I really enjoyed reading Bad Kids by Zijin Chen: a most intriguing crime thriller and story of a Chinese teenage boy, Zhu Chaoyang, his two friends, his mother, father, step-family, grandparents, and a police detective – and a series of 9 murders.

The language of the translation, at times, seems a little awkward but in a way that added to the exotic-ness of the story, which serves as a window into Chinese family/parent-child culture (perhaps). There are many cultural nuances that will feel odd to the western reader and I enjoyed this aspect of the book.

Zhu Chaoyang is hard-working and very successful student with no friends. He is the occasional victim of class bullies. His parents are divorced; his father remarried and neglects to maintain a positive relationship with Chaoyang. And he’s mean with his money as well as his affection for his son.

A friend from several years ago appears at Zhu Chaoyang’s front door and asks to stay with Chaoyang for a few days. He and a younger girl have run away from an orphanage.

Meanwhile, Zhang Dongsheng, a teacher, murders his parents in law and the murder is captured on video by Chaoyang and his new friends. Their dilemma is that if they take the video to the police, the friends will be returned to the orphanage. So they hatch a plan to blackmail the murderer.

Around the same time Chaoyang meets his father, but it is clear that the father is completely under the control of his second wife and young daughter, fueling shame and financial hardship for Chaoyang and his mother. The meeting ends when the step-mother and step-sister appear and Chaoyang is introduced by his father as the nephew of a colleague. This upsets Chaoyang and…

Grateful for Chaoyang’s hospitality, his new friends offer to help exact some revenge on his nasty step-mother and spoilt-brat step-sister for being the source of his financial and emotional difficulties. This goes wrong and the step-sister is accidentally killed. This leads to the blackmail arrangement changing and I should probably stop telling the whole plot…

The story/plot is very well-constructed. At a distance, the plot seems far-fetched, but up close, sentence by sentence, it works well. The plot is told quickly and economically. We’re not bothered by too much florid description of the setting, and this brevity works well for this story, and keeps the plot ticking along at a rapid pace.

The characters are convincingly authentic and the reader will quickly develop a sympathy for the three kids, Chaoyang especially and his mother. The principal detective is no chump and it was interesting to read him being included into the relationship-driven plot.

It’s been fun to read that other reviewers were not happy with the ambiguous ending, but the ending is as clear as can be. And, in my opinion, it’s the perfect end and is perfectly satisfying. This is the most interesting and best-written crime fiction that I’ve read in a long time.

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An Adriatic Love Affair by Jamie Kurow is a love story / romance novel, so it’s a little out of my normal reading category. But I’ve read Jamie Kurow’s two previous books (and reviewed them last year) and really liked them so I accepted an Advance Review Copy – and I really enjoyed this book.

If you liked Joanne Harris’ Chocolat, Five Quarters of an Orange, Blackberry Wine… you’ll really enjoy An Adriatic Love Affair, because as well as a love story, it’s a foodie and travel read.

Mary, the main character, travels from her home in New York, for her summer vacation. Her corporate lawyer husband pulled out of the trip at the last minute, as he has done for the past few summers, leaving her to wonder if she really even has a marriage.

Mary travels first to Munich where, most mysteriously, she receives a hand-written letter addressed to her by name, fore-telling that she will lose two important people in her life, but once she gets past these losses, she will find everlasting love.

She goes on to Budva, in Montenegro where she has rented an apartment for the summer vacation. She writes emails to her husband trying to understand why he did it again – bailed out on her and their vacation at the last minute. She also writes to her three teenage sons, asking them to join her. Budva is a small town on the Adriatic coast and Mary thinks it would be the perfect place for each of her teenage sons to spend the summer – swimming in the sea, hiking in the mountains, exploring the medieval towns and castles…

And Mary also meets and falls for Marko, the owner of an alluring little cafe/bakery near her apartment where she becomes a daily customer.

Her youngest son agrees to join her. As does, eventually, her eldest son. But the middle son, Nate, who we learn is mildly autistic, stops replying to her emails.

As Mary’s emails to her husband back in New York suggest that their relationship has ended / is ending, she becomes more and more charmed by Marko. But as much as she would like to fall in love with him, she can’t stop thinking that Nate is in danger and in need of her help.

And as that letter in Munich said, and as an elderly grandmother in Budva has also told her, until she finds Nate, she won’t find everlasting love.

One of the things I liked about Jamie Kurow’s earlier two books (A boy on an island in danger and murder@fort-willys) was their expertly-crafted, last-minute finishes. An Adriatic Love Affair has a great finish too, so I’ll stop describing the plot here.

Threaded throughout the story is a travelogue of the Montenegro coastal region. I holidayed there one summer about 15 years ago when the area was still a part of Serbia and this story has really captured the beauty of the sea which is utterly perfect for swimming in, the magic of the small medieval towns along the coast, and the dramatic hills that rise almost vertically out of the sea and the Bay of Kotor. And also, this book has managed to explore some of the local cuisine, my favourite of which was krempita – a pastry and vanilla-custard treat that has me right now thinking that maybe it’s time for a return trip to Budva. And because I can’t really describe krempita, here’s a picture…

Er…, the book. A highly-recommended read while at the beach or in the plane or on a train on the way to a summer vacation.

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Path of Peril by Marlie Parker Wasserman is a fictionalized account of Teddy Roosevelt’s trip to inspect the Panama Canal and associated assassination attempt.

Accompanied by his wife and an entourage of White House and protection staff, Roosevelt sees firsthand Panama’s challenges and inequalities. The plot weaves the stories of White House secretary Maurice Latta and journalists with the events surrounding the President’s inspection of the canal project against a backdrop of an assassination plot.

The story includes a staggering number of characters, way too many for this reader to keep track of and most chapters are semi-standalone stories that describe each character’s role in the assassination attempt. The descriptions of characters and the setting are vivid and make for an interesting and engaging read. I would have liked a faster-paced development of the plot with less characters to remember.   

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Murder Between the Pages by Josh Lanyon wasn’t the easiest book / murder-mystery to read and follow because the characters weren’t easily distinguished and different characters told the story in different chapters.

In the years just after WW2, an author of a soon-to-released novel is shot dead in a small bookstore during a book presentation. Two rival authors, Len and Felix, as well as the police set out to solve the case. The murder-victim had made enemies because of his not-so-fictitious characters in previous books so several in the audience had sufficient motive and opportunity.

The plot is well-constructed and the case is relatively straightforward for the ‘detectives’ (and the reader) to solve. The plot ticks along at a good pace and so the book is a relatively easy and comfortable read.

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A Winter Grave by Peter May is a well- written murder-mystery set in the near future in Scotland.

A meteorologist discovers the body of a missing journalist in an ice-cave above Kinlochleven and Detective Cameron Brodie, from Glasgow, is assigned the initial investigation. Set in the near future, Brodie endures the effects of climate change and technological advancement as he his whisked in an un-piloted drone to the remote village where journalist was last seen alive. Recently diagnosed with cancer and given around 6 months to live, Brodie has personal reasons to revisit the Scottish mountains he first visited with his father during childhood.

The village is near the site of Scotland’s large nuclear power plant. With the help of the local policeman, the hotel-owner and a worker/whistle-blower from the power plant, Brodie’s investigations eventually lead to the knowledge that the now-dead journalist was investigating a shady political past associated with the power plant and a recent earthquake with possibly lethal consequences for all who live in the region.

The characters are well-crafted with a good amount of the book is spent revealing Detective Brodie’s past and eventually revealing a present-day relationship with one of the key characters. The plot is well paced and the overall story has an eerie degree of credibility.

A very good read, highly recommended.