#Blogtour The Detective by Ajay Chowdhury

 It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Detective by Ajay Chowdhury. 'The third Novel in the Award-winning Detective Rahman series - soon to be a major TV series produced by BBC Studios' 

About the Author

Ajay Chowdhury is the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night. His children's book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical.

The Waiter is the first in his adult crime series about Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Calcutta who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It has been optioned by BBC Studios. Follow up, The Cook, was published in May 2022 to critical acclaim and deals with the issue of homelessness. Ajay is currently writing and cooking up a storm for the next instalment. Follow @ajaychow on Twitter

About the book

From the award-winning author of The Waiter comes the third instalment in the Detective Kamil Rahman Mystery series.

On the verge of a four-billion-dollar deal, a tech entrepreneur from Shoreditch is found dead in a construction site, which leads to the discovery of three skeletons over a hundred years old.

But as fresh bodies turn up, can Detective Kamil – along with his friend Anjoli – prevent another murder? Desperate to prove himself on his first case for the Met, Kamil will stop at nothing to uncover the truth.

Review

This is the third book in the Kamil Rahman series and although each book can be read as a standalone novel I would recommend reading the other books to get the full gist of the main character and his story. How he evolves and takes certain paths is relevant to the premise and perhaps more so due to the way other characters perceive and treat him.

There is often an current of envy and borderline malicious banter when reference is made to how he made his way in his career, and that is combined with systemic racism. Insults wrapped up in the guise of locker room manly banter.

The premise takes the reader in two different criminal directions - current and past crimes. How the present unveils the secrets of the past and it's fascinating how the revelations of the past don't unravel and end the way you might expect. Reality, truth and justice become less important when money and power are on the agenda.

It's a riveting read that draws upon a multitude of story threads and weaves them into a big picture of connection, communication, six degrees of separation and how victims of past crimes are always waiting to claim their slice of justice. It will be interesting to see where this series goes.

Buy The Detective at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Harvill Secker; pub date 11 November 2021 ǀ £12.99 Hardback, audio and eBook. Buy at Amazon com.

#Review Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray

Recently featured on BBC2's Between The Covers, this is a fantastic read!

About the Author

Philip studied modern history at Cambridge University, and went on to work as a journalist in Madrid, Rome and Lisbon. He has tutored in crime writing at City University in London and serves as a director at an award-winning documentary film company, specialising in science and history.

Philip's grandfather was a captain in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought through the First World War from start to finish, losing his closest friends along the way. Years after his death, Philip came across a cache of trench maps and military documents that his grandfather had kept, and in which he had recorded the events that befell his unit. Philip was inspired to write his thriller Two Storm Wood when the pull of his grandfather's legacy felt too strong to ignore. Follow @PhilipGrayBooks on Twitter, Visit philipgraybooks.com

About the book

1919. On the desolate battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the dangerous task of gathering up the dead for mass burial.

Amy Vanneck's fiancé is one soldier lost amongst many, but she is not ready to accept that his body may never be found. Defying convention, hardship and impossible odds, she heads to France, determined to discover what became of the man she loved.

Captain Mackenzie is a survivor of the war, but still its prisoner. He cannot return home until his fallen comrades are recovered and laid to rest. His task is upended when a gruesome discovery is made beneath the ruins of a of a German strongpoint.

It soon becomes clear that what Mackenzie has uncovered is a war crime of inhuman savagery. As the dark truth leaches, both he and Amy are drawn into hunt for a psychopath, one for whom the atrocity at Two Storm Wood is not an end, but a beginning.

Review

Amy is in limbo. Like many others who receive a MIA notification there is no closure and always an element of hope, despite the fact they know that their loved one is dead. Amy doesn't want to accept the inevitable truth and sets out on a dangerous journey to find the truth - one way or the other.

In the ruins of human misery she finds more than she bargained for and Captain Mackenzie, a man who is unable to let go of this deeply ingrained sense of duty towards his fallen comrades. The two of them uncover a layer of depravity neither of them are prepared for. 

Leaving aside the main premise of this book, I want to take a moment to give the author credit for the aspect of the war he uses to frame the essence of the story. I have read many books on the war, both the Great War and WW2, and they tend to concentrate on the combat, pre-war and post-war, but post-war as life unfolds afterwards. Not many focus on the aftermath and the actual reality of death and the dead, the fields and land strewn with the remains of the dead.

Rotting corpses, pieces of human beings, sometimes not even that. Often the only link to identity would be an item that hadn't decomposed and become part of the fabric of the land forever. There is hardly a mention of the soldiers and civilians tasked with ensuring as many victims of the war were identified. This aspect of the story is exceptional - just saying.

I wouldn't hesitate to return to this author. I really enjoyed the style, the scene setting, and the ability to create this level of magical realism drenched in horror and built upon a layer of factual reality. You can feel the fear, the pain and the sorrow - and that's without even venturing into the core of the plot.

Buy Two Storm Wood at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Harvill Secker pub date 13 Jan. 2022. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Harvill Secker.

