First a quick explanation!
Due to some severe health issues over the last few years, and a lingering chronic condition, my planned review schedule went right out of the window and I have been scrabbling ever since to get it back on track.
In an attempt to try to regain some lost ground, I have been scrunching some of my (overdue) NetGalley reviews together into one or two posts each week: shorter reviews, but still covering all of the points I intended to.
That’s the plan anyway, so let’s start the new year as we mean to go on… sharing the book love!
Title: Butter
Author: Asako Yuzuki
Publisher: 4th Estate | Fourth Estate
Blurb: The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.
There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.
Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?
Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
Review: Butter is a deeply sensual exploration of Japanese food and ingredients, and also of the female body, mind and role in society, and how all of those various things intersect.
The main character, Rika, flows between different, often contradictory epiphanies as she opens her mind and tastes to different foods, experiences and ideas throughout the story. Her views of others in her life and her relationships with them are similarly fluid – she dismisses someone, then notices them, appreciates them, is disgusted by them, understands them, loves them, is indifferent again… It is a constantly changing dance of perception and connection.
Thematically, the novel is about the inherent need we have to be see and be seen, hear and be heard, touch and be touched, taste and be tasted… to exist in and of oneself but also to have one’s existence perceived by others. The story has delicate layers of philosophy and psychology layered under heaping piles of butter-sticky rice (with a few drops of soy sauce, of course, for added flavour).
Perhaps it is also about discovering what is “good for us”, how much life is right for our individual tastes, or perhaps it is about how those “good”, “right” quantities and qualities will continue to change, as we do, through life.
Interesting, deep, slow and saturated with food and the sensory experiences of eating, this book made me feel hungry for living life fully in every moment and for savouring every taste it offers.
Purchase Link: Butter on Amazon
Title: Doppelganger
Author: Naomi Klein
Publisher: Penguin Press UK – Allen Lane, Particular, Pelican, Penguin Classics | Allen Lane
Blurb: Naomi Klein, author of era-defining bestsellers, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything and No Logo, is back with her most compulsive and personal book yet: a revelatory journey into the mirror world of our polarised age
When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn’t. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity – all we have to meet the world – so unstable?
To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting ‘the children’). In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history, as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands, publicly shame our enemies, watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something far more sinister.
This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It’s for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.
Review: This feels like an incredibly timely book, with the results of the recent US election still baffling left-leaning people around the world!
Rigorously researched and compellingly argued, this account of one woman’s delve beyond the echo chamber and into the ‘mirror world’ of alternative facts and ‘fake news’ is dense with actual facts, references and relevant information.
Naomi Klein starts by trying to understand Other Naomi (Wolf)’s change of political allegiance, but the book soon becomes a journey through political ‘othering’ as a distraction from the evils of capitalism, encompassing Covid and lockdowns, vaccine mandates, slavery, the Holocaust, colonialism, anti-Semitism generally, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – to name just a few of the topics discussed in this wide-reaching examination of human behaviour.
And Naomi’s explanations really did help me to better understand why, like Other Naomi, people might be feeling ‘othered’, fearful or angry at their position in their society which might lead them to lash out at the apparently smug and cliquey left and feel welcomed by the projection of confidence and camaraderie from the right. From that moment of personal epiphany, Klein moves on to discuss that wider history of human othering and the wilful blindness to what she calls the Shadow Lands, that props up our capitalist comfort and helped to lead us to this divisive current point.
In this narrative, acts like the Holocaust and the slave trade are reframed as part of a wider pattern rather than the usual view that they represent horrifying outliers in our shared history, and it shows how focusing on the specific details of individual atrocities (race, religion, country, method, motivation) blinds us to a wider picture of humans reducing other humans to lower status and then treating them as animals, objects or disposable.
Those benefitting from this status quo are adept at distracting us by setting us at each other’s throats, giving us easy ‘othered’ targets, thus avoiding us looking at their power structures that grind us all ruthlessly in the name of profit. Just think of that meme with the plates of cookies!
Klein then pans wider still to look at the climate crisis and the impending end of humanity, before finishing full-circle, back in the small and personal with her relationship with her own doppelganger, and how her perspective has changed over time and over the course of writing and researching this book.
This is a deep, intense analysis that requires time, thought, conscious and active engagement with the ideas, an open mind and the bravery to face the worst in yourself and others with a will to do better. Throughout the writing, the author remains reasonable and balanced and is also willing to examine and deconstruct her own assumptions and prejudices, so the ideal reader for this book is anyone who is ready to do the same.
Purchase Link: Doppelganger on Amazon
Title: A Clock Stopped Dead
Author: J.M. Hall
Publisher: Avon Books UK
Blurb: Retired schoolteachers and amateur sleuths Liz, Pat and Thelma are giving up their coffee morning for a brand-new mystery.
Retired teachers Pat, Liz and Thelma are happiest whiling away their hours over coffee, cake and chat at the Thirsk Garden Centre café.
But when their good friend tells them about an unsettling experience she had in a sinister-feeling charity shop, they simply can’t resist investigating…
Because the entire shop has vanished into thin air.
Before long, our trio of unlikely sleuths find themselves embroiled in a race against the clock to get to the bottom of this mystery – but who has a secret to hide and how far will they go to keep it concealed?
