Book Review: THE WATCHER

Title: The Watcher
Original Title: Der Beobachter (German)
Author: Charlotte Link
Translator: Stefan Tobler

Publisher: Pegasus
Pages: 416
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

The story leads us to follow a disparate set of people who seem unconnected at the outset.

The novel begins with two elderly women, Carla Roberts and Anne Westley who live alone and are isolated from friends and family. Carla, a divorcee, lives on the top floor of a high-rise building while Anne, a widow, lives alone in a beautiful cottage on the edge of town. Both women die horrible and brutal deaths, at the hands of an unknown killer.

DI Peter Fielder and DS Christy McMarrow are unable to solve the mystery of these deaths.

There is Gillian Ward, a beautiful and accomplished woman who, along with her husband, Tom, manages the business they have both set up together. But Gillian feels increasingly alienated from Tom who is more committed to his business and his tennis than to his wife. Their 12-year-old daughter Becky is resentful and rude towards her mother.

Feeling unloved and resentful, Gillian finds herself driven into the arms of John Burton, Becky’s tennis trainer, who was once a police officer who had to leave Scotland Yard under suspicious circumstances. Those circumstances relate to an accusation relating sexual aggression against a young woman.

Gillian confides in her closest friend, Tara Caine, a lawyer, about the fact that she has strayed out of her marriage, and about how conflicted she is regarding her feelings for John. Soon after this, Tom is murdered in his own home.

Accusation falls upon Samson Segal, an unemployed 34-year-old man who lives with his brother Gavin and sister-in-law Millie in the house the two brothers have inherited from their parents. Samson is shy and reclusive and lacks confidence. He longs for a happy family of his own, a career which brings him joy, but he does not have the drive to reach out for these things. He spends almost all his free time watching the Wards, especially Gillian, who he longs for but not at the cost of breaking up her family.

Could Samson have caused the death of Tom or is he being framed for the murder by someone else? Will the police be able to solve this crime?

 

There were just too many characters in this novel, and we received detailed back stories to almost all of them, which made for tedious reading. Even the inspector had a thing for his sergeant, which was pointless from the point of the story.

The characters were connected to each other in such flimsy ways that it didn’t really hold my interest.

The portion that describes the killings from the killer’s point of view were in the past perfect tense, which increases the distance between the reader and the event being described.

Much of the book went on and on. It would have been better if the book had been cut short by 100 pages.  

The novel raised several social issues such as loneliness and isolation, being uncared for, the difficulties in marriages and relationships, parenting challenges, sexual abuse, even paedophilia, etc, but none of them were dealt with in a convincing manner.

 

The conclusion seemed forced to me.

Book Review: THE SECRETS BETWEEN US

Title: The Secrets Between Us
Author: Black Swan
Publisher: Plough Publishing House
Pages: 544
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Devastated by the loss of her child due to stillbirth and the subsequent and the subsequent unfaithfulness of her partner, Laurie, Sarah is an emotional wreck. On a trip to Sicily with her sister May and brother-in-law Neil, Sarah meets Alexander in the hotel in which they are staying. She is drawn to Alex and his nearly-seven-year-old son Jamie, whose mother Genevieve has left their home.

After an impulsive act of sex, Alex invites Sarah to come and stay with him in his home in Burrington Stoke, look after his son as a “paid nanny and housekeeper” and explore their relationship. Sarah agrees, even though her family warns her not to go. She feels that both she and Alex have experienced heartbreak and that they might be good for each other. Also, having lost her child, her mothering instinct is aroused at the sight of Jamie, and she insists on going.

But Sarah’s dream of setting up home with Alex and his son seems doomed. Jamie is deeply suspicious of Sarah. Genevieve’s wealthy family, especially her mother Virginia Churchill, is standoffish, while her step sister, Claudia, is friendly towards her. But Sarah knows that the animosities persist. The villagers are resentful of Sarah, seeing her presence as evidence of Alex’s crime, and of his shamelessness in bringing home his mistress.

Sarah is torn between the suspicion that Alex may be responsible for Genevieve’s disappearance and her love for him. Could he really have done away with her? Could a man like him, so charming and loving and kind, be capable of killing to get his way? Could he kill again?

