Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I will admit to cheating a little with Heart-Shaped Box, as I had already read it several years before. It was my book of choice on a college trip to Berlin and I remember some good evenings spent curled up in a youth hostel scaring myself silly. But I'd forgotten some of the details of the book and thought that now would be a good time to remind myself of why I loved this book.

Heart-Shaped Box follows Judas Coyne, a middle-aged rock star who has gone into semi-retirement following the deaths of the majority of his band, and generally being tired with the whole business of being a rock star. He receives an email that says "Buy my stepfather's ghost". As he has a collection of the macabre, mostly consisting of twisted gifts from his fans, it seems like the perfect addition. But when the ghost is delivered to Jude, a dead man's suit in a black heart-shaped box, he finds that the ghost that he has allowed into his life had a grudge against him during life and is hardly about to let death stand in the way of his plans for revenge.
I really loved Heart-Shaped Box the first time round, and the second time was similarly entertaining. I will say during this second read, there were a couple things that stuck out as needing work that I didn't notice as a younger woman. But I'll start with what the book gets right.
Firstly, I personally really liked the main characters, Jude and Georgia/Marybeth. I've seen a lot of reviews that criticise them for being flat and predictable, but I think that's too harsh a line to take. Sure, ageing rock star and his significantly younger groupie girlfriend isn't exactly the most original of archetypes to run with, but I don't take much issue with this for a couple of reasons. First of all, you don't tend to get these character archetypes as the main protagonists, so I'm happy to switch focus to them for a while. Second, the development that they both go is pretty damn significant, even if it's kept a bit low-key compared to the whole "we're being chased by a homicidal ghost" thing. They go from being a pair of desperately unhappy people who are unable to deal with all of their emotional baggage to a couple that can last through thick and thin, knowing that there's someone who has seen them at their worst and decided to stick around.
The villain, Craddock, is a bit on the cartoonishly evil side of things, having pretty much no positive features either alive or dead, but then I think that's about right when it comes to the supernatural. For me, there is a big factor about a supernatural evil that influences how scary I find them, which is whether they can be reasoned with. It's the reason that I find zombies much worse than vampires. With vampires, there's the potential for a spark of humanity that can be exploited by the quick-witted to possibly get out of the situation alive. With zombies, there is no reasoning with them, leaving you with a zero-sum situation. Craddock has no positive qualities or virtues that can be appealed to and combined with his incorporeal form and eerie mind powers makes him a formidable foe.
The main issue that I had with Heart-Shaped Box in my second reading was that the really unsettling stuff seems to be in the first part, with each subsequent part getting less scary as it goes on. This could be because as they go on, Jude and Marybeth gather some additional tools to combat Craddock with. But then they also get increasingly on-edge and beaten up, so that sort of balances out. Part of it is probably that the character development does make up a big chunk of the road trip that takes up the latter part of the novel. But the thing that sticks out in my mind most is a scene right near the end of the first part which is just so fucked-up and creepy that pretty much everything after it pales in comparison. Afterwards the horror is more slow-burn, which only emphasises how good that shock to the system scare is.

I thoroughly enjoyed my second read-through of Heart-Shaped Box. While it does suffer scare-wise after having its most shocking and nauseatingly creepy scene fairly early on, the ghost is persistent and subtle enough that there is at least a decent amount of tension throughout. The main characters aren't necessarily the most original, but the personal development that they both go through is pretty damn good. I'd definitely recommend this for horror fans or maybe as a starting point for someone looking to get into the genre. 4.5/5

Next review: Banebringer by Carol A. Park

Signing off,
Nisa.

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

If I hadn't gotten Stolen as part of an audiobook bundle, I probably would have passed it by. While I'm not averse to Young Adult novels, I usually end up pairing them with other genres like Fantasy or Science Fiction, rather than Contemporary. If I want to read about real life, my first instinct would be to reach for Non-Fiction. Nonetheless, the premise did intrigue me somewhat, and if I already had a copy there seemed no point avoiding it.

Stolen is narrated by Gemma, a 16-year-old girl who is kidnapped while en route with her parents to Vietnam. When she steps away to get a coffee, an older man buys coffee for her, drugging it to make sure she doesn't try and struggle. He takes her to the Australian outback, to a desolate outpost of his own making that she can only survive in with his aid.
I wanted to like Stolen because the blurb made it sound like a bid for survival against incredible odds. It is most certainly not that. I read this in what was a barely contained simmer of anger and frustration. There were a few reasons for this, and they can be embodied in the two main characters: the victim, Gemma, and the kidnapper, Ty.
So, first of all, Gemma. There were a couple things that bugged me about her. First was the fact that she didn't seem to have a whole lot of personality. I appreciate that when confined to an isolated outpost in the Australian bush, there's only a certain amount that you can do to signpost character building, but even the flashbacks she had about before she was kidnapped were more or less bare of personality. So it transpires that the kidnapper was first drawn to Gemma when she was a child, and her make-believe involved flower fairies, and the fact that she engaged in imaginative play like every other child in existence somehow made her special. When she got into her teenage years, she started resenting her parents for controlling her life! So special! So utterly normal for someone going through massive hormonal changes! The only other thing that comes up is her getting wasted in the park with her friends, which is also, say it with me, entirely mundane and not at all special for someone of her age group. At the end of the book, I knew practically nothing about her as a person beyond the stereotype of a middle class teenager. There are no hobbies that I can list, I know nothing about her friends despite her name-checking them multiple times during the narrative, there are no personality traits that I can name now that it's all over. So there's not much incentive for me to want her to get home. Additionally, and this is probably a personal issue, she doesn't seem to make much of the opportunities that she gets to escape. My husband finds it endlessly amusing that my reaction to most conflict in films can boil down to "Find the person responsible for the problem, and start breaking bones until the problem can be considered solved." Violent and a bit reductionist I accept, but it can be vaguely amusing. Not here. Here, that tendency just made the whole captivity bit endlessly frustrating. For example, there's a part where Ty gets a load of scratches on his hands and he pleads with her to help him clean up the wounds, otherwise his hands will be useless. When she first asked what he would do for her in return, I could have cheered. She asks to be taken back home, and he refuses. Fair enough, more or less what I expected. But then she just kind of drops the matter, and asks him some useless fucking question about how he built the hovel that he expects her to treat like a fucking palace. And my mind went wild, asking questions about why she didn't double down and keep asking to be taken back. Hell, a large part of me was screaming at her to find some lye, and see how long he really wanted to be stuck with her after that. She kept hesitating, like she can somehow reason with Ty.
Which brings me to my second major problem with the book. I could have appreciated Ty as a villain, if the narrative didn't want so much for the reader to want to fix him. He's kidnapped a girl almost a decade younger than him who he's been stalking since she was 10, sure, but look at how pretty and muscular he is. He's a hypocrite who wants freedom for himself but sees no issue with abducting anyone or anything that he could benefit from, but you can't be mad because he had a traumatic childhood. He'll prevent anything that Gemma wants unless it directly coincides with what he wants, but he hasn't raped her so of course it doesn't count as actual abuse. Sure, Stockholm Syndrome is brought up in the final chapter, but that doesn't mean I have to like how the narrative goes. There's a line towards the end where Gemma says "It's hard to hate someone once you understand them", and I hate it with a passion. Just because an abuser does something nice doesn't make up for all the awful things that they do. It reminded me of a scene in An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan, which is a hell of a harrowing read, but a really valuable experience in my opinion. There's a scene where the kidnappers, after months of horrific mistreatment, throw a birthday party for one of the hostages. It shows a more vulnerable side to the jailers, but all it does is make them repulsive instead. And that is what Ty's "tragic" backstory does for me: instead of making him more sympathetic, he only becomes more disgusting and pathetic. And the fact that anyone is taking anything romantic out of Stolen just makes me sick to my stomach.
About the only thing I did like was the description of the Australian outback. It's vivid and colourful and sensual, and I could only wish that such descriptions were contained in a less objectionable story.

