Gone Girl
Length of time in possession : 1 week
I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn for my book club. I had noticed it on promotion before and been attracted to it, but had no room to expand my List until I had it for book club.
Gone Girl is very hard to discuss in detail if you haven't read it, because the twists and turns of the plot mean it's hard to describe either the events within or the characters without revealing spoilers, which I am not going to do.
Gone Girl is a novel about a couple, Nick and Amy whose financial circumstances have meant they have had to leave their sophisticated New York life for the small town in Missouri where Nick grew up spurred on by the illness of both Nick's parents. Nick has opened a bar with his twin, but his wife, a minor faded celebrity, is finding it hard to adjust.
Nick gets a call from a neighbour and drives home to check his house, when he arrives the house has been ransacked, and his wife is missing.
The narrative then alternates between Nick's experience of the fallout and the diary kept by his missing wife. Can't really say more than that.
Gone Girl is intriguing and thrilling, it's well paced, and a page turner, and I always like 'two side' novels. When you're reading it you really enjoy it.
But when we sat down to discuss it at bookclub the more we discussed the book, the more the flaws we had to accuse it of, which left the novel transformed into a Swiss Cheese.
There are a lot of baffling elements and plotholes I can't delve into without posting spoilers. The one I can point and laugh at though is this idea of the group of men who lost their jobs roaming around aimlessly in a large pack, like dogs.... very odd.
The novel is consistently entertaining however , and would make an excellent beach or holiday purchase.
Verdict : 7/10
Destination : Will pass on to other readers
Showing posts with label Thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thriller. Show all posts
Friday, 15 March 2013
Monday, 28 January 2013
Book #15 Restless by William Boyd
Restless
Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly Six Years
In Restless, lazy PhD student and TEFL teacher Ruth Gilmartin finds that her very British very eccentric mother Sally has been hiding a secret for all her life. She is in fact a half French/half Russian spy named Eva Delectorskaya who worked for the British government during WW2 and in her old age has a score to settle.
I had lots of little things I found weak about Restless :
Ruth herself, the odd unresolved circumstance regarding her former lover's brother randomly inviting himself to stay, and everything about that plot, and the plot around Hamid. Neither added anything to the book, and at times made no sense.
As for Eva, her spy life seems to amount to training, and only two serious missions. The way Ruth confronts those behind it is a bit laughable really.
All the many little issues I had with Restless boil down to a single problem, I kept thinking to myself: What's the other book I read but haven't reviewed yet? It was unmemorable to me.
For a suspense thriller it lacked in both suspense and thrills, I found it rather tedious and rather dry and it was overall a disappointment.
5/10
Destination : Charity shop
Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly Six Years
In Restless, lazy PhD student and TEFL teacher Ruth Gilmartin finds that her very British very eccentric mother Sally has been hiding a secret for all her life. She is in fact a half French/half Russian spy named Eva Delectorskaya who worked for the British government during WW2 and in her old age has a score to settle.
I had lots of little things I found weak about Restless :
Ruth herself, the odd unresolved circumstance regarding her former lover's brother randomly inviting himself to stay, and everything about that plot, and the plot around Hamid. Neither added anything to the book, and at times made no sense.
As for Eva, her spy life seems to amount to training, and only two serious missions. The way Ruth confronts those behind it is a bit laughable really.
All the many little issues I had with Restless boil down to a single problem, I kept thinking to myself: What's the other book I read but haven't reviewed yet? It was unmemorable to me.
For a suspense thriller it lacked in both suspense and thrills, I found it rather tedious and rather dry and it was overall a disappointment.
5/10
Destination : Charity shop
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Book #13 All Fall Down by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards
All Fall Down
Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly 1 month
All Fall Down from the Voss/Edwards writing duo is the follow up to Catch Your Death and returns to the lives of the protagonists of that novel Kate Maddox and Paul Wilson. Kate, virologist and Watoto virus expert is called upon by the FBI when a strain of the virus breaks out on a Native American reservation. Partner Paul follows her to America and does some freelance investigating of his own still seeking explanations and retribution for the death of his twin Stephen.
