Novels No. 121

 

Lisa Jewell. It Could Have Been Her. USA: Atria/Simon & Schuster, LLC, 2026.

Jane Trevally is what we used to call a character. Twice divorced, no kids, living in an inherited crumbling house, her main passion is for her four dogs. But it’s a small, lost, white dog called Hugo that prompts her into amateur detective mode. Finding Hugo’s owner leads to a house Jane remembers from a scary encounter she experienced years ago; right now the house presents a grumpy man and a missing young woman, both connected to the dog, pushing Jane’s curiosity. With step-son Dexter volunteering as her assistant, Jane wants to learn more about this Stuart Tucker and possibly find Rose White who vanished.

Soon Stuart and Jessamine, then Allen and Annie enter the picture. Author Jewell takes us jumping from one generation to another, back and forth in different years—rather dizzying. Yet that house – Thornwood it’s called – is a common denominator. Dipping deeply into the lives of a very strange family uncovers an unstated darkness that Jane is determined to expose, for the sake of rescuing something or someone worthwhile. It’s difficult to comprehend Tucker’s attachment to, and abuse by, a seriously deranged woman; nor the woman herself. Jane is not exempt from her own childhood trauma, so perhaps her tolerance and insight are higher than average for such damaged people.

The more Jane discovers, the more repugnant is that sick household. Even for Jewell, it’s over the top; scarcely containing a redeeming feature unless we cheer for the young woman who tried to escape it all. Unsatisfying.

Roles

▪ She was a restless wife to both her husbands, tricky to deal with, prone to moods and existential nonsense. But she has also brought joy to people, she knows she has. (67)

▪ Nearly forty, living in a squat, with a low-level drinking problem, a paunch, and a swiftly encroaching thin patch on the back of my head (which my nephews took great delight in pointing out to me numerous times over the Christmas break). (88)

▪ And I can’t say I’m surprised, because there is something in this house, something living and breathing behind locked doors and in the creases between this world and another. (133)

▪ Maybe this is when the brother ran away. There he is with his scary clown mask and his creepy white gloves, ready and raring to go by the look of him. (140)

▪ “Just let me do it. I want to do it. I want to fucking die. And don’t pretend you care, because I know you don’t. You couldn’t give a shit about me. Everyone would be better off without me, and you know it.” (174)

▪ “You know, Annie,” I begin, “this family, this house, you, your daughter, it’s all totally fucked. You’re living in a dumpster fire. You do know that, right?” (223)

▪ “Go out now. Seriously. Don’t go back to her. Put your phone on silent. Leave the house. Don’t let her get into your head today.” (239)

Simon Mason. Lost and Never Found. UK: riverrun/Quercus Editions Limited, 2024.

It’s the Wilkins detectives in Oxford again, in an earlier case (see also Novels No. 118). Ray, articulate and logical; Ryan, intuitive and awkward. Celebrity socialite Zara Fanshawe is missing after she crashes her Rolls Royce in a back street. DS Wallace orders Ryan to lead the case that quickly flounders after the discovery of Zara’s murdered body. Media feeding frenzy. Public opinion is that she’d been on yet another drugs-fuelled adventure, confirmed by the wild state of her London apartment. Zara’s ex-husband, her mother, her drug dealer—none know what she’s been doing lately or why she was driving in a dubious part of town. With £5000 in cash, she seemed to be searching for someone. Anyone who’d glimpsed her said she had a robotic, zombie look.

Zara’s past includes unknown incidents that apparently caused her some mental health issues and a suicide attempt. Beyond its main thrust as a mystery, the story plumbs sensitive depths in Ryan’s tender relationship with son Little Ryan. Additionally, author Mason has an awesome grip on “sleeping rough” people, their woes and fears, the constant police harassment—a measure instigated by militant Deputy Chief Constable Chester Lynch, champion of police reform. And Lynch wants to hire Ray away from detective cases into her ambitious National Uplift project. A minor mystery is why Ryan’s girlfriend Carol suddenly dumps him.