The book is a re-telling of Daphne du Maurier’s classic, Rebecca. Genevieve is perfect, like Rebecca. Everyone in the village liked her and everyone, especially her own rich family, the Churchills who own the quarry and a great deal of property in nearly half the village, is suspicious of Alex, believing that he has something to do with Genevieve’s disappearance. That he is hiding something. Alex himself thinks that she has gone away to be with some lover that he doesn’t know of.

Like Manderley, the village of Burrington Stoke is picturesque, despite the quarry in the neighbourhood. There is also the hint of a ghost that plagues Sarah. The descriptions of the ghost are good, scaring Sarah and us, while we are at it. Sarah believes that the ghost she is seeing is that of Genevieve.

 

 

I feel conflicted about Sarah. Like her family, I disagreed with her decision and thought Alex to be too good to be true. Another thing that seemed odd was how she was so fond of Jamie, particularly when the kid didn’t bond with her at all.

Of the minor characters, I loved both May and Neil. Neil, in particular, was totally supportive of Sarah. Both of them were willing to do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

Even Claudia, Genevieve’s half-sister, and Betsy, the woman from the village who is the only one who holds a completely unselfish friendship with Sarah, stand out of the crowd. They were very real.

Another thing I enjoyed were the detailed descriptions, with just enough detail to paint a word picture. The house, Avalon, was big and rambling and creaky, adding to the atmosphere.

 

I lost interest in the book for a brief while. I only plodded on because I have a thing about not giving up on books. At 544 pages, this one was way too long. A good 200 pages could have been cut down, if Alex had quit brooding and come clean with Sarah.

Book Review: WRITE AWAY

Title: Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life
Author: Elizabeth George
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 288
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have read only one novel by Elizabeth George, and that was the 20^th in her famous Inspector Lynley series, The Punishment She Deserves. I came away from it deeply charmed by Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers. The book had convinced me that the author was British. She does such a fabulous job of invoking the British flavour. It was on reading Write Away that I learned that she is American.

In Write Away, a book she wrote publishing the first 12 Lynley books (talk about expertise proven without a doubt), the author describes her approach to writing. The key to writing, she says, is character, not story.

The book is divided into 5 parts. Part I is An Overview of the Craft, Part II is Basics, Part III is Technique, Part IV is Process, Part V is Examples and Guides.

The book is peppered with extracts from good books. Here I’m listing them all, as a sort of Recommended Books List. The list includes Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich’s The Crown of Columbus, T Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees, Martin Cruz Smith’s Rose as well as Havana Bay, Michael Dorris’ A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Robert Ferrigno’s The Horse Latitudes, PD James’ A Taste for Death, Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca, Ernest Hemingway’s Indian Camp, Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, Alice Hoffman’s Second Nature, Susan Isaacs’ Shining Through, Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, William Faulkner’s Light in August, EM Forster’s A Passage to India, Jim Harrison’s Revenge, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

She also references Stephen King’s Misery, The Shining and Cujo, Evan Connell’s Mrs Bridge, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, William Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom!, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books, Frank Herbert’s Dune, John le Carre’s Singer and Singer, James Clavell’s Shogun and King Rat, Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, James Frey’s How to Write a Damn Good Novel, Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peter Benchley’s Jaws, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Janette Turner Hospital’s Oyster, Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, even Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Craig Lesley’s The Sky Fisherman, John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, Dorothy L Sayers’ Five Red Herrings, Frederick Forsyth’s The Fourth Protocol, Dean Koontz’s Twilight Eyes, Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One, William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, and naturally her own novels as well.

Her own books also find rich mention here. She quotes from For the sake of Elena, Well-schooled in murder, A great deliverance, A traitor to memory, Payment in Blood, In the presence of the enemy, Deception on his mind, and references Missing Joseph, Playing for the Ashes, Remember, I’ll always love you, In pursuit of the proper sinner and A suitable vengeance.

There are spoilers with reference to Missing Joseph and For the Sake of Elena.

Each chapter begins with a quote from her Journal of a Novel from 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2001.

At first, I thought these were published books. A Google search brought up John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel, which he wrote while writing East of Eden. It was only in Chapter 5 that I figured out that this was her own Journal of a Novel, a practice she began with the third in her Inspector Lynley series. Since then she has been writing the Journal concurrently with every novel she embarks on. 

The author shares the step outline that she developed for her novel, A Place of Hiding and the running plot outline of In the presence of the enemy.