The third novel from the Voss/Edwards team All Fall Down shows a positive strengthening of their partnership, faster, tauter, and an improvement in terms of their prose from Catch Your Death, the two writers have obviously become more comfortable with each other and the unusual demands of writing as a double act as a continuing professional development.
I was worried that Paul would feel somehow out of place or redundant but his storyline manages to maintain plausibility within an implausible circumstance.
I say this, because in summary of All Fall Down, it is a story in which a religious cult of lesbians attempt to provoke an apocalypse by means of biological terrorism. A snuff threesome occurs before page 150.
If this sounds silly, it's because it is, but it by no means harms the fun thriller purpose of the novel, in many ways this is the product for sale, a giddy race against time with a level of James Bond esque silliness expected from an action film. The moment when the girls break into the secret lab is particularly worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster in terms of the imagery you conjur up in your mind.
I have but one criticism : Jack. Imperiled Jack in this second novel is suffering from a case of Kim Bauer Syndrome, a reference which only 24 fans will truly understand, but reminded me of the second season in which Kim is needlessly hiding behind bins, being chased by coyotes and accidentally caught up in a shop robbery. The way in which Jack collides with characters first met by Paul is overly coincidental. Let Jack be happy at home with his LEGO next time.
I would recommend making sure you've read Catch Your Death first, and hey if you don't think a mad lesbian trying to wipe out civilization is the most original premise you've heard in some time, feel free to let me know of others you have heard of!
I really liked their novel Killing Cupid and the forthcoming novel Forward Slash looks like it is similarly formatted so I'm really looking forward to that.
Destination : Passed on to a friend
Length Of Time In Possession : Roughly 1 month
All Fall Down from the Voss/Edwards writing duo is the follow up to Catch Your Death and returns to the lives of the protagonists of that novel Kate Maddox and Paul Wilson. Kate, virologist and Watoto virus expert is called upon by the FBI when a strain of the virus breaks out on a Native American reservation. Partner Paul follows her to America and does some freelance investigating of his own still seeking explanations and retribution for the death of his twin Stephen.
The third novel from the Voss/Edwards team All Fall Down shows a positive strengthening of their partnership, faster, tauter, and an improvement in terms of their prose from Catch Your Death, the two writers have obviously become more comfortable with each other and the unusual demands of writing as a double act as a continuing professional development.
I was worried that Paul would feel somehow out of place or redundant but his storyline manages to maintain plausibility within an implausible circumstance.
I say this, because in summary of All Fall Down, it is a story in which a religious cult of lesbians attempt to provoke an apocalypse by means of biological terrorism. A snuff threesome occurs before page 150.
If this sounds silly, it's because it is, but it by no means harms the fun thriller purpose of the novel, in many ways this is the product for sale, a giddy race against time with a level of James Bond esque silliness expected from an action film. The moment when the girls break into the secret lab is particularly worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster in terms of the imagery you conjur up in your mind.
I have but one criticism : Jack. Imperiled Jack in this second novel is suffering from a case of Kim Bauer Syndrome, a reference which only 24 fans will truly understand, but reminded me of the second season in which Kim is needlessly hiding behind bins, being chased by coyotes and accidentally caught up in a shop robbery. The way in which Jack collides with characters first met by Paul is overly coincidental. Let Jack be happy at home with his LEGO next time.
I would recommend making sure you've read Catch Your Death first, and hey if you don't think a mad lesbian trying to wipe out civilization is the most original premise you've heard in some time, feel free to let me know of others you have heard of!
I really liked their novel Killing Cupid and the forthcoming novel Forward Slash looks like it is similarly formatted so I'm really looking forward to that.
Destination : Passed on to a friend
Monday, 2 April 2012
Book #33 Headhunters by Jo Nesbø
Headhunters
Following the premature death of Steig Larsson, British publishing houses scrambled around for the "next big" Scandinavian author and alighted upon prolific Norwegian Jo Nesbø who has written many books in a series about detective Harry Hole, as well as some children's books and a number of stand-alone novels of which Headhunters is one.
