Early One Morning - Virginia Baily

I was attracted to this novel purely by the cover (as I suppose this is meant to happen!) and it has very little about the contents on the back cover, so I took a chance.  Then I put it on a shelf where it stayed for three years until recently when again, l liked the look of it and took it down.  Pleased to say for me this was worth buying!

This is a dual time line story, but there are also differing  zones between the timelines, so I guess I's describe it as a triple time line at least.  The early part of those time lines takes place in Rome, in 1943, when the Nazi Party is clearing the Jewish Getto, and loading ill-prepared Jews onto carts, to take them to the  railway station for loading onto trucks taking them, ultimately, to their deaths.  A Roman woman, Chiara,  catches the eye of a Jewess, and holds it - why?  She will never know, but what happens next will change her entire life.  The Jewess slowly prises the fingers of her older son away from her own hand and pushes him away.  At that moment Chiara finds herself shouting "My son!  you have taken my son!" and suddenly the boy is off the cart and she has him.

What has she done?  She's 25, unmarried, with a mentally impaired sister, parents dead and only one grandparent left - and she has taken on the care of a little Jewish boy.

This story is really about Chiara.  The boy is always there between the pages, but is not a major character.  Others come and go, some stay, but Chiara is on every page, and as her life goes on, we find out more about the others mentioned.

Besides the story we are told, I found that this book is also about a love affair - a love affair with the City of Rome.  Little cobbled streets, apartments up stairways, churches, galleries - so much is mentioned that you could take the book on holiday and it would see you round the city as well as entertaining you.

Highly Recommended.

 

Mrs Mac Suggests - What to read in July 2020

Well hello!  Too few posts in June, there are some family problems which have stopped me spending much time on here (and in fact I couldn't get a lot read, either!).   However, I did read last month's suggestion and loved it, so here I am with my July suggestion.

How about a 

         dual time story?

That's what I think might be nice, especially if UK weather goes back to sun and fun soon.  Holiday reads sometimes are chosen because they are fat and good to read by the pool, on the beach, or just relaxing on the terrace somewhere or other.  As lots of readers round the world will be staycationing  they may be re-thnking their choice of reading material.... but why would you?  So I'm still in for the dual time story, a nice big 450 pages of Louisiana, USA in both 1875 and 1987.  It's

The Book of Lost Friends - Lisa Wingate

Whatever you choose yourself, enjoy your July reading!

The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse - Alexander McCall Smith

An interesting tale of life in WW2.  Pleased I read it.  Telling us what it was like to be a landgirl, an American Pilot in Europe, and a wanted man hidden in a Dutch farmhouse, all linked nicely together.  There is no awful violence here, but some wonderful pen-pictures of people.  The farmer who employs the landgirl, the landgirl who falls in love with the pilot, the pilot who is flying missions over Europe - and then there is the slow but enthusiastic lad who cannot join up but can be a farm hand, and of course, the dog Peter Wodhouse.  I like some of McCall Smith's work but not all, but I did particularly like this short and very readable little novel. 

The Borrowers - Mary Norton

Well - at the end of April I suggested you read a children's classic, and I told you I was going to read The Borrowers.  And I did!  And what a joy it was to read a children's book from way back when.  

I was delighted to re-read this story of little people who live, hidden away from human beans, and “borrow” everything they need.  This particular family are The Clocks, and live beneath the kitchen, which is really handy for foodstuffs.  The edition I read was the original Puffin edition (children's books published by Penguin from way back in the 1950s), with wonderful pen and ink illustrations.  I loved the original cover.....and I note that the new paperback edition uses the original back cover picture as the new front cover. so someone liked it enough to use it, instead of photographs from TV series and films.  Every little expedition away from home is a frightening yet exciting adventure for Arriety and I loved every page.  Hope you will find it and read it too.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa

 A friend lent me this - and what a lovely lend it was. If you are an animal lover, you will soon recognise the close bond that is sometimes formed betweeen an animal and it's human. 

Here, Nana the stray tomcat is found and adopted by Satoru, and they lead a very pleasant life together. And then one day they set out on a journey all over Japan meeting friends of Satoru in the hope that (due to his changed circumstances) they will adopt Nana. No such luck, so he presses on to his Aunt's home - the Aunt who looked after him when his parents died. Now she has to make friends with Nana...... and she doesn't like cats. I won't insert a spoiler, this book is best read without knowledge of the changed circumstances of Satoru....... but I have to say I did have a lump in my throat near the end.    A Lovely little book, simplistic but not boring.