This gifted author can make you laugh or tug at your heart strings. Oxford itself is a key presence, and I can’t resist a sample sentence:

“And now, in the middle of the afternoon, day tilted suddenly into twilight, more rain fell on the city, dropping heavily out of the depthless sky, hammering on skylights, clattering on car roofs, crashing against windows, jumping out of gutters, strange smells coming off it like cheese and soap and doormats.” (270)

Overheard

▪ “Big-money car gets pranged, people notice, these bottom feeders get their Nikons out. Lady leaves a garbled message, does a runner, everyone’s talking. Smelled bad from the word go, now we got the paps all over it.” (27)

▪ “So this is how it’s going to work. You’re going to step up. You’re going to be a big boy and do all the big boy things. Including press conferences, answering questions, being polite.” (86)

▪ “Listen, tell you what, why don’t we mix it up this time? I’ll be the smooth posh one and you can be the one with the bad manners and irritating face. What about that, Ray?” (93)

▪ “You’re the most irresponsible person I’ve ever met. You don’t take anything seriously, you stop for a sandwich, stop for pizza, threaten to kick doors in, neglect the basics, don’t do the paperwork.” (126)

▪ “It’s my belief,” she said, “that drugs weren’t the major problem in Zara’s life. Men were,” she said. (153)

▪ Lynch cocked her head on one side, as if listening. “Know what that is, son? Sound of someone out of their depth. Heard it all my life.” (212)

▪ “What I said about money, Carol getting into trouble with certain people.” He glanced at Ryan and quickly away. “Well, there’s other people, too.” (247)

Novels No. 120

 

Matthew Quirk. The Method. USA: William Morrow Large Print, 2026.

[TPL branch functioning again. So much so that I have three orders in transit at the same time.]

The atmosphere is dark and taut, with no clues to what’s happening. Two New York actresses struggling for auditions and parts in mediocre movies; Natalie disappears and no one cares except Anna. A ruthless assassin called Sontag is killing targeted young women. An important-looking man buys a painting for eight million dollars. Kevin Matthews is an FBI agent following Anna who is also being followed by bad guys. A mysterious video and an odd necklace. Don’t hold your breath for clarity any time soon.

Committed to finding her friend, Anna thinks Natalie chanced into something nefarious or illegal at a vague financial gathering and was kidnapped by them. The good news is that Anna the actor is as well-trained as an Amazonian stunt-woman so she ably fends for herself after partnering with Matthews who also wants to find Natalie. Let’s just say this thriller has everything—a yacht, a private estate, international conspirators, East European thugs, a falcon, a zodiac, spy gadgets, stolen cars, magic technology, and a mysterious doomsday plan—as if it were written as a film script. “Running on adrenaline” is a repetitive stock phrase. Non-stop action. Shooting. It’s exhausting.

It’s overloaded with suspense as each dangerous move by Anna is described in intense detail. Was ever a friend so brave, so selfless? At least it’s women bent on taking back control. Could easily be a four- or five-hour movie.

Moments

▪ It was a simple trade: She wanted her freedom, and he wanted a portable hard drive with eleven video files on it. (102)

▪ The old wild energy had her now, driving her toward danger. (122)

▪ She wasn’t asking permission. It was time to own this goddamn thing. “This is my call. I’m going. Will you back me up?” (189)

▪ Too amped to know if she was hit or not, Anna was already rising, driving her left hand toward his wrist to deflect the weapon, then throwing her right elbow into his jaw, hard enough to twist his head around on his spine. (336)

▪ Anna saw the black mask had no holes for the eyes. It was a hood, the same as the ones they used on the falcons. (346)

▪ “He’s lying. He told me you wouldn’t cooperate with him, that you went in on your own, and that’s why you were taken.” (397)

▪ Her life might be over soon, period. It was unthinkable, but it was the truth. As it set in, Anna fought to keep her composure, but she felt herself unraveling. (451)

Ruth Ware. The Death of Mrs Westaway. Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2018.

[Dear TPL: Why are books “in transit” for ten days or more?!]

Well, here’s one I missed in Ware’s impressive lineup. Harriet (“Hal”) Westaway is certain it’s a mistake when lawyer Mr Treswick invites her to come claim an inheritance from her grandmother in Cornwall – Hester Mary Westaway. Did someone made a mistake? ... her Westaway grandparents, William and Marion, died long ago. Young Harriet has been trying to make ends meet since her mother Margarida died, by giving psychic readings, especially with tarot cards; she rents a kiosk on a Brighton pier. Her miserable living conditions and debt to a vicious loan shark convince her to attend the funeral for Hester—and play a part, if she must. Yet, on outlining the family tree by googling, she would fit right in if her mother was Hester’s missing daughter Maud. True to a classic trope, Treswick reads the will that names Hal as the major heir. Trepassen House estate is hers.

Hal frequently self-debates her willing complicity in apparent mistaken identity; this slows down the story. Much as she wants to be Maud’s daughter, the dates of birth are off; privately she’s thinking her mother must have been cousin Maggie. Housekeeper Mrs Warren is openly hostile, while three uncles react in differing ways. Stuck in a frigid attic room of the spooky old house, Hal wonders if she’ll ever know who her own father was. And is she the only person who wants to find out what happened to Maud? A diary, old letters and photographs turn up: slightly shopworn devices to push Hal’s need to know the truth. One becomes aware that so much revolves around mothers.