His books are everywhere in every bookshop you go in. But, are they any good?
I chose Headhunters because there's a film adaptation of this coming out shortly starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game Of Thrones so I thought I'd give it a go.
Central character Roger Brown is a recruiment Headhunter, but he isn't just any headhunter - he's the best headhunter in town with a stellar reputation. If Roger Brown recommends a candidate for a job, they get the job, and he's always on the lookout for perfect specimens.
Roger Brown is arrogant and showy and though he has the trappings of wealth, the house, the suits, the right kind of watch; having not come from money, there is an indication he lives beyond his means.
Roger Brown has secrets. But what are they?
When Roger meets Clas Greve, he believes he is in luck, little does he know he has met his match.
The thing about this book, a thriller set in the corporate world is that as you are reading it, it is thrilling and rattles along at a great pace; Roger and Clas and other characters are well drawn, and it is well written, but when you finish the book and actually stop to think about what just happened, you realise the entire story is utterly preposterous and laughably so. Really incredibly silly particularly in the third act.
Despite this it is an enjoyable example of the genre, and I recommend it as a great airport or holiday purchase.
7/10
Following the premature death of Steig Larsson, British publishing houses scrambled around for the "next big" Scandinavian author and alighted upon prolific Norwegian Jo Nesbø who has written many books in a series about detective Harry Hole, as well as some children's books and a number of stand-alone novels of which Headhunters is one.
His books are everywhere in every bookshop you go in. But, are they any good?
I chose Headhunters because there's a film adaptation of this coming out shortly starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game Of Thrones so I thought I'd give it a go.
Central character Roger Brown is a recruiment Headhunter, but he isn't just any headhunter - he's the best headhunter in town with a stellar reputation. If Roger Brown recommends a candidate for a job, they get the job, and he's always on the lookout for perfect specimens.
Roger Brown is arrogant and showy and though he has the trappings of wealth, the house, the suits, the right kind of watch; having not come from money, there is an indication he lives beyond his means.
Roger Brown has secrets. But what are they?
When Roger meets Clas Greve, he believes he is in luck, little does he know he has met his match.
The thing about this book, a thriller set in the corporate world is that as you are reading it, it is thrilling and rattles along at a great pace; Roger and Clas and other characters are well drawn, and it is well written, but when you finish the book and actually stop to think about what just happened, you realise the entire story is utterly preposterous and laughably so. Really incredibly silly particularly in the third act.
Despite this it is an enjoyable example of the genre, and I recommend it as a great airport or holiday purchase.
7/10
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Book #19 Catch Your Death by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards
Catch Your Death
Catch Your Death is a crime thriller by writing duo Louise Voss and Mark Edwards who met after Voss, already a published novelist empathised with his struggle as a writer following a TV documentary. Unlike other duos like PJ Tracy or Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees, Voss and Edwards are neither related nor a couple, which makes them a tad unusual in collaborative fiction.
In Catch Your Death, Kate returns to the UK from a life in America after over a decade abroad . She has no plans to return and has essentially abducted her young son. You would think then that this would be the story, but it isn't, or at least it's only part of it. When Kate left all those years ago, she left behind a tragedy, and memories of an accident that make no sense. A fire at a research unit where she volunteered, a fire which killed her beloved boyfriend Stephen.
What Kate doesn't realise is that her knowledge of her days there make her a threat and subsequently a target. Whilst being hunted she pairs up with Stephen's twin Paul and the duo set out to discover what really happened to Stephen all those years ago.
