is soon besotted. But can she be trusted? And is naïve Philip going to be forever spoiled by knowing her?

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