            

My Absolute Darling - Gabriel Tallent

It isn't often that I use the word Warning when reviewing a book, and if you read me regularly, you'll know that I don't mention books I have not enjoyed.  So why the warning?

sychpath

This book is one of those that describes the crimes involved sparsely, but uses much longer and rambling sections to get the reader inside Turtle's head so that we know how she feels to the nth degree.  Turtle is 14, hates school, can clean a gun quickly and well, and lives in absolute poverty with her father.  If I said that  Martin, her father, was a psychopath and a child abuser, some of you would stop reading right now and never give this book a second chance.  But maybe you should read on.  You see Turtle loves her father - although not in the way we want her to.  She swears constantly, in her head.  She calls herself dreadful things, the kind of names that misogynists call women.  And why would she do that?  Because those are the terms her father uses.

Turtle is a loner, for many reasons, but she makes the acquaintance of a couple of boys her age and their families, and this is the start of a voyage of self-discovery which may or may not end well.  It is only when she meets a ten year old child who has run away from home and her mother's boyfriend that she starts to think about her own life in a different way.

I don't want to put anyone off, but this is a harrowing read, and Martin is the only character in any book I have ever read that I despised with my whole heart and found myself wanting him dead as soon as possible.  This is not part of who I am - so the author found a way to make me really "sit up and feel" whilst reading this book - and what a debut he's pulled off.  

If the subject matter is not something you can cope with (and I understand that), perhaps this one is best left alone - but once started, I had to read on, and in doing so found a little more about why people stay with abusers.  "Walk a mile in my shoes" is the kind of statement that we often dismiss.  But in this case, I walked many miles in Turtle's shoes and wanted so much for her to get some kind of happy ending - because she deserved that.

Shamelessly stealing (from an ex-banker today!) 5

"Don't Die Until Death Comes To You"  (Syrian Proverb)

.... and in these strange times when we never know what's coming next, this is not a bad way to look at things.  Louai Al Roumani was a banker in Syria.  In the midst of all that warring, and terrorism, his bank continued to operate.  And the things they did would be a good lesson for many of the big businesses currently bemoaning their fate in today's Corona Virus crisis:

"Don't overplan".  Don't try to predict what's coming, better to respond at the time.

"Be flexible with rules"  He says there is a lesson here for government officials - now is not the time to be jobsworths.

"Be magnanimous"  When transport ceased because of rising fuel prices and threats of kidnapping, the bank put on a bus service for staff and because there were spare seats it picked up competitors' staff too.  The way a company behaves during a crisis will be remembered longer than a branding exercise.

And then there is the tip for everyone:

"Be kind to everyone you deal with"  because you might need them in a crisis.

His newly published memoir, Lessons from a War Zone - Louai Al Roumani is from Portfolio Penguin £18.99 hardback, although I see there are a few s/hand on Amazon already.  I don't normally read this kind of book.  How to do better at business is never a subject to fascinate me.  War zones don't make good reading for me.  But from a short article I read, I think this one is going to be fascinating.

The Bees - Laline Paull

What a strange world I inhabited, reading this one.  The inside of a beehive, and all its workings.  And what a read it was - this will probably be in my Top Ten this year.   I know that some people liked this more than others so it's definitely a Marmite book.  It is hard, if you only like books with "real" happenings, to imagine that you could read a book of 300+pages about bees and their hive.  But for me it was fascinating. 

I knew that queens mated in the air, fertilised by the strongest drone, who died immediately afterwards.  I knew that.  I didn't know that the drone died immediately after leaving his penis inside the queen.  And if that isn't enough, I just thought there were bees who flew and collected pollen, and those who stayed behind.  It turns out that it's much more complicated than that!  The bees who collect pollen, collect that as a second thought.  The first thing they are after is nectar, which is why you see them delving deep into flowers.  The pollen is secondary, but that is the thing you see if you inspect a bee close up in the garden, when you spot the tiny yellow parcels attached to the legs.

