Book Club

BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. The Axeman’s Jazz, Ray Celestin, ISBN  9781447258889 (PAN) BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

This week’s books have all been inspired or based upon true life stories or historical events. I hope you will enjoy the selection.

Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for Best Debut Crime Novel of the Year, long-listed for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award and recommended on the BBC Radio 2 Arts Show with Claudia Winkleman; this stunning atmospheric crime thriller has all the critics raving.

Set in 1919 New Orleans and inspired by a real life serial killer, the Axeman stalks the city as three individuals set out to unmask him.

Though every citizen of the ‘Big Easy’ thinks they know who could be behind the terrifying murders, Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot, heading up the official investigation, is struggling to find leads. But Michael has a grave secret, and if he doesn’t get himself on the right track fast, it could be exposed.

Former detective Luca d’Andrea has spent the last six years in Angola state penitentiary, after Michael, his protégée, blew the whistle on his corrupt behaviour. Now a newly-freed man, Luca is back working with the mafia, whose need to solve the mystery of the Axeman is every bit as urgent as that of the authorities.

Meanwhile, Ida, a secretary at the Pinkerton Detective Agency, remains obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and dreaming of a better life when she stumbles across a clue which lures her and her musician friend, Louis Armstrong, to the case – and into terrible danger.

As Michael, Luca and Ida each draw closer to discovering the killer’s identity, the Axeman himself will issue a challenge to the people of New Orleans: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim. And, as the case builds to its crescendo, the sky will darken and a great storm will loom over the city.

Inspired by a true story, set against the heady backdrop of jazz-filled, mob-ruled New Orleans, The Axeman’s Jazz by Ray Celestin is an ambitious, gripping thriller announcing a major talent in historical crime fiction.

Read it now in paperback
Perfidia, James Ellroy, ISBN 9780099537755 (Windmill) BD5 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

As the tale unfolds, we are in Los Angeles on December 6, 1941, and the last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbour.

War fever and race hate grip the city as the internment of Japanese-Americans begins to shatter the lives of so many unfortunate people and society breaks down under the pressure of attack.

This culminates in the hellish murder of a Japanese family, and four driven souls – rivals, lovers, history’s pawns – being thrown into an investigation which will not only rip them apart but take America to the edge of the abyss at a crucial moment in its history:
William H Parker –  a captain on the Los Angeles Police. He’s superbly gifted, corrosively ambitious and consumed by dubious ideology and bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith.

Sergeant Smith – Irish émigré, ex-IRA killer and fledgling war profiteer.
 
Kay Lake – 21-year-old dilettante looking for adventure.

Hideo Ashida – a brilliant police chemist and the only Japanese on the payroll.

A classic Ellroy thriller, all fans of his LA Quartet are sure to enjoy this novel.
 My favourite read of the week

Hope: A Memoir Of Survival, Amanda Berry & Gina Dejesus, ISBN 9780593075159 (Bantam) BD7.300 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

‘We have written here about terrible things that we never wanted to think about again . . . Now we want the world to know: we survived, we are free, we love life’.

On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry . . . I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years.”

A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry and two other young women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, to his home, where he trapped them and kept them chained.

In the decade that followed, the three girls were frequently raped, psychologically abused and threatened with death if they attempted to escape. Years after she was taken, Berry had a daughter by their captor, a child she bravely raised as normally as possible under impossible conditions.

Drawing upon their recollections and the secret diary kept by Berry, she and DeJesus describe the unimaginable torment they suffered and the strength and resourcefulness that enabled them to survive.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro’s house with original reporting on the efforts to find the missing girls.

The full story behind the headlines – including details never previously released on Castro’s life and motivations – Hope is a harrowing, yet inspiring, chronicle of two women whose courage and ingenuity ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.