Some pretty descriptions of the outback are about the only good thing that can be taken from Stolen. Otherwise it's an anger-inducing story about a girl utterly lacking in personality, who slowly becomes convinced that as her kidnapper hasn't tried raping or killing her, that means it's twue wuv. Christ, it's utterly nauseating. Newsflash, abuse isn't sexy and Stockholm Syndrome isn't romantic. Don't touch with a barge pole. 1/5

Next review: Abandon by Meg Cabot

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

The Shining Girls was a book that I stole from my mum after she had finished reading it, although she seems to have forgotten it entirely by the time that I actually got round to reading it. I took it partly because I was intrigued by the premise, and partly because I had heard good things about the author Lauren Beukes.

The Shining Girls focuses on two main characters, Kirby and Harper. Kirby is a young woman who is trying to put her life back together after a brutal attack that nearly killed her. Attempting to track down the man who tried to kill her, she starts finding evidence that she isn't the first woman who he has attacked, but some of the evidence is just impossible. Meanwhile Harper, having found a house that inexplicably allows him to travel anywhere within the years 1929 and 1993, is compelled to kill a set of girls whose names he has found written on the walls of one of the rooms upstairs, leaving a memento from one of his other kills at the scene of her death.
So I really wanted the whole time travelling serial killer premise to work for me, but it just doesn't. It's quite disappointing, especially as the writing itself is solid and engaging. But for me, the time travel just wasn't implemented well, leading to two main problems.
Firstly, it's really tough to make a thriller tense when you know that most of the awful stuff that the serial killer is going to do has, in another character's timeline, already happened. Sure, the murder scenes are really well-written and horrifying in and of themselves, but it's tough to maintain the tension when the reaction to each new female perspective chapter is "well, here's the next sacrificial lamb". The time and attention spent fleshing them out and giving them engaging problems seems kind of wasted since the reader knows that the next time their name crops up, they'll be dead by the end of the chapter.
Secondly, it uses my most despised type of time travel, the ontological paradox, also known as a causal loop. If you're not familiar with that, essentially it's if person A is given an item by the elderly person B, then goes back in time to give that item to a younger version of person B. At which point you sit there and wonder how the item came into being in the first place if it's constantly looping between two points in time. It drives me up the wall, and the aggravating part is that Beukes spends so much time setting up this closed loop. Spoiler alert, it turns out at the end that the reason the House makes Harper want to kill people is because the House is Harper's spirit. Which is just infuriating, because it wants to be so clever and thematic, but it just brings up questions. How are the girls picked out as victims? Harper keeps mentioning that they shine, but the narrative never elaborates on what that is exactly. The only way that Harper knows about who he needs to kill and when he needs to go to kill them is via the House, so there's never any thought process about why or how his victims are selected. It unwittingly leads to Harper being a more or less flat character, as he has no real motivations other than follow the House's lead, for reasons that are never explained.

The Shining Girls is a prime example of an interesting premise that is its own worst enemy. What interest there could be from the impossible serial killer storyline is sabotaged by its own use of dated time travel tropes. There's little tension because all the killings have already happened in one timeline or another, and the painstakingly constructed causal loop only brings up questions of how this all comes about as well as depriving the main villain of any meaningful motivation. The only saving grace is the writing itself, but there's only so much that can be saved from this plot. 2.5/5

Next review: Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

Signing off,
Nisa.

Stalkers by Paul Finch

It's been a while since I've read any police procedural novels, mostly because my tendency when buying is to drift towards cosy or historical mysteries first. My mum, on the other hand, is very much a fan of police procedurals, so I ended up stealing this book off of her once she'd finished reading it. Which raises the question, have I been missing much in the genre?

The last thing that Mark Heckenberg needs to hear from his superiors at work is that the case that he has spent years building is to be shut down. When said case could potentially find almost 40 missing women who had no reason to disappear, he is even more unwilling to just let this lie. So he ventures out on his own, soon attracting the attention of Lauren Wraxford, the ex-army sister of one of the missing women, who forces herself into his investigation. Unfortunately, his investigations also attract the attention of the dangerous group responsible for these disappearances.
Right, so I have some mixed feelings about this. On the surface, Stalkers is a very competent thriller. It has a tense premise, with some very intimidating villains and the tension is kept high throughout. I guess the thing that kind of bothers me about Stalkers is the way that the subject matter is handled. You find out pretty quickly that the women abducted by the main villains are targeted to be raped and murdered, after being picked out by a rich man close to them. Considering how sensitive a subject rape is, and how often it involves specifically female victims, it has a weirdly "she had it coming" vibe at times. While the rapists involved are rightfully depicted as the scum that they are, the victim that the narrative follows at first has a line of thought that is distinctly male. She's going through her daily routine and thinking to herself how fortunate she is that she can rely on her looks to put her above women who are just as qualified as she is. Speaking from my experience, that does not sound believable. Women don't really think in that way, and honestly, if a woman is attractive enough to garner sexual attentions from their boss or coworkers, that shit is often entirely unwelcome. For the victim to be portrayed even slightly okay with her male coworkers leering at her invites the reader to think that she unwittingly encouraged her attacker. That will never be an acceptable attitude for me. So while Stalkers does get a lot right, I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, because it introduces an element of grey into rape, which should be as black and white as it gets.

While technically a good thriller, it portrays the victim as "encouraging" her attacker, and for me that just isn't acceptable. Maybe you might be able to overlook that, but it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that ruins what would have been an otherwise tense thriller. 2.5/5

Next review: Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

Signing off,
Nisa.

Weekend by Christopher Pike

When I was a teenager, I used to stay around my grandparents' house a lot over the school holidays, and they would always allow me to use their library card. Whilst exploring the library there, I first discovered Christopher Pike, whose books I would have a love-hate relationship with from that day. I have previously read Weekend, but it has been a while and I wanted to see how it held up.

