Tag Archives: Mystery

Review | Good as Dead, Mark Billingham

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Shop owner Akhtar takes police officer Helen Weeks and a civilian hostage. His demand: that DI Tom Thorne investigate the apparent suicide of his son in prison, which Akhtar believes is a murder. Mark Billingham’s Good as Dead is a fast-paced mystery and an exciting read. It’s my first Tom Thorne book, as well as the first time I’ve heard of the Thorne TV series. I hope the TV show will be aired in Canada; it looks really interesting.

I had zero sympathy for Akhtar. I’m sure that’s partly because I just finished the deeply disturbing Into the Darkest Corner, and because of the recent real-life body parts case and Eaton centre shooting, all of which make me especially angry at people who use violence to ruin the lives of innocents. So Akhtar believes his son was murdered, and that the justice system failed his family. That in no way justifies, to any extent, his threatening the lives of two innocent people. While I understand that Thorne’s race to find out the truth about Akhtar’s son is motivated by his desire to see the hostages safe, a part of me hoped that it would turn out that the son had committed suicide after all, and that Akhtar realizes how pointless his drama is.

To Billingham’s credit, he also holds back on whatever sympathy he has for Akhtar. Rather, he emphasizes Helen’s concern over her one year old son, and the other hostage’s hysterical focus on his missing a meeting regarding his promotion at work. Even when Helen chooses to hide information from the police trying to rescue her, it’s not because of Stockholm syndrome, but rather because she wants to survive to see her baby again. Her decision seemed more like a convenient dramatic device to keep the story going rather than the smart choice, but I like that Billingham explained her reasoning behind it. I also like the scenes where Akhtar’s wife confronts him — Thorne reasons that in any couple in crisis, at least one of them has to remain strong. In the case of Akhtar’s wife, she couldn’t afford to fall apart, because someone has to take care of the other kids in the family. I like her as a character, and felt sorry for what she must be going through, first with her son, and now with her husband.

I have no sympathy for Akhtar, but his son did get a pretty raw deal. Billingham takes us into the son’s life, and the real reasons behind his imprisonment. It’s not a pretty story, and Billingham reveals a harsh, tragic type of party scene, where it’s so easy for boys like Akhtar’s son to get in way over their heads.

Good as Dead is a pretty solid, entertaining thriller. Nothing that particularly made me want to read all the other Tom Thorne novels, but definitely a good read for the weekend or an afternoon at the beach.

Review | Into the Darkest Corner, Elizabeth Haynes

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Quite possibly one of the worst things about being the victim of a crime is feeling judged yourself. It’s perfectly natural to think of your own actions and agonize over how you could have prevented the crime, or how, if circumstances were different, you might’ve escaped it altogether. Among the most empowering things, therefore, for a victim of crime to hear, apart from that the perpetrator has been caught, are “You’re not alone” and “It’s not your fault.” Some are fortunate enough to learn that right away, others need a bit more time. But what if you don’t hear that at all? What if the people you trust the most tell you that you are at fault, that in fact, you are lying and not a victim of crime at all? When Catherine Bailey, the heroine of Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner, calls herself “such a fool” for not having escaped an abusive relationship with Lee when she had the chance, I wanted to hug her and tell her not to blame herself. When she thinks about how her parents’ death led to her going to bars, flirting with strangers and eventually meeting Lee, I wanted to tell her that it’s useless to dwell on the what if’s, that in fact, her anger should be towards Lee and not towards herself or her past. I wanted to be the friend she so clearly needed.

Into the Darkest Corner is a difficult book to read, and I mean that as a testament to how amazing it is. Haynes has crafted a terrifying, emotional, claustrophobic story of abuse. My copy (photo on the left) is filed with Post-It notes and marginal scribbles, mostly comments like “Argh! You liar!” referring to Lee. Rarely have I marked up a book so much — Darkest Corner has provoked that much from me.