Although there’s a derivative quality in the setting and certain touches, Ware does provide some good twists. Love the illuminating moments in the tarot cards!

Bits

▪ “The cards don’t predict the future—they don’t give a fail-safe course. They simply tell you what could, on a given day, be one outcome to your problem.” (35)

▪ Maud is hot where her mother is cold, passionate where her mother is contained, but the bitterness and anger in each face made them look more alike than I ever realised before. (94)

▪ “Give me the damn will!” Harding shouted, and he snatched at the pieces of paper Mr. Treswick held out. (108)

▪ “My mother-in-law cut Abel off without a penny,” Mitzi explained to Hal, a touch of righteous disbelief in her voice. (115)

▪ “My mother was a bitter, poisonous woman and her one aim in life was to spread that poison as far and wide as she could.” (163)

▪ “I told you to leave once, and I’ll say it again. Good riddance. Good riddance to you, and your trash mother before you.” (218)

▪ Why had her mother lied? (240)

Novels No. 119

 

Karin Alvtegen. Missing. 2000. Tr. 2003. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006.

(In-house grab; TPL, hurry up) Obviously there’s a mystery going on when a thirty-two-year-old woman from a well-to-do family is homeless, living day to day scrounging for food and a place to sleep. For fifteen years?! Sibylla Forsenström chose to live on the margins, rejecting her family for reasons that slowly unfold. As if that weren’t tough enough, presently Sibylla is wanted by police for the gory murder of Jorgen Grundberg—she didn’t do it, but she had interacted with him. She wants to tell the cops the truth but knows she won’t be believed; it’s imperative that she stay out of sight. This predicament alternates with scenes from Sibylla’s miserable childhood with cruel mother Beatrice. As a lonely child who didn’t fit middle class expectations, the constant stress drove her into a psychotic break at age fifteen.

Newspaper headlines tell Sibylla that another murder has occurred with herself being blamed. At any turn for potential help, Sibylla is either blocked or abused until she finds a deserted school attic for refuge. Patrick, a sympathetic teenager, also frequents the attic—someone she can relate her history to for the first time. Together, he decides, they will figure out who or what is behind the killings. Nevertheless, bits of the story have a disconnected feel. Is the author’s intent to make Sibylla suffer as much as possible? When does violence become gratuitous? Did I mention a trope: spooky voice appearing in italics, ranting religious gibberish?

Not exactly uplifting, Missing is a sad chronicle of mental abuse shaping a child’s adulthood, although Alvtegen’s characterizations often seem awkward or amateurish. Just one of a few inconsistencies: it’s hard to reconcile Sibylla’s rough street life with a groomed woman attracting men in a sophisticated restaurant. The further I read, the less cohesive the characters felt. So I can hardly agree with the cover blurb!

The Present

▪ Being left alone to mind her own business was all she ever wanted. She’d managed to do just that for fifteen years. (52)

▪ It was intolerable that when she spoke to her mother for the last time, she had been reduced to apologising yet again. (205)

▪ Slowly but surely she adjusted to the more or less overt contempt of people she encountered. The recognition that she was a loser only sealed her solidarity with the other outcasts. (205)

▪ Why should anyone go to the trouble of murdering four severely ill individuals? (264)

The Past

▪ “In fact, you must not socialise with that kind of person, with none of these boys.” (116)

▪ That woman had turned her existence into a never-ending imprisonment. In Sibylla’s eyes her mother was transformed into an absurd monster. (126)

▪ “Cheers, Mummy. I just thought of something. Why don’t you get up on a chair and sing a Christmas song for everyone? It would be so nice.” (128)

▪ “You mustn’t take him away, he’s all I’ve got.” (199)

Tim Sullivan. The Dentist. 2020. USA: First Grove Atlantic, 2025.

(Another in-house grab; I see my TPL branch is closed due to flooding for the umpteenth time by faulty pipes in a faulty building; no wonder they are moving to a new location next year!)

DS George Cross is definitely the best and most interesting detective in DS Carson’s police squad; his place on the autism spectrum was formerly known as Asperger’s. Lacking social skills but logic personified, he is not easy to get along with, while partner Josie Ottey is acclimatizing. And the climate is highly entertaining. Their case is to identify a murdered homeless man and find his killer. A drifter called Badger becomes the suspect and is then arrested, so Carson is satisfied to close the case. But George Cross is not satisfied; he learns that Badger is a former war hero fallen on hard times. Cross is also instrumental in identifying the victim as Leonard Carpenter, a respectable dentist who’d gone missing years ago after his wife Hilary was killed. Wife and husband both murdered, even so far apart, speaks one and the same killer to Cross.