In Weekend we follow a group of friends who are spending their last days before graduation on holiday in Mexico. But what should be a dream holiday is made tense by memories of an unexplained accident that left one of their party severely ill. These tensions are ramped up as things go wrong one by one, starting with the phone lines going dead.
I'd forgotten just how 80s this novel feels at times. These days you'd have to write in why no-one is using a mobile phone for one thing. But mainly, the characters feel very reminiscent of the kind of teenagers that you got in films from that generation, both in teen dramas and slasher films. None of them are really all that likeable, but they're entertaining enough that you want them to stay alive. While that can be really cheesy here, it does feel kind of comfortable. Like nothing new has been made here, but the stuff that does come up is handled at least competently. After the irritation that was The Benson Murder Case, I think I needed a bit of comfort reading.
Admittedly, I'm not sure why Weekend is labelled as horror, considering that it only barely flirts with the genre in the most minimal way possible. And of Christopher Pike's work, it is also one of the least scary. If you start reading it expecting scares, then you'd be disappointed. If you're looking for a pretty decent thriller and mystery, then you're probably on safer territory.

Overall, pretty cheesy and very 80s in feel, but quite good if you're looking for something comforting and easy on the brain. One of Pike's less tense books, but still one of the most tonally consistent of his works. 3.5/5

Next review: Batman: The Dark Knight: Golden Dawn by David Finch & Jason Fabok

Signing off,
Nisa.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

As is my wont, I have left reading one of the most touted books of 2012 until now, long after any kind of hype has died down. I even put off seeing Gone Girl in the cinema because I don't like seeing the film adaptation before the original book. So after all that, was it worth the staunch praise, and can I say that suffering through Mr Turner was worth not having it spoiled? 

Gone Girl follows Nick Dunne, a former writer and current bar owner, on the day of his fifth wedding anniversary to Amy. He hasn't been looking forward to the day due to their marriage hitting a few bumps, but things look to get a lot worse when he goes home after work to find the door to his house wide open, signs of a struggle in the living room and Amy nowhere to be found. The police are soon involved and quickly find that maybe Nick and Amy's marriage isn't as rosy as he would like to present it as. 

This book is messed up in so many ways and I absolutely loved it. There isn't much I can really say plot-wise beyond the summary provided above for risk of spoilers, but I will say that it is really worth going into Gone Girl without any prior knowledge of the plot. The twists and turns are spoon-fed to the reader over the course of the narrative, so while there were several parts that I hadn't expected, it never felt like the revelation was unnatural or forced. 

The character development is similarly solid. Flynn has a real talent for balancing positive and negative qualities in characters, then bringing out certain elements in order to create a certain caricature depending on what the narrative needs. Only towards the end do you get a real grasp on what makes certain central characters tick. And it really explores just how far you can stretch a husband-wife dynamic before it stops being real. 

A very short review this time, but only because there's only so much that I can say without spoilers and you really need to read this with a fresh perspective. If you like thrillers in any way, then you need to read this if you haven't already. The plot and character building are pulled off masterfully. 5/5 

Next review: Sourcery by Terry Pratchett 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Rose Madder by Stephen King

Rose Madder isn't a Stephen King novel that gets talked about much, especially when you consider how much attention some of his work does get. Honestly, until I found this again on my shelf, I had kind of forgotten that it even existed, let alone what the book was actually about. I think the only thing that I sort of remembered was reading that King himself was kind of disappointed with Rose Madder. So I guess I was curious to see how it would pan out.

Rose Madder follows Rosie, a woman who decides to leave her physically abusive husband Norman after a 14 year loveless marriage that has already caused her to miscarry once. Armed only with a few hundred dollars that she took from their joint account, she journeys to a new city, where she slowly starts to regain friendship, independence, self-respect and even a little romance. But her newfound happiness may be short-lived, because Norman isn't the type of man who can handle the thought that Rosie not only left him, but took his money in the same move. And even he may pale in comparison to the danger that Rosie lets in herself without even realising.
I can definitely see why King refers to Rose Madder as a "stiff, trying-too-hard" novel. I don't know if this is the best way to describe it, but I would say that there was a real sense that Rose Madder was deliberately constructed, at least in comparison to some of King's other novels. With King, I always got the sense that the bulk of his stories come out in one lump, with some tidying up done after the first draft. You know, making sure that characters act in ways that make sense or highlighting thematic links, that kind of thing. In comparison, Rose Madder felt more like the IKEA version of King: competently constructed, but hardly his best work.
Whilst I'm talking about how the novel doesn't work, I should probably mention the supernatural element. So it's a painting that Rosie finds, from which we get the novel's title, and it is somehow the most stiff and awkward part of the narrative, and yet the flimsiest as well. It is when the painting comes to the fore that you really start to notice how obvious the construction is, because it's this clumsy mish-mash of Greek mythology references that really don't mesh well with the modern (at the time of writing anyway) American feel of the novel as a whole. It's all the more noticeable when you're like me and read a LOT of Greek myths as a child, and you get the references. So yeah, while the Ancient Greek angle could have worked quite well, it needed to pick a particular myth and expand on it instead of cherry-picking. As it is, we have a weird mix of Theseus and the Minotaur, the River of Lethe, Persephone in the Underworld, and a blending of the Furies with the Cretan Bull, all of which have very different tones and themes. So that's the stiff part, now for the flimsy. While King's books rarely explain the supernatural elements in great detail, it's usually understandable from a thematic point of view. He had devil surrogates in The Stand and Needful Things representing ways that people can stray from the path if they don't pay attention, and the eldritch monsters from Hearts in Atlantis were a nice metaphor for the loss and fear experienced if we grow up too quickly. Here, there is no theme that the whole painting marries with. Sure, the image of the bull works nicely as a metaphor for her brutish husband, but the rest of the painting could do with a bit more explaining. Maybe the woman in the painting is her, maybe it isn't. It's never really explained and it just makes the climax confusing and conflicting with Rosie's story as an abused woman. Because while I can accept Rosie regaining confidence and beating her husband through wiles, I find the whole "suppressed rage" thing that comes up towards the end to be unsatisfying. It doesn't fit the character arc if she sinks to her husband's level.
One thing that I will concede works well is Norman's sections. I have found some reviewers who consider him to be a bit of a one-note villain and I can see why (the corrupt cop who is happy to dish out police brutality is also a domestic abuser, really?), but the sections that followed him in his search for his errant wife were by far the most vivid and creepy of the novel. There is a line of reasoning in his inner monologue that is utterly awful, but makes him feel so much more immediate as a villain. Honestly, I think that Rose Madder could have been so much stronger if it had done away with the supernatural stuff and just focused on the cat and mouse game between runaway wife and abusive husband. It might not necessarily be the most original novel without the supernatural element, but a more solid and even-toned read perhaps.

Rose Madder is the first of Stephen King's books that I find myself not recommending. It's disappointing, because there is a very solid basis for a great book in Norman's increasingly deranged hunt for his wife, but there are just so many things that don't work that I can't really say that it's a necessity to read. A large part of that is a supernatural element in the eponymous painting, because the mish-mash of Greek mythology references and uncertain origins do not marry well and just leads to a tonally confused ending. I suppose entertaining enough if you're looking to complete reading King's works, but by no means one of his best. 3/5

Next review: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Signing off,
Nisa.

