Cold Pressed by J J Marsh

Cold Pressed by J.J. Marsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another competent DI Stubbs tale set in a warm country. This time the calm and clever female detective investigates the deaths of women of a certain age onboard a luxury cruise liner criss-crossing the Greek archipelago. As a pure gesture of political goodwill, Beatrice Stubbs, a well-respected Scotland Yard detective, is called in by the Greek authorities to investigate the death of a British eighty-year-old woman, who's fallen off a cliff at a beauty spot in Santorini. Everyone thinks it's a case of death by natural causes, until Beatrice and her young Greek counterpart, DI Stephanakis, start investigating.

Cold Pressed reminded me of Agatha Cristies' novel, Death on the Nile. The novel has the same quality of the luxurious surroundings hiding a raw desire to murder. The author here also has the same eye to detail, some of which turn out to be false and some not so. JJ Marsh keeps the readers guessing right to the moment when the killer(s) is (are) revealed.

But as well as a story about nasty happenings on a luxury cruiser, Cold Pressed is, just as the other Di Stubbs novels, about the complicated personal lives of the two detectives. We learn of the self-doubts of the young, newly promoted, Detective Nikos Stephanakis, and are given very interesting revelations into Beatrice's mind, and her relationship with Matthew, her long-term partner.

I read this book in two days flat, so all I now need is the next Beatrice Stubbs book, please Ms Marsh!



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Cockroaches by Harry Hole - Book Review

It’s a real shame that the Jo Nesbo novels, featuring Harry Hole, the detective with a complicated personal life, have not been translated into English in a chronological order. Perhaps Nesbo's British publishers decided to debut with The Devil's Star, fifth in this series, because the early books are not set in Norway. The grim Nordic backdrop is, after all, one of the main attractions of Nordic crime fiction. As Boris Johnson once commented on an article about the popularity of TV's Wallander, 'Blood looks brighter on snow'. But since another main feature of Jo Nesbo's novels is the development of Harry Hole's (flawed) character, it's rather frustrating to find out why his life is in such a mess back to front, so to speak.

It is indeed strange to read a Norwegian crime thriller which is not set in a cold, snowy Nordic landscape, but after complaining about this fact in my review of The Bat, the first Harry Hole thriller set in Australia, I'm now over it and actually really enjoyed this second book in the Harry Hole series. 

It was also good to read a book which referred to the events which took place in the previous novel. I also felt that Nesbo's writing was a lot more confident in Cockroaches. It was as if the author too enjoyed returning to his old friend, Harry, who at the beginning of the book is spending more time in his favourite Olso bar than he's solving crime. He's back on the booze, and on a personal downward spiral.

But when a Norwegian Ambassador dies under suspicious circumstances in Bangkok, guess which local (now) famous Norwegian detective is put on the case? Off Harry flies to Thailand where he doggedly investigates not only his own Expat countrymen's secretive lives, but also the local mafia. Both groups dislike his attentions and get him into mortal danger, and in trouble with his employers, the police chiefs in Norway.

As usual with Harry Hole novels, Nesbo sets up the story so that the reader is lead to believe one character after another is the perpetrator. Hence the denounment of the story is not exactly a surprise since the author has literally run out of people to point the finger at. This is a very Agatha Christie way of plotting a novel, which I enjoy, so I'm not really complaining. 

I liked Cockroaches and cannot wait to read the next Nesbo thriller, The Son, (not featuring Harry Hole) which is going to be out in April.

Book Beginnings on Fridays - Murder at the Maples by Joanne Phillips

It's that time again, a Friday beginnings post!

Today I'm starting to read Murder at the Maples by Joanne Phillips. This a sort of a homage to the end of the highly successful cozy crime TV series Poirot, with the screening of an episode based on Agatha Christie's last Hercule Poirot novel 'Curtain'.

I have loved Christie's books ever since I read them as a teenager, and am totally hooked on the Poirot and Miss Marple TV series and movies. I've been known to watch them several times over, to the absolutely exasperation of my family. These days I have to actually be ill in order to be allowed to watch them! They are a cruel lot, my family.

'Cozy Mysteries' is also a highly popular genre in fiction, so this week I thought I'd try a book written by a fellow indy writer, Joanne Phillips. Her two previous romance novels have been huge successes, so I know this woman can write.

Murder at the Maples (Flora Lively Mysteries) by Joanne Phillips

Chapter 1

'Are you sure it's safe?' Flora looked out of the window and up the cliff face. The other carriage seemed suspended above them. How on earth had she let Joy talk her into this?

'Oh, Flora, you're such a wimp.' Joy sat back with a smile and patted the bench by her side. 'Come on, it only lasts a minute.'

So does plummeting to your certain death, thought Flora, but she tucked herself in next to Joy anyway and began a head count of the other passengers.

Visiting the cliff railway at Bridgnorth was a special treat for her friend's eightieth birthday - Flora's idea of a fun day out was shopping for vintage clothes or taking to the hills with a backpack. Not risking life and limb for a trip down memory lane. Flora stowed her tote bag between her sandaled feet and began to read the guidebook with determined interest.

'It was right here,' Joy said dreamily, 'where Eddie proposed to me. The fourth of May, nineteen fifty-one. The happiest day of my life.'

I get a definite whiff of Mrs Marple or Poirot from the beginning of this novel. There's the same kind of gentleness to the story - an eighty-year-old, a memory of a proposal - contrasted with such words as 'death' 'risking life and limb' and 'cliff face' and 'safe'.  You also get a sense that Flora is both physically fit (possibly younger than her friend?) and an observant kind of woman - she hikes and she's already taking a headcount of the passengers on the dangerous looking cliff railway.

These first paragraphs of Murder at the Maples have definitely whetted my appetite, and I look forward to seeing what adventures Flora faces in this first of what I firmly believe will become a very successful series of books.