Review: Newcomer by Keigo Higashino

Detective Kaga has just been transferred to a small precinct in an area of Tokyo. However, he is interrupted in his attempts to get to know his new home by a murder investigation. A middle-aged woman was found dead in her home, the victim of strangulation, and the police have no leads as to the perpetrator. However, with his objective perspective and uncanny ability to piece together the smallest details, Kaga dedicates himself to finding the killer.

In the process of investigating the murder, he comes across various people with a link, however small and intangible, to the murder. Kaga does his best to acquire answers to questions these bystanders never thought to ask, and attempts to give them peace and solace in the place of grief.

Despite being an immensely fun whodunit, Newcomer is a surprisingly feel-good read, with a heart-warming plot and characters. Keigo Higashino cleverly illustrates that no man is an island, and that a community, like a family, needs each other, and is shaped by those around them. A violent action that taints a small town evolves under Higashino’s guide into a lesson of the importance of forgiveness, love, and peace, and the delicate thread which holds these aspects in a precarious balance.

Newcomer is an easy and thoroughly enjoyable read, and I doubt anyone will be surprised when they start it to discover that they cannot book the book down. A single sitting was all it took me to delve into the Kaga’s world, and I loved every minute. Higashino is a very talented storyteller who is rewriting the detective story, one thoughtful action at a time. In a world where there is so much darkness, his characters and their actions shed a hopeful light, and is is pure bliss to follow. Enjoyable is an understatement - this book will change the way you see crime drama, and most assuredly for the better. 

Newcomer by Keigo Higashino is published by Little, Brown Book Group, a Hachette Company, and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Review: The Witches of St Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones

Militza and Stana have been married off to Russians. The sisters, who hail from Montenegro, are victim to the culture of the times; they serve as links between their father’s country, and the wealth and influence of the Russian empire. Forced to marry for power, with no consideration for love, they do their best to be integrated into the society of Russia, despite the unsavory reception they receive. Shrouded in names and insults, allusions to their backwater homeland and suggested inferiority, the duo are at a loss in their new homes. Desperate to be included among the elite, they befriend the new Tsarina, who herself is an outcast and foreigner.

The Tsarina, apart from being foreign with patchy Russian, is also suffering the misfortune of not producing an heir. As girl after girl fills the home of the Tsar, the public and the Romanovs wait with bated breath for the arrival of a son. Militza and Stana, familiar with the occult, become dedicated to the mission of helping the Tsarina with her deepest wish – a son. Through a carousel of mystics, prophets, rituals and spells, they offer up their last hope to a new arrival – Grigory Rasputin.

Edwards-Jones weaves a glorious golden thread between fiction and history, knitting together a story that is all the more entrancing for the truth that lies at its heart. Rasputin is as infamous as he is mysterious, and to be afforded an insight – albeit embroidered and tweaked, is a treat to any fan of history or the occult. Edwards-Jones’ prose is hypnotizing and bewitching, casting a spell on the reader to follow every carefully selected word as a trail to a beautiful world long since past. The riches and excesses of the Romanov court shine brightly against the impending doom that awaits the family and the country. The Witches of St Petersburg is a delightful dive into another land and another time, being hypnotic in its ability to express such turmoil, angst and frustration against a background of shining palaces and dripping jewels. To read this book is to be transported into another world, and to thoroughly enjoy it.

The Witches of St Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones is published by Head of Zeus, and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Review: Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

Liba and Laya have spent their lives in a small Jewish village, tucked away in the woods. Their mother was a convert to the faith, and has not been readily welcomed into the village, despite that the girls’ father is well-loved. Yet their domestic complacency is interrupted when Liba’s father is told of his own father’s impending death. Her father and mother must leave for the arduous journey back to her father’s birthplace. However, before they depart, the girls’ mother informs the girls of their true history; of secrets that seem to unbelievable to be real, but which are sadly indisputable. Armed with the knowledge of what really flows in her veins, Liba is tasked with protecting Laya, yet it seems fate seeks to complicate this simple task.

When a group of fruit sellers arrive shortly after the girls are left to fend for themselves, Laya finds herself seeking freedom in passionate embraces and whispered confessions, while Liba desperately tries to do right by her parents and protect her sister, all the while trying not to give in to the emotions bubbling within her own heart. The sisters are left vulnerable to life, love and deceit, with nothing to guide them but secrets and myths.

Filled with magic and whimsy, The Sisters of the Winter Wood is a modern-day fairy tale, set in a decidedly adult and dangerous backdrop. Interspersed among the fairy tale buffet is poetry, history and wonder. The combination makes this book so thoroughly enjoyable that it leaves you wanting more after its conclusion. Rossner has created a vivid, beautiful and menacing world with a dream-like quality and sparkle.