A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde by Kevin MacNeil

Continuing in my literary vein, I decided to pick up A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde. I am something of a fan of the original Robert Louis Stevenson story, and the theme of duality is always an interesting one to explore. Add in the promise of a bit of the supernatural and I was really looking forward to this.

Robert Lewis is a young actor currently rehearsing for the dual role of Jekyll and Hyde in a new production of the Stevenson play. When he is the victim of a bike accident one foggy morning in his home city of Edinburgh, he leaves the hospital and finds the world stranger and darker than he remembered it. He must try and resume his life as best he can when the world seems to be actively conspiring against him.
I hated this novel so damn much. There are two principle reasons for why A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde just does not work, and conveniently it works out as one reason for each part that the novel is split into.
So, the reason I didn't like Part 1? The main character Robert. He was a reasonably well fleshed-out character, but that didn't matter, because apparently all this guy could do was whine and gripe about how much better an actor he is than everybody else and why does nobody love him?! When your plot for the entirety of the first part is a complaining two-bit hack being repeatedly humiliated by similarly awful people and planning to get revenge on his not-quite-ex-girlfriend, it gets really pathetic really quickly. I had hoped for it to improve as he got more into the role of Jekyll and Hyde, but then Part 2 happened and it just plummeted even further in my estimation than I ever thought it could.
The reason I didn't like Part 2 is some major spoiler material, but at this point I doubt that I am selling this piece of trash to anyone, so here goes anyway. Part 2 is where you find out that it was all a dream. Honest to god, it turns out that the entirety of the previous part was a dream experienced while a writer was in a coma following a bike accident. I didn't think that a twist this hackneyed and cliched actually passed through publication houses. I don't think I've actually seen this twist played out since I was in pre-school, and that was only because people assume that children have ridiculously low standards. So not only have I suffered through Robert's bitching and snivelling in the first place, but it then turns out to be entirely pointless because he's not actually real. Great. I am still considering burning A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde, it pissed me off that much. You cannot pull bullshit like this and then parade it around like it's high art. No.

I am just so angry at this book for wasting my time. The first part is marred by a protagonist so up his own arse that he could probably count as a genuine ouroboros, and then the second part manages to make it even worse with a twist that is usually confined to the worst and most patronising of children's fiction. Don't bother with this at all. 1/5

Next review: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Signing off,
Nisa.

Plugged by Eoin Colfer

I've been a fan of Eoin Colfer's since I was around 9 years old, mainly for his Artemis Fowl series. But I was only really aware of him as an author of children and young adult books, so when I saw Plugged, a crime novel for adults, I was intrigued.

Daniel McAvoy's life is decidedly on the discontent side. Working as a doorman at a seedy casino in New Jersey, he goes from dealing with sleazy customers at work to dealing with a psychotic neighbour and encroaching baldness at home. His life is about to become a whole lot worse, however, when his on-off girlfriend is found dead outside the casino and his best friend, a doctor practicing without a license and with a dubious grasp on both medical procedure and good business practices, goes missing. With conspiracies crowding in and making his life ever more hazardous, Dan must draw on his former army experiences in order to get out alive.
Normally I would shy away from a crime novel that was this blatantly aiming for humour, but because my experiences with Colfer's work has been largely positive thus far, I decided that I'd give it a shot. It works really well, and for one reason that is normally absent in crime fiction. I think the reason that the comedy works in Plugged is because all the characters are kind of rubbish. Normally in crime fiction, the stakes are really high and every mistake is going to come back at some point to bite the characters where it hurts. In Plugged, everyone involved are ultimately small players in the wider scheme of things. They're not in New York proper, they're in some ratty small town in New Jersey. While the crime boss that Dan has to deal with is a threat, he's only a big player on this small stage. It makes it feel kind of like a story that the Cohen brothers would direct, full of characters who are, to quote the game Fiasco, full of "powerful ambition and poor impulse control". Mistakes happen almost constantly throughout the narrative, and it's absolutely wonderful to see Dan just have to add that to the list of shit that he needs to deal with. It really makes the humour work, and I was already a big fan of Colfer's sense of humour. I don't think I've grinned so much at the bus stop in a long while.
In comparison to the comedy side of things, I think that the actual crime part could use some work. While I'm all for seeing more of Colfer writing about these small-time crooks, I think the tone maybe needs a bit of tightening. While I did like the humour, I thought that it was sprinkled perhaps too liberally during the scenes that should be really tense. Shootouts and standoffs feel like they should be handled more seriously, even if the people involved are nowhere near as important as they think they are. I mean, considering how high the body count gets, it doesn't really feel all that shocking, even when it really should do. It's not a huge problem for me, but if you like your murders with a bit more seriousness then this might be a bit blase for you.

A very funny novel about conspiracies and small-time crooks who want to be big-time crooks. The humour is absolutely stellar, though it does take away from the impact of some scenes that would otherwise be more shocking and impactful. 4/5

Next review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

Signing off,
Nisa.

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Since my last two books have been more than a little disappointing, I thought that I would go back to an author that has been pretty consistently high in my estimation, Stephen King. I chose Dolores Claiborne because I vaguely remember watching the film adaptation many years ago and rather enjoying it. I wanted to see if the book was as good.

Dolores Claiborne is the confession of the eponymous Ms Claiborne after she had driven herself to her local police station. Widely suspected of killing her long-term employer, she decides that she is going to make a clean breast of it and reveal all: about how she killed her husband and got away with it, and how her employer's death was an accident.
Stephen King states in his book On Writing that he never starts with a character, always with a "What If..." scenario, and doesn't have much time for character studies as a result. I can imagine that this will seem unlikely with regards to Dolores Claiborne, considering just how much her character impacts this novel. Due to the fact that it is a first person narrative, and an explicit confession at that, it is an intensely personal and intimate experience to read. I think that, as a result, your enjoyment of the book will depend largely on how much you like Dolores herself. I personally rather liked her, perhaps relating to the fact that she is a perennially-grumpy bitch by her own admission. Throughout the book, she displays a refreshing amount of understanding about herself and an unwillingness to suffer fools kindly, whether that foolishness come from other people or herself. That is a large part of what drives her reactions to the situations that arise from her relationships with both her husband Joe and her employer Vera, so if you like your protagonists to be a little softer and kinder, then you may wish to look elsewhere. For me, Dolores Claiborne was a more or less perfect novel, with some really vivid characterisation and revelations that are flawlessly timed. I personally wish that there was more of Vera, but then I have a bit of a weak spot for characters who almost revel in their own viciously spiteful natures and yet still remain classy as hell.

For me, this was a compelling character study with complex relationships and well-timed plot reveals. I personally found nothing to fault it with. I would say that your enjoyment of Dolores Claiborne will ultimately depend on how much you like Dolores herself though, so if bitchy old ladies aren't your thing then you may wish to skip this one. I'd be more than happy to recommend this though. 5/5

Next review: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

Signing off,
Nisa.

