‘Femicide by Pascal Engman

Published by Legend Press,
15 September 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-9150-5443-2 (PB)

Emilie has been threatened by her violent ex-partner. When she’s found murdered in her Stockholm apartment a week after he’s released from prison, it looks like an open and shut case for Detective Inspector Vanessa Frank – until a similar case arrives on her desk. Is it a coincidence, or is something more sinister going on?

This fast-moving Scandi moves quickly between a variety of characters. DI Vanessa Frank is successful, beautiful and well-off, but the young Syrian girl she’d been looking after has returned to her family, she’s still hankering after her previous lover, Svante, and thinking about the connection she felt with her friend Nicholas, who helped her in a previous case. Jasmina Kovac is a young reporter from the sticks who’s just got a job on national paper Kvällspressen. She’s doing fine – until she’s kidnapped and raped by a man who drugs her in a bar. Nicholas is also thinking of Vanessa, and of his future – he’s a former soldier, and a friend thinks he might have a job in security for him, but in London, meaning he’d leave both Vanessa and his vulnerable teenage neighbour, Celine, behind. Finally there’s a rather touching homeless couple, Börje and Eva, who are victimised by the rich TV personality in a nearby summer hut.

Engman is a former journalist, and every character and their background come across as authentic. The novel’s divided into eight sections, each headed by a quotation from an ‘incel’, a man who’s involuntarily celibate and these lead chillingly into the wider background of the novel: men who actively hate women, and have decided to “weaponise” the gender war. Tom, another key character, is one of them and through him we gradually learn more about the movement and its heroes, like Eliott Rodger, who killed six people in California in 2014, giving ‘hatred of women’ as his motive. The chapters are very short, flicking from person to person, and the story moves swiftly towards the final climactic attack.

A Scandi roller-coaster with clever plotting, interesting characters drawn from a wide spectrum of modern life, and well-drawn backgrounds.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Pascal Engman published his first book The Patriots, in 2017. Since then he as become the best-selling Swedish crime novelist of his generation. He has been acclaimed by Camilla Läckberg, David Lagercrantz, The Swedish Crime Writers' Academy and others as a rising star of Swedish crime fiction. Engman, who resides in his native Stockholm, was born to a Swedish mother and a Chilean father. Engman was a journalist at Swedish evening newspaper Expressen.

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  Marsali also does a regular monthly column for the Mystery People e-zine.

Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
A Shetland Winter Mystery

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks’ by Jennifer Lee Thomson

Published by Shotgun Honey,
13 June 2019.
ISBN: 978-1-6439-6005-0 (PB)

'Wow.  You took out one of McPhee’s boys with one bloody leg.  Awesome.'

Kirsty explodes onto the opening page of this outrageous thriller as a thug makes the mistake of getting too fresh with her. She’s not the sort of woman who takes kindly to such behaviour.  She is the sort of woman who deals out her own justice.  Kirsty may be a below-knee amputee, but whatever anger she feels about her disability, she channels into her overwhelming desire to succeed in a life that has dealt her some cruel blows.  Having stopped the would-be attacker in his tracks, she allows herself a moment of self-congratulation.  Then, as she considers her next move, Kirsty makes the unwelcome discovery that Jamie, another member of the bar staff, saw everything.  The annoying voyeur reveals that the guy she just flattened is an “enforcer” employed by their boss, Jimmy McPhee. 

McPhee is a career criminal who controls much of the illegal activity in this area of Glasgow.  He has friends in high places, including the local constabulary, and enough dirt on the city’s bigwigs to ensure that his nefarious endeavours are kept well below the law’s radar.  As if Jamie’s presence at the scene of her crime was not enough, it then turns out that the hapless-looking witness seems to want to join forces.  This is the first of many conundrums that our anti-heroine faces in the novel but, rest assured, she’s rarely out of ideas to deal with the most impossible of situations.

The pace of the narrative is fast and gets faster as Kirsty uses her quick mind and laudable resilience to face and overcome countless challenges that confront her as the story progresses.  Her true north may be slightly off when compared with that of the average citizen, but Kirsty’s backstory is harrowing, and she can be forgiven the odd offence.  Her proclivity to inflict grievous bodily harm is restricted to those who have done far, far worse.  Kirsty does have a softer side which, when it shows, elicits empathy.  The writing has humour too, but it’s never cosy.

How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks is a tongue-in-cheek thriller with an unbreakable and unstoppable hard-boiled protagonist taking a rip-roaring ride in a wild and wind-blown tide.  If you like tough and gritty this is for you.  Expect the unexpected in this adults-only novel and you’ll still be shocked.  Enjoy it, I did!
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

Jennifer Lee Thomson  is an award-winning crime writer who has been scribbling away all her life. She also writes as Jenny Thomson and is an animal and human rights advocate.

 

Dot Marshall-Gent  worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.