Monday, 31 July 2017

Book Review: L'arminuta - D. Di Pietrantonio



“Nel tempo ho perso anche quell’idea confusa di normalita’ e oggi davvero ignoro che luogo sia una madre. Mi manca come puo’ mancare la salute, un riparo, una certezza. E’ un vuoto persistente, che conosco ma non supero. Gira la testa a  guardarci dentro. Un paesaggio desolato che di notte toglie il sonno e fabbrica incubi nel poco che lascia. La sola madre che non ho mai perduto e’ quella delle mie paure.”

Strano, a volte, come vanno le cose: alla Fiera Tempo di libri di Milano ho assistito ad un incontro con l'autrice de L'arminuta insieme a Michela Marzano. Entrambe hanno infatti recentemente pubblicato romanzi che trattano del rapporto madre/figlia. E mentre sono stata subito attratta dal libro della Marzano, sia per la trama che per come lo ha presentato all'evento, la trama sulla quarta di copertina de L'arminuta non mi attirava per nulla e l'autrice, pacata, dolce e, forse, un po' timida, non me l'ha proprio "venduto" alla presentazione. Cosi' ho comprato e subito letto L'amore che mi resta della Marzano (vedi recensione qui), mentre ho ignorato L'arminuta completamente, nel timore si rivelasse una delusione perche' nella mia mente lo associavo un po' ad Accabadora della Murgia (forse perche' entrambi legati a dialetti che non conosco affatto). Ci sono volute le entuasiastiche parole di un paio di amiche per convincermi e ringrazio! 
Ringrazio perche' L'arminuta e' un libro molto bello, triste, amaro, ma anche pieno di speranza e di "combattivita'" per sopravvivere e farcela nella vita nonostante... Nonostante nessuno ti chiami per nome, nonostante dopo tredici anni ti viene detto che quelli che credevi i tuoi genitori in realta' sono lontani cugini e ti rispediscono alla tua famiglia di origine, che in realta' non ti vuole davvero, nonostante la tua vita da "ricca" cittadina venga trasferita nella poverta' della campagna aburzzese.
L'arminuta e' sorprendente nella forza di carattere che le permette di resistere a tutto cio' senza spezzarsi, a trovare piccole gioie nella disperazione.
Secondo me L'arminuta e' un romanzo sulla forza di carattere, sul potere dell'amicizia, ma anche sulle difficolta' delle scelte degli adulti e su come l'egoismo degli adulti, magari non intenzionale, si ripercuote poi sui bambini. E poi e' un romanzo sulla poverta' di alcune zone d'Italia, un romanzo che tocca fugace temi come l'analfabetismo, gli zingari, il divario tra ceti.
La storia e' scritta in modo semplice ma efficace, forse avrei voluto che continuasse e descrivesse cosa succede a L'arminuta da "grande", si leggono sprazzi della sua vita da adulta qui e li', ma mi e' rimasta la curiosita'.
Un romanzo duro e scritto in modo piuttosto "freddo" se si vuole, non pieno di frasi fatte strappalacrime, eppure trasmette benissimo cio' che L'arminuta prova. Un romanzo pieno di speranza, un romanzo che consiglio caldamente.

«Mia sorella. Come un fiore improbabile, cresciuto su un piccolo grumo di terra attaccato alla roccia. Da lei ho imparato la resistenza. Ora ci somigliano di meno nei tratti, ma è lo stesso il senso che troviamo in questo essere gettate nel mondo. Nella complicità ci siamo salvate»

Overall rating: 9      Plot: 8     Writing style: 9      Cover:  6




Title: L'arminuta
Author: Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Publisher: Einaudi
Pages: 176
Publication year: 2017

Plot:

