Book review – Thriller round up: Dark matters of life and death

London Rules (5/5)by Mick Herron

John Murray, £12.99

BRITAIN has been rocked by a series of seemingly random terror attacks so the head of MI5 Claude Whelan is trying to protect a beleaguered prime minister from criticism over his handling of the crisis.

This puts the security chief in the crosshairs of a showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote and has his sights set on Number 10 Downing Street.

Meanwhile, the politician’s tabloid columnist wife is crucifying Whelan in print. 

So the last thing he needs is the failed spies of Slough House trying to stop another terror attack but making the situation much, much worse. 

When agents with drink, drug and gambling addictions or severe psychological problems commit major blunders, they are transferred to Slough House as punishment and to protect society from further harm. 

There they compile reports that no one will ever read. 

These spies land in the domain of the wonderfully inappropriate Jackson Lamb, a fat, flatulent, chain-smoking drunkard of a boss who revels in making their personal problems worse. 

However he also zealously protects his realm from outside interference. 

So when someone tries to kill his tech geek Roddy Ho and a link to his unwitting involvement in the terror attacks emerges, Lamb knows he must obey the first and most important of the London Rules: “cover your a***”. 

The fifth instalment of the award-winning Jackson Lamb series is witty, sardonic and laugh-out-loud funny yet also thrilling and thought-provoking. 

Not many people can turn a terror attack into a farce but Herron achieves it with a cleverly constructed story, well-rounded characters and poetic prose. 

Herron has often been compared with spy thriller greats John le Carré and Len Deighton but it is time he was recognised in his own right as the best thriller writer in Britain today. 

In a series that never lets its fans down, London Rules is the best instalment yet. 

Let Me Lie (4/5) by Clare Mackintosh 

Sphere, £12.99 

BOTH of Anna Johnson’s parents committed suicide, jumping off Beachy Head at high tide within seven months of each other. 

On the first anniversary of her mother’s suicide Anna is sent an anonymous card inscribed: “Suicide? Think again.” 

Her parents’ deaths had appeared an open-and-shut case but Anna, a new mother, is still traumatised. 

So the postcard is troubling but it seems at least to offer an explanation for her parents’ meaningless desertion of her. 

The family business had financial problems. 

Could that hold the key? Anna takes the card to the police where her suspicions are supported by a retired detective, Murray Mackenzie, now working on the front desk. 

He believes his former colleagues were over-hasty and that the Johnsons’ deaths could have been murder. 

As he begins to investigate the background Anna discovers that her mother may have consulted Mark, Anna’s former therapist and now her partner. 

It appears that the one person Anna thought she could trust was keeping secrets from her. 

She fears that her life is unravelling and that she and her daughter are in danger. 

She encourages Mackenzie to stop his investigations but he’s already in too deep. 

Clare Mackintosh is the master of surprise. 

As in her earlier novels she twists and twists then just when you think you’ve worked out what happened, she turns the screw again to keep you guessing. 

Let Me Lie is a page-turner given emotional depth by the sensitive portrayal of Mackenzie’s troubled marriage. 

The Collector (4/5) by Fiona Cummins 

Macmillan, £12.99 

THE parents of six-year-old Jakey Frith think they have escaped the clutches of serial killer The Collector when they start a new life in a seaside town. 

Child snatcher Brian Howley preys on children with rare bone deformities and is on the run from police following events at the end of Cummins’ debut novel Rattle. 

So the Friths hope they can stop looking over their shoulders. 

But Jakey, who suffers from Stone Man Syndrome, a disease that will turn his muscles and ligaments into bone, knows that The Collector will not rest until he finds him again.

And despite his fear of The Collector he knows this might be the only way he can save the girl he was imprisoned with, five-year-old Clara Foyle. 

Howley has been hiding under the pseudonym Mr Silver but now he is killing again to rebuild a macabre collection to hand on to his new apprentice. 

But he can’t forget the boy who got away and the detective who made him flee his previous life and he is determined to draw them back into his grasp. 

Rattle was one of the most chilling and gripping thrillers released last year. 