Needful Things by Stephen King

I decided not to wait quite so long to take a crack at another Stephen King novel as I did for Hearts in Atlantis, and quite the understated one I decided on. Needful Things isn't really one of King's books that is mentioned terribly often, but I picked it up over some of his more famous offerings as the premise really struck me as interesting. I know, that has lead to some... less than successful ventures for me in the recent past, but my track record with King's novels has been pretty good so far. What could it hurt?

At the beginning of Needful Things, Castle Rock is more or less your average small American town. A few weird things have happened there in the recent past, but not so hugely weird that most of the townspeople would notice. Then a new shop opens up in the business quarter. Nobody can quite tell what it sells, Needful Things being something of an obtuse name at best, but everyone is intrigued by it in only the way that small things can be fascinating to the population of a small town. When it does finally open, people are quite taken with the vendor, a Mr Leland Gaunt, and his shop proves to sell all kinds of interesting items, all things that people desperately want. And he sells them just within his customer's budget, an added bonus almost. It's only when old tensions start to intensify that the true price of said items come to light.
I do love a slow burner sometimes, and after a string of quick reads, it was nice to sit back and let Needful Things work its way under my skin. When you have this sort of story-line, where a lot depends on the slow build of conflict and tension, there are two primary things that you have to get right. First, there's the basis for conflict within the cast of townspeople and the way that those grudges are exploited. There is quite admirable work on show here: mud thrown at the sheets of the woman who pretty much lives to be angry at her neighbours, spreading incriminating letters and "evidence" to sow the seeds of doubt in the lives of loving couples, and escalating what was already a bitter and petty argument between the congregations of the local Baptist and Catholic churches. Secondly, and inescapably tied to the first point, is the identity of the person masterminding the whole bloody affair. Enter Mr Gaunt, a devil figure who is, for the most part, much more subtle than Randall Flagg from The Stand. I think I kind of prefer this version of the Devil in King's work, because, while I love The Stand, I did always wonder what really attracted people to someone as creepy as Flagg. In contrast, Gaunt is just the right mix of utterly charming and completely malign. There's so much power that he could use to much flashier effect, but doesn't because it's so much more interesting to just nudge people into indulging the worst parts of their character. With these two aspects, the tension ramps up to some truly impressive heights, and that's saying something considering that my favourite character is killed off probably less than halfway through the novel.
What stops it from being my current joint favourite King novel along with The Stand is the ending. All the mind-games that Gaunt has been playing on the town are in their final stages, people are dying left, right and centre. And then the heroes have their bittersweet victory after the intervention of a completely unexplained deus-ex-machina. It is seriously frustrating to have your main hero, a sheriff who until now was normal if decidedly more observant and slower to jump to conclusions than the rest of the town, suddenly develop powers that he had previously shown no signs of. Not cool. I'd have settled for a moral victory, have the heroes lose the fight but retain their dignity and souls, just so long as the magic hand-waving could be avoided.

The majority of Needful Things is absolutely brilliant, with a great build in tension stemming from intensifying small town grudges and a subtle mastermind villain. I only wish that the ending hadn't been the unfulfilling deus-ex-machina that it was. I'd still give it a read though, considering that, bar 11 pages of disappointment at the end, it's a damn near perfect supernatural thriller. 4.5/5

Next review: Darkside by Tom Becker

Signing off,
Nisa.

Hater by David Moody

Hater was another of those books that I picked up because the premise intrigued me. I had previously read this one and I remember liking it, but I couldn't really remember the specifics of it terribly well. So I figured that if anything was worth a re-read, it was this.

Hater is the story of what happens when a sudden and violent shift occurs in British society. Over the course of just over a week, there is a sudden increase in violent assaults across the country with no discernable reason. The reader follows council employee Danny McCoyne and his family as they try to cope with the increasing level of uncertainty and paranoia.
There's a lot that I like about Hater. The build-up of tension is gradual and quite effective, going from a single incident to the point where armed police are a common sight. The violence is suitably shocking and brutal, counterpointing the comparative normality on show at the beginning. I just wish that I could have liked and sympathised with the narrator. I can appreciate where Moody was coming from when he created Danny: stuck in a dead-end job with the council that doesn't pay enough, stuck in a council flat with a nagging wife and three children under 10, trying to be civil to a father-in-law who seems determined to dislike you regardless of what he does. Honestly though, he comes across more whiny and self-absorbed than the intended sympathetic everyman. He coasts through his job because he doesn't have the drive to look for something better, then has the gumption to complain when his situation doesn't change. He has the money to go to a concert with his wife to get away from the kids, but when the question of a pub lunch comes up suddenly they don't have the funds. He claims to love his kids and tortures himself over the potential that someone in their family might turn violent, but it's difficult to believe when the only dialogue that he really has with his kids is either telling them to shut up or fielding their questions to unsubtly imply that they should shut up. There's just such an attitude there that is admittedly partially brought on by trying circumstances but mostly a result of his own laziness. I want to like him. I want to sympathise with his worries about looking after his family and his fears that one of them might be a Hater. But it falls flat for me, because there's so much about him that pisses me off.

A solid horror plot with some decent build-up and some really good depictions of violence. But for me it's made disappointing by a protagonist intended to be an everyman who just comes off as lazy and entitled. It's difficult to care how the situation progresses when you're hoping for the narrator to be bumped off, the sooner the better. 3/5

Next review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Signing off,
Nisa.

Nobody True by James Herbert

Sometimes I pick up books because I read the premise and I just know instinctively that I need to read the book proper to find out what the author has done with that scenario. Nobody True was one of those books. Considering that my last encounter with James Herbert was mixed at best though, I was somewhat wary going into this, regardless of my enthusiasm for the premise. 

Nobody True follows Jim True, a man who is ordinary in all but one way: he has had incredibly vivid out-of-body experiences ever since he was a young boy. While he is on one of these out-of-body experiences, he returns to his body to find that he has been murdered and his body horribly mutilated while his spirit was away. He finds himself searching for his killer, but first he must figure out whether he was the victim of a serial killer who had similarly mutilated their victims, or whether his murderer was someone he knew and was close to. But even if he can figure that out, is there anything that he can actually do in his now-permanent incorporeal state if he does discover the culprit. 

I really wanted to like Nobody True, but I knew that it was a dud when the first seven chapters or so focused on his childhood from the age of 3 onwards and his career in advertising. If anything was an example of the importance of judicious cutting when writing a second draft, then this is it. I did not pick up a horror novel because I wanted to find out how the everyman protagonist started up his advertising business in excruciating detail. I want to see the everyman protagonist struggle with their own impotence and lack of importance within the universe. That fact that Herbert then proceeds to add footnotes that are both long-winded and almost wholly unnecessary to the actual plot only makes the proceedings all that more infuriating. 

I could have coped with that if the characters were half interesting. They really weren't. I mean, your main protagonist is a guy who actively wanted to be in advertising. There isn't really much you can do to save that character. Honestly, this is the most boring, white-bread character I've seen in a long, long time. I really couldn't care less who actually killed him. The fact that the serial killer that I mentioned previously is only evil because they have a physical disability is also really intensely uncomfortable and not in the manner that I had willingly signed up for. 