Ci sono romanzi che toccano corde così profonde, originarie, che sembrano chiamarci per nome. È quello che accade con "L'Arminuta" fin dalla prima pagina, quando la protagonista, con una valigia in mano e una sacca di scarpe nell'altra, suona a una porta sconosciuta. Ad aprirle, sua sorella Adriana, gli occhi stropicciati, le trecce sfatte: non si sono mai viste prima. Inizia così questa storia dirompente e ammaliatrice: con una ragazzina che da un giorno all'altro perde tutto - una casa confortevole, le amiche più care, l'affetto incondizionato dei genitori. O meglio, di quelli che credeva i suoi genitori. Per «l'Arminuta» (la ritornata), come la chiamano i compagni, comincia una nuova e diversissima vita. La casa è piccola, buia, ci sono fratelli dappertutto e poco cibo sul tavolo. Ma c'è Adriana, che condivide il letto con lei. E c'è Vincenzo, che la guarda come fosse già una donna. E in quello sguardo irrequieto, smaliziato, lei può forse perdersi per cominciare a ritrovarsi. L'accettazione di un doppio abbandono è possibile solo tornando alla fonte a se stessi. Donatella Di Pietrantonio conosce le parole per dirlo, e affronta il tema della maternità, della responsabilità e della cura, da una prospettiva originale e con una rara intensità espressiva. Le basta dare ascolto alla sua terra, a quell'Abruzzo poco conosciuto, ruvido e aspro, che improvvisamente si accende col riflesso del mare.

The Author:
Donatella Di Pietrantonio vive a Penne, in Abruzzo, dove esercita la professione di dentista pediatrico. Ha esordito con il romanzo Mia madre è un fiume (Elliot 2011, Premio Tropea). Con Bella mia (Elliot 2014) ha partecipato al Premio Strega. Per Einaudi ha pubblicato L'Arminuta (2017).

Saturday, 29 July 2017

Book review: La ragazza sbagliata - G. Simi


"Sono quindi arrivato alla conclusione che la miglior forma di governo sarebbe una mia illuminatsssima dittatura."

Direi che la citazione qui sopra descrive bene Dario Corbo, il giornalista protagonista dell'ultimo noir di Simi. Un personaggio che non mi e' piaciuto molto, troppo sicuro di se', troppo egocentrico, e purtroppo il suo non piacermi ha influenzato la lettura  di un romanzo che altrimenti avrei trovato interessante. 
Inizio con i positivi: il cold case e gli sviluppi ventitre anni dopo e' originale, lo sfondo versiliese molto bello. I negativi: Dario e' insopportabile e completamente pieno di se'; alcune delle scoperte sul cold case sono assolutamente inverosimili; Nora Beckford mi ricorda molto Amanda Knox (accusata nell'omicidio del 2007 di Meredith Kercher a Perugia), la polemica su editori e commercializzazione del giornalismo a tratti e' un po' pesante visto che il romanzo in teoria e' un giallo - anzi no, un noir; ome mi ha spiegato Simi stesso su Anobii "nel noir, a differenza del giallo, l'attenzione non si focalizza tanto sull'investigazione, ma sulle conseguenze che un delitto genera nelle persone che lo hanno commesso, lo hanno subito o ne sono state toccate. Quindi, la parte "gialla" di detection può anche essere meno densa, e il mistero su chi sia il colpevole meno fitto. In questo caso diciamo che tale mistero, tutto sommato, è pressoché assente.". - e non un trattato.
Di Simi mi era piaciuto molto Cosa resta di noi, e in generale mi piace come scrive, le 400 pagine scorrono veloci. 