The Collector picks up the story three months after the end of Rattle and is even more creepy and unsettling with tension slowly ramped up to build to a sensational finale that will make you gasp. 

The Wife Between Us (4/5) by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen 

Macmillan, £12.99 

FANS of Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train will adore this classy domestic noir set in New York. 

Vanessa is a mess. 

She recently divorced her wealthy businessman husband Richard who gave her nothing in the divorce settlement so she works in a department store by day and drinks too much by night. 

When Vanessa discovers that her arrogant and controlling ex is going to remarry, she feels it is her duty to warn her husband’s young fiancée what she is getting herself into and she becomes obsessed with putting a stop to their wedding plans. 

At the same time Vanessa is still coming to terms with her infertility while an incident from her college days continues to haunt her and makes her the classic unreliable narrator. 

All these elements could easily make The Wife Between Us into a formulaic read. 

However it has a humdinger of a twist which I didn’t see coming, even if it does come halfway through the book which inevitably makes the rest of the novel pale a little in comparison. 

Still, you can forgive Hendricks and Pekkanen for the premature twist. 

They have created believable characters set against a glamorous New York backdrop and the result is a fast-paced and hugely enjoyable thriller. 

The Memory Chamber (4/5) by Holly Cave 

Quercus, £12.99

WHAT if you could relive your happiest memories as though you were experiencing them for the first time? 

Your first kiss, the birth of your first child, spending Christmas with your family? 

In Holly Cave’s gripping debut The Memory Chamber she creates a future where this is a reality. 

When people die, they can retreat to their most treasured memories by having a tiny computer implanted in their head to create an artificial Heaven. 

But the process is fraught with ethical issues. 

Having an artificial Heaven is something only the rich can afford and religious campaigners fear it could prevent people’s souls from joining the afterlife. 

Isobel is a Heaven architect who meets the dying to help them choose their memories. 

Relentlessly professional she surprises herself by developing a crush on one of her clients, Jarek, a charismatic married man in his 30s who is dying from a brain tumour. 

But when Jarek’s wife dies, suddenly Isobel must set aside her feelings and investigate what happened. 

Criminals are denied the right to an artificial Heaven so if he had anything to do with his wife’s death, it would be illegal for her to create one for him. 

Has she fallen for a dangerous man who has manipulated her feelings? 

The Memory Chamber is captivating from the first page and presents a dark future where even the afterlife has been monetised. 

Although Cave’s writing style is no-frills, the future she creates is scarily plausible and The Memory Chamber’s twists will leave the reader hooked until the final paragraph. 

This Is How It Ends (4/5) by Eva Dolan 

Raven Books, £12,99

Idealistic Ella Riordan is a blogger and activist squatting in a near-empty tower block set to be torn down and replaced by luxury flats. 

Among the handful of inhabitants who have not yet been forced out of their homes by the property developer is seasoned campaigner Molly.

Molly and Ella bond over their protest against the plans then Molly takes Ella under her wing and helps her to compile a book telling the stories of the poor and working class being cleansed from London. 

Then at a rooftop party to promote the book, Ella ends up in an abandoned flat, crouching in shock next to the dead body of a man. 

She tells Molly he is a stranger who tried to rape her. 

The women are reluctant to report the death to the police. 

Molly has a deeply ingrained mistrust of the police after years of clashing with them as a political activist. 

Both women also fear the police won’t believe them and that they will find themselves embroiled in a murder investigation. 

So they throw the body into the building’s abandoned lift shaft. 

But as they wait in dread for the body to be discovered and for the police to haul them in for questioning, their mother-daughter relationship starts to fracture. 

Molly begins to suspect that Ella was not telling the truth about what happened that night. 

However if they don’t stick to the agreed story they both face long prison sentences. 

This Is How It Ends is a bold psychological thriller which delivers a searing social commentary on the displacement of poor working-class families forced out of prime development locations in London. 

It is bleak and uncompromising but also heartfelt with Dolan using beautiful prose to weave a thrilling tale that builds to a surprising twist and a shocking finale.