Macmillan – nigeladamsbookworm

Nash Falls & Hope Rising. David Baldacci

Two books one review

I’m going to start this review by saying how good the story in these two books is, before I go onto what I unfortunately is a bit of negativity.

The story.

At its foundation this story is about a good guy, with the perfect life, a wife, a teenage daughter, and a highly successful career, who is approached by the FBI to help them build a case against his employer.

Unsurprisingly this goes wrong and his world is torn apart.

The rest of the story is about his efforts to get justice.

Nash Falls

Walter Nash is a tall, wimpy highly intelligent man. At the start of the story he attends his dad’s funeral, a Vietnam Veteran who had little time for the son who sought to play Tennis instead of NFL style football.

His distain for his son is so deep he even has another vet’ bad mouth him at the funeral.

The case is built from the very beginning of the book that Nash is a physically weak, but highly intelligent man, who does anything to avoid physical excess or any form of danger.

The company he works for is run by Burton Temple and his son Rhett. Both men are typical modern day lotharios who treat people with contempt. Although they embrace Nash because he brings in more money than anybody else.

So when the FBI approach Nash to help them uncover the illicit side of the Bartons business he is slow to say yes but eventually does.

The Bartons are only mid-level operators. The big fish that the FBI are after is Victoria Steel, and her ultimate boss

Steel is half English half Chinese and is a ruthless drug runner using the Temples to launder money.

Nash’s world falls apart as his cover work is exposed, no spoilers from here on except he has to change his identity and becomes Dillon Hope

Hope Rises

Part two of the story with Nash established as Dillon Hope and working undercover to gain revenge by exposing Victoria Steer and the Rhett Barton.

His new looks, and persona couldn’t be further from his old identity.

The story crosses Asia and America.

Hope/Nash’s ethos and his beliefs are tested to the limit.

The mild man that is, or was Nash, wants the ultimate justice, whilst the new Dillon Hope is beginning to have empathy for some of the criminals.

When the time comes which ego, Nash or Hope, will rise to the surface.

This is a really compelling story but there’s one thing in this book that really had me struggling to set aside.

Nash’s transformation into Hope takes over a year, and there are some physical changes, but for me it’s a bit like Clark Kent taking off his glasses and nobody noticing that he is Superman.

For me its just too much of a stretch to think that nobody notices its him.

The other thing that troubled me is this should not have been two books.

There is no getting away from the fact that Nash Falls just stops. There is no conclusion. No Cliffhanger. It just stops. The last chapter in that book is just the end of another chapter, like any other in the book.

The first chapter in Hope Rises is the next chapter of the previous book.

If you were to read either as a standalone it wouldn’t work.

There is no finish to one and no start to the other.

The end of the story is really good but I couldn’t help thinking that there were two or three chapters in the second book that weren’t needed.

As much as I enjoyed the books, and I am a massive fan of the author, I really couldn’t shake the feeling that he had a good story in mind, and when he wrote it he realised it was too long for one book. So he looked for a continent place to end the first and realised the second wasn’t long enough so threw in a few more chapters.

I did enjoy the books but I felt almost conned at the end of the first one. The lack of an ending made it a bit weak.

Although I said the first book didn’t end on a cliff hanger, and it didn’t, I still wanted to know what happened next, purely to get a conclusion to the story.

All that being said would i recommend the books. Yes and No.

Yes if you are a Baldacci fan.

Yes if you start book one knowing you are going to have to go straight to book two.

But as stand alone’s, or if its your first by David Baldcacci NO.

Nash Falls Pages: 611. Hope Rises Pages: 433

Publisher: MacMillan

Both Books available now.

Dissection of a Murder. Jo Murray

I want to start this review with two quotes, of quotes, from the book.

Are we just to accept you’re either the victim or the killer, and there’s nothing in between

And

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer

Two paragraphs from early in the book that sum up this story.

There are twist and turns, there are hidden clues, some of which were so obvious, but only with the benefit of hindsight, and there is one hell of an ending

Leila is a Barrister and she is about to defend her client, Jack Millman.

There are a few things that make this a tense situation.

It’s Leila’s first murder trial.

The Victim was a well loved Judge

Perhaps the worst, her Husband is the prosecution Barrister.

Oh, and there’s one other thing. Millman pleads innocent but he won’t give any information to help build his defence.

He was arrested at the scene and has gone given no comment as his answer to every question the police has asked him.

A tactic he continues when he has his first meeting with Leila.

She has defended him before, on an assault case. He was innocent but found guilty.

Why?

Because he gave the police information about the girl he was protecting during the alleged assault. She was going to be his key witness, but she was got at by some powerful people and never gave her evidence in court. Worse still he was labelled a grass for accusing a gang member of assaulting the girl.

This time he’s giving nobody a chance to interfere with what he hopes will be a fair trial.

That is the main thread of the story, but there is also the nice in house soap opera that is the Chambers Laila and her husband work out of.

It’s a hard working law chambers where politics and “relationships” drive the narrative.

I like legs thrillers. The American ones are usually top of the best sellers but the British Legal system is so full of traditions and history; nepotism and old school ties, sex and scandal, that it makes for fascinating reading.

This is one of the best, in this genre, that I’ve read for a long time.

Pages: 416. Publisher: Macmillian. Audiobook Length 11 hours 40 mins. Narrator Joanne Froggart

Rattle Fiona Cummins

A story of two families; neither of which are particularly happy, both of which have a child with a bone deformity, and a killer who collects bones, the rarer the better.

The Frith’s son, 6-year-old Jakey is suffering from a condition that sees him growing bone spurs and extra bones. He’s fragile and mollycoddled, but he’s also adventurous and is often on the verge of disaster.

The Foyles daughter, 4-year-old Cara, has the middle three fingers on each hand missing due to a birth deformity.

When Cara goes missing on her way home from school Detective Sergeant Etta Fitzroy is part of the team tasked with investigating her disappearance. Fitzroy has recently worked on a disturbing child abduction that was never solved, and gradually begins to think that the two cases might be connected.

The story centres around the two families, Fitzroy, and the Bone Collector

The Frith family are torn apart by the fathers drinking, Erdman tries to give his son as normal a life as possible whilst his wife panics at everything that Jakey is involved in. Meanwhile nobody notices a man in a suite who is gradually ingratiating himself with Jakey. Is this the Bone Collector, or is it somebody else with other motives? Will anybody notice in time to save Jakey.

The Foyles are distraught, their daughter is missing. So why is her father, Miles, not helping the Police. Why has he been seeing prostitutes. Is there any truth in the accusation that he held a young office worker captive in his office? Why will he not tell the police where he was when his daughter went missing.

Cara is alive. She is being held hostage, and the man that is holding her has an unhealthy fascination with her hands.

This story is so well written that it manages to entwine 3 or 4 story threads around each other, and still keep the reader guessing as to how different people are involved.

At times, I was not sure whether there were 1 or 2 villains. Will Fitzroy make the connections and catch the Bone Collector whilst Jakey is safe and Cara is alive?

Fiona Cummins employed a lovely technique at the end of some chapters. It’s simple but I don’t think I’ve read it before. On a chapter that ends a day, she gives each character a small paragraph where she describes what they can see and their emotions. That kept me engrossed throughout.

Fans of psychological thrillers will love this. It original and its good.

Hello Fiona Cummins and welcome to my MUST READ LIST

Pages:495

Publisher: Macmillan

Available on Amazon