E-books/audiobooks reviews: fiction
What better way to start the new year than with a considerable new talent?
by Jenn Ashworth
Sceptre (e-book)
What better way to start the new year than with a considerable new talent? Jenn Ashworth is an English novelist whose two previous books ( and ) inspired the BBC to name her one of its 12 best new British novelists. bears out Ashworth's early promise. Based on the author's own upbringing, this is a bittersweet story of family dysfunction set in a Mormon household in northern England. The Leeke family is reuniting, but proximity doesn't necessarily entail intimacy. Each individual comes laden with secrets. Gary is coming back from a mission in Utah, and views his return with little relish. For his mother, Pauline, his homecoming holds the promise of healing all her wounds: not least that her husband, Martin, is spending more and more time away from her. Their daughter, Jeannie, debates whether to reveal her own hidden life that might just fry the Leekes for good. The climax emerges pleasingly from left-field, and manages to surprise and resolve at the same time. Impressive.
by Kenneth Cameron (read by Jane McDowell)
Orion Publishing (audiobook)
The subtitle of this charming, if mildly cynical audiobook tells the story: . Sherlock Holmes has had more spin-offs than a car stuck in a muddy field. Now, the same can be said for his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. The plot is as follows: it is 1896 and Conan Doyle has arrived in New York to begin a lucrative book tour. His wife, Louisa, becomes enchanted, to a dangerous degree, with the Big Apple's dark core. The discovery of a woman's mutilated body thrusts her into the limelight when she claims to have seen the victim at the Britannic Hotel. Playing Watson to her husband's Holmes, Louisa is not taken seriously at first. Left alone in New York while Conan Doyle heads out across America, she begins an investigation that is only mildly hampered by a sprained ankle. As the bodies pile up, Louisa becomes the focus of the killer's attentions. Jane McDowell narrates , bringing Louisa's character and the fast-paced thriller/history lesson to life. Highly recommended.
by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (various narrators)
AudioGO (audiobook)
Fans of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo should warm (or not) to Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. This Swedish husband-and-wife team are the godparents of the literary genre often called Nordic Noir. Their central creation, Stockholm detective Martin Beck, was beating a boozy, shambolic path long before Kurt Wallander and Harry Hole were glints in their creators' eyes. First published in 1965, was Beck's first case. This dramatised adaptation comes courtesy of Jennifer Howarth and the BBC. Steven Mackintosh plays Beck with an appealing ironic, melancholic edge. The body of a young woman is found in the Gota Canal near Lake Vattern. No one knows her identity, and no other clues to her attacker are discovered. The plot moves with measured, yet suspenseful momentum, stopping now and then to make political and social observations about Sweden in the mid-1960s. The format takes a little getting used to: a narrator is intercut with the various characters. This is impressive stuff, however, perfect for a dark, gloomy January night.