The Dentist is not built on plot twists and surprises; it’s character-driven by this gifted policeman of unusual methods. As his life is also dominated by his intrinsic condition. Cross and Ottey, with newbie cop Alice Mackenzie are about to meet the Carpenter family – Leonard’s three daughters – and solve this case. No one had seen nor heard from Leonard and they’d had him declared dead after seven years; they are shocked he’d still been alive and homeless. For a long time he’d been obsessed with finding his wife’s killer, collecting all kinds of information. The detectives face any number of frustrating issues, beginning with now-retired cop Stuart MacDonald – once upon a time Cross’ superior officer – who had conducted a sloppy, inconclusive investigation into Hilary’s death.

Through it all, Cross follows his own rationale with or without the approval or assistance of others. Often viewed as rude by those who know nothing of Asperger’s, he unintentionally sets up very funny dialogue exchanges. Yet he untangles the plot from the slightest of clues. Author Sullivan has awesome insight into Cross; it’s a fascinating journey with a unique character.

Peeks

▪ “People have a problem with your manner. You piss them off.” (21)

▪ “It isn’t a hunch. It’s an informed calculation.” (42)

▪ He needed proof. He needed certainty. Above all, he had an indefatigable need to get it right, to have it in order. For the right person to be found and convicted. (76)

▪ MacDonald had instantaneously taken against what he perceived as an insolent, bad-mannered, above-himself arsehole of a junior officer. Nothing was really known about Asperger’s in those days – the first diagnosis wasn’t made in the UK until the mid-nineties – and so Cross just came across as a wilful oddball, or as MacDonald put it, “pain in the arse screw-up who had no place in the police.” (104)

▪ “It wasn’t a family business. It was Leonard’s dental practice, managed by Hilary before she stopped to become a full-time writer.” (150)

▪ These are the things he picked up on, which might not seem relevant to others. If something is out of character there has to be a reason for it. (183)

▪ Why had MacDonald lied about seeing Leonard? (208)

Novels No. 118

 

Simon Mason. A Voice in the Night. UK: riverrun/Quercus Editions Limited, 2025.

Here come the Wilkins detective partners again: Ray is black, highly educated, thoughtful; Ryan is smart-ass, insensitive, barely articulate. And Thames Valley police have a brand new head, DCS Rebecca Wainwright, who strikes fear with plans to reform her department. Our bickering two are investigating the killing of renowned but opinionated linguist scholar Joe Emmet who managed to antagonize colleagues and collectors alike in the world of archaeology. Fellow detective Rodney Hare is on the case of a mysterious break-in at the Pelzer Institute where linguists work to decipher bits of ancient languages in Bible-age parchment. Joe’s body was found in pyjamas on a hotel lawn far from home; wife Greta, a molecular biologist, is devastated. His last evening was onstage in a public debate with Sebastian Franks, another scholar that Joe denigrated.

It’s a very difficult murder to reconstruct, twisting through the uglier parts of Oxford. Many surprises await among the “rough sleeper” witnesses, a heckler at Joe’s last debate, a religious fanatic, and kids in training for a life of crime. Not to mention Wainwright’s secretive meetings with the Chief Constable and threats made against Ryan’s little son, cared for by his sister Jade. Searching for a motive and a killer changes course several times, to Wainwright’s annoyance; Ryan is on the edge of losing his job for his impulsive outbursts. But they learn the importance of those old biblical fragments and their value to collectors.

Complex characters lead us around, over, and into the active night in question. Ryan’s colloquial expressions are delightful, adding to a greatly entertaining—as well as baffling—story. Rather irresistible, these guys.

