Queensland’s capital Brisbane is well known for the river that ‘divides’ the city. It provides some lovely vantage points and scenery, but is also a bit of a nightmare for those having to commute ‘across’ one of the few bridges from the south to the city centre / north each day. And then of course there are the ‘once in a one hundred year’ floods. Which… in recent times have been proved statisticians and weather-predicting peeps quite wrong!
I really enjoyed meeting Detective Max Wolfe (and his daughter Scout) in the first book of this series, The Murder Bag. I read the first three, but it’s only now I discover this is number six, that I realise I’ve missed some.
Although I missed Anna Romer’s much-lauded debut, Thornwood House I’ve read Lyrebird Hill and read and interviewed Romer about Beyond the Orchard.
I’d assumed this book would have gothic or fairytale (are they not the same thing? Different sides of the same coin perhaps?) undertones, but it sits a little more firmly in the mystery genre and what WAS to be a short pre-dinner read, turned into several hours, until I’d finished the book.
I’ve made no secret of my love for Amos Decker, a character created by David Baldacci four years ago via the first novel in the series, Memory Man. It was the perfect opener because that’s exactly who and what Decker is thanks to a football injury he sustained when younger.
It left him with hyperthymesia – the inability to forget anything, as well as seeing ‘colours’ around people. The first book opened 16mths after his wife and daughter had been murdered, when former cop Decker had hit rock bottom.
Vengeance, ahem, justice awakened him however and he’s been working with the FBI since, as part of a small task force – though generally given a bit of a free rein.
Fiona Cummins has written two previous novels, though I’ve only read the first in that series, Rattle. Her third book and new release is a standalone novel. And it’s an addictively intriguing one.
I shared a picture of this book on social media when it arrived a few months ago and, at the time, a couple of overseas book blogging colleagues commented on how much they enjoyed it.
I’d not heard of Courtney Summers before though know (now) she has a few books to her name, but after being drawn into this addictive novel I’ll be searching out more of her work.
I have been listening to Mark Manson’s posts quite a bit lately. (I like that his site has an audio option, so you can listen to them, rather than just read them.) I keep coming back to one or two; about purpose, values and passion. I suspect this is because I’m currently wading my way through my own existential crisis of sorts so wondering what others have to say about it.
Even though the cover seemed very familiar it wasn’t until I checked my Goodreads account that I discovered I hadn’t read Erin Kelly’s popular He Said / She Said, which was released 2017. I had – however – read her 2014 novel, The Ties That Bind.
Stone Mothers, we learn, is what the Victorians used to call their mental hospitals because they had faith that the architecture and building design could literally nurse the sick back to health.
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