Before I Go to Sleep, S. J. Watson

What would it be like to wake up each morning in bed with a man that you don’t remember? And to make matters worse, he appears to be married. To creep down to the bathroom trying not to wake anyone up and find the face in the mirror is not yours? Or at least not the twenty seven year old face that you remember?

This is Christine’s life after an accident has left her unable to remember anything prior to when she wakes up each morning and thus her husband, Ben, has to fill in her life story for her every day.  However, at the suggestion of Dr Nash, a doctor she is seeing without Ben’s knowledge, Christine has been keeping a diary. Dr Nash rings her each day to tell her where to find the diary and as she documents the flashbacks of memory that she experiences, she discovers that Ben is not always telling her the truth. Is Ben doing this to shield her from painful memories as he says or is there another, more sinister reason. Can Ben be trusted?

I finished this recently released psychological thriller last weekend and couldn’t put it down. The novel is told via the diary that Christine writes, and you feel so sorry for her, thankful that her memory problems are not yours. But then, there is the chilling realisation of how vulnerable Christine is as she relies on the people around her for knowledge of every aspect of her life. The setting of a suburban house, with an ordinary couple, makes the novel more compelling as it so closely resembles my own domestic situation (although with memory intact), and the constant question of whether a memory is truth or the result of a damaged brain kept me on edge, and wanting to find out what happens next.

I have to say that I had worked out the conclusion a little before the main character, but I think that this didn’t detract from the entertainment of the story. The other thing I liked about the novel is that it is well written. Often in the crime/thriller genre, the quality of the writing is overlooked with the emphasis on an author getting as many novels produced in a year as possible.  Thankfully, this is not the case with Before I Go to Sleep which made it an enjoyable read.

Spies and Espionage: Restless, William Boyd

After Black Water Rising, I felt the need to read some more in the crime/thriller genre, and so when a customer and I were talking about William Boyd’s novels – in particular, Restless - I thought that this would be my next choice. I had never heard of Boyd and Restless isn’t a latest release, but one of the great things about talking about books all day is the opportunity to go back and read some of those books that you might have missed the first time around.

Published in 2006, Restless is a spy novel and reminded me a little of one of my favourite TV programmes, Spooks (currently showing on the ABC), although not so violent. From the Bloomsbury Publishing reading guide, the storyline goes like this:

One hot summer afternoon in 1976 Ruth Gilmartin pays her mother a visit. When Sally hands Ruth a buff folder labelled ‘The Story of Eva Delectorskaya’ the certainties of Ruth’s world are overturned. Sally, or Eva, as Ruth must now think of her, was once a spy, recruited into the British Secret Service in 1939 by Lucas Romer as part of AAS, Romer’s somewhat maverick branch of the Service, and this is her story. Eva proves herself adept at her craft, endlessly resourceful, hiding every emotion and trusting no one.

Posted to New York, AAS’s mission is to pull the reluctant US into the war. Caught up in an affair with Romer, Eva needs to be doubly sure to keep her wits about her. When she is sent to New Mexico, what should have been a simple courier mission becomes puzzlingly complex and Eva finds herself in grave danger. As this taut thriller moves towards its dénouement, alternating between Ruth’s narrative and Eva’s story, William Boyd cranks up the tension with bluffs and double bluffs until every loose end is neatly tied into a satisfying resolution.

The book lived up to expectations, and I found it interesting thinking about the way war changes our values, our sense of what is right and wrong and the lengths that someone might go to in the name of the greater good.  It reminded me of the old saying that history is always told from the point of view of the victor, and stories such as this are often kept undercover by the victorious side.  Boyd’s writing style was pacey and while I had worked out who the “baddie” was, I didn’t discover their motive until the end of the book.

I really enjoyed Restless as a well written escape from some of the more serious books that I’ve been reading for the store, and at the end of the day, that’s what I like in a book. Something to entertain as well as wanting to read another book by the same author. Boyd’s other books that come highly recommended to me are Brazzaville Beach, and Ordinary Thunderstorms.

Writers at the Convent - #4 Matthew Reilly

I thought I should hurry up and finish my posts on the Writers Festival before I couldn’t remember the details. The last session I went to was one for the boys – adventure/thriller writer, Matthew Reilly. Matthew is very popular with young men and teenage boys and the audience reflected this. It was the only session where males outnumbered females, and the average age was below 30! If you’ve read any of Matthew’s books you will know that they are fast paced, full of interesting weapons (James Bond, eat your heart out), quite a bit of head chopping and shoot them up scenes but, thankfully for us mums whose teenage sons are reading him, no sex. As Matthew says violence is big in his books, because if you are going to die, then you should die with a bang!

Matthew Reilly self published his first book, “Contest”, when he was 19 and studying for a law degree. He managed to sell 700 of them by door knocking booksellers and if you have one of these first copies with the blue cover, hold on to it – it’s worth quite a lot according to Matthew. Eventually picked up by an agent, he is now a worldwide bestselling author in his early thirties so can still relate to the audience he is writing for. The style of book he is writing is a reflection of what he liked to read as a teenager - Tom Clancy, John Grisham (the early stuff), Michael Crichton, etc. Who can forget “The Pelican Brief” or “Jurassic Park?  Matthew’s objective is to write a novel which you can’t put down and makes no apology of the fast pace and cliff hanger chapter ends of his novels as he believes that if you want readers to read energetically then that’s how you have to write them. When asked about whether it was necessary for scenes to be believable, he made an interesting comment that readers will let you get away with most things if you let the reader figure it out, and I have to agree that this makes his novels more readable.