Voices

▪ “Nothing wrong with my behaviour when I’m not surrounded by knobheads.” (15)

▪ “Odd one though, right? Man who speaks twelve kinds of Bible.” (37)

▪ “Half of Emmet’s research fellowships were terminated early. He argued with everybody. ... He criticised everyone, the police, the government, universities, fellow academics.” (71)

▪ “Why is it always me running after homeless guys and always you having coffee with professors and sucking up to the Super?” (131)

▪ Inappropriately, he started to laugh. “We got everything wrong.” (191)

▪ “Joe regularly hinted that he was going to expose things in these collections as fakes; it didn’t always work out, by the way. Too often he was driven by personal animosity.” (223)

▪ “Every day,” she said, “you tell me something new, something hard to believe.” Her voice was quiet but unstable. (263)

▪ “The Super’s blowing her top. If you want to save yourself, stop pissing about and call her now.” (268)

Matthew Pearl. The Award. USA: HarperCollins, 2025.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the university town populated mainly by writers, according to writer David Trent who lives there, working furiously on his first novel. With girlfriend Bonnie, he’s just moved into a poorly-designed third-floor apartment featuring a dangerous outside staircase and a weird trap door arrangement. But the unexpected gold bonus is that his idol, admired author Silas Hale, lives in the rest of the house with wife Rebecca. He envisions a lofty new friendship. Alas, Hale treats him like dirt for no apparent reason, in his usual socially abrasive manner. Trying to change his mind becomes David’s overriding obsession. Among his loose circle of fellow writers and their barely concealed rivalry, David pretends they have a thriving relationship.

Actually, David tends to stumble into lies to mask his neediness for recognition, or to avoid disappointing people. When he can’t solve their home heating problem, thanks to a spiteful Hale, Bonnie’s had enough and leaves him. Not much later a call comes to say his published novel has won a prestigious literary prize. Naturally he spreads the news in a state of euphoria—this will certainly earn him Hale’s respect. Then: oh-oh. Before the official announcement is made, he’s told it was an error. Here comes the crime I was waiting for, entangling David more than ever in a turmoil of panic and guilt. Yet all is not lost; Vanity Fair decides to profile him as an emerging writer, and that’s even better than an award.

A bit crazy, a bit scary, watching a man circling self-destruction; snatched from catastrophic disgrace over and over again by external events. Author Pearl has produced a superb satire of the publishing-cum-authors’ gossiping world. And we don’t even need to know what David’s novel was about.

Shots

▪ “Silas Hale doesn’t care about you. He despises us already for being an inconvenience to him, all while you shovel out his car and drag his garbage to the street. If you dropped dead he’d step right over you.” (65)

▪ No matter how much he rehearsed to himself how to explain the award mishap to people, how to slyly convert it all into a lighthearted joke that showed how little it meant, he still couldn’t do it. (79)

▪ “She can write the way a woman shouldn’t be able to.” (95)

▪ “Arrested, David! Silas Hale was arrested for murder!” (129)

▪ “If I could go back in time and go to law school, I would, even though it turns passably intelligent men into automatons.” (145)

▪ “You’re nothing, Trent! A fraud and a failure underfoot real men! I’ll crush you!” Silas was spitting, his eyes bulging. (150)

▪ “There’s nothing wrong with the book, not at all, David.” Barnaby grinned with an open friendly air. “But whatever it is, it’s certainly not award material.” (161)

Novels No. 117

  

Elizabeth Day. One of Us. NYC: Viking, 2025.

Invitations to the funeral of Lady Felicity (Fliss) Fitzmaurice present a nexus for assorted individuals who lament her accidental death in Bali. Martin Gilmour was a longtime friend of Fliss’ ambitious brother Ben—Ben, a government cabinet minister. Having kept a felonious secret of Ben’s for years, Martin was recently and unceremoniously dumped from Ben’s life. His shock at the rebuff turned into a wish for revenge; the invitation is a surprise. Ben’s wife Serena sent it; her late conversion to feminist ranks has made her less tolerant of her husband’s casual womanizing. An affair with Ben’s bankroller Andrew Jarvis is Serena’s revenge. The invite was also a surprise to Richard Take, a former MP caught watching porn at the office, who overcame disgrace by guesting on reality TV and podcasts to capture the enthusiasm of a younger generation. Cannily, Ben chooses Richard as his wing man for the party leadership campaign; it’s understood Ben is almost anointed as next prime minister.

Unknown to her parents Serena and Ben, teenaged Cosima is a secret eco-warrior, seriously committed to protests and demonstrations against Big Oil. She was the only family member who appreciated wild and unhappy Aunt Fliss. When Cosima is identified by her fellow protesters and her parents at a demo gone wrong, long-suppressed criminal acts face exposure. The effects caused by Fliss’ death are as important as how she died. Martin is the main observer here as the characters collide, realign, or deteriorate.

One of Us is a delicious, sometimes vicious, satire of traditional upper-class behaviour. So well-written, the novel runs the gamut from cold-blooded assaults to laugh-out-loud moments. More than that, author Day penetrates the complicated turmoil of motherhood, fatherhood, and needy children.