Having read Nobody True, I have come to the conclusion that James Herbert was an author that had a great eye for a book premise, but didn't seem to understand that the reader doesn't need to know everything about the main character's backstory. The whole book feels in need of a brutal but necessary trip to an editor, and the main character couldn't be more boring if he tried. A swing and a miss on pretty much every count, which is a shame because I really wanted this to be good. 1.5/5 

Next review: The Fire Thief by Terry Deary 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Blood Work by Michael Connelly

I think that Blood Work was probably one of several crime novels that I have picked up during my trawls of the second-hand book stalls while staying with my grandparents. As such, this was probably more or less a whim purchase, picked up for a striking blurb.

Blood Work follows Terry McCaleb, a retired FBI agent who is taking time out to renovate his late father's boat whilst he recovers from a heart transplant. The last thing he is looking for is someone knocking at his door asking him for help. But when the sister of his new heart's donor comes by, he finds out that he is only alive as a result of a murder and he cannot bring himself to refuse the woman's request for help in finding the killer.
I wanted to like Blood Work more than I did. At its core, there is a solid enough mystery with some interesting turns and some genuine surprises worked into the mix. My main problem with it is that there are some pretty big departures from reality that are difficult to ignore, for me at least. You see, in my day job I work as hospital administration. So when the book makes all these errors about how hospital systems and security works, it makes me more than a little antsy. Firstly, there's the fact that Graciela, the victim's sister, meets up with McCaleb a mere two months after he's had his transplant, but only a couple of days since she actually started looking for him. Considering how much emphasis healthcare systems put on keeping donations private, you would think that it would take her years if she could figure it out at all. But nope. One article and the knowledge that he got a heart transplant right around the time that her sister was murdered and she rushes out to meet this guy on a hunch and just completely bypasses a system of anonymity set up in order to protect patient confidentiality. Later on, there's a particular system at the hospital that McCaleb needs to take a look at, and since he can't get an official warrant due to being retired, he manages to persuade two separate healthcare professionals to completely ignore their duty to protect their patients' confidential information and gets them to pull both patient and donor records. I'm sorry, but I call so much bullshit here. It's quite funny really, because mere paragraphs later he feels guilty for committing a crime by briefly impersonating a police officer, when he's already made his friends do far worse. I read this and had to conclude that Connelly either didn't know much about how hospitals work or just didn't care to be accurate, because I can't think of a single consultant or nurse who would risk being struck off or be stuck with a civil/criminal lawsuit all on the word of one civilian working on their own with no court order. He'd be kicked out before he could even finish introducing the idea. Considering that the law enforcement bit seems to ring more or less true, it disappoints me that the healthcare system is written so poorly. I appreciate that this may be a minor thing to most readers, but after two years in the NHS this stood out like a sore thumb and it just pissed me off to no end.
My other issue with Blood Work is that the ending seemed a bit clunky compared to the rest of the novel. For the majority of the book, there's a nice consistent pace that's fast enough to be gripping, but not so fast that it becomes exhausting. Then with about 40 pages to go, it has a moment where everything screeches to a halt, lull you into thinking that it's ending, then start up again. The last 30 pages didn't fit right because the pace seemed so uneven compared to what had gone before. More of a minor quibble for me, but for people not pissed off by basic misunderstandings of how hospitals work, I would imagine that this is the more pressing issue.

Really, I think I would have enjoyed this a hell of a lot more if Connelly had put the same effort that he puts into depicting law enforcement into his depiction of healthcare systems. As someone who works in a hospital, the liberties that he takes with patient confidentiality and the consequences of breaching it are glaring enough to completely distract me from the narrative itself. Not a bad crime thriller, but it has a lot of creative liberties taken that don't pay off. 3/5

Next review: I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan

Signing off,
Nisa.

Envy by Sandra Brown

I can't remember picking up Envy to buy, but I have a pretty good idea what attracted me to it initially. The way that the blurb played out, it sounded like it would have a lot of suspense and intrigue. All in all, it looked nice and sinister to my jaded little eyes.

In Envy, the reader follows Maris Matherly-Reed, a New York editor who seems to have the perfect life. Working with a plethora of talented writers as part of her job at her father's publishing house, and married to a remarkably handsome and talented man responsible for the creation of her favourite book. Yet when she picks up the prologue of Envy from the slush pile, she finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew as she gets more deeply involved with the story of friendship turned destructive and its mysterious author, Parker Evans.
I feel more than a little torn about Envy. On the one hand, there is a lot to be commended. For one thing, the characters are all vividly portrayed and distinct. My personal favourite was Parker, but that may just be because I have a real soft spot for curmudgeonly characters with a heart of gold, regardless of how tarnished that gold is. The plot is also written in such a way that it keeps the tension high throughout, which is probably the main thing that saves the plot of Envy from sinking under its main problem. My main issue with the book that leaves me torn is that I had guessed the basic structure of the plot probably around the point that I finished the third or fourth chapter. Admittedly, my predictions about the finer points of the conclusion were a bit off, but having guessed the general shape of the plot so early, it was difficult to keep feeling quite as tense as I had hoped. So while I feel justified in saying that I found Envy to be a highly enjoyable book, I find myself wondering if it actually works as a thriller, simply because of the demands of the genre. If your genre dictates that you need to create suspense by introducing threat while withholding crucial plot information, then I don't think that this works terribly well, simply because it's almost painfully easy to figure out what the likely outcome of these circumstances are. While I wasn't expecting certain particulars of the finale itself, I don't think that works in its favour either, because the information withheld from the audience feels kind of cheap compared with the twists that had come earlier, predictable as they may have been. So yeah, I have a weird situation where the novel doesn't work as a thriller right up until the very end, at which point it stops ringing entirely true. I will say that despite the shortcomings, I did enjoy the experience and would probably read it again if I were looking for some high quality popcorn reading.

If I were to sum it up, I would say that Envy is a thriller that surprises far less than it probably should, but it's well written enough that you can kind of gloss over it. Maybe not for those who are looking for more tension, but still a solid enough effort. 3.5/5

Next review: Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi

Signing off,
Nisa.

Ratking by Michael Dibdin

I honestly have no memory of why I picked up Ratking out of all the other crime novels available. I guess it might be that I had heard that crime novels based in Italy tend to have an interesting focus on corruption and wanted to see what that was like. Quite possibly it might just be that the cover featured an actor whose work I am rather fond of, and I wanted to read the book before potentially tackling a new series. What can I say, I'm fickle.

