Tag Archives: mystery fiction

Book Review: The Search for Anne Perry by Joanne Drayton

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The Search for Anne Perry cover imageThe Search for Anne Perry by Joanne Drayton, Harper Collins, ISBN 9781869508883, RRP$44.99, Available now.

It’s really not surprising that the Honorah Rieper/Parker murder story continues to fascinate so many people (myself included). For the few people who surely don’t know the story, Honorah was murdered in Christchurch in 1954 by two teenage girls – one, her own daughter Pauline Rieper/Parker, and the other Pauline’s best friend, Juliet Hulme. She had been beaten to death with half a brick wrapped in a stocking. At the trial it became clear that Juliet and Pauline had an obsessive relationship and an incredibly complex fantasy life. Lesbian goings-on were hinted at. Parker and Hulme seemed oddly detached from their actions.  The story totally captivated New Zealand and the time and has since been told and retold through books and movies (Heavenly Creatures, directed by Peter Jackson).

And what does this all have to do with Anne Perry, reasonably celebrated and certainly successful writer of mostly historical murder mysteries? Anne Perry, it turned out, was Juliet Hulme.

The Search for Anne Perry is, at heart, a fascinating story that ultimately fails to deliver. The blurb promises that Drayton “is able to peel back the layers of Anne’s carefully constructed life to show us the woman beneath” but reading the book turns into a disappointing experience, as the reader can’t help feeling that Anne’s life as told in The Search for Anne Perry remains “carefully constructed”.

I hate to say that because Drayton has clearly worked hard and gained the trust of her subject as few others have. The cost of that trust, though, is unfortunately this is more of a “Perry-approved” version of the story. At times the tone veers towards gratingly gushy. Drayton is clearly a fan of Perry’s and so the big questions feel unanswered. How? Why?

Throughout I felt like I was trying to read between the lines, to find out something authentic and genuine. Perhaps this is the only authenticity left. If you kill someone, you become a “murderer”; to stop being that every day you must wake up and recreate every part of yourself that isn’t the “murderer”. Maybe then, that’s all you have left.

This really is the at the heart of our fascination with the Parker-Hulme story. They are the ordinary people capable of killing, as all we ordinary people must then surely be. I think about the questions I would like to ask, chief being “When you write about a murder and a murder victim’s body, do you think about that murder? Do you see that body?”

It just may be that those questions are too personal. Too many layers deep.

My final word is I think The Search for Anne Perry is a necessary addition to the Parker-Hulme story, even if it ultimately doesn’t reveal as much as it wants to. It’s certainly readable and will definitely have an audience.

Have you had your Dailyread?

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Dailyread (in case you didn’t know) is a daily deals site for books… great new books for around 50 – 60+% off RRP prices, and all the prices include delivery in New Zealand. I’m doing a little work with them, so I figured it’s time I gave them a plug to y’all!

Today’s titles are a great mystery/thriller from Irvine Welsh, Crime, and the perfect NZ summer book – Bruce Ansley’s Gods and Little Fishes: A Boy and a Beach, a memoir of New Brighton in the last half of the 20th century.

Bruce Ansley – Dailyread.

Irvine Welsh – Dailyread.

 

Three Short Book Reviews – History, Loudmouths and More History

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Three books that have passed over my desk recently and I have passed my eyes over recently… with varying results.

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People, People, People : A Brief History of New Zealand by Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Bateman Publishing, RRP $24.99, ISBN 9781869538132, Available now.

A short and well-produced history of New Zealand, the best part of People, People, People is by far the excellent selection of illustrations, paintings, and photos. The text is aimed at younger students or international students but I’m not sure how well the book will fare in that sector, considering the fairly obvious political bias at work (not surprising with Eldred-Grigg – you get what you get).

Does what it says on the cover and does it well.

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The Two of Me by John Dybvig, Hurricane Press, RRP $29.99, ISBN 9780986468445, Available now.

