July 2023

THE GENIUS KILLER . . . Between the covers

The central character of this novel is Karl Jackson. He has survived a brutal upbringing punctuated with savage beatings by his drunken father, and sexual abuse from his uncle Charlie. Karl has a twin, Nathan, but he never faced the same storm of violent rage. Karl Jackson is described in the cover blurb as a sociopath. I am no psychologist, but Jackson’s steady job as a chemistry teacher and his scrupulous and well-planned crimes make me think he is more psychopathic, but it does not matter. He is a genuinely awful human being. His spree of undetected killings started in his childhood when, merely for the fun of it, he pushed a young boy – fishing in the lake where they played – down into the water, and then watched with amusement as the lad struggled, choked, and then bobbed about on the surface as lifeless as the float attached to his fishing line.

Jackson’s genius (hence the title of the book) is to organise killings in such a way that no possible evidence can link the deaths to him. While Jackson was working as a student in Australia, one of his murders involved the ingenious combination of a sleeping bag, a sedative injection and a deadly Brown Snake on a hiking trail in the Blue Mountain region of New South Wales. Jackson exacts an elaborate – and some may say justified – revenge on his father by causing the old man’s death in hospital with a very clever use of cyanide and the sharpened end of a coat hanger.

The background to this novel is the atmospheric landscape of the English Lake District, where Jackson carries out another long delayed act of retribution on his abusive uncle Charlie by faking an accidental climbing death. When Charlie is found dead at the bottom of a solo climb, his head shattered like a melon hit with a hammer, no one believes it is anything other than an unfortunate error of judgement.

Thus far, Jackson has been clever enough to avoid any attention from the police but, inevitably, he meets his nemesis. Theodore “Tex” Deacon is a late career – but distinguished – detective slowly recovering from the trauma caused by the protracted death of his wife. As is the way with institutions these days, he is temporarily sidelined and identified as a vulnerable person in need of psychological help and treatment by the ubiquitous counselling profession. However, his many successes in tracking down murderers brings him to the attention of Debbie Pilkington, an ambitious young reporter with a local Lakeland newspaper. She alerts him to the many coincidences surrounding deaths in the Jackson family, and so he goes off piste to investigate the case.

Black humour is never very far away in this book, despite the body count. Here, Karl Jackson describes the man who is having an affair with his wife.

“Richard Turkington’s graying Beatle cut had a bald spot on top giving him the appearance of a rock star monk. A fleshy roll wobbled over the top of his chinos. Turkington had clearly ignored warning signs of middle age and had lived a pudgy existence preferring a world of pints and puddings. Quite a contrast to the sleek wire framed fell runners surrounded by them at a function like this. Richard looked like Mr Blobby.”

The Genius Killer rattles along at great pace and is sometimes darkly comic, but in Jackson, the author has created a genuine larger-than-life monster. The book ends rather enigmatically, but as it is described as No.1 in the Tex Deacon series, I suspect the Cumbrian copper will be back soon with another case. Mark Robson is a sports journalist and this is his debut novel. It is published by Orla Kelly Publishing and available now.

July 14, 2023 0

AND THEN I’LL KNOW . . . Between the covers

This novel is, on one level, an entertaining and robust police procedural. On another level, however, it is a study in obsession, and something of an object lesson about what happens when, metaphorically speaking, people lift heavy stones and are surprised at what they see scurrying around underneath. Amber Ryan is a detective sergeant with the Manchester police. The greater part of the book has a then and now narrative. ‘Then’ describes, Amber’s childhood which turns out to have many a tragic twist. Her father, a policeman, goes missing. Then, her mother dies of cancer. She and her sister Rachel are taken in by their aunt and uncle but when her uncle is killed in a road accident and her aunt goes to pieces emotionally and physically, the two girls are taken into local authority care.

Back in ‘Now’, Amber’s obsession is to find out what actually happened to her father. On the pretext that a local murder of a young woman is connected to similar murders in London, she requests permission to go to the capital and look at the files. In truth, however, she is more interested in the fact that the women killed in London all had connections to a children’s home and cases of child abuse. She knows that her father was involved in investigating this case and is convinced that she will turn up evidence which will lead her to the truth of what happened to him.

With a mixture of good fortune, instinct and background knowledge, Amber is able to refocus the investigating team on the murder of the young women. As a result she is then seconded for a further two weeks and comes something of a blue eyed girl in the eyes of the senior officers. This is not to the satisfaction of everyone in the team. Temporarily promoted to Detective Inspector, it has to be said that she pushes her luck she interviews some of the men who were found guilty of historic child abuse crimes. The interviews are not particularly friendly or gentle, and she moves from one appointment to the next hoping to stay ahead of phone calls of complaint to Professional Standards. Amber also suspects that there is someone on the investigating team who is leaking information to the very people they are trying to track. But who?

