Scott Turow’s Suspect is a fast-flowing suspense/thriller/crime story of Pinky Granum, her lawyer boss Rik Dudek and their client, Lucy Gomez, Chief of Highland Isle’s Police Department who is on trial for soliciting sex in exchange for supporting three male staff members’ promotions. The charges against her, the Chief maintains, are an attempt to tarnish her reputation and get her sacked.

Pinky is Rik Dudek’s unconventional private investigator with a drug-fueled history and anail through her nose. Rik’s isn’t quite in the same league as Pinky’s lawyer grandfather until the Chief Lucia Gomez’s high profile case comes along.

Just as the case attracts Rik’s and then Pinky’s attention, an intriguing neighbor, Koob, moves into Pinky’s building. Being a work in progress private investigator, Pinky sees the unusually secretive Koob as a worthy subject for investigation and eventually she makes a link between him and ‘The Ritz’, the town’s top-level property tycoon, crook, drug-dealer, ex-cop, and ex-partner of Lucy Gomez.

Lucy Gomez’ trial proceeds and two of the three litigants are exposed as liars. The third though, Blanco, proves more resilient to cross-examination and the evidence linking him to Lucy, a lurid photo, is compelling. The case suddenly collapses when Blanco’s dead body is found in a near-empty apartment. Pinky is allowed in on the case because she has gathered damning information from Koob against The Ritz. As the FBI move in on The Ritz, Lucy Gomez goes missing. And because this is a suspense as well as a thriller, I should stop there.

I’ve enjoyed all of Turow’s books so far and this one did not disappoint although at times I thought there was too much ‘Pinky introspection’ and perhaps luck/intuition played too great a part in the investigation meaning the reader was less capable of beating the writer to the end. Nonetheless the story was well constructed and well written, the main characters were reasonably well developed and their relationships were suitably inter-twined to generate some intrigue. The high-tempo ending was certainly satisfying.

The RAW Coffee Company is an absolute treat that I’ve added to my list of top 5 attractions in Dubai.

The RAW Coffee Company imports and roasts coffee, but they also have a spacious (and delicious) café. Throughout the lockdown, unable to travel to U.A.E., I drooled over their website and its descriptions of different beans, their origins and their flavour descriptions. And yes, I drooled over the colour pic of their burger with fat chips and their cinnamon rolls and pastries and caramel slice and…, you know what I mean.

Not being in one of the giant malls means their café is spacious and relaxed. There is a relaxed outdoor space. The staff are eager to explain coffee. The whole place is a temple to fine coffee. All the beans they sell are organic and imported in small batches, roasted and blended on a boutique scale. What caught my attention was that they had a small supply of beans from Yemen. From my own reading I’ve come to understand that the best beans are from Yemen. Sadly, Yemen has a war on. Iran and Saudi Arabia seem to be scrapping it out in Yemen. Given the extent of suffering by innocent Yemenis, it seems, no it is, superficial to then say that growing and exporting and therefore buying Yemeni beans has become difficult.

Why are beans from Yemen the best? With coffee, it’s always and only about the flavour and the higher the altitude the coffee grows at, the better the flavour. Yemeni coffee beans are grown close to 10,000 feet above sea level in fertile soil, where the air is cool and moist. At this altitude, air and soil temperatures are cool and so chemical reactions and biological processes occur more slowly. This means the flavours tend to be more mature and more complex.

The cooler temperature also means the cherries ripen more slowly and so the farmers have time to pick only the ripe ones. In the cooler mountainous temperatures there are fewer insects and so coffee has a lower caffeine level. (Caffeine is an insecticide which is why coffee grown in the lower altitude where insects are more abundant, have higher caffeine levels.) This also means that beans at altitude tend to have less, and often no, insecticides used on them.

The soil in Yemen’s mountains gives coffee beans a less acidic taste. It is sweeter and has a richly floral and chocolaty flavour. If you like the near-burnt taste of coffee from that jolly green giant’s cafes (you know the one), stay away from Yemen’s beans. If you enjoy the complex floral bouquet of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the rich depth of Samoan dark chocolate then you’ll surely be smitten with coffee that originates in Yemen.

The RAW Coffee Company is about 5 minutes’ walk from the Mashreq stop on the Red Metro line. If you’re a coffee lover and you’re in Dubai, you must visit the RAW Coffee Company and quietly ask for a French Press with grounds from Yemen, find a table in the corner and savour the experience.  