Catch Your Death taps in to what I feel is this really current underlying fear within society, that the next big threat to humanity will come from bioterrorism. Across media from film to television to novels, an apocalypse created by mass but not entire human extinction really is in the zeitgeist of the moment. I'm thinking of Contagion, Survivors, and all the different variations of zombie disasters. It is a known fact that scientists across the world grow and manipulate viruses in labs, and now awareness of this is really becoming part of the collective psyche, after 30 years which have brought us AIDS, CJD, H1N1 and SARS, that a truly pandemic truly decimating illness could spread very easily throughout the global village. The subject of this novel is a viable and therefore extra scary threat.
Sampson one of the two main villains of this piece is one of the most chilling individuals I've come across in fiction. So evil that I would class him as being truly inhuman he is a man to have some serious nightmares about. His superior Gaunt is like one of these mad James Bond evil genius types, a tad over the top but fun nonetheless.
Sometimes when you read a book the characters and events sprout your own creative imagination, and personally I would have gone down a completely different road with the character Paul. It's not a criticism more a choose your own adventure type thing. I'm not saying my storyline would have been better, just I enjoyed imagining how it would have changed it.
One of the impressive aspects of this book is the seamless authorial voice and style, without the front cover telling you so, you would not guess it was the work of two people.
I think that Catch Your Death is a great read if you are going off on holiday and want to freak yourself out on the journey, it's what this sort of thriller is perfect for. Also, it's only 99p on Kindle, and for under a pound it's really well worth it.
Catch Your Death is a crime thriller by writing duo Louise Voss and Mark Edwards who met after Voss, already a published novelist empathised with his struggle as a writer following a TV documentary. Unlike other duos like PJ Tracy or Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees, Voss and Edwards are neither related nor a couple, which makes them a tad unusual in collaborative fiction.
In Catch Your Death, Kate returns to the UK from a life in America after over a decade abroad . She has no plans to return and has essentially abducted her young son. You would think then that this would be the story, but it isn't, or at least it's only part of it. When Kate left all those years ago, she left behind a tragedy, and memories of an accident that make no sense. A fire at a research unit where she volunteered, a fire which killed her beloved boyfriend Stephen.
What Kate doesn't realise is that her knowledge of her days there make her a threat and subsequently a target. Whilst being hunted she pairs up with Stephen's twin Paul and the duo set out to discover what really happened to Stephen all those years ago.
Catch Your Death taps in to what I feel is this really current underlying fear within society, that the next big threat to humanity will come from bioterrorism. Across media from film to television to novels, an apocalypse created by mass but not entire human extinction really is in the zeitgeist of the moment. I'm thinking of Contagion, Survivors, and all the different variations of zombie disasters. It is a known fact that scientists across the world grow and manipulate viruses in labs, and now awareness of this is really becoming part of the collective psyche, after 30 years which have brought us AIDS, CJD, H1N1 and SARS, that a truly pandemic truly decimating illness could spread very easily throughout the global village. The subject of this novel is a viable and therefore extra scary threat.
Sampson one of the two main villains of this piece is one of the most chilling individuals I've come across in fiction. So evil that I would class him as being truly inhuman he is a man to have some serious nightmares about. His superior Gaunt is like one of these mad James Bond evil genius types, a tad over the top but fun nonetheless.
Sometimes when you read a book the characters and events sprout your own creative imagination, and personally I would have gone down a completely different road with the character Paul. It's not a criticism more a choose your own adventure type thing. I'm not saying my storyline would have been better, just I enjoyed imagining how it would have changed it.
One of the impressive aspects of this book is the seamless authorial voice and style, without the front cover telling you so, you would not guess it was the work of two people.
I think that Catch Your Death is a great read if you are going off on holiday and want to freak yourself out on the journey, it's what this sort of thriller is perfect for. Also, it's only 99p on Kindle, and for under a pound it's really well worth it.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Book #67 Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson
Before I Go To Sleep
I read Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson over a matter of hours last night. I was sold on it by its intriguing premise. The idea of inexplicably losing massively important memories and the impact of that is something I've been pondering a lot lately. It is a psychological thriller starring a protagonist with a broken psyche. In some respects this resembles Julie Myerson's Then, also about a woman who can't remember her past, but whilst that story takes place in a post apocalyptic landscape, this story takes place as a contemporary "real world" novel.
