BOOK MARKS

JANUARY WINDOW Philip Kerr Head Zeus

Meet Scott Manson, he has a cool job as the team coach for London City Football Club, a rather nice girlfriend who isn’t a WAG and he enjoys his life. It’s an unlikely setting in many ways for a crime thriller but when the charismatic manager of the club is found dead, killed at the “holy” site of the club stadium at Silvertown Docks, Manson is co-erced by the club’s owner into solving the crime.

Philip Kerr has created some great characters in what is apparently going to be a series. Manson has to balance his future, and at times his life as he chooses how to play a whole new game: the game of murder.

With a thrilling and surprising end, this is a well-written novel, with good characters. I’m not a fan of soccer but you don’t have to be to become a fan of Kerr’s writing.

– Jennifer Crocker

IF THIS IS A WOMAN Sarah Helm Little, Brown

This exceptional and meticulously researched tome explores the history of Ravensbruck, a picturesque village in what became East Germany. as well as a concentration camp set up by Hitler specifically for women. Initially German women deemed undesirable were placed there, but eventually women from Poland, France, the Netherlands and Russia contributed to overcrowding and inhumane conditions at the camp. This included Jewish women who were, interestingly, not in the majority.

Conditions in the camp are captured through the stories and experiences of various survivors. Despite the topic, it’s not a depressing book. At over 600 pages, it’s a powerful tribute to resilience, resistance and endurance – and to the memory of those women who were not able to endure.

– Margien Matthews

THREE AMAZING THINGS ABOUT YOU Jill Mansell Headline Review

Hallie has cystic fibrosis, is young and full of fun, and it’s just a great pity that her lungs are failing her. She also has a website where she gives advice to people, but first she asks them to tell her three things about her. Three, in fact, is quite an important number in this book as it arises in a number of situations.

The reader meets Hallie as she is off to receive a heart/lung transplant. But don’t worry too much, this isn’t a gross book about medical stuff. It’s strictly a love story with some medical complications and a death or two thrown in to provide an adequate plot.

Jill Mansell is a good writer in her genre and if you are planning a getaway with a book, you could do a lot worse than take this along. It’s a bit implausible at times, but a good light read.

– Jennifer Crocker

EMPIRE John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard Headline

FANS of Conquest, the first book in the duo’s Chronicles of the Invaders series, will have been waiting eagerly for this one.

With Earth firmly in the clutches of the alien Illyri race there remains a group of humans battling to regain control. Syl, the first alien born on Earth finds herself a pawn in a deadly political game. Exiled on a hostile planet, she is determined to uncover the secrets buried in the ancient corridors of the Sisterhood’s domain.

Meanwhile, Paul, the human she fell for in Edinburgh, finds himself conscripted into the Illyri army and exploring the far reaches of space.

Empire offers a satisfying mix of SF, action, suspense and magic. By the final page you’ll be begging for the third instalment.

– Terri Dunbar-Curran

TRIGGER WARNING Neil Gaiman Headline

THERE’S something delicious about an anthology of stories by an author you grew to love through his full-length books and graphic novels. What makes Gaiman’s latest offering all the more enjoyable is his brief descriptions of what inspired him to write each tale.

This collection of “short fictions and disturbances” is dark, intriguing and wholly addictive. It’s almost impossible to put it down between stories.

From glowing orange girls and uneasy lodgers, to jars of snow white honey and sinister labyrinths, this is a voyage into the recesses of Gaiman’s fertile imagination. Many of the yarns don’t end well, at least not for everyone involved, and there’s death and violence aplenty.

If you’re intrigued by the somewhat peculiar, you’ll find yourself invested in each page.

– Terri Dunbar-Curran

LET ME BE FRANK WITH YOU Richard Ford Bloomsbury

This book is an unexpected bonus. One had assumed that Richard Ford was done with Frank Bascombe after three interesting novels, but no, the great curmudgeon Frank Bascombe is back.

This time the author has chosen to write four novellas, all set in the December after Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey shoreline. Frank, now 68 and and a prostate cancer survivor, muses on mortality, and remains wryly funny at it, whether sparked by the hurricane’s impact, his former wife’s Parkinson’s or the sad history of his house.

He’s not the most reflective character in recent fiction, and is in fact somewhat lazy about how he processes issues, but he is not unmoved by what takes place around him. A fine, nuanced, and observant collection without one false note. – Aly Verbaan