Category Archives: Jane Casey

Wrapping up my Ireland Reading Challenge 2011

Posted on by

Although I only read four books for it I did enjoy the Ireland Reading challenge, hosted by Carrie at Books & Movies, very much, not least because it introduced me to two authors who I think will become firm favourites. They couldn’t be more different.

Alan Glynn’s Winterland is a fast-paced tale of family and politics set against the backdrop of a very modern Ireland, almost at the exact point at which the country’s current economic and political woes began. I read the book at the beginning of the year but its characters and clever construction have stayed with me ever since. I recently purchased Glynn’s latest novel Bloodland which I aim to read early in the new year.

Cora Harrison’s Scales of Retribution is a slower paced tale which takes place 500 years earlier, though it is still a fiercely Irish story which incorporates a whodunnit into an exploration of Gaelic law and its superiority over English common law.

I also read Ken Bruen’s Priest which was outstanding. It loosely uses the conventions of the genre to explore recent changes in Irish society, especially the changing relationship between the Catholic church and Irish people. Of course I’ll keep reading Bruen too but I had discovered him last year (late to the party, I know) so don’t count him as a discovery of this particular challenge.

I enjoyed Jane Casey’s The Burning too but as the only one of the four books to be set outside the country it doesn’t have the same sense of Irishness as the others. It’s full of suspense though and has some well developed characters.

I do actually have a fifth book which I was going to read for the challenge. It’s Aifric Campbell‘s The Loss Adjustor but I don’t think I’ll get to it in what’s left of this year. I liked the sound of it though (even though I’m not sure it’s crime fiction at all) so I’ll read it next year even without the motivation of a challenge.

One of the things I found most noticeable when looking for books to read for this challenge was the relative dearth of female Irish crime writers. Although not absolute about it I have been trying to achieve a vaguely even gender balance in my reading and so was particularly struck by the gender disparity, especially when compared with other countries with an emerging crime fiction scene (e.g. Sweden, Australia, Scotland).

I’ve read both Tana French and Alex Barclay before and if I’m being honest neither would make it to my list of favourite authors so I was keen to try out some new writers for this challenge. I was not exactly burdened by choice, especially not of current female writers. The Irish Book Awards had a crime fiction category this year which shortlisted 5 books (scroll to the bottom of the link), of which 1 and a half were written  by women (Casey Hill is the pseudonym for a husband & wife team).  Declan Burke, champion of Irish crime fiction, lists 21 books published this year as eligible for his Crime Always Pays Novel of the Year Award and only 4 and a half of these are by women (Casey Hill appears here too). In fact of 101 authors listed as Irish crime writers on Burke’s site I think only 19 are women (I did check all the people with initials or gender neutral names but I could have gotten a couple wrong).

I’m not really making any  point or claiming any great insight on this issue and would welcome any thoughts from people in the know. I wonder for example whether there are loads of Irish women trying to get their crime fiction published or whether Irish women aren’t bothering to write the genre at all?

Books of the Month – November 2011

Posted on by

Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood was November’s best read for me. It is a debut novel from an Australian female author (the Y is for Yvette) about the shooting of a Tasmanian policeman and is a truly outstanding novel. It unfolds in a series of chapters each from the perspective of a different person involved in the events surrounding the shooting – the rookie policewoman who was with the policeman when he was shot, the Commissioner of the force, the policeman’s wife and so on. This structure works wonderfully and allows Erskine to explore a range of social themes without once preaching at readers. I loved this book and on reflection I think I was unfair only giving it 4.5 stars when I reviewed it first and have since upped it to a 5. I have found myself discussing it, recommending it and reflecting upon the ideas it raised on multiple occasions since finishing it. My only regret is that it is difficult enough to get your hands on a copy here in Oz, I imagine it’s impossible overseas.

I did quite a bit of reading for the month so have a fair few other recommended reads (anything rated 3 or more) too:

Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything is a book I am still mulling over. The writing is outstanding but I remain unconvinced about the credibility of the story and characters. For me the story lost punch towards the end but I am in the minority going by lots of other reviews. I never did end up giving this one a rating but it would be at least a 3.

