Review: Firewatching by Russ Thomas

January 13, 2020

Firewatching by Russ Thomas
on 20th February 2020
Genres: Thriller, Police Procedural, Cold Case
Pages: 418
Format: ARC, Paperback
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four-half-stars

ONE WRONG MOVE
A body is found bricked into the walls of a house. From the state of the hands, it’s clear they were buried alive and had tried to claw their way out before they died. Soon, the victim is linked to a missing person’s case and DS Adam Tyler is called.
WILL IGNITE
As the sole representative of South Yorkshire's Cold Case Review Unit, Tyler recognises his role for what it is – a means of keeping him out of the way following an ‘incident’. When this case falls in his lap, he grabs the opportunity to fix his stagnating career.
THE CITY
When he discovers he has a connection to the case that hopelessly compromises him, he makes the snap decision not to tell his superiors. With such a brutal and sadistic murder to unpick, Tyler must move carefully to find out the truth, without destroying the case or himself.

Meanwhile, someone in the city knows exactly what happened to the body. Someone who is watching Adam closely. Someone with an unhealthy affinity with fire . . .

Firewatching is Russ Thomas’ debut. That in itself is crazy. The authors work…his words, his research, his narrative, where born from flames. It is red hot. It flows so effortlessly from the pages and dives straight into your head. Of course, the moment you pick this book up, you will forget about the tasks you had planned for the rest of the day. Nothing is as important as finding out the secrets this book contains. Toilet breaks, food none of it even registered in my head. Be prepared to race to the finish. Lace up those Nikes and….run!

This was deliciously dark and complex, Firewatching gives us an introduction to DS Adam Tyler. A man with a broken past. Confident but quietly vulnerable. He’s got something to prove but at what cost? He has flaws just like the rest of us, but he does want to do good. He’s the sole representative of South Yorkshire’s Cold Case Unit and he is not scared to ruffle a few feathers with the murder squad. Also, he’s been known to make mistakes and allowed his temper to get the best of him, but he is dealing with idiotic instances of homophobia. consequently, he’s got the scars to remind him of his mistake, but DS Adam Tyler is human.

The book opened, and you knew the tone had been set. We meet the firewatcher and their communication comes in the form of blog posts. They are telling and give the insight into a very dangerous individual. The author likes to wind us up and keep us on the literal edge. We knew the antagonist was more than the eye could see. There was a history there. A deep-seated evil born from flames. What was the motive?

I can’t fully describe this authors writing style, but it blew me away. He was precise, constantly hitting the mark, like a marksman never missing his target. It became very personal with DS Tyler and before long he was tangled up in the mess of solving a murder that occurred six year ago. I enjoyed how Tyler navigated working with his superiors through instances of yet more homophobia, asserting the fact that it was a cold case but yet, trying not alienate himself from the entire team. Tyler was a curious character but one I felt an instant connection to. He’s had a hard life and could quite easily have gone off the rails spectacularly, but his career is what keeps him on the straight and narrow. You can tell that he wants to relate to people and socialise, but he finds it difficult. He really doesn’t want to let anyone in.

Finally crap hit the fan. You really don’t want to mess about when fire and murders are especially concerned.

The secondary characters just increased the strength of this novel tenfold. They all flowed together. They had everything that real life displays – differing personalities, temperaments and dreams. As a result, Tyler was surrounded in a grey cloud of parent’s actions, his boss being a bit of ass. Nevertheless, Tyler had to navigate the muddy waters of a cold case that needed drawing to a conclusion quickly.

Firewatching is quite literally too hot to handle. The pages sear into your brain leaving you aching for the next clue. My hands flew through the pages. I was aching for more. Firewatching cements Russ Thomas’ place in the most exciting crime writer to watch!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russ Thomas, author of debut novel - Firewatcher.

Russ Thomas was born in Essex, raised in Berkshire and now lives in Sheffield. He grew up in the 80s reading anything he could get from the library, writing stories, watching large amounts of television, playing videogames, and largely avoiding the great outdoors. He spent five years trying to master playing the electronic organ and another five trying to learn Spanish. It didn’t take him too long to realise that he’d be better off sticking to the writing

After a few ‘proper’ jobs (among them: pot-washer, optician’s receptionist, supermarket warehouse operative, call-centre telephonist and storage salesman) he discovered the joys of bookselling, where he could talk to people about books all day.

His debut novel Firewatching is the first book in the DS Adam Tyler series.

Russ Thomas Website

Book Review: Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton.

January 3, 2020

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
on 9th January 2020
ISBN: 9780241374504
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: Publisher
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In a rural English village in the middle of a snowstorm, the unthinkable happens- the school is under siege.
From the wounded headmaster barricaded in the library, to teenage Hannah in love for the first time, to the police psychologist who must identify the gunmen, to the terrified 8-year-old Syrian refugee, to the kids sheltering in the school theatre still rehearsing Macbeth, all must find the courage to stand up to evil and try to save the people they love . . .

Thanks to the publisher for my ARC copy of Three Hours. This book review is completely unbiased.

This is genuinely one of the hardest reviews I have ever had to pen…not because it’s bad, but because this book was all kinds of awesome. but also shocking. Awesomely heart-breaking, awesomely nerve-shattering and awesomely guts tearing out. This is a story of the present being forged by the past. Are we all a product of our upbringing? Just what parts of our past deems what we will become in the future? How much to we cling onto the past? Is it subjective? Is it a case of mere psychology or individual personalities? I’d like to hope that no matter what our childhoods threw at us, we would know what was right and wrong. I would hope that our mere humanity would bring us out on the right side.