Christine Lucas has both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, she doesn't remember most of her life but on a day to day basis will remember what is happening until she goes to sleep,when her memories will be wiped clean again and she will start from the beginning. This is, for those of you who've not seen it, precisely what happens to Lucy Whitmore in the film 50 First Dates. Unlike Lucy, who in the whimsical comedy goes to eat waffles in a pretty Hawaiian cafe each day before painting a delightful mural to the strains of the Beach Boys 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', Christine rather normally wakes up in Crouch End, and stares into the bathroom mirror at a face which is hers, yet middle aged.
Husband Ben, is her caretaker and explains everything on a daily basis before leaving for work. On the day we meet Christine, she gets a phonecall from Dr Nash - a doctor who has been treating her without Ben's knowledge for some time. He explains she is now keeping a journal to help her remember and tells her where she hides it. When she opens it, on the front page is written : DON'T TRUST BEN.
And so it begins, as we struggle alongside Christine to patch together her life story and remember the event which so badly injured her. Watson avoids making Before I Go To Sleep too much of an irritating prose Groundhog Day by using Christine's journal primarily to tell the story, she reads her journal daily, recaps herself, and then continues it. Doing this is a clever means of sidestepping what could have been a massive pitfall for a novel such as this.
It's a debut novel, and a good one, though I wonder how much inspiration was taken not merely from 50 First Dates but the 2000 Christopher Nolan film 'Memento' in which an anterograde amnesiac tries to remember what happened to his wife. It differs enough from each film being more grounded in the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance and is a lot more realistic about the human outcomes of this kind of event. Well until the end I guess, which in a way, though a good twist is a bit of a shambles in terms of believability. I liked this book, I thought it was clever, but I didn't think it was amazing. 7/10
I read Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson over a matter of hours last night. I was sold on it by its intriguing premise. The idea of inexplicably losing massively important memories and the impact of that is something I've been pondering a lot lately. It is a psychological thriller starring a protagonist with a broken psyche. In some respects this resembles Julie Myerson's Then, also about a woman who can't remember her past, but whilst that story takes place in a post apocalyptic landscape, this story takes place as a contemporary "real world" novel.
Christine Lucas has both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, she doesn't remember most of her life but on a day to day basis will remember what is happening until she goes to sleep,when her memories will be wiped clean again and she will start from the beginning. This is, for those of you who've not seen it, precisely what happens to Lucy Whitmore in the film 50 First Dates. Unlike Lucy, who in the whimsical comedy goes to eat waffles in a pretty Hawaiian cafe each day before painting a delightful mural to the strains of the Beach Boys 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', Christine rather normally wakes up in Crouch End, and stares into the bathroom mirror at a face which is hers, yet middle aged.
Husband Ben, is her caretaker and explains everything on a daily basis before leaving for work. On the day we meet Christine, she gets a phonecall from Dr Nash - a doctor who has been treating her without Ben's knowledge for some time. He explains she is now keeping a journal to help her remember and tells her where she hides it. When she opens it, on the front page is written : DON'T TRUST BEN.
And so it begins, as we struggle alongside Christine to patch together her life story and remember the event which so badly injured her. Watson avoids making Before I Go To Sleep too much of an irritating prose Groundhog Day by using Christine's journal primarily to tell the story, she reads her journal daily, recaps herself, and then continues it. Doing this is a clever means of sidestepping what could have been a massive pitfall for a novel such as this.
It's a debut novel, and a good one, though I wonder how much inspiration was taken not merely from 50 First Dates but the 2000 Christopher Nolan film 'Memento' in which an anterograde amnesiac tries to remember what happened to his wife. It differs enough from each film being more grounded in the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance and is a lot more realistic about the human outcomes of this kind of event. Well until the end I guess, which in a way, though a good twist is a bit of a shambles in terms of believability. I liked this book, I thought it was clever, but I didn't think it was amazing. 7/10
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