Messages

▪ She understood, too, her role in Ben’s life as he scaled the political heights. She was the wife who looked good in Sunday newspaper supplement photoshoots while keeping all the necessary secrets. (34)

▪ “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite heard ... Did you say ...” I tread carefully. “That Fliss ... killed herself?” (88)

▪ This time, I’m motivated not by a need to belong, but by a need to bring them down. The whole bloody lot of them. (101)

▪ She thought Jarvis boorish and unprepossessing – an impression that lasted for several years, until he started bailing Ben out financially. (114)

▪ “Is it all just a fucking massive ego trip, Dad? Is it?” (142)

▪ She thinks of River, his slumped body on the ground, the shouting of the truck drivers and the strange silence of everything else. (145)

▪ Andrew Jarvis had stolen the last of her. And her brother – her beloved little brother – had done nothing to stop it. (198)

▪ “Burn the fuckers down,” she said, placing one of her heavy, capable hands over his. “Then throw away the matches.” (268)

Ruth Mancini. The Day I Lost You. USA: HarperCollins, 2025.

The opening scenes had me so nervous for this woman I wondered briefly if I should stop. Lauren Hopwood and her two-year-old son Sam are hiding in Spain. It’s pure luck that a neighbour – Gabe – is friendly and caring; he whisks her away after the policía come to inspect her and Sam’s passports. She’s told that a couple back in England accuse her of abducting their child. Hope Dunsmore and husband Drew contacted the police, but they waited until well after it happened. The chronology of events and Sam’s biology are unclear, increasing the tension at each step. Desperate Lauren realizes she can’t live on the run forever, especially with a child. Knowing she must return to the U.K. and face the problem, she engages a criminal lawyer in advance. Trusted Gabe agrees to keep Sam safely hidden in Spain.

Rolling back a few months at a time, even to pregnancy days, the author’s reverse construction is ever so clever. Each woman’s past actions only add to the mystery and confusion; it’s not my place to spoil straighten it out here. There was some kind of accident trauma, hospital stays, disconnect from reality, possibly two baby boys? Learning that Hope is a grief counsellor, Lauren arranged to be a client, concealing her identity. But Hope and Drew were acting strangely (it is a strange story!) before Lauren and Sam disappear. In real time, when Lauren arrives in the U.K. to face the music, she’s arrested. Ultimately none of the characters react the way you expect.

It’s a challenge to follow the lies being told to protect baby Sam—or to choose what or whom to believe. Coincidences can be annoying, but convoluted trauma, loss, grief—Mancini creates unbearable tension that only lapses a little when the end approaches.

Jabs

▪ “How could you?” I snap. “How could you tell them I’m not Sam’s natural mother?” (66)

▪ But, as a therapist, I should have known better; I was the last person on this planet who should have been counselling her, and I should have known that. (71)

▪ We have to find Lauren. We have to find her ourselves. Because there’s a very good chance that unless we find her before the police do, we may never see Sam again. (72)

▪ I haven’t worked it all out yet, but my gut instinct tells me that it’s too much of a coincidence that Hope Dunsmore was giving birth to her baby while I was losing my baby, in the exact same hospital on the exact same day. (116)

▪ “No, Drew,” I say. “You won’t. You know you won’t, because if you call the police, they’ll find out what you did.” (158)

▪ I tell her what I’ve told everyone else: that I can’t remember anything about that day except waking up and being cut out of the car by firemen. (206-7)

▪ “But ... what if you felt differently once you got to know me. What if I’m not the person you think I am?” (239)

Novels No. 116

 

Jo Nesbo. Wolf Hour. Canada: Random House Canada, 2025.

A change from Nesbo’s Harry Hole series. Visiting Norwegian author Holger Rudi is eagerly writing a book about true crime incidents of 2016 in Minneapolis. To do the best job, he wants to get into the head of not only the killer, but the cop who took him down. Touring the city for “field studies” triggers what he knows about the killer, and how he will write about him. Scenes from 2016 grow in detail and character development so that it becomes unclear if we are reading the writer’s mind, or if they are/were reality. Tomás Gomez was the killer; illegal gun dealer Dante was his first target. Homicide detective Bob Oz starts the case; Bob is an excellent detective but he’s also a troubled human being with a heavy anger management problem. His colleague Olav Hanson is one who likes to provoke him even though Hanson hides his own guilty secret.

