{"id":7767,"date":"2018-02-15T12:02:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T12:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7767"},"modified":"2018-02-17T12:34:23","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T12:34:23","slug":"february-crime-round-up-by-n-j-cooper-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7767","title":{"rendered":"February Crime Round-Up by N. J. Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Emma In the Night by Wendy Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by HQ UK\/ St Martin’s Press US<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

The Wife by Alafair Burke<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Faber & Faber UK\/ Harper US<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Macmillan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

Force of Nature by Jane Harper<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Little, Brown UK\/ Flatiron US<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

London Rules by Mick Herron<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by John Murray UK\/ Soho Crime US<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One theme that has emerged from this month\u2019s reading is the way the powerless have to resort to manipulation to defend themselves against those who use their superior strength to control or terrorize their \"\"<\/a>victims.<\/p>\n

Wendy Walker\u2019s second novel, Emma in the Night<\/em>, deals with two sisters who disappeared from their unhappy family home in their teens.\u00a0 Now one has returned with terrible stories of abduction and imprisonment, begging the police to find her sister with the few clues she collected during her risky escape.\u00a0 Their mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and clearly gave them both a hard upbringing, \"\"<\/a>but their inevitable sibling rivalry adds an extra twist to the account of their childhood.\u00a0 Walker gives more explanations of the personality disorder than is necessary, and I was not absolutely convinced by the degree of manipulation the returning daughter requires to get her story heard by those who can sort out the mess, but this is an interesting psychological crime novel.<\/p>\n

Alafair Burke\u2019s lead character, Angela Powell, has a tragic history and too many secrets to defend.\u00a0 She has constructed a life that has worked well for her and her son, Spencer, until her husband is accused of \"\"<\/a>sexually assaulting an intern in his office.\u00a0 More, and worse, accusations follow, while Angela fights for her marriage, her son, and her security.\u00a0 Burke is a subtle writer, with a clear insight into damaged and damaging people.\u00a0 Her juggling of past and present narratives is impeccable, and The Wife<\/em> is both moving and frightening in its portrayal of the struggle to survive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The joint authors of The Wife Between Us<\/em> are themselves expert in the arts of manipulation, leading the reader into making all kinds of false assumptions in this novel about the wives of Richard, a hedge-fund manager.\u00a0 We learn a lot about the gulf between the excessively rich and the just-about managing in New York.\u00a0 We are introduced to the temptations of money and offers of safety, of the dangers of jealousy and insidious fear as details of Richard\u2019s marriages are judiciously revealed.\u00a0 This is clever and fast-moving, and it\u2019s no surprise that the film rights have been bought by Steven Spielberg\u2019s production company.<\/p>\n

Jane Harper had enormous success with her first novel, The Dry<\/em>, which is set in a small Australian \"\"<\/a>town during an energy-sapping drought.\u00a0 She has followed that very male- centred novel with one about women undergoing a horrible team-building exercise out in the bush.\u00a0 Aaron Falk, the federal police agent from The Dry<\/em>, is here again, trying to establish what happened to one of the five women, who has disappeared.<\/p>\n

Harper has divided her novel into two strands, one of Falk\u2019s investigation and the other of the women\u2019s hike before Alice left them, \"\"<\/a>as their confidence is sapped by cold and wet and their personalities clash with disastrous results.\u00a0 The idea that anyone in business could send a group of office-based staff out into the bush for several days, even with maps and instructions and food and water to carry, seems extraordinary.\u00a0 The dangers are severe, even before the women\u2019s own problems and enmities are stirred into the mix.\u00a0 But it makes for an ingenious thriller.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mick Herron\u2019s Jackson Lamb is a character as far removed from any of these manipulative women as it is possible to imagine, except in his way of dealing with those who have power over him and the denizens of his small office at Slough House.\u00a0 These are the MI5 officers who have screwed up so badly that they have been sent to Lamb\u2019s outfit to be bored into resignation by mind-numbing, pointless administrative tasks, so saving the service from redundancy pay and unwelcome publicity.\u00a0 As usual, they become involved in a live operation and need all Lamb\u2019s brilliant manipulation to save the day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This time computer-whiz and sexual fantasist Roddy Ho is the key figure in a complex plot.\u00a0 Herron sets up a nightmare earworm with his rewriting of the Robin Hood theme song:\u00a0 Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, riding through the glen\/Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, manliest<\/em> of men.\u00a0 Reluctantly attempting to save their unpopular colleague, the other Slow Horses cause their usual mayhem, with the inscrutable and traumatized J.K.Coe revealing a little more of himself, before Lamb leans on the powerful and saves the day again.\u00a0 Funny, angry, and at times very dark, London Rules<\/em> reveals secret and political worlds that are more like the Augean Stables than anything else.<\/p>\n

Mick Herron has had a slow-burning career, which is now justifiably blazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by N.J. Cooper<\/p>\n

Harper has divided her novel into two strands, one of Falk\u2019s investigation and the other of the women\u2019s hike before Alice left them, as their confidence is sapped by cold and wet and their personalities clash with disastrous results. The idea that anyone in business could send a group of office-based staff out into the bush for several days, even with maps and instructions and food and water to carry, seems extraordinary. The dangers are severe, even before the women\u2019s own problems and enmities are stirred into the mix. But it makes for an ingenious thriller […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7767"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7786,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7767\/revisions\/7786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}