And if this sounds like a natural history lesson, forget it, for although the bees in this book are not humanised in any way except for speech, it is wonderful and illuminating, and if you can make it, will make you understand a lot more about honey, about the way a hive works, and what happens during a year's cycle.  Did you know that they have castes?  That the lowest caste are the cleaners of the hive?  They have policemen?  A ruling class?  Proper nurseries?  Did you know that the drones are waited on hand and foot, and fed the best, and cleaned and manicured by the others...... because they are male, and need to be kept big and strong on the chance that they are the chosen one to mate with a new queen.  I could go on.

The heroine of this book is Flora 717, a lowly cleaner worker bee.  She's not liked much, she's a bit on the plain side, too tall, markings too dark.  And if this all sounds totally human you might find yourself open-mouthed like me. You'll learn how and why this structure works, and follow Flora rising in the ranks from cleaner to forrager.  The more I read, the more I loved this book.  I will never, ever, look at a bee in the same way again.

At the end of the book, the author tells you which book she found out all the facts from, and also gives a Google link to follow in case you don't believe   what you are reading.  Finally, here is a link to a very short slo-mo film with some facts overlaid.  Watch it!

laughingsquid.com/apis-mellifera-honey-bee-a-slow-motion-video-featuring-fascinating-facts-about-the-lives-of-bees/

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The Highland Falcon Thief - M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman

Great adventures aboard a steam train on it's last journey! Aimed at 8 - 12 years, I loved this and I am ancient!  It would also make a great "read-aloud" book.  It's the first in a series (Adventures on Trains) of adventures with Hal and his journalist uncle Nat. 

Uncle Nat is covering the last journey of this lovely steam engine, pulling a royal train on a rail tour of the UK before going to a railway museum. (For train enthusiasts, the Highland Falcon is based on a real steam engine, The Mallard).  Even if you have no interest whatsoever in trains, if you like a mystery this will do it.  If you like mysteries on trains, this will do it.  If you like jewel robberies, this will do it! 

Hal doesn't really want to go, but his Mum is just off to hospital to have a baby, and   Uncle Nat has arranged for a ticket for Hal to join him on this adventurous journey.  So I guess he'll just have to make the best of it...... and it isn't very long before he discovers a stowaway, and a jewel is stolen.  Who?  What?  How?   Just like the very best mystery on a train tales, this has everything, including lovely illustrations which are from Hal's sketchbook, as he draws things he doesn't really understand to work them out.  There are clues, but although I thought I knew "who" halfway through, I certainly didn't know "how" until Hal and the stowaway produced the evidence.  Some great characters here, including a chubby man with fingers like pork sausages; a man with a scar on his upper lip who obviously looks like a criminal; an actress who is not very bright and then of course Uncle Nat who helps Hal solve the mystery by asking the right questions, and not telling Hal that he mustn't do this  that and the other like a parent would!  Great stuff!

After the Party - Cressida Connolly

This was not recommended, I had read no blurb, no reviews on Good Reads.  I just spotted it in Waterstones bookshop and it looked interesting.  Oh! readers - it was!!  This is the story of a youngish wife and mother, married to a British businessman 20 years older than she, who returns to England when her husband's postings to places afar stop.  Soon the company pays him off, and he has nothing to do.  It will not be long before the three children are off to boarding school (as most upper class children were, back a few years (this particular books starts in 1938, a year before the beginning of WW2.  So very soon she will have nothing to do either.  One of her sisters runs Summer Camps for the group she belongs to, but until page 70 or so we have no idea of the who what and where of the group in question.   She's delighted to help out, and her children will have a lovely summer at the camp, and then all hell will break loose.  A great insight into the manners and snobbery of the English upper classes at that time, a glimpse of very real British history, and every two or three chapters, a look back at what happened that summer told in the first person fom a distance of 40 years. 

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

This one was very popular a few years ago, and I even had it on my shelf ready to read. Then, in a fit of "who wants to read about a dog who likes racing cars?" I gave it away.   Silly girl, because some time last year I spotted a comment that made me want to read it, so I put it back on my wish list, and last Summer a kind book fairy sent it to me. So Glad!    Some years ago I read Fluke, by James Herbert which I liked - again because the dog told the story, but this is the superior read, I feel. Enzo is a dog who believes in reincarnation, and in his next life he is certainly coming back as a human.  To this end, he explains why he understands human speech whilst most other dogs just have the usual (sit, fetch, bad dog etc.).  Denny his owner,  has a day job, but when he can, races cars. He and Enzo have spent a lot of time watching movies about racing and recordings of Formula 1 races. Denny also has a wife and a little daughter, and Enzo tries to look after all of them - sometimes it's not possible and thereby hangs the tail (sorry, tale!). And then something very sad occurs, and circumstances change.   Enzo is always there, showing support as best he can, which is sometimes difficult when all he can manage is a tail wag or a bark. But inside his head, his vocabulary is massive! He'll tell you all about his and his family's life, and you may need to blow your nose towards the end. I loved this. Enjoyed the read so much.