By the time a second man is shot, and killed, Bob has been suspended from his job thanks to his increasing insubordination—but that’s no barrier to his private hunt for Gomez. His partner Kay and a new friend assist. Gomez’ early reputation as a trigger-happy maniac in gang activities—El Lobo he was called—is at odds with how Dante’s shooter has been living. Always a step ahead of his peers, Bob interviews a taxidermist, a scared doctor, and drug-dealing gang members. With a bit of time to flirt drunkenly with Liza the bartender. But Lobo is way ahead of the task force that now labels him a terrorist, even taunting them with his clever planning. The narrative races from several perspectives, including the killer’s, twisting through one fraught scene after another. At the same time, Bob learns to understand loneliness and find balance.

Nesbo has constructed a gripping, very powerful tale of the American right to bear arms, with all the consequential side effects. It’s almost impossible to put this book down. Bravo, Nesbo.

Bits

▪ Some women like bastards, but Kay Myers didn’t seen to belong in that category either. That left only the worst alternative: that she felt sorry for him. (40)

▪ “Morality is about how we want the world to function, economics is about how it actually does function.” (108)

▪ Olav got it. He understood the nightmare was back. The man at the top, the one they called Die Man, and not just because of the diamonds in his teeth. (131)

▪ “The hero of the story—if you can call him that—was my cousin. I guess I just want somebody to tell his story.” (155)

▪ And as I was thinking that, it struck me that I was already dead. I just hadn’t been laid to rest yet. (177)

▪ “We lost our daughter,” said Bob. “Frankie. She was three years old.” (216)

▪ The one who sells guns. The weapons activist. The authorities. The executive. The ripples get bigger. And bigger. (228)

Michael Connelly. Ironwood. Large Print. USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2026.

Two topnotch authors in a row! Connelly wastes no time in throwing Sheriff Stilwell of California’s Catalina Island substation (from the first of the series, Nightshade) into a few different problems. Two of his deputies—Quigley and Ramirez—are shot down when a mystery plane makes an illegal night drop on the island. Quigley’s confidential informant had notified him about it, but now Quigley’s dead. Stilwell was observing, but unable to stop the plane from leaving, or catch the intended recipient of the drop. In the morning he detains suspicious-looking Gonsalo Kalas from leaving on the ferry, to learn he’s wanted by ICE. But Stil’s natural urge to follow up, to connect this guy to the airport shooting, is nixed by his mainland boss Capt. Corum; he’s to keep Kalas in a cell until ICE picks him up. While Stil is occupied elsewhere, Kalas is indeed taken away to disappear but ICE denies it was by their agents.

If that isn’t enough trouble, a lost backpack reveals a connection to a mainland murder, and voilà: Stil meets LA cold case manager Renée Ballard, a name familiar to readers of the Harry Bosch series. Working together, they uncover a devious serial killer. The boss is often not happy with Stil ignoring commands and reprimands, but he’s too good at detecting—in addition to handling all the local complaints and misdemeanours. Like Wolf Hour above, some events do not reflect well on the police; Stil finds himself at the centre of an elaborate corruption coverup. The plot ends on a high note not everyone will appreciate, but clearly the next book in the series is already being worked on.

Master of the genre, Connelly scores again. Catalina Island is where it’s at, for Bosch fans. Love the use of “overtown” referring to the mainland.

Voices

▪ He saw the SUV with its doors open and lights on. In the beams of its headlights he saw two bodies on the tarmac. (8)

▪ “I always love that, when two guys who don’t work the cases decide how the cases get worked.” (108)

▪ “Fine, then do your fucking job. Because if you don’t get it done, you can be gone with one call. I did more than just vote for your fucking boss.” (145)

▪ “We have to start watching this guy. It’s too dangerous not to.” (180)

▪ “Listen,” he finally said. “Be smart and take a step back. For your own good. Stil, step the fuck back.” (210)

▪ “She does not do one-on-one hikes into the forest. Her private tours require a minimum of two hikers.” (260)

▪ “I have to go talk to the girl, and then we’re going to huddle and figure out how to unfuck this situation.” (275)

Novels No. 115

 

Nicholas Shakespeare. Frame 37. Canada: Viking/Penguin Canada, 2026.

John Dyer, Brit, and Argentinian Miguel de Belew met in Michigan for a graduate program in journalism; both are now retired from their separate global adventures: the former an investigative journalist and the latter a topnotch photojournalist. During that post-grad program, Miguel invited Dyer and several friends to spend time in Buenos Aires and at his own wealthy estancia. Michigan sisters Lia and Nova were part of that group forty years ago. Now Miguel reacts to a frantic call from Nova to say that Lia has been killed, by calling on Dyer – “the best man to piece together a story” – to join him. Miguel and Nova believe they know who the perpetrator is; the subject is a very powerful man. After her phone call, Nova can’t be reached. Dyer arrives at Miguel’s home to find him dead. Can Dyer find the murderer and the proof to expose him?

