Alabaster Alibi by S.D. Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Bloodstone Bludgeon a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. It is the second book in S.D. Brown’s Rock Shop Series, and so I was looking forward to reading Alabaster Alibi, the first book. I was not disappointed. The main character, Allie Renault, becomes the investigating detective in a possible murder case. This is despite threats and demands from Sheriff Stone, the local police officer, to stay out of it as she is his main suspect. Initially there is one dead person, her uncle Jasper, but after a while, well into the story, it becomes a case of two dead people. The whole murder mystery seems to revolve around the rock shop left jointly to Allie and her cousin Colin. The case is not so simple of course and the tale weaves nicely in and out of many twists and turns. Allie is a very likeable character who I found I was rooting for right to the surprising conclusion.
Brown bravely introduces elements of the Viet Nam War that will seriously affect her surreptitious investigations. Some of this information in the book may or may not be true. I can recall incidents – such as the My Lai massacre, terrible and cruel - that occurred during that war. This was reported later in newspapers and TV everywhere and it brought shame upon the US fighting forces. This section of Alabaster Alibi added such sadness to the book that I found difficult to read about.
However, Alabaster Alibi is entertaining, pacey and intriguing. The characters are realistic and often amusing. For Allie many of them slowly reveal motives for murder and capture the reader’s attention. The final twist at the end when the perpetrator is revealed was good if quite confusing and I required more explanation. Maybe that was just me! Several parts of the story had unfortunate typos and the MS needs editing or putting through a word processor once more.


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Half Gate by K.T. Munson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first read one of the Gate Trilogy novels in 2017, I was completely absorbed by the story because of the author’s fascinating creation of the characters in a ‘Nethergate’ kind of world. The ideas behind it involve demons and trapped spirits, amongst many other-worldly concepts. Half Gate is a short work of three short stories, which illustrates further the various kinds of problems its characters may meet.
In the first short story we meet Aqitaka and Ellaria who seem destined to become lovers. But Aqitaka is from another world. Can he stay? In the next story Azura, a commoner, is suddenly caught in a frozen world, Oran, and discovers a prince in the same situation. His father is determined to prevent the two marrying but Azura has become their world’s Gate Guardian, a powerful influence. Story three is about a student of fringe worlds. She is called Elisabeth, and she discovers a secret and dangerous book. There is a strong likelihood that the spirit trapped within it will ruin her work, maybe cause havoc in their world. Can she create a suitable device to render it friendly or harmless?
Despite the assertions that Half Gate can be read as a standalone book, I disagree. I had some idea about what was going on in this book of three stories but still struggled to understand the overall plot(s). The worlds that Munson creates here are varied and intriguing but I felt all the way through that each story could have been developed much more into a novel of its own. The pace of each is fast and furious but their worlds would benefit greatly for being in much greater depth, with its own twists and turns in my opinion. Somehow, I wanted the main characters to figure more significantly, weaving in and out of new situations developed by this skilled and imaginative author. Her world-building is so fascinating it seemed to me to be a waste to keep them so short.
Unfortunately, once again I find my overall rating reduced through the need for further careful editing in this book. For example when it said ‘palatable’ did it really want to say ‘palpable?’ There were too many punctuation and grammatical errors, with too many US idioms and words throughout the narrative that made it difficult for this UK reader to fully understand what was being explained. I am a firm believer that the patois and dialect for a region should be kept within the written dialogue of a novel. The conversations were real and well done but exposition was not always clear to me. Words in the story like: dove; snuck; sunk; snagged; scooted; and barreled mean something quite different in a UK dictionary.


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White Nights by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

White Nights is quite a different novel to the first book in the Shetland series, i.e. Raven Black, because the season is summer and things are not so gloomy and dark. However, the atmosphere becomes just as unsettling to Jimmy Perez and the perpetual light causes a certain amount of stress to some of the visitors.

An art exhibition, on Shetland, that is not going too well when an unknown man becomes upset, weeping and collapsing in front of everyone. The main artist is Bella Sinclair but a new artist, called Fran that is also present, looks like a woman of interest to Perez. He feels that the mystery man is overreacting but he is curious when the man claims to have completely lost his memory. When the same man is found hanging dead the next day, together with some other strange circumstances, Perez starts an investigation. Was it murder or suicide?

The subsequent case and Jimmy Perez’s romantic involvement with Fran are the main components of the plot from then on. The build-up of the story through the descriptions of the settings, the characters and the intriguing developments in the case are excellent. There is an ongoing feeling of resentment and suspicions from the locals about visitors to the islands, These feelings come through to readers and feels somehow natural and understood. It is down to the writing skill and talent of Ann Cleeves and the tension throughout the book is just what one expects from a crime thriller. Twists and turns occur in almost every chapter! Unfortunately I found the motive behind the murders a little questionable and for me this was the book’s only weakness.
It was still worth reading right to the very end and every bit as enjoyable as the first book in the series.



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Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been a fan of Ann Cleeves’ crime novels, set on the Shetland Isles, for quite a long time. The characters that she creates are so realistic. The reader is led into their lives so well and so subtly that any surprises at the denouement are quite genuine. Jimmy Perez, the police inspector and primary character is a brilliant figure for you to latch onto. He has a real background, along with the highs and lows of a life spent solving crime. The customs of the Shetlands confused me for quite a while, particularly when they became relevant to the suspected murders. But patience was rewarded later!

This was the kind of criminal thriller that I enjoy the most. It has characters you get to care about, both as victims and as possible perpetrators. The plot is both believable and intriguing from the start; full of twists and turns. There is even the hint of a little romance between Perez and a woman involved in the discovery of a dead body. It is a hint that may tempt you to read the sequel or subsequent sequels. Highly recommended.



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