I detested Lee from the very beginning. The novel opens with Lee’s trial in 2005, where he testifies that Catherine was an emotionally unbalanced girlfriend whose obsessive jealousy caused him to snap and punch her — the “first time [he’d] ever hit a woman,” and allegedly an act of self-defense. This may be because I already knew from the book’s back cover that Lee was the jealous one with a “darker side,” but this scene just made me sick. How dare this man not just beat up his girlfriend but now try to paint her as the one at fault?

The novel is structured so that the story of Catherine and Lee’s developing relationship in 2003 (pre-trial) is told in alongside (in alternating scenes) the story of Catherine in 2007 (post-trial). It took me a while to get into this structure, mostly because I felt I already knew how the 2003 storyline was going to turn out, and I wanted to get on with the rest of the story. I soon found myself liking Haynes’ choice of structure however — the scenes of Catherine being carefree and flirting with the handsome, mysterious Lee are especially heart-wrenching when contrasted with the perennially frightened Catherine in 2007, who suffers from OCD and practically has to be dragged to the office Christmas party.

Even when Catherine was really in love with Lee, I never found him attractive. There was a major red flag from the beginning — Lee’s secrecy about his job — though I guess I could see how that would have a dark, brooding stranger type appeal. I do wish I saw a bit more of Lee’s charming side, just so I can understand how Catherine could have fallen so hard, and how her friends could have been so won over.

I have rarely detested a character as much as I do Lee. He’s just creepy and controlling. For example, he switches around the knives and forks in Catherine’s kitchen drawer. When Catherine demands to know why he did it, he replies, “I just wanted you to know I was looking out for you.” Catherine admits she feels uncomfortable without knowing why, and that was one point when I wanted to just yell at her — how can you not know why that creeps you out? Talk about the heebie-jeebies! To Catherine’s credit, she does ask him not to do it again instead of just letting it alone.

Haynes does an amazing job of putting us in Catherine’s frame of mind. It was terrifying to see Lee’s controlling tendencies escalate, to the point that even when Catherine realizes how much she needs to escape this relationship, it’s already too late. Several times in the margins, I’ve written “how to escape?” The story at times felt claustrophobic — Catherine’s experience of being trapped by Lee felt so real that even I, who knew he’d be convicted in 2005, saw no way out.

In contrast to Lee is Stuart, Catherine’s neighbour in 2007, who is a psychologist and who wants to help her deal with her OCD. I was initially put off when he tells her she has OCD and asks if she’s gotten any help for it. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I also wanted her to tell him it was none of his business. Still, she does need help, and I like how Haynes balances out Catherine’s wariness of Stuart with her desire to get better. Stuart gradually grew on me — I love how, despite his attraction to Catherine, he is first and foremost a friend. I kept wishing that he wouldn’t turn out to have some hidden agenda, that he really is as nice a guy as he seems. Lee is such a horrible, manipulative person, and the way he destroys Catherine is painstakingly, painfully methodical. Because Catherine’s relationship with Stuart unfolds in the book alongside her experiences with Lee, it is difficult to allow ourselves to trust Stuart, just as it must have been for Catherine as well.

Darkest Corner has been compared to S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. Watson even blurbs Darkest Corner, calling it “intense, gripping and utterly unputdownable.” I am a huge fan of Before I Go to Sleep — I found it, quite literally, “unputdownable,” and it kept me up all night. Its premise of not knowing who you really area is terrifying.

I found Into the Darkest Corner difficult to put down as well, but more than that, I found it difficult to read. Catherine’s story gets into you, in a way the very best books — of any genre — do. Catherine battles not just Lee the person but, perhaps more difficult, Lee the memory, which haunts her even after Lee is behind bars. I cheered every time Catherine fought back. I wanted her to win, to beat Lee once and for all and finally get on with her life, even though I knew that no matter what, the scars left by her experiences will never fully go away. Catherine’s story feels real, ever last terrifying, tragic bit of it, and kudos to Haynes for not holding back on such a difficult subject. Brilliant book, one that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | The Dead Kid Detective Agency, Evan Munday

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Okay, this book is just awesome. Granted, when the alternative is working on a Sunday, it doesn’t take much to  keep me engrossed. That being said, Evan Munday’s The Dead Kid Detective Agency kept me giggling all afternoon. I kept promising to read “just one more chapter” before getting back to work, then picking the book back up. It was just so much fun to read!