Andrea Camilleri’s The Track of Sand sees Inspector Montalbano in his 12th adventure investigating the disappearance of a horse corpse and becoming involved with a sultry female jockey. The plot was a bit woolly in parts but the gorgeously translated humour and the further development of Montalbano’s myriad character traits make this a worthwhile, and delightfully short, read. My rating 3.5

I shoe-horned Jane Casey’s The Burning into my Irish reading challenge (because I don’t have the energy for Tana French’s 700+ page tomes) and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It starts out being about a serial killer but quickly (and thankfully) turns into something else entirely as Maeve Kerrigan gets pulled from her team’s investigation into a series of linked deaths to investigate a case that was thought to be part of the sequence but has enough differences to warrant individual attention. my rating 3.5

I mooched Kate Charles’ Evil Intent quite some time ago and couldn’t remember why when I plucked it from my TBR shelves for the What’s in a name Challenge. It’s a terrific book about a new female priest in the Anglican church who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. Alongside a very engaging whodunnit there is a thoughtful exploration of issues impacting the modern Anglican church and a depiction of English ‘journalism’ that, if even vaguely accurate, makes me very glad to live somewhere else. My rating 4.5

Shamini Flint’s A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder sees Singaporean Police Inspector Singh go to Malaysia to ensure that the rights of Singapore citizen Chelsea Liew are not trampled on after her arrest for the murder of her Malaysian ex husband. As with many of the books I read this month the social issues explored in the book are at least as interesting as the crime solving and I enjoyed reading about a culture with two legal systems operating and what can happen when these clash. My rating 4.

Australian author John M Green’s Born to Run is a political thriller set in the near future in which Isabel Diaz looks set to become America’s first female president until her campaign derails and her various supporters and opponents have a kind of battle of wills. It’s an old-fashioned romp which I enjoyed very much. My rating 3.5

The sixth instalment of Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman, Cooking the Books, series was a delight to read,  managing to be light and breezy without treating readers as if they are simpletons (something I find too frequently with cosy mysteries these days). Corinna has to take her baking skills to the set of a new TV drama where someone is playing mean practical jokes on the star of the show. Corinna’s boyfriend Daniel meanwhile is investigating the theft of some bonds from a young accounting intern who is being bullied by the firm she works for. My rating 3.5

Mari Jungstedt’s The Dead of Summer is a Swedish police procedural which follows the investigation into the shooting of a construction company owner while on his summer holidays. I’d not read any previous books in the series but found this one engaging and easy enough to pick up for someone new to the series. There’s a nice mixture of investigative narrative as well as the personal lives of the police and journalists working the case and a satisfying (if slightly obvious) resolution. My rating 3.5

Sofi Oksanen’s Purge tells the stories of Aliide, an elderly widow living in an isolated house in a half-deserted Estonian village in the early 1990′s. One day she finds a young girl collapsed outside her house and, against her better judgement (who might be watching and who will they tell?), she brings the “dishrag of a girl” into her home where she, warily and sparingly, provides nourishment and aid. Over the course of the novel we travel backwards and forwards in time to learn the histories of the women who have both had traumatic experiences which have left deep physical and psychological scars. I loved the structure of the book and the insight it provided into a part of world history I am fairly ignorant about. Aliide is not all likeable but she is a magnificent character. My rating 4.

I had a lot of listening hours for one reason or another this month and did some re-listening of Chris Grabenstein‘s John Ceepak novels. They are just as good again and I am looking forward to the release of number 6 next year (though wish I didn’t have to wait until May).