Ratking is the first book in a series following Italian police detective Aurelio Zen. After being unofficially demoted due to his actions on a past case, he finds himself being assigned to active duty again as part of a kidnapping case involving wealthy industrialist Ruggiero Miletti. What he arrives in Perugia to find is a fractured, unhappy family unwilling to cooperate with the police, a magistrate determined to find guilt for the kidnapping amongst the victim's family and a force unwilling to work for an outsider. All of this only makes the delicate situation with the kidnapping even more precarious, and Zen only has one chance at salvaging his career.
Having finished the novel now, I find myself a bit torn. On the one hand, it is a very competently written crime novel, with no real glaring faults for me to latch onto. I suppose the thing that gives me pause most of all is more that I don't think I've ever read a detective novel where the main investigator is quite so willing to be completely underhanded in his methods. While I'm sure there are points in any crime novel where the investigator has to confront the whole question of do the ends justify the means, Ratking takes things further than I'm used to. There is no other series where I look at how the investigation has proceeded and think to myself that the detective stealing a car and planting it somewhere suspicious just so that it can be brought in for forensic testing is a reasonable course of action. While I can appreciate that the nature of the difficulties that Inspector Zen deals with do sort of warrant the extreme lengths that he will go to, it is a bit disconcerting that he does it so blithely. It doesn't really detract from the quality of the story-telling, it just might be a point to take into consideration if you were thinking of picking up Ratking: Aurelio Zen very much proves that you don't have to be nice or play fair in order to be a good person, and if you like your detectives to be more noble and just in their actions this may be a serious issue.

Definitely an interesting and rather more sleazy take on the crime genre. The problems with bureaucracy and privilege are clearly spelled out, and the methods that the main character uses are underhanded enough to match. If you want a more traditional detective with an unspoken code of conduct, you may wish to look elsewhere, but if you're looking for something a little different, then this might be your answer. 4/5

Next review: De Sade's Valet by Nikolaj Frobenius

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Surrogate by Tania Carver

I picked up The Surrogate for the very simple reason that I'd never read anything where the plot occurs somewhere that is local to me, let alone a crime series. As such, I was curious to see how the more-or-less peaceful market town that I'm familiar with would be portrayed.

The Surrogate follows DI Phil Brennan as he is called to the scene of a serial killer's latest brutal crime. This killer has been targeting heavily pregnant women, incapacitating them and then removing their unborn child. With significant pressure from his superiors to get the murderer behind bars, quickly if possible, a criminal profiler is brought in to assist their more traditional police work. But the woman they bring in, Marina Esposito, has some unresolved history with the local police, and with DI Brennan in particular.
I think I might have an inkling how weird it must be for Londoners to keep reading about murders happening practically on their doorstops now. Even though I knew it was coming, I had quite a few moments when reading this initially where my brain would pause and go "I used to go swimming there". Not especially helpful when reading about the killer stalking his next victim, but there you go. It mostly wore off by the end, so I guess it must be a feeling that wears off pretty quickly. For the most part, I did sort of wonder why the author had chosen Colchester of all places to place her murder mystery. There is a line right at the beginning of the book where one of the officers gives the whole "crimes like this don't happen in a town like Colchester" spiel, only to refer to Ipswich not expecting the activities of the Suffolk Strangler back in 2008. The thing is though, I remember the atmosphere back when those murders were happening, and the feel of the book doesn't seem to match up. When I was growing up and the Suffolk Strangler was active, the tension was palpable wherever you went, even if you were trying to carry on as normal. With The Surrogate, I guess I was expecting to see a similar sort of fear and tension, especially considering the brutality of the crimes depicted, but there didn't seem to be any real kind of reaction from the general public shown at all, which I found a bit disappointing. There is tension, certainly, but it doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the location; honestly, if I hadn't recognised a load of landmarks from personal experience, it could have taken place anywhere, and it seems like a waste of a decent setting.
In terms of the actual murder plot, I thought it held up pretty well. The murders are intensely disturbing, especially when your heavily pregnant coworker is sat right behind you. Quite glad I don't get asked about my reading material much these days, now that I think about it. There are a lot of twists and turns, and a couple of rather clever red herrings thrown in. Really good all in all, but not something that I can really discuss in great detail. The other sizeable part of the plot deals with the relationship between Phil Brennan and Marina Esposito, as they meet as ex-lovers whose last encounter ended more than a little messily. I feel kind of torn about this. On the one hand, the two of them are interesting, incredibly damaged people who I want to read more about. Hell, this was the first time that I've read a book where a main character regularly has panic attacks and just has to muddle along with it. On the other hand, I don't think that the romance was necessarily handled all that well. If I hadn't checked, I would have assumed that I had accidentally picked up the second book in the series, as their prior relationship is kind of skimmed over and felt more like a recap from a previous story. Additionally, I feel like the previous relationship was used almost as a crutch in place of building sexual tension. I mean, their relationship healing is a big part of the narrative, to the point where it begins to feel tumorous and a bit melodramatic sometimes, but there didn't really seem to be much in the way of actual feeling behind it. So yeah, a bit conflicted.

If you want a tense, dark thriller, then The Surrogate really delivers with its disturbing murder plot. The romance subplot feels a bit rushed and tacked on, which is a shame because the characters seem likeable and definitely made me want to read more about them. For those readers in the Colchester area, this may be of some interest to you, although it doesn't fully realise the potential of the setting. I would probably still be interested in getting the next volume to see how the series progresses, despite its flaws. 4/5

Next review: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Signing off,
Nisa.

Dracula the Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt

I seem to remember receiving Dracula the Un-Dead as a present, from a relative who knew that I had enjoyed the original Bram Stoker book and noticed that this was a sequel written by one of Stoker's descendants. I've always been a bit ambivalent about the prospect of reading it, because on the one hand it's a sequel to a book that I enjoy, but on the other I couldn't help but think that Dracula had ended on a pretty final and happy note, so couldn't really conceive of what the sequel could possibly run with. But, like many of my books, it has been on my shelf long enough that it has guilted me into finally picking it up.

Dracula the Un-Dead follows Quincey Harker, the son of Jonathan and Mina Harker, who decides to defy his father's decision for him to follow him into the realm and become an actor instead. He finds himself falling in with an actor named Basarab who is taking Europe's theatres by storm; Basarab's patronage leads to his inclusion in the troubled production of a little-known gothic novel named Dracula, headed by its author Bram Stoker, and the revelation of a whole host of secrets that his parents have kept from him.
I have some seriously mixed feelings about Dracula the Un-Dead, especially when considering it as an official sequel to the original 1897 novel. If I were to sum up my feelings, I feel that this novel had the wrong audience in mind. This is where the author notes at the back really help, because without them the book could seem somewhat incompetent. Basically instead of feeling like a true sequel to Dracula, it feels like something that you would get if Hammer Horror were given permission to make a direct sequel to the Francis Ford Coppola adaptation, and they also had a surplus of fake blood that hadn't been used in an earlier production. This is due to the fact that the authors make several alterations to the original canon and almost all of them have their origins in the various film adaptations that have been made of Dracula and the vampire fiction that it inspired. The two that are most egregious are as follows: first, that vampires burn up if exposed to sunlight, and second, that Mina Harker and Dracula had a romance. They are direct references to F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula respectively, and they encompass the main problem that I have with the novel: it is aimed squarely at the fans of the film adaptations, and not at the fans of the original novel. I somehow doubt that out of all of the people who have watched and enjoyed a Dracula film adaptation there are many who decided that they would read the source material afterwards, and if they aren't reading the original novel, who on earth would assume that they would pick up the sequel. The people who would pick up the official sequel are people like me, who enjoyed the original Dracula and won't necessarily have watched many of the film adaptations; we're going to notice the alterations and there's a strong possibility that the only reaction you'll provoke is one of irritation.
The other main issue that I have with Dracula the Un-Dead is the presence of Bram Stoker himself. The authors state that his inclusion in the narrative was meant to be a tribute to a man who was little appreciated beyond his friendship with eminent actor Henry Irving while he was alive, but the overwhelming impression that I got was not terribly favourable towards the author. While I can concede that depending on how it is written, Bram Stoker could well share the page with some of his own creations. But the way that the narrative unfolds, revealing that Stoker got the inspiration for his novel from some drunken stranger's story at a pub in Whitby and managed to get quite a lot of details wrong in the process, it gives the impression that he didn't actually have any decent ideas of his own. Combined with the way that the narrative quite happily alters or reimagines parts of the original Dracula, it seems less a tribute to a man poorly received in his own lifetime and more like a seriously backhanded compliment at best.
Honestly though, I feel bad that these issues were so big for me, because by itself Dracula the Un-Dead is actually a pretty decent vampire novel. There's intrigue, double-crossing, interferences from the police, violent deaths and blood up to your eyeballs. If it weren't trying to be an official sequel to one of the most influential Gothic novels ever, I could have enjoyed this a lot more.