From the book jacket: Thirteen year old October Schwartz is new in town, short on friends, and the child of a clinically depressed science teacher. Naturally, she spends most of her time in the Sticksville Cemetery. While writing her novel Two Knives, One Thousand Demons, of which she admits the title is “the single best thing about the book so far,” October accidentally raises the spirits of five dead teenagers. When October’s French teacher dies in suspicious circumstances, she teams up with the dead kids to form the Dead Kid Detective Agency and solve the case. It’s Nancy Drew with ghosts, and these ghosts happen to love board games and musical theatre — how could I resist?

The mystery is more Scooby Doo than Agatha Christie — there are suspects galore, and the victim has some serious skeletons in his past, but Munday seems more concerned with creating an amusing caper than writing a truly perplexing whodunnit. The big reveal does come as a surprise, but the plot twist that leads to it feels more convenient than “aha”-inducing. That being said Dead Kid works for the same reason Scooby Doo does — it’s wild, it’s an adventure, and you can’t help but turn the page to see what Munday has planned next.

I don’t usually like narrators who provide commentary — I figure, give us the story, and let us make up our own minds. In the case of Dead Kid, however, the narrator’s personality is as much a character as October and the dead kids, and I love his snappy asides and geeky references. From page 6: “But even if her classmates didn’t know, October was sure they could smell the tween on her — the stench of Sour Keys and Saturday morning cartoons.” Not sure if it was the phrase “smell the tween on her” or the stench of Saturday morning cartoons, but with that line, I was hooked.

I love the dead kids, but just as entertaining are October’s live friends Stacey (a boy with a Walkman) and Yumi. In one scene, Stacey tells off a popular girl/bully in such a fitting way that I cheered out loud reading it. The standout, however, in terms of secondary characters, is October’s father. With a book so filled with wisecracks and pop culture references, I expected to be entertained, but I didn’t expect to be touched. Yet the subplot about October and her clinically depressed father is heartwarming. His awkward attempts to connect with his daughter, and October’s desire to learn more about her mother, make you want to just hug them both. Take this passage:

I had always imagined […] all would be revealed on my thirteenth birthday, ten years after the fact. The anniversary was like some kind of mythic event; it would mark a new era of understanding. Mom would have this ultra compelling reason for ditching us, it would be obvious.

October admits this is “like some kind of tragic TV movie,” yet her offhandedness belies deep pain. And when her father “looked like someone had sprinkled broken glass inside his slippers” when October asks about her mother, such that October decides to rephrase her question as a joke, there is just so much going on beneath the humour. I cared for these characters — I wanted to hug them both, and to find out exactly what happened to October’s mother.

A couple of quick bonuses to this book: each of the dead kids has died under mysterious circumstances, so they’ll each then get a book dedicated to their mystery. Next up is the story of Morna MacIsaac, whose body had been found frozen in a snowy alley. Then there is the appendix of pop culture references in Dead Kid. Entries include Darth Vader (“Carries a lightsaber and (spoiler alert) is the dad of that Luke Skywalker kid”), Johnny Depp (“Do you really need to be told who the sexiest man alive is?”), and my personal favourite, Jackie Chan (“if you don’t know who Jackie Chan is, drop this book immediately and go rent Police Story 2 or Project A 2 or something. Forget The Karate Kid and Rush Hour. Go for the Hong Kong stuff. You’ll thank me later.”) This appendix is subtitled “Important Cultural History!” and all I can say is — it is indeed.

Hilarious, geeky pop culture fun and surprisingly touching, Dead Kid Detective Agency was an absolute joy to read. And any writer who says about Jackie Chan that readers should drop his book and watch Chan’s “Hong Kong stuff” makes an immediate fan of me. I finished this book on a Sunday afternoon and already look forward to Book 2.