This book is not for the light- hearted. Three Hours is a book that is heavy in its content. Its heavy in the emotional stakes and if you are anything like me – it will break you down, rip you open and leaving you with one tiny needle to try and stitch yourself back up with. It is the kind of book that will inject cold hard fear into your spine.

I don’t live too far away from the Dunblane school that was the victim of the UK’s only shooting massacre, and I can remember vividly how much devastation that caused to the families and the community as a whole. It makes you question everything – your friends, your family, the thin line between reality and fantasy. There won’t be a dry eye in the house – I completely soaked my ARC copy. The author has an amazing talent for completely ruining her reader.

“Love is the most powerful thing there is.”

The headmaster in this tale is heroic. He puts himself in the direct firing line, having no regard for his own life, therefore, he treats his students like his extended family, he allows them to just be themselves. No uniform, no head boy/girl, no prefects and most importantly no religion. That being said, this shouldn’t be a school that is targeted in such a violent attack, right? He is the gentlest teacher I have come across. This isn’t the first time he has put his pupils needs first…He has a big heart and his predicament pulls at your heartstrings.

The pupils. The most important characters. The strength of them. The will of them. They have different personalities. They experience fear in different ways. And yet… and yet they are as one in a terrifying situation. They deserve the publicity; their names deserve to be said out loud over and over. The perpetrators deserve nothing. Some little details I didn’t see coming, some surprises. It was harrowing and breaking bit by little bit. I don’t want to give it away so just read the book.

Leave your assumptions at the door. They really don’t belong here. This author…just wow. The narrative blew me away. This is the type of story that we really hope we don’t have to read about again, especially in the newspapers. The author brought us the human impacts of such an act…the victims, the parents, the teachers and the perps. It is an examination of the human condition in which, it displays it’s ability for cruelty.

Rosamund Lupton ticked all of the boxes. She has weaved an intense web of mystery, an upsetting and haunting narrative that just won’t quit and the one thing that glues it altogether? Love. A storyline that is propelled by rocket fuel, hiding in plain sight. This book is setting the bar impossibly high for the start of 2020.

Three Hours is a book to remember. An original work of suspense. Hooked from the very first page. This is an amazing race-to-the-end thriller that you have been craving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosamund Lupton, author of the sensational thriller book, Three Hours.

Rosamund Lupton is the author of four novels.

Rosamund Lupton graduated from Cambridge University in 1986. After reviewing books for the Literary Reviews and being invited to join the Royal Court Theatre, she won a television play competition and subsequently worked as a screen writer. Her debut novel Sister, was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, has been translated into over thirty languages and has international sales of over 1.5 million copies. It was the fastest-selling debut of 2010 by a British author, and was winner of the Richard and Judy Best Debut Novel of 2011 Award and the Strand Magazine Critics First Novel Award. Film rights of Sister are currently under option.

Lupton’s critically acclaimed second novel Afterwards also went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller lists and was the No. 2 Sunday Times fiction bestseller of 2011. The Quality of Silence her third novel was a Sunday Times best seller and a Richard & Judy bookclub pick

Her new novel Three Hours comes out on 9th January 2020.

The Black Sheep by Sophie McKenzie

June 6, 2019

The Black Sheep by Sophie McKenzie
on Feburary 1st 2017
ISBN: 9781471133213
Genres: Thriller, Thrillers & Suspense
Pages: 512
Format: Paperback
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Goodreads

Francesca was widowed a year ago. Since then she has focused on her children, trying to soothe their grief as well as her own. Her husband and father never quite saw eye to eye but no one could have cared more for her in the past year than her close-knit family. Finally, she feels she might be ready to move on with life.
Until she is contacted out of the blue by someone who says he must get information to her. That her husband's death wasn't what it seemed. And that her family know more than they say ....
Who can Francesca trust? And what will happen to her if she puts her faith in the wrong person?

I really had high hopes for this book but it just fell flat for me unfortunately. Black Sheep is focussed around the events and the fallout after Francesca’s husband, Caspian is murdered in an apparently random attack. It deals with the effects within her close-knit Catholic family. Some reasons why it just didn’t work for me;

Flaky Character building.

We meet Francesca, a widowed mother of two. She is attending her deceased husband’s memorial service (he was murdered 16 months ago). She is approached by a stranger that flips her entire world upside down for the second time. The information that she receives from this man is that he had received threatening messages from someone that was close to them both. From this point forward she’s looking for any link to what he has told her, it also seems like since she got this information that everyone is know acting differently around her. She’s chasing ghosts, shadows in order to hold onto the possibility that her husbands murder wasn’t just random.

Her Sister Lucy, is a very nervous, timid character due to an event that happened in her youth. She still lives at home with their father and step-mother (decidedly odd). I found her behaviour to just be weird for someone of her age group and didn’t feel her character really brought any substance to the story.

Predictability

From the first few chapters I had worked out the endgame of the story. This was despite twists and turns taken within, it just didn’t provide the shock factor that I think the author was looking to portray. The story was often very slow and points and unfortunately, I found myself thinking that I wish I was reading something else. I also think that the author wanted the subject matter to be controversial, maybe even a bit taboo but for me personally it didn’t have that desired effect. But, it could be a trigger novel for many people. I think it just lacked that Punch!

The Writing was disjointed

Although the main character had suffered such incredible loss, I didn’t really feel any real feeling for her. I wasn’t really feeling connected to any of the characters, which is a real pity as the story as a whole had huge potential. The strongest character, from a written perspective was the best friend Ayesha. The other characters just lacked depth. The paragraphs felt repetitive and in places quite contradictory.

Overall, I just think this book promised more than it delivered which is a real shame.