Two thirds of the way through the book it turns into anything but a police procedural as Amber breaks every rule in the book in her determination to find the truth. This final section of the book,where Amber goes very much off piste, may not be to everyone’s taste and it has to be said some of it does stretch credulity. There is certainly something of a “with one bound she was free”element to what goes on. Amber’s heroics result in the bad guys being brought down, but it does not bring the outcome that she was looking for. She is almost drowned by a tidal wave of betrayal, shattered childhood dreams and a bitter sense of betrayal. It could be said, though, that at the very end Amber does gaze into the abyss but sensibly turns away before the abyss gazes back at her. She is left with another personal challenge, another search and possibly a deeper sense that this final quest will bring her personal happiness.

And Then I’ll Know is certainly a gripping read (I finished it in two or three sessions) and is clearly a departure from Brady’s previous two novels – comedy thrillers on the theme of food. The Meal of Fortune and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Chef may not have caused much of a stir in the world of crime fiction, but this latest book deserves to be read and admired by a wider audience. And Then I’ll Know is published by 5W Press and is available now.

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/and-then-i-ll-know

July 9, 2023 1

WATER STREET . . . Between the covers

Britain’s relationships with both North and South during the American Civil War (1861-65) are something of a historical byway these days, but at the time, the conflict was a major issue in the port city of Liverpool. When the Union navy blockaded Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and Mobile, it prevented shiploads of raw cotton from departing in the direction of Liverpool, thus dealing a crippling blow to the spinning and textile industries in and around Liverpool. The popular and political sentiment in the city became very much pro-Confederacy, and despite the national government remaining stoically neutral, shipyards on the River Mersey continued to build fighting ships – such as the Alabama – and sell them to the South.

Water Street is a highly entertaining novel set in the summer of 1863, and features murder and mayhem involving Union and Confederate spies trying to outwit each other and advance their respective causes with the British government. Author JP Maxwell centres his tale around two women – Harriet Dunwoody and her creole companion Conté Louverture. Harriet is married to a grotesque man called Banastre Xavier Dunwoody, an ardent and violent secessionist who plans to swing the support of Britain’s government – led by a seriously ill Lord Palmerston – behind the cause of Jefferson Davies and the Confederate States. Harriet is playing a very dangerous double game, along with Conté, as they conspire behind Dunwoody’s back to thwart local efforts to boost support for the Confederacy. In doing so, they enlist the aid of a rather ramshackle band of Irish nationalists, led by a thug called Royston Chubb.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the book (a quick read, just over 200 pages) I did want to step back and examine if – and to what extent – the characters in the book are based on real life historical figures. First, Palmerston. Although he was sick and elderly in 1863, there is no evidence that he was comatose and incapable of thought. The novel has Edward Seymour as First Lord of The Admiralty, and this he certainly was, but it seems his real life influence on Palmerston was nowhere as crucial as portrayed in the book. There was a Confederate agent in Liverpool called James Dunwoody Bulloch who did his very best to advance the Confederate cause during the war years, and he was certainly instrumental in pushing through deals with shipyards like Cammell Laird to build warships for the Confederacy, but he wasn’t the drunken gunslinger portrayed here.

One character who Maxwell doesn’t play fast and loose with is the official US Consulate to Liverpool – Thomas Haines Dudley. Dudley worked tirelessly for the Union cause, always being careful to stay within the constraints of diplomacy. The most curious real life character in the book is that of Major General Benjamin Butler. History has not been kind to him as either soldier, lawyer or politician, but there is no evidence (that I have seen) that he was running a ring of Union spies in the UK, nor that he visited Liverpool in 1863. In an edgy epilogue, Maxwell has Butler listening cynically to Lincoln’s famous speech at Gettysburg on 19th November 1863. He is joined by two characters called Surratt and Wilkes-Booth. If you know, you know!

To be fair, JP Maxwell has not claimed that Water Street is accurate historical fiction, and so my comments on real historical people can be ignored if you enjoy the book. The writing is very much ‘larger-than-life and, to borrow a sporting cliché, Maxwell leaves nothing in the dressing room. I loved every page – it’s full of drama, period detail and vividly portrayed characters. It was published on 1st July – a significant date, in the context of the story – by BK Books.

July 9, 2023 1

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT . . . Lisa Towles

Lisa Towles is an innovative and inventive author from California who writes thrillers which share a common characteristic – each takes a well-worn plot-line or narrative within the genre, and gives it a distinctive twist.