A decent enough vampire romp that shoots itself in the foot by taking on the mammoth task of following Dracula. For me, the unnecessary concessions to the film adaptations and the unexpectedly backhanded way that it deals with Bram Stoker himself proved to be far too distracting for me to appreciate it more. 3/5

Next review: The Surrogate by Tania Carver

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin

When you pick up a book promising contents that are like a mixture of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes if it were written by Tolstoy, there has to be at least a little part of you that is intrigued by that description. That's pretty much the sole reason that I picked The Winter Queen up really, curiosity and a desire to see if it can live up to the big claims made on its behalf.

The Winter Queen starts with an unpleasant but seemingly innocuous event, when a wealthy student shoots himself in the middle of a public park in Tsarist Russia, amongst scores of witnesses. The papers dismiss the incident as an unfortunate consequence of the youths of the day's seemingly endemic selfishness. But a young police officer by the name of Erast Fandorin sees the incident and, following a weird gut instinct that he has about the whole affair, finds that there may be something far more sinister afoot than initially meets the eye. He begins to uncover a plot that will take him from Moscow all the way to London and back.
I'm really not sure how to consider The Winter Queen. On the one hand, I like that the story is tightly plotted and at times incredibly tense; on the other, I find something of the coincidences to be really quite outlandish even for a cosy mystery. On the one hand, I like Fandorin because he seems genuinely sweet and gentlemanly and kind of dorky; on the other hand, his perceptiveness is easily matched and perhaps overwhelmed at times by his incredible lack of perception when it comes to people and their true motives. The vast majority of me wants to recommend this book, because the plot is genuinely interesting with an ending that is completely out of left field and totally gripping because of it. Additionally, Erast Fandorin is a detective unlike any other that I've seen: a little bit vain, more than a little foppish, incredibly earnest and overwhelmingly sweet and good-natured. These are things that I can look at and say "This is a book that entertained me and left me wanting to continue reading the series." But then I can't deny another voice, almost as loud, that leaves me unsatisfied. While the plot is well-written, it can feel a bit predictable at times, the ending aside. You learn fairly quickly that if Fandorin appears to be doing well, then he's missed a factor and is about to be sorely disappointed. That leads me nicely to my next point: while he is a detective like no other, that's also a fairly major negative for me at times, as it means that he's really not very good at times. Honestly, other than some admittedly good thinking in his few brief moments of peace and quiet, he has a habit of doing some really stupid things. He doesn't seem to understand that he isn't as good at tailing people as he thinks he is, and has a really bad habit of judging people by their appearances even after he should have realised that suspicion is a good trait for a policeman to have.

Overall, this feels a bit uneven. The story and the character of Erast Fandorin are well made, but there are too many points where I feel that Fandorin's flaws outweigh whatever analytical abilities he has. It meant that there were several times it felt like he got out of situations purely by chance, instead of through his own competence. A decent cosy mystery nonetheless. 3.5/5

Next review: Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy by W. J. Burley

Signing off,
Nisa.

The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert

This was a book that I had sort of attempted before. Back when I was in high school, I used to read to my mum while she did the ironing. We got through all sorts like that, and I had picked up The Secret of Crickley Hall in the hopes that I could read it to her. We read a couple chapters and then put it down because she thought it would be too scary for me. Now I picked this book up because there is a part of me that really likes the haunted house genre of horror. Problem is that it's quite difficult to get good examples of it these days. Is this yet another disappointment?

The plot follows the Caleigh family as they move temporarily to the remote Devonshire village of Hollow Bay. It is coming up to the first anniversary of the disappearance of their middle child, Cam, and the husband hopes that a change of scenery will be good for himself and his two daughters, but especially for his wife who has been blaming herself for her child's disappearance. But the house that they are renting, the eponymous Crickley Hall, has a dark past that refuses to stay quiet. There is something wrong with the house and if they don't figure out what it is in time, then evil from the past may well repeat itself. I'm somewhat torn on whether I think this is well written or not. On the one hand, the plot is well constructed and it does manage to be incredibly tense and uncomfortable for a good chunk of the book. Additionally, the awful events that unfolded in the Hall during the Second World War are genuinely traumatic enough to warrant multiple spirits with unfinished business, which is nice after some haunted house stories where the past trauma really isn't all that exciting. On the other hand, Herbert has a tendency to repeat himself quite a bit, often echoing certain phrases over and over despite the fact that different people are saying or thinking it each time. One of the main examples is the married couple, Gabe and Eve, and their contrasting ways of coping with their son's disappearance. Eve is on the verge of a nervous breakdown but keeps it at bay by refusing to believe that her little boy could be dead, while Gabe just locks it all away and puts on a brave face. When in their respective viewpoints, they consider their own coping strategies, which is fine if a little wordy. But then they consider their partner's coping method and come up with almost identical thinking processes. I don't need to know that Eve knows that Gabe is putting on a brave face for her, I've already had confirmation from him. It makes it feel like there were whole chunks of narrative that went unchanged during the editing process because they sound amateur, quite frankly. Additionally, I just don't think that the Caleigh family are all that interesting. They also seem to have a weird habit of continuing their domestic dramas even when the hauntings become increasingly more unnerving. I can understand that characters will have their own personal concerns, but when they seem to practically forget the fact that their house is full of unexplained phenomena in favour of the eldest daughter's troubles with a school bully, then it seems a little like their priorities are wildly out of sync with the reader's. So a bit of a mixed bag, but when Herbert knuckles down to the actual creepy stuff, then boy does he get it right.

One of the better haunted house stories I've read in a while, but far from perfect. When the focus is on the house, it's tight and tense and everything you could possibly ask for in a horror book. When the focus is on the protagonists, I just lost interest fast. Plus the ending can perhaps be as bit on the saccharine side. 3.5/5

Next review: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Signing off,
Nisa.