January leaned heavily towards crime and murder. That was very much on purpose. Murder is my thing. In books, obviously. So, it probably won’t shock anyone that most of what I read involved somebody not making it to the final chapter.
On paper, it was a decent start to the year: six books, 1,880 pages, which works out at about 313 pages each. Keep that going and this might turn into a proper reading year, assuming I don’t get sidetracked by doing things for other people, especially those who take it for granted!
I began with An Unlikely Drama by Gina X Grant, the third book in The Unlikely Murder Club series. This time the body turns up in the middle of an amateur theatre production, which is already a world full of ego, rivalry and people convinced they were robbed of the lead role before anyone even dies.
The theatre setting is easily the best part of it. Dressing rooms, rehearsals and long-held grudges are more interesting than the mystery itself at times. The plot does its job and keeps things moving, but it’s really the backdrop that carries the book. It’s more about the people than the twists, and works well if you like your crime served with stage lights and petty politics rather than gore.
Next came 1985 – Robbie James by Jason Ayres, the sixth entry in the A Year in the Life series, and very much cut from the same cloth as the others. A modern-day character is sent back to the 1980s with a head full of regrets and a mental to-do list of things he wants to fix.
This time the excuse is artificial intelligence and a career that disappears overnight, which drops Robbie back into 1985 and the world of video game magazines, awkward bosses and missed chances. There’s plenty of period flavour, with office culture and Live Aid hovering in the background, but it keeps its focus on one man trying to straighten out his own past rather than rewrite history. Nothing wildly unexpected, but an easy and enjoyable read that does exactly what it promises.
Fun City Heist by Michael Kardos was the most traditional crime novel of the bunch. A carefully planned robbery, lots of moving parts, and the slow realisation that not everything is going according to plan. It rattles along at a good pace and is easy to get through, even if you spot a few of the turns before they arrive.
Then I ended up in Jack Heath’s “Kill Your…” books, which sound like motivational titles dreamed up by someone who should not be trusted with stationery.
Kill Your Brother, Kill Your Husbands and Kill Your Boss all work off the same idea: a woman being nudged towards killing the bad men in her life. They’re short, sharp and meant to make you uncomfortable. Definitely not cosy crime. More the sort of thing that makes you say “one more chapter” and then realise it’s much later than planned. Of the three, Kill Your Brother is the strongest, mainly because the emotional hook is darker and hits closer to home.
All told, a solid January. A bit of theft, some time travel and far too much homicide. If February keeps this up, it could be a year of steadily rising page counts and an ever-growing trail of fictional bodies.