CHOKE (2017)

Screen Shot 2023-07-09 at 09.15.17 Kerry Stine’s plan to rebuild her life goes into freefall when a patient vanishes from San Francisco General Hospital on her watch, thrusting her down a rabbit hole that leads to a past from which she can no longer escape. Out of work, terrified and running from the police, she trust no one and every step pushes her further away from logic and reality. 3000 miles away scientist Adrian Calhoun has developed a cigarette that cures lung cancer and he’s hellbent or distributing his miracle cure before the nig pharma mafia gets to him first. Kidnapped by his pursuers he is held prisoner in exchange for the chemical formula to his invention. His path crosses that of Kerry, and when the threads finally knit together Kerry discovers that what she and Adrian Calhoun have in common will return to her pieces of her past she never knew she’d lost.

THE UNSEEN (2019)

Ancient scrolls discovered by Rachel Careski threaten the power of the church. Descendants, of Pope Theopolis sworn to protect Christianity, believe Soren Careski took possession of them after Rachel disappeared, but he is dead. 40 years later Soren’s son Alex Careski receives an email from a dead man, he is fired from his job, shot at, his car is rammed and his wife Simone is kidnapped. In London meanwhile, two rare books go missing from the British Museum. The director of antiquities disappears, her colleague is murdered and her would-be lover is caught up in the intrigue. Soren left boxes of diaries in Alex’s cell: will they help unravel the truth about the disappearances of Alex’s wife father and aunt? Desperate for answers, he travels to Italy where he is kidnapped along with an enterprising young woman who is also embroiled in the deadly mysteries of the ancient scrolls.

NINETY-FIVE (2021)

Troubled University of Chicago student Zak Skinner accidentally uncovers evidence of an on-campus organised crime scam involving drugging students, getting them to commit crimes on camera and blackmailing them to continue their misdeeds under the threat of expulsion. Digging deeper, Zak discovers that the university scam is just the tip of the iceberg as it’s connected to a broader ring of crimes, themselves linked to a darkweb underworld. Following clues, Zak is led to a compound within Chicago’s abandoned Steelworker Park only to discover that he is being hunted. While trying to find his way out alive, Zak discovers that there is something much more personal he has been running from – his past. And now he has nowhere to hide.

HOT HOUSE (2021)

Former CIA operative and private investigator Mari Ellwyn teams up with seasoned investigator and former detective Derek Abernathy to look into the wrongful death of Sophie Michaud, a mentally ill college student whose murder is linked to Mari’s missing father. Two journalists – one dead, one missing – were writing a story on the dead college student with allegations about her connection to a federal judge. The two investigators must uncover the truth about Sophie Michaud before her killer makes them the next target. More importantly, Mari needs to find her missing father and reconcile her broken past and family.

THE RIDDERS (2022)

Screen Shot 2023-07-09 at 09.21.05 Brock “BJ” Janoff and his older brother Jonas run a private investigation firm in Venice California. BJ is randomly approached by a stranger on the street with a proposition he cannot refuse – $1 million to deliver a single envelope to a hotel lobby. They pay him upfront which sounds good on the surface, but now BJ’s life is in danger if he he doesn’t deliver the envelope in time. Obsessed with the envelope’s contents, BJ follows clues to investigate the people behind what he believes is an organised crime scam. When an act of brilliance changes the balance of power, the safety of everyone he loves is in jeopardy. The more he digs, the closer he gets to truths he cannot bear to face about the elusive Biderberg Group, his missing father and about the fate of his friends and family.

SALT ISLAND (2023)

The private investigation team of Mari Elwyn and Derek Abernathy are tested to the extreme with two new cases involving high-stakes corporate espionage and eco – terrorism. Someone is trying to sabotage billionaire CEO Jack Darcy’s reputation and – to complicate matters – his glamorous wife has gone missing. THRYVE, Darcy’s high-profile environmental start-up is lauded by investors as one of the best innovations of the decade, but a journalist has learned Darcy’s dirty little secret and is hellbent on exposing it to investors and the world at large. In a separate case Derek heads to the central valley to investigate two suspicious deaths from an explosion on a local farm. The deeper he digs, more questions emerge about what the murdered farm workers may have witnessed – toxic chemical dumping linked to an oil and gas company. A shadow witness is gathering evidence, but disappears before Derek can get to her. As Mari considers her next move in the Darcy case, her partner has gone undercover to find the missing witness and now he’s off grid. Mari must reckon with powerful ghosts from her past – a missing father and the truth about his double identity and secret agenda. She embarks on her own investigation to the British Virgin islands, one of her father’s secret haunts during his time as a CIA man. She uncovered details too painful to bear about her father herself and her future.