John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley

I don't read many non-fiction books a year, but I do really like Steinbeck, and so when this one crossed my radar, I took a chance on it.  That man had a wonderful way with words, and I was pleased to travel across the USA with him, on a trip when he got itchy feet and wanted to take that journey, and have a look at America, and acquaint himself with some fellow-Americans.  What he found, back in the 1960s, forms the basis for this short (just over 200 pages) and very readable book.

He had a early form of recreational vehicle made, a sort of caravan (trailer) on a flat-back truck which he christened Rocinante (with a nod to Don Quixote) and off he went.  His descriptions of the geography he passed through, and the folk he met, made this first an entertaining read, second, a book with a few home truths, and third, a book which was excellent for reading aloud - which I did whilst Mr Mac did the driving.

From the East Coast across to the West, including his hometown Salinas, California, and then down to Texas and then the  deep South.  He and Charley mostly slept in Rocinante, stopping every few days at a motel or hotel so that a bath could be had.  His laundry was done on board, a miracle of DIY is described..... and a bottle whiskey always available in case he met someone who he could be neighbourly to - and he often did.  He found out things about himself.  He found out things about fellow Americans, and he made me think, hard!  How towns grow and sprawl, how highways get ever busier, how little town high streets die and why.  He could be describing the UK right now, even though his journey was 60 years ago.  And I had to keep reminding myself that it was 60 years ago and not last week.  Some sad stuff, some funny stuff, and some bad stuff too (I remember that first little black girl attending a white school,  and remember Norman Rockwell's painting at the time).  Do find a copy, and enjoy the journey with John, as I did.

Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge

Oh. My. Goodness.   What an imaginative read this was! The first of Frances Hardinge's  I've read, but will be looking out for more because it's a long time since I was so gripped by a story. I didn't see the significance of the title for at least a quarter of the book, but that's all to the good. This creepy and twisty tale of a child interfered with by the "Besiders".  The Besiders are those who come from other places, seeking a safe new home place.  They have to come in disguise, for they are different and they need somewhere settle - and land is being eaten up at a rate of knots.  Are these Besiders faeries, other creatures?  Who knows, but their leader, and the  controller of their movements is a man who gets his own way at all times, and usually by using magic of some kind.  When Tris awakes and finds that she has been very ill, her mind is playing tricks. She doesn't feel real, exactly, her parents seem overly concerned, and her little sister hates her with a vengeance. If I say more there will be spoilers, so I won't, except to say that this may have been aimed at a YA audience, but whatever your age, if you believe in any kind of magic at all, I think you may race through this like I did. I was reminded of how I felt reading the first Harry Potter - although this story is nothing like any of those and there is no Hogwarts! Brilliant, very readable, and recommended!

Mrs Mac Suggests - what to read in JANUARY

It's coming - 2020 I mean, and a whole twelve months of lovely reading to follow!  Here in the SW of England, no snow to report, not too much flooding in my town, and quite high temperatures for the time of year so have not even got my winter coat out!

Christmas is over and my sister will be picked up and driven home by a friend today.... she has been with us for two weeks and has eaten everything put in front of her (heartening, I hate a fussy eater!).  She slept well, and for the very first time in her life has perfected the art of a cup of tea with a few pages of a book before she gets dressed........!!

So what are we going to read in 2020?  I read loads in 2019: all listed on Goodreads if you are nosey! https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/18687279

So let's get started on the year.  What shall I suggest for this month?   How about

A book set in a seaside town      

I don't read many series (I like to change things round a bit!), although I have a couple of favourites, but sometime this month I will read the second in the Stephens and Mephisto series.... set in Brighton, and starring a detective and his friend the magician.  Set in the 1950s, it goes from the UK to New York and back.  So I'm looking forward to reading 

The Blood Card - Elly Griffths

Happy New Year everyone.  Don't try too hard, just enjoy what you can!