(Did I mention the cinnamon buns?)

The Lost Children by Michael Wood is a well-written, crime/detective novel with plenty of credible characters with rich back stories.

Back at work after being shot, DCI Matilda Darke and her team investigate the murder of a wealthy property developer. The crime scene suggests sexual motivations. After the initial report hits the newspapers, Matilda receives a call from Peter Ogilvy, the ex-owner of a children’s home for boys. Ogilvy explains that he has made many attempts to alert police to his suspicions of sexual abuse of boys by the murder victim and his associates. Ogilvy claims his concerns have always been shelved by senior police and hopes Matilda may be the one to finally expose the abuse and explain the cover up. Matilda raises the matter with her seniors and is told to cease that line of inquiry.

And then another murder victim is found with sufficient similarities at the crime scene to connect this victim to the first. One of Matilda’s team leaks information to a journalist, a detailed article appears and Matilda’s angry seniors close down her team, its investigation and make her position redundant. Her and her team’s response is to continue, hopefully uncover enough details of the abuse, find victims and gather their statements to force an official inquiry.

This is a cleverly-written and accurately-detailed crime story with richly-created characters. It is one of a series of books ‘starring’ DCI Darke and her team. The plot is paced well and there are plenty of plot twists and back stories to keep the reader both interested and intrigued, and eager to reach the conclusion. Crime, sex, detective work, all sprinkled with some contemporary British humour. I hope to read more in the series.  

The Shadow of War by Jack Murray is the first of three books following two boys/soldiers from their homes and families North Africa and the battle of El Alamein.

In 1933, Danny Shaw was a schoolboy in a rural English village and Manfred Brehme was growing up in a city in Germany. Manfred enjoyed school, Danny didn’t. Danny’s father fought in the Great War, Manfred’s didn’t. Danny skips school to steal apples and enjoy the countryside with his two friends. Manfred is uneasy at school when his Jewish teacher is taken away, but the lure of the Hitler Youth is strong. Danny leaves school to help in his father’s blacksmith workshop while Manfred leaves school to sign into the German Army. When war is declared both Danny Manfred undergo basic training after which both are shipped off to North Africa – which is where this first book in the trilogy ends.

Each boy’s/soldier’s are told with clarity, humour, emotion, and a strong sense of ‘war is coming’ and that both will be involved. It’s interesting for the reader to read in such detail two soldier’s preparations for war.

The Shadow of War is well-written with careful attention to detail giving the book a strong feel of reality. The story is balanced between Manfred and Danny and their characters are well-developed through the whole book. We’re given a keen sense of their characters by following their child and teenage years, who they have strongest relationships with, their fears and weaknesses as well as their strengths. It’s reasonably clear that the later books will bring these two together in some way and I’m eager to know how that will look.

Caged Little Birds by Lucy Banks is the first-person account of Ava, who murdered a child, and her life after release from jail.

Her sentence complete, she is living in the community under a new identity and all she wants is to return to a remote Scottish island to observe the birdlife, as she did in her childhood. Instead, the terms of her probation require her to live in the town, receive weekly visits from her over-worked probation officer, attend regular sessions with her psychiatrist, and try to find a job. Ava has too much spare time and spends much of it dwelling on her ex-lover whose son she accidentally killed (they say ‘murdered’, she says it was an accident), the boy’s cold-hearted, jealous mother, and an ex-cellmate whom she may have encouarged to commit suicide.

Ava becomes friends with her neighbour, an ex-homeless man who asks too many questions about her earlier life. When this neighbour’s adult daughter comes to stay with him Ava’s world starts to unravel. A letter arrives indicating at least one person out there knows her true identity and Ava is convinced it’s from the neighbour’s daughter. Ava sees her acting suspicioulsy when out on walks along the river and is further convinced when a brick is thrown through her window. Around this point in the plot, the pace quickens, the tension in Ava’s mind increases rapidly, she knows she must act soon before her identity and crime is revealed to everyone, and so she makes the necessary preparations…

This a real psychology novel; the author captures Ava’s anxieties remarkably well. The plot is well-crafted and the essential characters are thoroughly developed and feel like they could be people we already know. I like the use of tension and pace, rising and falling as the book progresses. The ending is neatly crafted and satisfying.