July 9, 2023 0

LEHRTER STATION . . . Between the covers

John Russell is an Anglo American journalist turned spy. His problem is that he has spied for too many different countries. He has spied for the Russians, the Nazis, the British and the Americans – and they all have a piece of him. In his heart of hearts he is a pre-Stalin communist. Once a member of the party, he is a man who once believed in the promise of genuine socialism.

December 1945 finds him in London with his long term girlfriend Effie Koenen, his son by his marriage to a wife long since dead, and Effie’s sister. He is basically a puppet waiting for the next tug on his strings. This time it comes from the Russians. Such is Stalin’s power and reach in the postwar world that he can easily persuade his allies to terminate Russell’s temporary haven in London, and so it is that Russell and Effie are forced to return to the shattered remains of Berlin.

Effie was a considerable star in the pre-war film world and is anxious to resume her career. For Russell it is a question literally of life and death. If he does not follow the instructions of the NKVD he knows that his life will not be worth living, nor those of Effie or his son Paul. Paul fought in the Wehrmacht in the dying days of the war but has been allowed to re-settle in London as part of the Russian deal for Russell’s continued cooperation.

One historical issue that runs through the book is the plight of Europe’s Jews. Despite survivors living in Berlin being given special victim status by the occupying administration, and thus receiving better rations, further afield many Jews still found themselves homeless and unwanted. The British are determined to limit the number of Jews heading to the new land in Arab Palestine. The Russians are indifferent and the Americans are torn between support for the British and an awareness of the voting power of Jewish American citizens.

Across central Europe there are several Jewish organisations determined to avenge the deaths of their fellow citizens, by whatever means necessary. Russell meets a young man called Michael who is in one such group.

Michael smiled for the first time and it lit up his face.

“Do you know Psalm 94?” he asked.
“Not that I remember.”
“He will repay them for their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness. The Lord our God will wipe them out.”
“The Nazis I assume? So if God has them in his sights, where do you come in? Are you God’s instruments?”
“Not at all. if there is a God he has clearly abandoned the Jews. We will do the work that he should have done.”

Screen Shot 2023-07-09 at 08.43.41

David Downing (left), writing this book in 2012, was obviously well aware of how things have played out in our own times, but he has Russell reunited with a young Jew who he had helped escape Germany years earlier.

“And I’ll tell you something else,”. Albert said. “I understand why the Poles are expelling the Germans from their new territories, and I understand why they are making it impossible for the Jews to return. If my friends and I have our way the Arabs will all be expelled from Palestine. Anything else is just stirring up trouble for the future.”
“That will put a bit of a strain on the worlds sympathy, don’t you think?”
“Once we have the land we can do without the sympathy.”

Russell’s sense of world weariness and and the depth of his cynicism about those who employ him does not prevent him from being a compassionate man. In order to file a marketable story with his London agent, Russell embeds himself with what could be called a gang of people smugglers, except the people that are being smuggled are Jews desperate to get away from Europe and start a new life in Palestine. The route involves a long and arduous trek – literally across mountains and rivers in – order to get to Italy and then to the Mediterranean Sea. There is one bitterly ironic scene where, on the way, Russell meets up with a man who he knows is a former SS officer. The man is with his young son and Russell promises not to betray them to the Jews, basically because of the young boy. In an awful reversal of what happened to so many Jews years earlier, the pair are identified as non Jews because they are uncircumcised. Russell cannot prevent the father being gunned down; neither can he persuade the boy to leave his father’s body as the convoy moves on.

In another sub plot of the book, Russell tries to locate two missing Jewish people. One is very much close and personal to him and Effie. Earlier in the war Effie had given a home to Rosa, an apparently orphaned Jewish girl. She has now taken Rosa as the child she now knows she will probably never have, and Rosa has gone with them to England. However, at the back of Effie’s mind is that if either of Rosa’s parents should be discovered alive, this will pose a great problem should they wish to reclaim their daughter. Using the same sources – mostly meticulous Nazi bureaucratic records of who was sent where – Russell also tries to discover the fate of a young Silesian Jew called Miriam who we met in an earlier book in this excellent series. (Click the link below for more information)

https://fullybooked2017.com/tag/david-downing/

With a mixture of luck, cunning – and favours from friends – Russell manages to survive the t. ands of his Russian minders goes fatally wrong. By the end of the book Russell has peeled back layer after layer of spectacularly evil deeds committed by all parties and nationalities, but somehow his personal integrity – and that of Effie – survive. This is a compelling literary journey through a wasteland which is both moral and literal.

July 9, 2023 0