Frame 37 is densely packed with back stories, mostly in the student days of the six friends. So many stories within stories, it’s as if the author had enough material for half a dozen books. One shocking incident is at its core, for Dyer to follow through. Argentina’s warring politics play a recurring role; cynical American politics loom larger. Everyone seems to have an alias. Digressions into obsolete newspaper production, connecting distant native cultures, pages of how to rid your back yard of moles—at times I felt overwhelmed by such tangents or mired in wordiness (encyclopedic descriptions of locales, exclusive restaurants, and old-white-man power centres). What does a sentence like this even mean? —

► The ex-president was emblematic of an unprincipled Dark Age shallowness, a reductive placard to which only an optical illusion could lend dimension. (173)

So, a mixed reaction on my part—admiration for the plot intricacies and for spinning out a love affair that never was, and impatience with barely relevant distractions. The global chaos caused by ex-president Ockloss finds Talcy Malcy, our villain, presented as a saviour candidate with an impeccably curated biography. Certain parallels with today’s world are hard to ignore.

Glimpses

▪ “This is a big, big, big story, John – maybe the biggest story that you write in your life. But it’s not something I can tell you on Skype.” (15)

▪ Miguel and Talcy Malcy were not one and the same. But the men in these two images somehow were. (68)

▪ Who was that mystery caller who hung up? And the landline going down for half an hour, what was that about? (78)

▪ He is clearly drunk or high on something, with his fingers gathered together beneath her, prying. A frightful smile uncovers his blood-framed teeth. (124)

▪ Dyer kept asking himself if the outcome might have been different had he found the courage to act, to behave other than he did. To inhale. He hated his congestion, the English reserve that had paralysed him. (135)

▪ “Would you recognize James Donald Bowman – who then became James David Hamel – as J.D. Vance?” (170)

▪ He’s not certain if the lens captured what he saw. He knows he clicked, but he’d taken the pictures in a weird reflex mode, without looking in the viewfinder. (269)

Christoffer Carlsson. The Living and the Dead. 2023. USA: Hogarth/Random House, 2025.

Siri Bengtsson is a policewoman new to the village of Skavböke, joining veteran cop Gerd Pettersson to investigate a murder, rare for Sweden. Eighteen-year-old Mikael is found beaten to death in the back of a stolen Volvo; the steering wheel is covered with blood and the driver is missing. Interspersed with progress on the case are moments a few years later when Siri launches a search party for Hampus Olsson—a missing young man she thinks she spotted in the forest. After speaking to a farmer as a potential witness, Siri abruptly quits the police force with no explanation to anyone. Meanwhile, Mikael’s peers who had partied with him the night before, are being interviewed, including best friends Killian and Sander. Beneath the surface of teenage banter we get hints of simmering violence. More people will die.

Next, we are twenty years on when Sander, now a teacher in another town, returns to Skavböke for the funeral of Sten, father of his buddy Killian. The man had generally been blamed, without any evidence, for a spectacular explosion that changed the entire village. Felicia, Jakob and Filip are Sander’s only old schoolmates still around. That night, Filip is found beaten to death just as his brother Mikael was so long ago. Policeman Vidar must review the old, unsolved case. Keeping track of numerous names and families means referring to a cast list provided up front; also helpful is a map of the unfamiliar places. The plot moves like molasses with Sander representing years of inarticulate, repressed feelings.

Yes, it’s a murder mystery, but beyond the well-drawn atmosphere of village life and gossip, one asks what is the point? It was difficult to find resonance with the characters. Most of them seem to exist half-depressed with regret or guilt over things past and lost opportunities.

Peeks

▪ “But if you’re stupid enough to withdraw your savings, hide it carelessly in your home, and let your son go to a party where he blabs about it, you have only yourself to blame.” (97)

▪ “Don’t bother,” Karl-Henrik thundered. “It’s too late. You missed. He’s gone.” And he slapped Mikael on the back of the head with an open palm. (114)

▪ “Why does he want you two to haul a crate of dynamite through the whole village, though? It’s so dangerous!” (134)

▪ “We’re all human, even us cops, we realize maybe you don’t want to ... Well, anyway, we believe you know more than you’re letting on.” (150)

▪ “Someone is trying to kill the boys of Skavböke.” (172)

▪ Until now he had persisted in using the present tense, as though language were a tool with which he could force reality to conform. As long as he spoke about Killian as though he were alive, it was possible to imagine that he really was. (194)

▪ Sander entered adult life all on his own, and slowly he sank through the darkness toward the bottom. (279)