#BlogTour Safe House by Jo Jakeman

Today it's the start of the massive BlogTour for Safe House by Jo Jakeman.

About the Author
Jo Jakeman was the winner of the Friday Night Live 2016 competition at the York Festival of Writing. Born in Cyprus, she worked for many years in the City of London before moving to Derbyshire with her husband and twin boys. Safe House is her second novel and Sticks and Stones was her debut thriller.

Follow @JoJakemanwrites on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit jojakeman.com, Buy Safe House

About the book
Charlie just wants to be forgotten but everyone else wants to know her story…
The morning after a terrible storm, a woman turns up in a remote Cornish village. She has bought the crumbling cottage that has lain empty for over a decade, and she’s going to make it her home. She calls herself Charlie, but it’s a name she’s only had for a few days. She keeps herself to herself, reluctant to integrate with the locals. Because Charlie has a secret.

Charlie was in prison for providing a false alibi for a murderer. But Lee Fisher wasn’t a murderer to her; he was the man she loved. Convinced of his innocence, Charlie said she was with him the night a young woman was killed. That lie cost her everything.

And now she has the chance to start again. But someone is watching her, waiting for her, wondering if she’s really payed the price for what she did.

Review
Charlie is a new person. Reinvented to keep herself safe and perhaps finally out from under the cloud of suspicion. New house, new friends and leaving the past behind is exactly what the doctor ordered, except someone with an agenda is hot on her trail.

I think the question of doubt hangs over Charlie throughout the entire book and with good reason I might add. Aside from the fact she actively helped him to hide his crimes, she is also the person who is the most intimate with him. How can she not have known what a monster he is? Or is she the monster?

I think this is the part of the story that drives the plot with such a force, the lingering doubt. There is also this atmosphere of blame regardless of whether she is actually guilty or not. It is hard to fathom how anyone can live with a killer or serial killer without being suspicious or noticing that something isn't quite right, but it does happen.

One can argue that without her lies Lee would have been stopped sooner, thereby saving a life. Charlie deserved to be in prison, but does she deserve to be punished for the rest of her life for his crimes?

It's a gripping psychological thriller that questions accountability in general and if justice is ever really served. Jakeman tells a good story, especially when it comes to casting a shadow of doubt over certain characters and the entire scenario.

A shout out to my favourite character, the cantankerous Aubrey. Perhaps he and Charlie should team up as a sleuthing duo?

Buy Safe House at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.

The eBook will be £0.99 throughout the month of November.

What Red Was by Rosie Price

The way Price approached the rape and the reaction of the victim to the rape is done in a very specific way, and perhaps not the way the majority of readers will expect it be addressed. The focus is on everything and everyone surrounding the event and Kate.

Every single person, event and item is described in minutiae barring the most poignant one. It shifts the attention on the reactions and emotions of everyone except victim and perpetrator.

I found it an intriguing way to approach the topic, especially because in reality this is often what happens. The trauma of a rape never just belongs to the person it most certainly should belong to. Family members, loved ones, friends and acquaintances - everyone thinks they are entitled to not only an opinion, but also to own a part of the trauma.

As Kate fights to come to terms with the reality of what happened and the way it might change her life if she reveals the truth

Whose story is it to share? Does it belong to the person it happened to, the person who did it or does it belong to the general public? This is the real question that arises from the entire situation. As if it's some sort of public service to inform, to judge and to bare all. Even at the expense of the victim.

One of the pivotal points of the story is the platonic relationship between Max and Kate and the repercussions of the assault on said relationship. The equilibrium between them is destroyed, but only one of them is aware of that fact.

This is an engaging piece of contemporary fiction with a noirish quality to it.

Buy What Red Was at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Harvill Secker; 9 May 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch

What's interesting about the way the author has planned the story out is the way the intent is within reach, however it doesn't become really clear until closer to the end.

Alex likes the thrill of climbing and is perhaps guilty of becoming complacent with his safety, which is probably how he ends up in a coma after a serious fall. His head injury leaves him in a terrifying situation. Alex can hear and feel everything around him, but is unable to respond to anyone or anything. A nightmare scenario.

The medical condition is based on a pseudocoma also known as Locked-in syndrome, minus the blinking and vertical eye movements, although Alex is often able to see through the slits of his slightly opened eyes. Koch has clearly done a lot of research on the subject, which is reflected in the story.

The story is narrated by Alex himself via his inner dialogue and thought processes, and the one-sided conversations he has with his family, friends and the medical staff.

He has no memory of how he fell, and as the story progresses questions arise about the details of the accident. Was it more than just a careless incident? Did someone help Alex fall, and why?

The perspective of the possible victim is what gives this story a high level of suspense. The reader knows that Alex can't help himself in any way, regardless of what he remembers or discovers about his accident.

Kudos to Koch for the ending, and for not feeling the need to bow down to the candy floss brigade of happy endings. It's poetic injustice in a screwed up fictional kind of way.

Buy If I Die Before I Wake at Amazon UK or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.

Follow @EmilyKoch @vintagebooks @harvillsecker

Visit emilykoch.co.uk