Alys Always - Harriet Lane

Following a road accident a passerby stops to help. Unfortunately the victim of the accident doesn't survive.

As part of a new initiative the passerby is asked to meet the victim's family and at this point seems to slip into a new identity herself. The deceased's husband is a popular author, the passerby writes for a magazine in a very minor role and seizes the opportunity to make herself feel a little bit more important.

She gradually insinuates herself into the family, trusted by some, ignored somewhat by another and viewed at least warily by another.

It's spookily easy to imagine how a person might do this.

What's not so easy is the ending of the book.

Weirdly addictive reading though.

Publisher - Phoenix

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

Libby Day's family is mainly murdered around her when she is just 7 years of age. Her remaining sibling,

Ben, is jailed for the murders while she is passed from carer to carer getting more and more unmanageable and draining the compensation money awarded. Only her father doesn't care for her.

We meet her as the money is nearly gone and she receives a proposition from a group of people calling themselves 'Kill Club' and asking her to come along and be a special guest at one of their murder solving conferences.

Without having relived her experience to that point she is surprised and shocked that the group don't pity her and do think that her brother is innocent. She's stuck in a time in her mind when she was the poor innocent and is perturbed that the group see her as the adult she now is.

Encouraged by the group's payments she attempts to contact people around at the time of the crimes digging up old feelings, visiting prisons and travelling across the country to see her father in his very unusual living space. He's only interested in her for the mmoney he thinks she still has.

As we learn of her story we're also privy to the group's ideas about other crimes that they are interested in, both those the police know about and those that the group think that they have uncovered without anyone else being aware of them.

With two time spans running parallel this is an excellent crime thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Publisher - Phoenix Books

Grey Souls - Philippe Claudel

Following reading Monsieur Linh and his child it was an immediate trip out to buy another Claudel.

This one is written in the same spare way and is an especially thin paperback.

Similarly again it packs a punch at the end.

Based in France during the first world war it is set in a village close to the front. Within hearing distance of the fighting but with a population mainly exempt from call up through their occupations the village is privileged. It's also the first port of call for injured soldiers on their way back to hospitals.

After a young girl is killed the police, prosecutors and village people are keen to find the culprit quickly. Possibly the wrong culprit? The interrogation is brutal but there is no gratuitous violence in the book. Several story lines thread through including that of the prosecutor and the policeman adding their own harsh reality.

Another beautifully written book from Claudel leaving me looking forward to the next.

Publisher – Phoenix