In an attempt to prove her point that anyone can write, provided they have a tight handle on the art and craft, and can string sentences together for maximum effect, she gives us a run-down on basic grammar as well. This includes a brief lesson on simple, compound and complex sentences, and other variations, complex-compound, deliberately fragmented and deliberately run-on. 

This section was unnecessary and seemed too patronising.

The highlight for me was how she took us through her entire process from the moment she has an idea to the expansion of that idea and then to the writing and editing. She gives us a taste of her writing journey, how she gravitated to books, how she began writing, and how her love for books and writing grew.

She also answers a few of the questions that she is often asked by agents and readers alike. These relate to how she got her first agent, to who her favourite authors are, what her schedule looks like, her opinion about writing critique groups and the big one, why she writes British novels.

This one is a good addition to all the literature on the art and craft of writing.

Book Review: MORE MURDER MOST COZY

Title: More Murder Most Cozy
Editor: Cynthia Manson
Authors: PD James, Agatha Christie, Christianna Brand, Melba Marlett, Henry T Parry, John H Dircks, Ruth Rendell and Elizabeth Goudge
Publisher: Signet
Pages: 260
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I picked this one up because of Agatha Christie, PD James and Ruth Rendell. I found two new authors worth reading, Henry T Parry and John H Dirckx.

The Boxdale Inheritance by PD James: A canon is unwilling to accept a large inheritance until he can be sure that the step-grandmother that bequeathed it to him did not acquire it through unlawful means.

The Man on The Roof by Christianna Brand: A mean duke is found killed, but the inspector isn’t convinced it is suicide even though the dead man had a history of always threatening to commit suicide.

In this story, it is a woman who upstages the intelligent inspector, as is a trend in cozy mysteries.

The Second Mrs Porter by Melba Marlett: A woman admitted to a hospital believes that the real Mrs Porter is dead and that she has been forced to take her place.

I found the plot this book rather clever at the beginning, but it ended so vaguely that I lost all interest.

The Paintbox Houses by Ruth Rendell: I enjoy her writing, particularly the Wexford series. Her descriptions were a treat and so they were here. But the story itself felt flat as it reached its conclusion.

The Mahogany Wardrobe by John H Dirckx: This was one of the best stories in this book.

The Plumpoint Ladies by Henry T Parry: This one started out very slow, and I almost gave up reading it. But it simmered nicely and really turned up the intensity around the halfway mark.

White Wings by Elizabeth Goudge: Two rich elderly sisters who come upon hard times, and have pity on a vagrant, only to find their precious possessions being stolen from them.

Sanctuary by Agatha Christie: A dying man drags himself into the sanctuary of a church, and says one word, Sanctuary, to the pastor’s wife. She turns out to be the niece of Miss Marple, and she uses her own common sense, along with her aunt’s wonderful deduction skills to learn the truth about the murderer.

All in all, this was quite a good collection and lived up to the promise of being a most cozy read.

Book Review: MRS MCGINTY'S DEAD

Title: Mrs McGinty's Dead

Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 240

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’ve always considered Hercule Poirot’s lines to be worthy of compilation into a separate book of their own. They have so much charm.

In this book, we are back with the great Belgian detective. The Cast of Characters section informs those who have never had the pleasure of meeting Poirot that there are only two things in life he took seriously: the study of crime and his stomach.

When Poirot first comes to know of the murder of the widow, Mrs McGinty, an elderly small-time charwoman, he thinks it had not been an interesting murder.

Mrs McGinty had been cleaning at the homes of nearly all the large houses in the village. The weapon used to bash her head in is never found, but the 30 pounds that she had hidden beneath the floorboards in her house leads the police to suspect her paying guest, James Bentley who is sentenced to death.

But the superintendent is unconvinced of Bentley’s guilt, even though all clues point that way. He requests Poirot to take on the case, and either confirm or disprove Bentley’s guilt.

When he first makes the claim that he is closing in on the culprit, it appears to be an egotistical claim. But then we see how he closes in on the culprit. Drawing them all out together for the final denouement, he begins by suspecting them all one by one, and they are all certainly worthy of suspicion. In true Christie style, everyone has something to hide.

I like the way we find ourselves suspecting every character but the right one. How Christie makes the real killer hide in plain sight.

One line from the book that stood out for me:

Authors were shy, unsociable creatures, atoning for their lack of social aptitude by inventing their own companions and conversations.