The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

The stuff of every parent’s nightmare, successful couple Anne and Marco face the trauma of their baby being taken from their home. What’s worse, they feel themselves to blame, since they were next door at a dinner party when it happened, albeit with baby monitor and return trips every half hour. As time wears on they begin to blame each other, and wonder who is actually telling the truth. There are secrets and lies, and detective Rasbach is determined to uncover them. 

The trouble for me really is that the narrative has a very curious style. The joy of a psychological thriller is usually that you are firmly in one character’s head, and wrong-footed at all turns, never sure who to believe… if you do enter another character’s head, it is usually another chapter. But this present-tense narrative hops from head to head, so that in the space of a few paragraphs, we whizz from Anne to Marco to Detective Rasbach, which dissipates the tension and means for me it was very hard to truly feel for any of the main characters. We know nothing about detective Rasbach at all, which is unusual in current crime fiction, where the detective is often as much a main character as anyone. 

Still, I pressed on and did get more drawn in, mostly wanting to know whether the baby survives, and after all the book is a bestseller… 

Has anyone else read this and absolutely loved it?

The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor

Restoration London, shortly after the great fire of 1666. An impressive rebuilding effort is underway by the inhabitants, which leads to disputes in the Fire Court, a hastily convened legal entity, set up to iron out squabbles between tenants and landlords over who has the right to build and who bears the cost. There is money to be made, and unscrupulous deals are under way. James Marwood, now a man on the rise, is drawn in when his confused father relates a garbled tale of murder, before himself dying in strange circumstances. 

A sequel to The Ashes of London, we are once again in the gently smoking city, now a charred ruins and Andrew Taylor is good at conjuring up the sense of destruction, loss and warring bureaucracy which hampers the people. The setting is atmospheric and characters convincing. Marwood meets the enigmatic Catherine Lovett again, who is hiding from her enemies as Jane Hakesby, a maid to the master of a drawing office. A woman who clearly fascinates and alarms him (one who carries a knife under her skirts) they unwillingly join forces to resolve the skulduggery that surrounds them, Marwood as a government agent, and Lovett to protect her future and secret identity. 

As events play out, Marwood sinks deeper into trouble, and by the end of the narrative, is not at all the man he was. We wait to see whether he will rise again in a third ‘fire’ book.

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

Matt Haig, don’t you just love him. I’ve enjoyed Matt’s past fiction, particularly ‘The Humans’, and I also read his book about depression called ‘Reasons to Stay Alive’ which was an honest look at his own mental health as a young man. This time he is musing on various elements of our mental state, from workplace stress and the toxic nature of being continually assessed; to the insistent nature of social media and how unhealthy it is for our equanimity. 

It feels as if Matt is getting a few things off his chest, and there is stuff he really needs to tell us, and it’s all good advice. I admire his ability to share, his honesty in the face of the pressure to present a perfect front, and his small nuggets of insight. He’s right about the bombardment of information, and the negative feelings of being overloaded that produces, and the addictive qualities of online activity, however worthwhile a tool it can be for reaching out. Also, about needing to switch off at times, to take a break from the things that make us anxious, and nurture ourselves, saying no to stimulants like alcohol and coffee. 

At times this feels like notes on a nervous Matt Haig, but that’s ok because after all, we can only talk about our own experience, and draw wisdom from that. A thoughtful and helpful book for anyone who has wondered what it’s all about and if they are heading in the right direction.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

A collaboration between author Sarah Pekkanen and her editor Greer Hendricks. At first it seems to be another psychological thriller, this time about a woman Vanessa who discovers her husband Richard is having an affair and she doesn’t know who to trust. We are in her head and the head of the newly-in-love young woman Nellie. Set in New York, we contrast the lives of these two women, the ritzy well-heeled wife married to a successful hedge fund manager (now ex-wife and suffering) and the up and coming, flat sharing, waitressing pre-school teacher who is about to become the second Mrs Hedge-fund. Something is amiss, they both have anxiety-causing secrets to hide and a feeling of being watched, but is it paranoia of is there something genuine to fear? There is an excellent twist in the tale, which isn’t predictable and I enjoyed the delving into character that we are allowed. Something essentially surprising about the way it ends also. I want to know more about how it was written – did the authors both take different chapters, or different women? And how did they stop it becoming writing by committee. Expect more from this duo.

The King’s Witch by Tracy Borman

The court of King James I seems to be the latest historical place-to-be, and we are there with Lady Frances Gorges, a little known and little-known-about young woman. There is nowhere she’d rather be than her beloved Longford house, roaming the gardens collecting plants. It is a time of great turbulence in England, as James begins his persecution of the Catholic faith, and his obsession with hunting out witchcraft. 

Frances is a skilled herbalist and in danger of falling foul of this new mania, and must keep her skills hidden from those at court who wish her ill, while tending the eight-year-old princess Elizabeth. As the intrigue unfolds, she cannot be sure if the young courtier who weaves his way into her affections is friend or foe. Ultimately Frances finds herself alongside the notorious gunpowder plot, which puts her in terrible danger.

The historical detail is convincing and well outlined by Tracy Borman who is an accomplished historian already. I like fictionalised books about real people, because I want someone to paint a picture for me of how it felt to be in that woman’s shoes, especially if her life was extraordinary in some way. The trouble with Frances is that although she existed, we are told in the author's note that virtually nothing is actually known about her, so everything we are asked to believe in the story, everything that made me think, ‘oh, I didn’t know that happened’, actually didn’t happen after all (or not to her anyway). I found myself a bit disappointed for that reason, and to me she felt like a witness to other people’s events, rather than the agent of her own story. But it seems the character of Frances is set to continue into a second book, so perhaps she’ll get into her stride. 

The Poison Bed by E C Fremantle

Billed as The Miniaturist meets Gone Girl seems rather a heavy burden, and probably creates too much expectation around this book. But it is a well written and suspenseful story, about Frances Howard of the infamous and powerful Howard clan, who are still going strong in the court of King James I, despite an unfortunate habit of getting themselves executed for treason. We are in a world of saffron ruffs and silken sleeves, of apothecaries and witchcraft. Frances is married to the King’s favourite Robert Carr (a jumped-up 'nobody' believed by many to be his lover) but the golden couple get themselves embroiled in a dark mystery to do with the poisoning of another courtier. There is a trial, which may have dire consequences... 

But ultimately what is interesting about The Poison Bed is the two versions of Frances that we are asked to consider: is she the hapless wife and pawn of her powerful uncle and husband, or is she at the heart of a manipulative intrigue of lies, a ruthless and merciless operator in her own right. The events are quite complex and involve lots of characters who have small parts to play, which I got a bit lost in at times, although Fremantle creates convincing relationships. We experience both Frances and Robert’s point of view as the drama unfolds and the noose gets closer. Victim or vixen? You will have to be the judge.