Both publisher and author clearly know the public’s opinion of the subject of The Two of Me, billing it very much as a “don’t make your mind up before you read” book. Which is fair enough, The Two of Me has a lot going for it – it’s pacy, it’s lively, it’s easy to read – but the story doesn’t really bear out the premise – that John Dybvig has changed as much as he says he has. Centred around a health scare the “inspiring story” really is not actually that inspiring at all. Man has health scare, determines to take better care of his health and he does. Man decides he is alone in the world, determines to meet someone and coincidentally does shortly thereafter. Man determines not to act like so much of an a*sehole. Man fails. This isn’t overcoming great obstacles, people.

At one point Dybvig tells an editor “I don’t need to know anything to have an opinion.” Yes, indeed. General sports autobiography type readers will probably enjoy.

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The Spanish Helmet by Greg Scowen, Whare Rama Books, Available on Kindle and Kindle Apps for US$0.99, Paperback RRP US$16.99, ISBN 9781463558482, Available now.

A conspiracy thriller with a New Zealand twist, The Spanish Helmet centres on Matthew Cameron, archaeologist and historian, who travels to NZ to investigate findings that point to an alternative history of New Zealand, in particular that the Spanish were in NZ before the Dutch and that Celts had travelled to NZ before the Maori arrived.

Sigh.

The story itself is reasonably well-written and for people who don’t want to think too hard (so most of your conspiracy thriller types then) it’ll be a fun and quick read.

But for me there was way too many moments of clunk to enjoy reading. My favourite happens right at the beginning when Dr Cameron is convincing his fellow academic to cover for him while he travels to NZ to “investigate”.

“Anyway, Warren believes that New Zealand was settled by someone other than the Maori,” Matt said, “his particular studies follow the theory that the Celts discovered New Zealand some thousands of years ago. He’s struggled to find evidence to support his theory and believes the government is out to stop him, but now he thinks he has something and wants me to go and look.”

“Sounds great.”

That’s academic inquiry, that is!

The idea that academics have a vested interest in stopping New Zealanders from knowing the “true story” of New Zealand habitation is more than a little laughable. Not quite as laughable as the shady secret-police style organisations in The Spanish Helmet who are busily tailing said academics, but still.

The Spanish Helmet isn’t going to re-write New Zealand history any more than The Da Vinci Code rewrote Christian history. Let’s just hope that Tom Hanks doesn’t get hold of it.

Book Review: Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen

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Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Penguin, RRP $40, ISBN9780718156886, Available now.

Ah, Scandinavia. Suddenly it’s the deep dark heart of crime, the seedy underbelly of …um, Northern Europe? I have to confess the whole Scandinavian crime she-bang has passed me by (unless you count Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow which it seems people don’t – shame as it’s brilliant) – I haven’t read any Stieg Larsson because, quite frankly, I am contrary and if everyone else reads it that’s a good reason for me not to (though now I’m reviewing seriously my contrariness has to take second place).

Mercy follows Carl Mørck, one of crime’s great archetypes – the world-weary homicide detective transferred to a new department where he can’t rub too many people up the wrong way. He’s investigating unsolved crimes, including the disappearance of Merete Lynggaard – a Danish politician who’s been missing for five years. Mørck’s investigation takes him into political circles and, eventually, a fairly ingenious evil-mastermindy type crime.

So, Mercy has a great big “Guaranteed Great Read” printed so not-sticker slap bang on the front cover. Oh dear. Mercy isn’t a great read. It’s an okay read but it’s not great. It takes far too long to get going, it has a questionable portrayal of a secondary character and some odd side plot points that seem to only be there for character exposition but have all the subtlety of a sledge-hammer (like my metaphors, clearly).

It highlights an integral problem with reading books in translation – I have no idea if these issues are exacerbated by a bad translation.¹ The good news is, however, that I did eventually get drawn in by the story and I did feel like the characterisations seem to improve significantly as the book went on.

But I had a real issue with the initial characterisation of Mørck’s assistant Assad – a Muslim immigrant to Denmark. Sure, it could be argued that Adler-Olsen is using Mørck’s initial disdain of Assad as a comment on many European’s attitudes towards immigrants – an increasingly large problem in many parts of Europe, including Scandinavia. But initially it just all feels too crude to be effective.