Overall rating: 7      Plot: 6,5     Writing style: 7.5      Cover:  6,5




Title:La ragazza sbagliata
Author: Giampaolo Simi
Publisher: Sellerio
Pages: 400
Publication year: 2017

Plot:
«Giro pagina e scrivo il suo nome. Nora Beckford. E subito sotto “Sensi di colpa: nessuno”. Lo sottolineo due volte, e buco quasi la carta. Nessuno». Ma il tarlo del dubbio si insinua in Dario Corbo, giornalista di successo caduto in disgrazia, e lo spinge a ripercorrere una vecchia storia. Ventitré anni prima c’è stato un omicidio brutale: una diciottenne, uccisa seviziata e abbandonata in un dirupo sulle colline della Versilia. Irene ha appena terminato l’esame di maturità, è una studentessa modello, un esempio per i compagni e una sicurezza per i genitori. A essere incolpata di un orrore che ha fatto rabbrividire un’intera comunità sarà, dopo una lunga vicenda giudiziaria, Nora Beckford. Ventenne figlia di un famoso scultore inglese trapiantato in quella striscia di lusso in Toscana, di lei si era indagato ogni tratto. Il carattere, l’uso di droghe, la passione, la gelosia. Sulla condanna successiva erano stati determinanti non solo le prove ma gli articoli infiammati di un giovane giornalista, Dario Corbo. Proprio lui che oggi, a vent’anni di distanza, è incaricato di un libro a sensazione su quel delitto. È indeciso, ma il lavoro è ben pagato e poi lo incoraggia ambiguamente a dedicarvisi un magistrato d’assalto, che gli facilita l’accesso a incartamenti e perfino a indizi tralasciati. Ma è soprattutto l’incontro fortuito con Nora Beckford, l’assassina da poco uscita di galera, che lo porta a inoltrarsi in una selva di piste trascurate e inattesi ritrovamenti su uno sfondo che si staglia inquietante. Chi è Nora? Come può dirsi incapace di ricordare perfino una singola istantanea di quella ferocia? Cosa si è insinuato in lei, cosa è successo intorno a lei? Quali oscuri segreti della storia criminale italiana l’hanno avvinghiata?
Ben più del mistero di un delitto, è l’enigma di una donna a incombere su Dario Corbo. A imprigionarlo tra la ricerca della verità e la forza della passione. Ed è questa prigionia e la faticosa liberazione da essa ciò che Giampaolo Simi racconta.


The Author:
Nato a Viareggio nel 1965, dopo il liceo classico Giosuè Carducci di Viareggio, inizia a scrivere racconti e sceneggiature.
Il suo racconto Viaggiatori nella tempesta è vincitore nel 1995 del premio LovecraftIl buio sotto la candela vince il premio Nino Savarese, mentre Direttissimi altrove e Tutto o Nulla (2001) sono arrivati in finale al premio ScerbanencoRosa Elettrica è stato fra i romanzi finalisti del Premio Fedeli.
È fra gli autori italiani pubblicati in Francia nella "Série Noire" di Gallimard.
È presente in alcune antologie come “History & Mistery" (Piemme), "Il ritorno del Duca" (Garzanti) e “Crimini italiani” (Einaudi).
Dal suo racconto “Luce del Nord” ha scritto, insieme allo sceneggiatore Vittorino Testa, il tv movie omonimo, girato da Stefano Sollima.
Ha collaborato come soggettista e sceneggiatore alla serie tv RIS (quinta stagione), e alle tre stagioni di RIS Roma.
Collabora con i quotidiano "Il Tirreno", "La Repubblica" e con il sito “Giudizio Universale". È stato consulente tecnico del Premio Camaiore di Letteratura Gialla dal 2003 al 2013.
Nel 2010 ha ricevuto a Maniago il Premio alla carriera Lama e Trama. Nel giugno 2012 è uscito per E/O il romanzo "La notte alle mie spalle" (Premio Pea 2013, menzione speciale Premio Gelmi di Caporiacco 2013). Nel maggio del 2015 è uscito per Sellerio il suo romanzo "Cosa resta di noi".
Nel dicembre 2015 vince il "Premio Scerbanenco – La Stampa" con Cosa Resta di noi (Sellerio), assegnato al Noir In Festival di Courmayeur.

Thursday, 27 July 2017

Book Review: Where'd you go, Bernadette - M. Semple



“That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.” 

