Storm Prey by John Sandford
The snow-filled landscape on the cover of John Sandford’s latest Lucas Davenport instalment feels very out of place as we enjoy our annual back-to-school sunshine, but – as always – it’s only a matter of pages before Sandford transports his reader to wintry, icy Minneapolis. Special investigator Davenport is on a new case and, not for the first time, this one is personal. Over at the hospital where his surgeon wife Weather is preparing to separate conjoined twins, a daring raid on the pharmacy results in a huge haul for a gang of misfits, but also leads to the death of one of the hospital workers. Running scared, the criminals decide their only chance of getting away with it is to get rid of all remaining witnesses – including Weather. As Davenport steps up the security detail on his wife, he doubles his efforts to identify the gang behind the raid, with mounting certainty that there is a hospital staff member involved.
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The Secret Intensity of Everyday by William Nicholson
Not so much a “who are the people in your neighbourhood” as a “what are their hopes, dreams and innermost secret thoughts” kind of book, this one. The ensemble novel – in which a writer takes a group of people connected through friendship, family, work or school and tells their stories – is a fairly common structure and one that doesn’t always work. William Nicholson has elevated it into an art form in this excellent novel – which takes a random group of characters who just happen to live in the same Sussex village. Laura is fairly content with her marriage and her kids and her part-time job, until her first – and very serious – love comes back into her life. Her husband Henry, a documentary producer, is fed up of living off his in-laws. Their son’s teacher is distracted by his own writing career which seems to be going nowhere fast, while another of the students is at the mercy of the class bully. Slowly and softly, Nicholson weaves the chain that binds these people together. From the vicar who has lost his faith to the local Lord trying to trace his dead father’s mistress, the characters are captivating. There is nothing everyday about this one, it is a once in a blue moon type of reading experience
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