Jane Harper, a crime writing force to be reckoned with.

A while ago I published a review of The Dry, Jane Harper's debut novel which blew me away (http://thisreadingmummy.blogspot.com/2017/03/book-review-dry-by-jane-harper.html ).

Since then  she has written 2 more books which are just as good. Each novel has a different setting and a different set of characters though the setting is always an isolated area of rural Australia. In each novel it is her description of the setting and dramatic evocation of the harsh and dangerous landscape which lifts her writing away from conventional crime writing and gives it an extra dimension. All the novels are exceptionally well plotted with a seemingly impossible conundrum to solve that is revealed cleverly, allowing each character to be a suspect for a while before drawing to a satisfying and plausible conclusion. The suspense and tension created is electrifying - I could not put any of these books down - reading long into the small hours of the night. 

Force of Nature centres around a corporate team building weekend in a remote nature reserve. A team of 5 women set out on a hike and only 4 return to the rendezvous point. What happened to the 5th woman? The missing woman, Alice Russell,  is the whistleblower on the current case of Aaron Falk (the detective from The Dry), a money laundering investigation, so Aaron and his colleagues begin looking into her disappearance. It soon transpires that the relationships between the 5 colleagues were filled with mistrust and suspicion and everyone has a motive for wanting Alice out of the way.

Again, the setting takes centre stage as Harper deftly shows the reader just how frightening it would be to be lost in the impenetrable forests she describes.

The Lost Man is Harper's latest offering. I just finished reading it and I literally could not put it down.  It is a little different from her previous two novels in that Aaron Falk does not feature. In fact there are no real detectives or police investigation at all. Instead the focus is completely on a handful of characters within the Bright family. 

The novel opens with Cameron Bright being found dead on the boundary of his vast cattle station in outback Queensland. The autopsy confirms that he died from dehydration having walked away from his vehicle. The police believe he walked away deliberately, opting to end his own life, but the family thinks differently. His brother Nathan (Cameron's closest neighbour, but still a 3 hour drive away) ends up investigating the circumstances of his death and working out what actually happened. There are few characters and therefore few suspects owing to the geographical isolation of the setting, which is vividly brought to life. Again, Harper uses the setting to build tension as the remoteness and isolation increases the pressure on the characters and begins to show the cracks in the outwardly perfect family life of the Brights. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else and the reader is cleverly led to suspect everyone in turn before we find out what took place. This is a fast paced thriller with likeable, believable characters and an incredibly well described setting that completely drew me in as a reader. Definitely my favourite of her novels so far.

Jane Harper writes thrillers that are so much more than thrillers. I can't recommend them highly enough and I can't wait to read what she writes next!

Book Review: Addlands, by Tom Bullough

This was not a book I had heard of before I stumbled across it in a local bookshop. It was truly a serendipitous find.  I bought it because it was a book about the local area (well, somewhere about 15-20 miles from where I live) by a local author,  and I'm very glad I did. It is a totally absorbing read, lyrically beautiful and with the power to totally immerse the reader in the life of the isolated valley in mid-Wales where it is set.

It is huge in scope (but not in length, being a very manageable 293 pages long) following the fortunes of the Hamer family over 70 years and 4 generations as they scratch out a living from their hill farm. The characters are brilliantly brought to life and the changing seasons of the farm and the hillside on which it nestles lyrically described. The language is often poetic as it seeks to show how the place where these characters live is just as much a part of them as any other character trait.

Etty is a young woman, already pregnant when she marries Idris Hamer and comes to live on the remote Funnon Farm, on Llanbedr Hill near Builth Wells. She is the rock around which the novel revolves, the anchor to which all the other characters are moored, and the reader quickly grows to love her. Her son, Olly is a different matter altogether, wilder and more unpredictable yet also completely rooted to the farm and his mother.  Olly was born in 1941 and we follow his life from then until 2011 -  over a period of monumental change and modernisation for this part of mid-Wales. We see the closing of the local railway, the gradual moving away from the hold of the methodist church on the local population, the arrival of electrictiy, the move from horse power to tractors and the life-changing foot and mouth outbreak of 2001. All these upheavals and the personal triumphs and tragedies of the characters are contrasted with the quiet natural rhythms of the landscape which remain the same year on year.

It is a beautiful and affecting book, which will make you laugh and cry. The local dialect is cleverly employed, helping with the total immersion of the reader in this landscape and bringing the characters vividly to life. It is a haunting examination of continuity and change: how the landscape we live in makes us who we are and how the last century has changed us all.

When you have finished reading if you are anything like me you will yearn for the hills of Radnorshire and will be thinking about the characters and what the future holds for them for a long time to come. Highly recommended.

3 Extraordinary Books about the extraordinary lives of ordinary women, on International Women's Day.

On International Women's Day I thought it would be an idea to share some of my favourite books celebrating women. There are so many to choose from that I got a bit bogged down thinking about it, so in the end I have kept my list fairly short:

One of my all-time favourite books is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. This tells the story of Dinah who makes a (very) brief apppearance in The Bible in the book of Genesis as the daughter of Jacob ( the man famous for his 12 sons!). It is a fscinating account of the life of a woman in biblical times, in particular a strong woman trying to make her own way in the world. It is one of those books that completely transports you to another time and place and leaves you thinking about Dinah and her life long after closing the book.

Diary of an Ordianry Woman by Margaret Forster is an unforgettable story charting the life of Millicent King, an ordinary woman, born in 1901 whose life spans the 20th century. The novel is presented as an edited diary and this gives a sense of intimacy and allows us to feel that we really know Millicent. The 20th century was a time of incredible social change, particularly for women and this book shows, in brilliant detail, what it was like to be a woman at this time.

Women Who Blow on Knots by Ece Temelkuran was originally published in Turkey. It charts the journey of four  Muslim women from different backgrounds who embark on a journey together from Tunisia to Lebanon during the revolutions of the Arab Spring. It explores the social questions of politics, religion and women in The Middle East, whilst also being a page turning mystery (why has the septuagenarian Madam Lilla brought these women together for this journey?) and an examination of the universal bonds of sisterhood. An unusual book that is definitely worth a read.

What books would you add to this list?