BOARDWALK EMPIRE by Nelson Johnson

4.5 out of 5 stars

American history: non fiction

Audio book

On Amazon UK HERE

I started listening to this because I adored the TV series Boardwalk Empire, which was taken from this book - not the other way round, oh people who reviewed it saying it has a lot of boring history in it...!

It tells of the rise of Atlantic City from a tiny fishing village in nowheresville, South Jersey, into a resort for the entertainment of the working man.  The idea was the brainchild of one Dr Joseph Pitney, whose original idea was to turn it into a health resort - but the first thing he had to do was negotiate with the railroad companies, so that visitors could actually reach this isolated outpost. By the end of the 19th century, the basis was in place for the Atlantic City empire of treasurer Nucky Johnson, on whom Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson is based. 

The pre-Nucky section of the book is probably about a third of it, and I liked this part the best.  If you're interested in Americal sociological history you will find this book as fascinating as I did, though if you're expecting lots of dramatic gangster type stuff in the Prohibition era you will be disappointed - people like Al Capone are scarcely mentioned, and Arnold Rothstein not at all, I don't think; much of the story in the televison series is fictional.

Narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, of 101 gangster films fame ~ the perfect choice. 

THE LIE OF YOU by Jane Lythell

2 out of 5 stars

Psychological thriller 

Audio Book

On Amazon UK HERE

 

I listened to the audio book of this.  I was looking forward to it - what a disappointment.

You know, sometimes I wonder why I, as a self-published writer, take so much trouble over the feasibility of my plots, the motivations of my characters.  In best selling (and, I imagine, traditionally published) The Lie of You, London architectural magazine editor Kathy - ie, an intelligent, professional, educated and presumably switched on sort of woman - gets pregnant by and marries Finnish architect Markus, despite the fact that he refuses to provide any details about his life before they met, and I'm talking absolutely zero; he might as well have just appeared one day from the ether, and none of his family or friends came to the wedding.  Kathy has no friends, family or even sympathetic colleagues who encourage her to perhaps give this a bit of consideration; aside from their work, the couple lives in unexplained isolation.

I mean, seriously?

The whole plot hinges on characters keeping secrets about themselves and no-one else thinking this is a bit weird and bothering to investigate.  Had the author's editor said to her, "sorry, luv, this isn't feasible", as indeed he/she should have done, Ms Lythell would have had to re-write the whole novel.  Kathy mentions that Markus is a man of mystery, and gets ratty if she asks him anything about himself, as if it is a cause of minor irritation only.  Like, just one of his quirks, right?  But wouldn't she have at least looked him up on Google just to make sure he wasn't a serial killer?  She is irritatingly eager, wholesome, lacking in confidence and desperately, schoolgirlishly cheerful, to the extent that one wonders why the sexy Markus hasn't serial killed her after a month in her company, anyway.  I would have done.  That might have just been the narrator, though.

I won't even get started on Heja, the Finnish ice queen colleague who stalks Kathy.  Wonder what her connection is with the mysterious and also Finnish Markus, eh?  I'll give you a clue - the tag line on the cover gives it away.  

 

I listened to this for a few hours whilst doing domestic chores and some bits of it seemed fairly good at first, but I became so annoyed by it I didn't care how it ended.  The dialogue was pretty weak, too.  

3/4 stars for the Heja narrator, 2 stars for Kathy, who sounded more like a 1950s hockey teacher.

EENY MEENY by M J Arlidge

4 out of 5 stars

Serial killer crime thriller

Audio Book

On Amazon UK HERE

I listened to the audio book of this.

Since the ghastly hype that is Fifty Shades, WHY do all books, regardless of genre, have to have the obligatory explicit sex bit in them?  I don't want to know about DI Helen Grace's explosive orgasms, I want to know the identity of and story behind the serial killer, and such diversions always seem a little incongruous if the rest of the book isn't sexually orientated.  Most writers can't 'do' erotica anyway; so often it comes across somewhat cringeworthy and TMI* rather than genuinely erotic, and this is no exception.  When I was listening to the bit when she finally gets round to shagging the person you know she is going to shag from about the fifth chapter (and hope she does so behind a closed door), I actually said, "oh, give it a rest!" out loud, which amused my husband who heard me from the kitchen....   I thought the S&M sub-sub-subplot was a bit daft and pointless, too.

Anyway, moving on from that little outburst (it's in the first half of the book).....  in Southampton, people are being abducted in pairs by a seemingly friendly woman in a van, and held in various makeshift prisons without food, water, or any contact with their captor apart from one message on a mobile phone, which is left on the floor.  Next to the (pin locked) phone lies a gun; the message tells them that if one of the two captives kills the other, the killer gets to live.

The plot is unusual and well thought out.  Some reviews say that too many aspects are unfeasible, but I don't think it's any more outlandish than other stories of this type.  Not that I'm a connossieur of this genre, far from it.  For a murder thriller to work the outcome has to be a surprise, and though I made several guesses I didn't get it right, or see how the threads linked together.  The story switches point of view frequently, which I like, and the timing, suspense and cliffhangers worked well.  It was around a fifth too long (I started to think, is this ever going to end?) and a tad heavy on the cliches (wouldn't you just love to read about/watch a fictional detective who hasn't got all sorts of personal demons?) (and the characters keep hoping 'against hope' ~ does that actually mean anything?) but it's basically good - if serial killer detective type stuff is your bag, I'd definitely recommend it.

Audio-wise, I'd give it about 3.5/4 stars; it wasn't bad.  I didn't think the voices were particularly well chosen but they didn't irritate me or spoil the story at any point.  Certainly good enough, anyway.


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