Only time will tell…
Review: This is the third Liz, Pat and Thelma mystery, in which three friends – all retired teachers – solve local crimes using their natural skills and connections to their community, and while you don’t need to read the first two books to enjoy this one, if you do enjoy this one then you will definitely want to read the others!
Here they have another mystery to reluctantly solve, alongside their usual stresses involving husbands, adult children and grandchildren. Both Liz and Pat find their grown sons returning to the nest but not keen to share why, while Thelma’s husband continues to cause her career-related angst with his new part-time postie role.
The main mystery of the disappearing charity shop was very mysterious – I couldn’t imagine what had happened! – and reminded me of old classic murder mystery stories by Margery Allingham or Agatha Christie. While it will definitely seem far-fetched to some, I really enjoyed the unusual nature of the mystery and not knowing where it was leading.
And Pat’s secret struggle with aging gracefully is incredibly relatable to someone who suspects they will still be wearing jeans, trainers and slogan tees when they’re in a nursing home!
The fun mixture of pseudo-supernatural vibes, retiree investigators and a touch of the theatrics made this one of my favourite instalments in this series so far and I look forward to seeing what the ladies who lunch (at the garden centre once a week) will put right next.
Purchase Link: A Clock Stopped Dead on Amazon
Title: Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret
Author: Benjamin Stevenson
Publisher: Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House
Blurb: 24 advent calendar doors. 23 clues. And 1 killer to catch before Christmas . . . a deviously clever, classic murder mystery for the festive season
For fans of Janice Hallett, Anthony Horowitz and Peter Swanson’s The Christmas Guest
My name is Ernest Cunningham.
I’m not a detective. I just happen to have a knack for what makes mysteries – and murderers – tick. I’d hoped, this Christmas, that any killers out there might be willing to take a break for the holidays.
I was wrong.
So here I am, backstage at the Christmas show of world-famous magician Rylan Blaze, whose benefactor has just been murdered. From the magician’s assistant to the hypnotist, my suspects are all professional tricksters. Masters in the art of misdirection.
My clues are even more of a mystery:
A suspect covered in blood, with no memory of how it got there.
A murder committed without setting foot inside the room where it happens.
And an advent calendar. Because, you know. It’s Christmas.
Solving the murder is the only gift I want this year.
But can I catch a killer, and make it home for Christmas alive?
Review: I squeezed in reading this book just before Christmas but am late managing to review it, so if you could all just buy it ready for your 2025 Christmas reading, that would be great!
Ernest Cunningham is back with another mystery and this one has a festive theme, so features some special seasonal ‘murder mystery rules’ to add to the usual fair-play ones.
The book is presented in advent calendar style, which didn’t really work for me in the ARC e-format, but sounds really fun so I am definitely going to pick up a paper copy for myself so I can play along properly.
This is a short and sweet mystery, in novella length rather than a full-length novel. As always though, the mystery plot holds together neatly and our author-narrator plays fair, despite some clever sleight of hand/word!
I already love this quirky narrative style and the humour that pervades the entire series, so I loved this latest outing. It is ideal for some jolly festive murdery fun in the run-up to (next!) Christmas.
Purchase Link: Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret on Amazon
Title: A Deadly Legacy
Author: E.V. Hunter
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Blurb: A tragic accident or an untimely death?
When Drew Hopgood’s brother, Frank dies whilst out climbing, it’s initially thought his death was simply a tragic accident. But when Frank’s much younger wife, Stella arrives at Hopgood Hall demanding half of Frank’s inheritance the Hopgoods and Alexi Ellis begin to suspect foul play…
Stella has no claim to Frank’s legacy, but she isn’t giving up easily. And with the reputation of Hopgood Hall still fragile, Alexi can’t afford to lose any more money because of Stella’s greed.
So Alexi, her partner Jack, and Cosmo of course, decide to dig deeper into Stella’s background. Just how did she meet Frank and were they really as in love as she claims?
As the trio investigate, they discover Stella has her own reasons for being back at Hopgood Hall. And rather than console the grieving widow, Alexi and Jack think they might need to look again at Frank’s tragic death – because rather than an accident this could have been a deadly fall – planned by his own wife!
A boutique hotel. A feral cat. A recipe for murder!
Review: This is the first Hopgood Hall mystery I have read, despite it being the sixth, and I would probably recommend reading books 1-5 first as the characters here already appear to be fully established and well-developed in their personalities and their relationships.
Main characters Alexi and Jack, as a journalist and PI/ex-police officer respectively, make a perfect investigative partnership – very much Tommy and Tuppence vibes! – and the active pet participation is a fun, light-hearted bonus (if a little far-fetched at points).
The story and style definitely reminded me of classic Christie-era crime novels but set in more modern times and the plot kept me guessing, with plenty of red herrings, twists and peril along the way, and Cosmo and Sligo add some necessary touches of both cosy cuteness and light humour.
This cosy mystery is clever, twisty and playful, and I recommend it to any cosy mystery fans looking for a new series to binge-read.
Purchase Link: A Deadly Legacy on Amazon
A crime/mystery-heavy selection for my first catch-up batch of 2025!
From literary serial killer feasts, to cosy mysteries, with a Christmassy novella and a non-fiction analysis of current world events, just to keep you off-balance as we stumble towards February!
Keep shining, happy reading and I hope you find something you like 🙂