Other, non-review related posts this month

Next month?
Right now I’m reading Dregs by Jørn Lier Horst (very good it is too), and have a Polish book (Zygmunt Miloszewski’s Entaglement), an Irish one (Aifric Campbell’s The Loss Adjustor <– not crime fiction !!!), a Spanish one (Eugenio Fuentes’ At Close Quarters) and two Australian ones (Syliva Johnson’s Watch out For Me and Gary Corby’s The Ionia Sanction which actually takes place in Ancient Greece) I definitely want to read before the end of the year. Oh and this morning I noticed Deon Meyer’s Trackers was on special at audible and I have a voucher that would make it free so I might be making a virtual trip to South Africa as well.

What about you…was November a good reading month? Did you have a favourite book? Or did you acquire anything you’re itching to read? Any issue you need to get off your chest?

Review: The Burning by Jane Casey

Posted on by

If I had a dollar for every time someone has made some variation on the “you must be twisted to read all those books about serial killers” remark I’d be a rich woman. Well, moderately wealthy anyway. The comment always makes me grind my teeth as I try to respond politely when what I really want to say is “you are a moron if you think that’s all crime fiction is about”. I avoid serial killer books with the same dedication as I avoid religious proselytisers and green peas and would not, therefore, have picked up this book (with its blurb and cover that all scream serial killer) if I didn’t implicitly trust Maxine who reviewed the book at Petrona.

As the book opens we are indeed introduced to the presence of a serial killer in London. A drunk girl gets into a taxi but soon starts to feel something is wrong. The car isn’t going in the right direction and there are other hints something is amiss…she has heard about the killer named by the media as The Burning Man who has killed four women and she worries that she is in the car with him. When DC Maeve Kerrigan is called out in the early hours of the morning to the resultant crime scene it appears the killer she and the large investigative team assigned to the case have been looking for has finally been caught red-handed. But then another body is found and it too appears to be a victim of the same killer. The DI in charge of the case is unsure enough about this victim’s connection to the other cases to make sure that Maeve investigates the new case as independently as possible, though he doesn’t reassign the case because if it should turn out to be another victim of ‘their’ killer he doesn’t want there to be any legal problems with having had doubts about the case at all. This was one of the aspects of the story that made me feel quite sorry for the police and all the second guessing they must have to do and it made me wonder how often issues like this have a detrimental impact on real investigations.

All of that setup doesn’t take very long at all and so readers soon leave behind the hunt for the serial killer and follow instead Maeve’s investigation into the death of Rebecca Haworth who was an Oxford graduate and a successful PR woman. At this point we also meet Rebecca’s best friend, Louise, and from this point onwards some chapters are told from her perspective which provides a nice contrast to the scenes which unfold from Maeve’s point of view. Between the two we are slowly shown a picture of Rebecca that was a little different from first appearances and there does not seem to be a shortage of people who might have wanted her dead if she does indeed turn out not to be the Burning Man’s latest victim. The depiction of all three woman – Maeve, Louise and Rebecca – is skilfully done and their interlocking stories made the book fly by for me.

Although the book is more of a psychological suspense than anything else there are also elements of the police procedural too, especially the office politics of the work. Maeve is subject to relatively mild sexism and racism from her colleagues but she also has an intelligent and fair boss which provides a nice balance. Her personal life is not the picture of health unfortunately, as her wealthy boyfriend can’t quite understand the demands of her job, and this thread also plays out credibly across the novel.

I did find the resolution to this novel fairly easy to spot but I did enjoy watching how Casey would get us to the end I expected. The plotting is certainly logical and did have some nicely unpredictable twists along the way and the way that readers are drawn into the lives of the characters makes this well worth reading. If you’re looking for a book about the hunt for a serial killer you’ll need to go elsewhere but if you’re after a thoughtfully layered novel of suspense then you could do a lot worse than read The Burning.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Burning has been reviewed at Euro Crime, Petrona and The Book Whsiperer

I’m counting this towards my Irish Reading challenge as the author is Irish and one of the two main protagonists is of Irish heritage and this issue is addressed as one of the minor plot threads of the novel. Having read two books by male authors for this challenge I was looking for female Irish crime writers who set their books in Ireland and so far have come up blank so this will have to count.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Ebury Digital [2010]
ISBN 9781409005018
Length 327 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series standalone (?).
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.