Loved this novel! I kept them in my TBR pile for ages, I kept putting it off and this summer I finally decided to read it - why did I not do it before? It is a brilliant novel, both for the plot, the characters and the writing style. It did not remind me of anything else i read before, so it was very refreshing.
Bernadette is a legend, she is so funny and, even if she clearly has some issues, what she does and says is what a lot of times all of us would like to do and say. The satire with with Seattle's Mercedes and Subaru parents are described is hilarious, and the Microsoft's culture where her husband work is really interesting to read about too.
The novel is written in the form of letters, emails, bits of narration for Bee, Bernadette's daughter, who is the real force of the book, a wise and sweet teenager.
This book never lets you down and he has a lot of plot's twist so you never imagine where it is going to take you.
If you think about it beyond the humour, it is quite a sad story, Bernadette has quite a lot of unresolved problems and her husband is not such a nice person as it appears at the beginning. The poor Bee is also under a lot of pressures in the books.
The ending is a bit abrupt maybe.but overall this book is brilliant and I would highly recommend it to anybody.

I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn't fall, because Mom was in the world.” 

Overall rating: 8,5      Plot: 8,5     Writing style: 9      Cover:  8




Title:Where'd you go, Bernadette
Author: Maria Semple
Publisher: W&N
Pages: 336
Publication year: 2012

Plot:
To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she's his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.
To fellow mothers at the school gate, she's a menace.
To design experts, she's a revolutionary architect.
And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.
Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

The Author:
From the author's web page:
Maria Semple spent her early years traveling around Europe with her bohemian parents, but that ended abruptly when her father, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., finished a pilot for Batman while living in Torremolinos, Spain. He airmailed it in, they shot it, and the family moved to LA.  After the Batman TV series and feature, Lorenzo went on to write a bunch of movies. Once he was established, the family moved to Aspen, Colorado.Maria attended boarding school at Choate Rosemary and college at Barnard, where she majored in English.Maria moved to LA shortly after graduating Barnard and wrote screenplays which never got made, and then TV shows. 90210, Mad About You, Arrested Development and others. She quit to give fiction a try.This One Is Mine was published by Little, Brown in 2008.In 2008 Maria, George Meyer and their little daughter moved to Seattle just because. It was a difficult adjustment for Maria, which became the basis for Where’d You Go, Bernadette. The novel came out in 2012 and became an instant bestseller. Today Will Be Different is her latest.

Wednesday, 26 July 2017

Book Review: Swimming home - D. Levy



“... to be forceful was not the same as being powerful and to be gentle was not the same as being fragile...” 

A peculiar book, the first words that come to mind to describe this novel are languid, sad, summery, poetry.
The book is set in Cote d'Azur, in a villa not far from Nice where two families are holidaying. The found a naked girl swimming in the pool when they arrive and she ends up staying.
A depressed yet cheerful poet, a depressed and neurotic young woman, a girl too wise for her age, a wife detached and so very lonely, a man whose focus is food.
A very strange book, short and easy to get through, quite sad, it reminded me a bit of Fitzgerlad's novels set in France, where underneath the patina of drunken wealthiness, all the characters were in reality depressed and lonely.

Overall rating: 5      Plot: 5     Writing style: 5      Cover:  7



Title:Swimming hone
Author: Deborah Levy
Publisher: Faber&Faber
Pages: 176
Publication year: 2012

Plot:
As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain?
A subversively brilliant study of love, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.


The Author:
Deborah Levy FRSL is a British playwright, novelist, and poet. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1959, and she emigrated with her parents to London at the age of 10. 

Monday, 24 July 2017

Book Review: The Nest - C. D'Aprix Sweeney


“This was the part she hated, the part of a relationship that always nudged her to bail, the part where someone else’s misery or expectations or neediness crept into her carefully prescribed world. It was such a burden, other people’s lives.” 