When The Floods Came - Clare Morrall

Isn't a well-written book with a good story and a "proper" ending a joy to read?  I devoured this one, and loved reading every single chapter.  But stop reading here if you cannot do dystopia, for this is a clever take on that subject, a really good "what if".  Around the internet I can see that this is a marmite book - mostly because this is not a heavy duty dystopia, it's not like McCarthy's The Road, King's The Stand and many others.  But for me, that was the whole point.... a quiet novel set in a boring place, with ordinary people who are getting by just fine.  Until......

Roza lives in a flat in a tower block just outside Birmingham - a part of the UK which is heavily flooded for the winter months.  It is now a very long time since a virus whiped out a majority of the population, and the Government now operates from Brighton.  Some things have remained the same - the internet still works (sort of), some things are very different (no cars, no money).  Roza's family of Mother, Father and four siblings have managed very well - not least because the tower block is empty except for them, and so scope for  scavenging from all the other flats is huge. Roza works on line for a Chinese company; Roza's Mum (Moth) teaches over the internet, and generally they get by and with no other example to go by, seem to have a decent (if a little boring) life. Roza's on-line fiance is on his way by bike from Brighton to Birmingham, sending progress reports on a daily basis.  And then after all this time, a stranger turns up at the flats.  A young charismatic man who tells them all sorts of things....... Can he be trusted?

The Trick to Time - Kit de Waal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I found this a very moving read.  I must warn readers that it does contain a short chapter dealing with still-birth and also mention of mental illness.  But these two very serious subjects are part of the whole;  and the whole is a tender, and powerful read that made my heart hurt.  This is the story of Mona's life - from the death of her mother when she was very small, the loss of her father when she was in her early twenties. It's also the story of her early marriage, which didn't last long, and what she has done since, now approaching her 60th birthday.  For a long time she has made clothes for, and painted the faces of, wooden dolls for collectors.  The dolls are made by a carpenter - a lonely man she seems to feel she must keep an eye on as he appears even sadder than she.  There's also a man about her age who likes to meet her for coffee.  She likes him, but wants nothing further from him - though perhaps he wants more from her?

It jumps about in time, but that didn't worry me at all, I wasn't lost in time, although Mona was, and she was not the only one.  I wonder what I would have done in Mona's shoes?  There are clues everywhere about what has happened, and what is still happening.  There are lovely people who support her, make her smile, and generally guide her through life, but there is also a worrying character or two who turn out quite differently than expected.

I think it's a book to read slowly, because every so often a short sentence appears, seemingly meaning little, but actually opening out Mona's life.  One of those short sentences, which appears during a visit to Birmingham just after her birthday to visit her old friend Val as she does every year, was heartbreaking.  The reader will see that Mona is not the only person in the world to have suffered - for different reasons of course - and she doesn't always think kindly of them because of that.  But all those characters make the book what it is, and make Mona's story so much more.  This is certainly one of my top ten books of the year.

 

The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

This is not a thriller you might pick up at the airport prior to a flight.  But you should!  Although of course it depends what you like to read.  I don't read classic literature much.... but again, I don't read "airport thrillers" either.  So perhaps it's a mystery as to why I acquired and read this short novel (200+ pages).

The first thing to say is that this book has a very unreliable narrator and sometimes that makes a read very interesting indeed.  We know at the beginning of the book that this narrator has lost his wife to her "bad heart", and a good friend to a broken heart...... there are several deaths in this book, accidents, suicides, health?  Well, one thing is for sure, none of them are murders.  But that is the only sure thing in the entire read, for as the narrator is so unreliable, he weaves a tale of Gothic proportions, and you may find that from page to page you can't believe a word of it.  You should, though, because in  between the lies characters tell each other, and the unreliability of the narrator's memory (perhaps), there are truths to be untangled, and people's lives to be played with.

This is the story of four friends, who meet at the turn of the 20th century in a spa town in Europe, and remain in each others company for nine years.  It's only as you read on, you find that one or all of them are not as first described, none of them are likeable and there are secrets a-plenty.  Eventually they are all revealed, but you will be half way through before the pennies start to drop!