While each of the two sister’s narratives is unique and otherworldly, much like the sisters themselves, Rossner harbours the power of prose to create and populate a world that is disappointingly just beyond the reach of the reader. The Sisters of the Winter Wood is shrouded in secrets, magic, and the impossible, making it an altogether unprecedented experience of love, loss, and understanding. This book is as beautiful as it is mesmerizing, and will guide you through the shadowed woods, to sunlit possibilities beyond your imagining.

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner is published by Orbit, an imprint of Little, Brown Group, and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Review: I Always Find You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

As a boy, John Ajvide Lindqvist witnessed something strange; a young boy stumbled into his tree house, and had evidently been brutally mistreated. Deciding to house the younger boy for a time, John’s attempts at having a pet came to an abrupt end when the boy’s father, a policeman, found the tree house and threatened John; leaving a scar to buy his silence. Years later, trying his hand at being a magician harboured in a cramped and dank apartment, John begins to discover oddities which remind him of the boy, the treehouse, and the policeman with a knife.

Due to his sub-par housing, John must use a communal laundry room and rusted bathtub for bathing. As if an eerily abandoned and poorly lit bathroom across the courtyard didn’t have enough reason to be hair-raising on its own, strange happenings begin to occur in the laundry room, and his neighbours become embroiled in some activity behind the building’s closed doors – activities which alter their personalities and leave them adorned by a myriad fresh wounds.

Perhaps one of the most-frequently asked questions about true horror is what inspires the story? Bordering the line between realism and macabre fiction, Lindqvist’s answer is his own past, albeit it embroidered with a darker thread; a shadow that spreads behind the stitching. Lindqvist’s talent is so stark that it is often impossible to tell the line between his past and his imagination, making the story all the more powerful and sinister.

Lindqvist reels you in with easy style and dark humour, and what is heralded as the true story behind his career as a horror writer soon becomes impossible to believe, and disturbingly otherworldly. I am embarrassed to admit that part of me thought the author a madman, claiming horrific acts which shaped him into the world-renown weaver of tales he is today, so convincing was his writing and conviction. While, for the sake of his own ‘sanity’, I was relieved to scan ‘fiction’ in the book’s fine print, my utter speechlessness and distress at he content are one of many signs of Lindqvist’s talent as a creator and story-teller.

John Ajvide Lindqvist has a talent for making the morbid intriguing and classy, and dare I say stylish? He relies not on the shock factor which dampens many a promising horror, but on the pure threat that something impossible, something awful, could be real and unfolding in a damp corner of the world. It’s hard to resist his craft, particularly in the autobiographical offering of I Always Find You, and I daresay this book will leave you contemplating horror, nature and the weakness of the human mind when you are done. A brilliant, dark and addictive read – this is my kind of poison.

I Always Find You by John Ajvide Lindqvist is published by Riverrun books, an imprint of Quercus, and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Review: Him by Clare Empson

From the outside, Catherine’s life looks to be on plan – she’s married with two children, and her family has just bought a cozy cottage in need of some TLC. Yet things could have been so different. Fifteen years ago, while studying, she met Lucian – a gorgeous and very wealthy young man who had caught the eyes of all her peers. The two fell deeply and quickly in love, believing the other to be their soul mate. However, Catherine suddenly ended the relationship with no explanation, and left Lucian reeling. All this time later, the pair maintains feelings for each other, and an unfortunate occurrence in Catherine’s life allows fate to push the two together again.

Now, older and more cautious, Lucian and Catherine decide to reconnect. While she spends time with Lucian, she realizes that her life could have been so different, and his too, if only she hadn’t walked out on him fifteen years earlier. Determined to not repeat her mistake, Catherine decides to live in the moment, with Lucian at her side. Yet it seems that fate has decided not to grant her happiness, and something unspeakable happens, sending her into traumatized muteness.

Him is not your average romance. Granted, there are several moments which will have your eyes misting over or your heart beating at twice its normal pace, but there are also currents of underlying horror which add a delicious amount of drama to the story. In addition to the modern take on the whole ‘Prince Charming’ tale, Empson has presented a gritty, dark and real background to a twenty-first century heroine’s story, making Catherine relatable and tangible; she is more than just her emotions.

An unexpected twist and feverish conclusion make Him a joyride from start to finish, and there’s no doubt that you’ll be left bored; in fact, you’ll want more.

Him by Clare Empson is published by Orion Books and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.