The Nest is the story of a semi-disfunctional family and these 4 siblings who have set all their grown up lives around The Nest, a fund that was left to them by their father but to which they can access just when the younger of them turnes 40. However, the fund is used by their mother to "rescue" the black sheep of the family, Leo, and, as to avoid a family scandal, pay off a girl he had a car accident with.
And of course his siblings are politely furious and want Leo to pay them back.
I loved the NY setting and the bits of NY life in the novel, I liked Bea, the most composed, caring and "normal" of the siblings, and I liked Stephanie, Leo's on and off partner. I also liked the fact that a lot of the characters are part of the literary world of NY.
I was not so taken with the story, very wordy for what the plot really is, and I was not very taken by the writing style, nice enough but it did not completely engage me in the story. I did not like at all Jack and Melody, both weak and plotty and not nice people really. I didn't think that the side story of Melody's twins daughters Nora and Louise has anything to do with the novel itself, it is a bit of an addition to "pulp" things up a bit, but in reality it felt to me as the odd one in.
In summary, an ok read but there are other novels about families which are a lot more interesting and funnier - Jonathan Tropper's books for example comes to my mind.

“She supposed she could Google, but she preferred to wonder.”


Overall rating: 6      Plot: 6     Writing style: 6      Cover:  7.5




Title:The Nest
Author: Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Publisher: The Borough Press
Pages: 416
Publication year: 2016

Plot:
When black sheep Leo has a costly car accident, the Plumb siblings’ much-anticipated inheritance is suddenly wiped out. His brother and sisters come together and form a plan to get back what is owed them – each grappling with their own financial and emotional turmoil from the fallout. As ‘the nest’ fades further from view, they must decide whether they will build their lives anew, or fight to regain the futures they had planned . . .

The Author:
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is the New York Times bestselling author of The Nestwhich has been translated into more than 25 languages and optioned for film by Amazon Studios with Sweeney writing the adaptation. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

Friday, 7 July 2017

Book Review: What dark clouds hide - A. Holt


Serie Vik/Stubo - book 5

OMG I have just finished this book and I am shocked! I do not want to spoil it for anybody so I will not go into details but it is one of those crime novels where the end is not at all what you would expect. An extremely good book, Stubo is very much a secondary character in this volume, while Johanne Vik is more central. I  read three previous books in the serie - not sure why I skipped book number two - and I have to say this is dfinitely my favourite one out of all the four I read. 
A child is dead on the same day where Oslo is devastated by a terrorist attack which left all the police force busy in dealing with finding the killer. A police man just out of the police school is left investigating the child case and, in all his inexperience and mistakes, has suspicions on the accidental death so he decides to go in depth into the case. Joahnne Vik is a friend of the child's family and she finds herself called in by different parties and she decides at the end to look into it for her own ethics. As usual in her novels Anne Holt is very good at pitching the atmospheres that cloud the facts and Vik, with all her strange behaviours, is an interesting character with great profiling skills. Compared to UK and USA crime books, in my view you feel the difference in setting and in the culture and that's what makes Holt's books so interesting in my view. 
I highly recommend the serie - preferably in order to get to know the characters and their story - and I particularly recommend this fifth book in the serie.  

Overall rating:  7.5     Plot:  8     Writing style: 7.5       Cover: 5




Title:What dark clouds hide
Author: Anne Holt
Publisher: Corvus
Pages: 320
Publication year: 2017

Plot:
On a summer's day, Johanne Vik arrives at the home of her friends Jon and Ellen Mohr and was greeted by a scene of devastation: their young son, left unattended, has tragically fallen to his death.Meanwhile, Oslo is under attack. An explosion has torn the city apart and newly qualified police officer Henrik Holme is the only one available to attend the Mohr household. As Holme investigates, he casts doubt on the claim that the death was a tragic accident and calls upon Johanne's profiling expertise to understand what really happened. But neither realise that those involved are determined to hide the truth - no matter what. Before the summer is over, more shocking deaths will occur
The Author:
Anne Holt is Norway's bestselling female crime writer. She spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway's Minster for Justice between 1996 and 1997. She is published in 30 languages with over 7 million copies of her books sold worldwide. 
Books in the Vik/Stubo serie - in publication order:
Punishment
The final murder
Death in Oslo
Fear not (Modus)
What dark clouds hide

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Book Review: The Doll House - F. Davis


“Isn’t she a gem? You never know who you’re going to meet here. Now that you’re living in the greatest city in the world, anything is possible.” 

