To The Last Page

A novel about a pandemic that rips through the population of the world with devastating consequences is probably the last thing you want to pick up for a light read at the minute. On the other hand, the question of how we deal with the reality of such an event, one even worse that Covid-19, is something that you probably need to consider. You might think you cope a little better than the last person standing narrator of Last One at the Party , but how does anyone know how they would react to the realisation that they may be the only person in the world left alive? Although harsh lessons have been learned from the 2020-21 Covid-19 pandemic, there is nothing that can prepare the scientists for 6DM when it hits in 2024 and rapidly wipes out the entire population of the United States. It’s commonly known as 6DM because scientists don’t really have time to analyse it, since 6 Days Maximum is as long as anyone infected is expected to last before their body organs disintegrate, resulting in a...

Considering the year we’ve just had, the title of Eleanor Ray’s debut novel definitely has some attraction. And thankfully no, the title Everything is Beautiful doesn’t turn out to be ironic, but evidently you have to go through some tough times and maybe even reach the bottom before there is some consolation to be found in its belief that there is always the hope of a fresh start. As far as Amy Ashton is concerned, the bottom is a point that she is rapidly heading towards. In her thirties, she has been working for financial advice firm for the last ten years. It was never meant to be this way. She started out as a day job while she waited to get recognised for her painting, but has given up on her dreams of being an artist. Amy seems to have given up on a lot of things around this time, as it was eleven years ago that her boyfriend Tim disappeared with her best friend Chantel. It was such a shock to Amy that she hasn’t been able to let go, still collecting mementos that most other pe...

Lawrence Block's 1969 thriller After the First Death is a taut little murder mystery that revolves around a case of memory blackout. To all intents and purposes though, and certainly to any outside observer, it looks like Alex Penn has done it again; he's murdered another woman. The problem is he can't remember doing it. Alex suffers from blackouts when he has been drinking and all the evidence that he has committed a murder the night before is right there in front of him; a prostitute with her throat cut lying on the floor of a hotel room. He has murdered before or at least that's what he did time for, four years until he got released on a technical appeal against an unsound conviction. Trouble is the woman he killed that time was also during a blackout, so he doesn't know what he is capable of. As he goes on the run, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to, Alex reluctantly tries to recall how this happened again and as fragments of memory come back he realises ...

Danielle McLaughlin’s debut novel works on two levels – maybe more but let’s stick with two for now for the sake of keeping a review of The Art of Falling simple. On one level, sadly, it’s about the banalities of domestic life; sadly, I suppose because we all have to live with and deal with them. On another level however there’s something else going on beneath the surface of all these domestic tensions, but even that could be said to be similarly banal, since anger, resentment, bitterness and disappointment all come as part of the package. Lest that make it seem like The Art of Falling is a rather dull and tedious, there’s always another way of viewing such matters and we all have different ways of getting through the little and big trials that life throws our way. Often it drives us to find solace, a sense of understanding and kinship with others or seek to find a way to express and elevate those difficult circumstances into something more tangible and manageable, and often that’s t...

Books of the Year 2020 Like any personal best of list, the selections are inevitably limited by what one was able to have the time to read, watch or listen to, and it can in no way be definitive or comprehensive reflection of what was the best out there. As far as books go, there are plenty of literary awards with panels to choose from a wider selection, but for a single reader, the time invested means that you tend to stick with genres you are familiar with and writers who never let you down. Occasionally however, books come your way that are a delightful surprise precisely because you weren't expecting it. This year I read and reviewed 72 books for various places, of which 49 were English language novels, 6 were in French, 2 were in Spanish and 15 were graphic novels. My favourite 5 books (and one graphic novel) consequently consist of three favourite writers who didn't disappoint this year and two authors new to me in the literary genre that I wasn't expecting to impress...

Variations on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story are commonplace, or at least its theme about the duality of human nature and its capacity for evil is influential on much of crime fiction, but what can Craig Russell bring to the subject that is new? Well in some ways, Hyde is a companion piece or expansion of how Russell treated similar themes in his last book The Devil Aspect . That rip-roaring Gothic adventure managed to blend vampire mythology with East European folklore and hints of the dark side of Nazism in its 1935 setting. The “devil aspect” theory suggested that the potential for madness lies in all of us and with the right trigger applied, those most susceptible can be pushed towards acts of great evil. Hyde seems the obvious way to explore this issue further, but you can expect that Russell will similarly bring a new and thrilling twist to the classic story. What is immediately noticeable about the story is how Russell brings it back to the Scottish orig...

Animal certainly has an interesting premise, one that sets it out as a graphic novel of ideas and philosophical consideration of a fundamental question about what it means to be human. As something also of a character study, that might not immediately suggest a suitable subject for a graphic novel, and indeed there are more pages of talking heads than there are of any real action, not that there is much in the way of conventional ‘action’ as such, but the artwork and character detail provided make this a surprisingly more visual story than you might imagine. Since it’s trailed for a most of Part 1 before it gives you any real indication of the extraordinary action that one man takes, it might be considered a spoiler, but since it’s given up front in the synopsis for the book provided on the back cover, what is at the centre of Animal is a man’s determination to renounce his status as a human being. Since that revelation eventually comes close to the end of what is only the first part...