Despite it's "of the time" language (written in 1905 and published in 1915), this is a clever book, and a real page turner.  But ...... keep your wits about you at all times, as secrets and lies are revealed, then changed, then dismissed.

The Toy Makers - Robert Dinsdale

 

This is a magic tale, and a book I devoured.  It may sound like and look like a book for children but it isn't.  I'm so glad to have read this one, which will surely be in my top ten reads for 2019. Magic, enchantment, sibling rivalry, the War to end all wars. All of these things are within the pages of this very special book. If you cannot deal with magic realism perhaps not for you. But if you loved Harry Potter ..... you might just like this, even though it's nothing like it. Maybe you just believe in magic - and maybe you are anti-war.  

The toy makers of the title are Papa Jack, a refugee from Eastern Europe and his two sons Emile and Kaspar. They own and run a wonderful toy Emporium in London, a toy shop full of enchantment -  open from the first frost of winter to the first snowdrop of spring every year - a shop full of wonders - every toy made by Papa Jack and his sons. As the book opens we are in the early stages of the Twentieth Century, and a runaway teenage mother-to-be gets a job at the Emporium in 1906.

 
The years go by and we are coming up to WW1.  But that war  was foreshadowed by the war the two brothers were fighting from childhood onwards with toy soldiers which just went on and on into adulthood as the story progressed. So the years pass and WW1 begins. Things will never be the same. I found that part very truthful - that siblings can think they love each other and want the same thing, but as time passes it's not always the case.  And when one of the brothers was turned down by the recruiting officer and the other wasn't at the beginning of WW1, I could see the spitefulness growing.  And I knew there would be difficulties ahead because of that war.

When Papa Jack died, the signal for all out war between the brothers sounded, but really it was very one sided, for one wanted the fight, and the other didn't.  I had a great sadness for Cathy the runaway teen who married one of the brothers, who had a husband returned to her from the war in body but not mind.

All in all, a magical read.  Enchanted by the toys, enjoyed the characters, and loved the Emporium.  But it's also  just the most clever anti-war book.  At every stage the pros and cons of soldiering and warfare step off the pages, and I could see, when a group of soldiers cannot think for themselves they must do as they are told..... but what if they do begin to think for themselves?  Stranger things have happened.

Anne's House of Dreams - L M Montgomery

This is the 5th in the series about Anne Shirley, the little girl who got sent to Matthew and Marilla's farm at Green Gables by mistake (the had asked for a boy).  She had ginger hair, and never stopped talking.  Written over a period of years, the author also covered Anne's growing up, education, career and marriage.

Anne and her beau, Gilbert Blythe, are married in the garden of Green Gables, and set off for a new life in a small house on the other side of Prince Edward Island, sight unseen by Anne.  Gilbert is taking over a medical practice as a new GP, and rented this house as the retiring doctor is staying on in the home where his practice was.    So Anne and Gilbert arive, and Anne finds that it is indeed (as the romantic she is) her "house of dreams".  Adventures befall her, new friends are made. Some real sadness in this book along with joy, for that is way of things, back then or now.  Having read myself through the series I found I liked this one the best, and as usual there are some great characters.   I loved it, and now it only leaves me Anne of Ingleside (although there are more books about the children if I take a fancy!)

Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars - Miranda Emmerson

I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed this at first seemingly light read.  Certainly easy to read (I zipped through this less than 300 page book over a weekend) and totally different; this was a spin on what seemed at first like a murder mystery, but  whilst certainly a mystery  - a good one - it's only possibly a murder - no body can be found however hard the police investigate.  Police procedures in the 1960s were certainly not what they are now and ignorance and abhorrent behaviour was sort of taken for granted.  Set London, An actress disappears.  Totally.  Her dresser Miss Treadway at the theatre is out of a job temporarily because the play was pulled when the lead disappeared and the theatre is dark for a while; and with time on her hands she is quick to try to find her actress. So in her very amateurish way, she starts to investigate the disappearance of Iolanthe Green.  She's only on the front pages for a short while as a dreadful case up North takes over, and suddenly no-one is talking about the missing actress anymore.

But there is much more to this story than the missing actress.  Lies, deceit  and an acutely smart observation on racial issues at that time form only part of the book.  It has a great twisty surprise half way through and a nicely surprising end too.  If, like me, the current explosion of psychological thrillers is not for you, try this one - I recommend it!