One of my favourite books' genre is American fiction set in New York City in the 50s. I have now read a couple and the atmosphere, the jazz clubs, the independence of the women leaving their little provincial towns to find a profession in the Big Apple, just fascinates me. 
The Doll House, which is a nickname given to the Barbizon Hotel for Women, is the setting for this novel which splits its chapters between the present and the 50s. In the present, Rosie is a journalist and she lives in a luxurious condo at the former Barbizon Hotel. She comes across by chance the story of Darby, an old lady who still lives at the hotel on the 4th floor together with a dozens of other old ladies who were given an apartment as former long term guests of the hotel. Rosie gets interested in to the story of the differences between NY in the 50s and now and especially in the secret drama that surrounds Darby, who has been cut with a knife on the hotel terrace in 1953 while a maid of the hotel was killed. In the 50s we meet Darby, a young girl sent to the Barbizon by her mother and step father to learn a profession as a secretary. But Darby is not really cut as a typist and she finds herself involved, through a maid/wannabe actress - Esme, in the excting NY downtown world of bebop music, jazz clubs, singing and exotic spices. 
I loved how the novel gives to the Barbizon such a sense of a "home away from home" to these girls and even at present to Rosie, I loved the strength of these women in the 50s that left all they knew to make a career for themselves and had, even for a short period of time for some, the time of their life. Of course there are tragedies, and a deep sense of loneliness and, well, one of the most famous inhabitants of the Brbizon, for a month or so, was Sylviat Plath, who then wrote The Bell jar on the topic. I would have loved to be one of them, one of the assistant editors!
I just love NY and I particularly love the feeling of NY in the 50s for women, full of opportunities and freedom in a time where women were still the "fragile sex". 
I would recommend this novel to readers who love a secretive and engaging story, who love NYC and who love the 50s. I would also recommend on the same topic the famous The Bell Jar by S. Plath, Searching for Grace Kelly by M,G. Callahan, both novels set at the Barbizon, but also the great The Best of everything by R Jaffe, which is not set at the hotel, but it is set in the 50s and is about girls who come to NY to look for a career.

“No matter how she had suffered, Darby hadn’t retreated from life after all. In fact, she’d embraced it. Quietly, carefully, but with dignity and love.” 


Overall rating: 7.5    Plot: 7     Writing style: 7.5      Cover: 7




Title:The Doll House
Author: Fiona Davis
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 304
Publication year: 2016

Plot:

When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren’t: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn’t belong — a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she’s introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that’s used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance.Over half a century later, the Barbizon's gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby’s involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman’s rent-controlled apartment. It’s a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose Lewin, Darby’s upstairs neighbor, to resist — not to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose’s obsession deepens, the ethics of her investigation become increasingly murky, and neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed.

The Author:
Fiona Davis  was born in Canada and raised in New Jersey, Utah, and Texas. She began her career in New York City as an actress, where she worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in regional theater. After ten years, Fiona changed careers, working as an editor and writer, and her historical fiction debut, The Dollhouse, was published in 2016. She's a graduate of the College of William & Mary and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and is based in New York City.