In many ways then Mercy is almost a book of two halves. The first half is problematic and verging on not-worth-continuing, the second half is intriguing and has characters that have impact. Overall that just doesn’t make for greatness.

¹Am I the only reader to have vague problems with reading books in translation? It’s a bit like watching movies in translation – I only speak English fluently and from what I’ve been told by people who do speak other languages, the translations are generally missing a significant amount. It’s not that I don’t think publishers do their best to get the best translation, it’s just I wonder if any idea of true or complete translation is by it’s very nature inherently imposssible.

Book Review: Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

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Guest Reviewer: Holly Duane. Thanks Holly!

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson, Text Publishing, ISBN 9781921758157, RRP $40, Available now.

This is the first novel of a man who was a medical professional when he wrote it. It is a story about Christine, a woman who wakes up not remembering that twenty years have passed. She awakes in a strange house with a strange man who tells her he is her husband, and then the novel takes the form of her journal that she is reading back entries from the last few weeks where the mysteries of who she is and what has happened to her unfold. Every night when she goes to bed she writes in her journal because every morning when she wakes up she has forgotten the previous day, and she faces the task of putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

Although the topic of memory loss has already been well explored in popular culture, this book is a very interesting insight into what it would be like to live with memory loss, and also a captivating enough mystery, with some nice twists. It is also well researched; it is obvious that the writer has an in-depth knowledge of the condition.

It proposes a frightening concept of what would happen if you lost the last twenty years of your life every time you went to sleep? When I think about this too hard I feel exhausted and claustrophobic because she is stuck in that reality with no possibility of escape, and it will only get worse the older she gets and wakes up to find herself an old woman. It shows quite well the difficulties that this poses for her husband as well and the pain he is in; the woman he has loved for twenty years never recognises him, and she constantly turns down his advances. It is easy to feel very sorry for them both.

I would call this is more of a drama than a thriller because it is not so gripping that you can’t put it down, but I like the way the story draws you into her dilemma by not telling you anything she doesn’t know, and creating the feeling of not knowing what to believe or who to trust, which is precisely the way you would feel in her situation. As she reads through the journal you wonder how we can know that she even wrote it. Can she trust what people tell her about herself? And can we trust what she is writing from her mind because it is clearly damaged?

As well as dealing with the mysteries, Christine also has to deal with the everyday tasks, and then there are the interesting complications of catching up with technology. I was expecting it to have the Groundhog Day effect of repetition because she wakes every day in confusion and has similar thoughts and reactions to her condition, but the author found a way of minimalizing this. The story is pleasantly understated and unassuming; there is a beautiful quietness about it; almost mundane, but not boring.

I enjoyed the beginning where Christine wakes up and sees a strange man sleeping next to her, and then she sees he is wearing a wedding ring, and she thinks she has slept with someone else’s husband. It made me laugh because it is exactly the way you would feel in that situation.

I also like how there is not just one mystery with a whole lot of clues, but it’s more like her whole life is a mystery and we find out things all along the way.
The novel does have a few flaws though, like where are her family? And why doesn’t she wonder this? It tells us that her parents are dead, but does not reveal whether or not she has siblings. It mentions a cousin that had visited her at some point, but does not raise the question as to where the cousin is now. Also, some of what she writes in her diary has more imagery than I would consider a person in her condition with such eager thoughts to write down would bother with, but it does make for better writing.

At the end she makes a stupid mistake that is a bit hard to believe – she hangs around when she knows she is in danger and has a perfect opportunity to escape.

And the location of this scene (which is a crucial point) is very obvious, but Christine doesn’t seem to figure it out for a while. This obviousness left me feeling a little insulted and disappointed.

But I would say the good far outweigh the bad points. The writing is nicely simple and S.J. Watson has a talent for insight into the mind of a woman. A very small handful of characters give the novel a depth that many works don’t get to. I could definitely see this book becoming a movie, which it is set to.

Holly Duane is a 26 year old New Zealand woman who lives in Auckland with her husband Ewan. She has a degree in Philosophy from Waikato University and is currently a housewife and writer.