Monday, 3 July 2017

Book Review: Harbour Street - A. Cleeves


Vera Stanhope is a force of nature! She is blunt, direct, doesn't care about appearances, she loves detecting but under all that being strong there is a big lonely heart. 
This is the first crime novel featuring Vera I read and I am very glad that I received it through my Willoughby Book Club subscription. In reality it is book 6 of the serie, so I have some catch up to do!
This novel is set in the seaside town of Mardle near Christmas; the setting is very suggestive, this dark and rough street covered with snow, a B&B, a fish&chips shop, a pub and a boat yard. The body of a distinct old lady is found on the metro by one of the DS's daughter and from there there is a thorough investigation into Harbour Street, where the victim lived and worked. 
There are several characters that could be the suspect and it is really enjoyable to read how Vera plans her investigations, the interviews and finally arrives at the conclusion.
It is quite a classic, very hard to guess who the killer is, I personally did not find out till it was announced in the book!
In summary a great crime story with an unusual female lead detective, a great read for crime fiction readers.

Overall rating: 7      Plot: 7     Writing style: 7      Cover:  6




Title:Harbour Street
Author: Ann Cleeves
Publisher: Pan MacMillan
Pages: 384
Publication year: 2014

Plot:
As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the shouts and laughter of Christmas revellers break the muffled silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro. But when the train is stopped due to the bad weather, and the other passengers fade into the swirling snow, Jessie notices that an old lady hasn't left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed as she sat on the crowded train. Why would anyone want to harm this reserved, elegant lady? Arriving at the scene, DI Vera Stanhope is relieved to have an excuse to escape the holiday festivities. As she stands on the silent, snow-covered station platform, Vera feels a familiar buzz of anticipation, sensing that this will be a complex and unusual case. Soon Vera and Joe are on their way to the south Northumberland town of Mardle, where Margaret lived, to begin their inquiry. Then, just days later, a second woman is murdered. Vera knows that to find the key to this new killing she needs to understand what had been troubling Margaret so much before she died - before another life is lost. Retracing Margaret's final steps, Vera finds herself searching deep into the hidden past of this seemingly innocent neighbourhood, led by clues that keep revolving around one street . .Why are the residents of Harbour Street so reluctant to speak?
The Author:
Ann Cleeves is a British crime-writer. In 2006 she won the inaugural Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the richest crime-writing prize in the world, for her novel Raven Black. Cleeves studied English at Sussex University but dropped out. She then took up various jobs including cook, auxiliary coastguard, probation officer, library outreach worker and child care officer.[2] She lives in Whitley Bay,[and is married with two daughters.The Vera Stanhope novels have been dramatized as the TV detective series Vera and the Jimmy Perez novels as the series Shetland.

Vera Stanhope serie - books:

  • The Crow Trap (1999)
  • Telling Tales (2005)
  • Hidden Depths (2007)
  • Silent Voices (2011)
  • The Glass Room (2012)
  • Harbour Street (2014)
  • The Moth Catcher (2015)
  • The Seagull (2017)

Saturday, 1 July 2017

June 2017 Wrap up


Before the Fall - N. Hawley
First few pages very gripping, then it becomes boring and confusing. Abandoned!

Ragione&Sentimento - S. Bertola
I ritratti satirici della Torino bene della Bertola colpiscono sempre nel segno! Molto carino.
Rating:  6.5 out of 10

In cold blood - T. Capote
The account of a horrible real crime, a compelling read. 
Rating:  6.5 out of 10

Commonwealth - A. Patchett
A great family saga about two interlinked families.
Rating:  8 out of 10

Summer at Shell Cottage - L. Diamond
Summery chick lit, nice enough but a bit too long.
Rating:  6 out of 10

Harbour Street - A. Cleeves
A very good crime novel with an unusual main character. Unexpected ending!
Rating: 7 out of 10

The doll house - F. Davies
A very pleasant story set in NYC, split between the 50s and the present.
Rating:  7.5 out of 10

What dark clouds hide - A. Holt
Book 5 of the Vik/Stub serie - great crime novel, still shocked by the ending!
Rating:  7.5 out of 10