Book Review: Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar

"This is all about memory. It's about details. Details are important to you. You prize details." Pg 7.







Kris, Tamara, Wolf and Frauke. Four young friends with too much time on their hands and one big idea: an agency called Sorry. Unfair dismissals, the wrongly accused, jilted lovers: everyone has a price and the Sorry team will find out what that is. It's as simple as that. The idea catches on like wildfire and the quartet are soon raking in the cash, doing the emotional dirty work for fat cats, businessmen, and the romantically challenged.

But what they didn't count on is that their latest client would be a killer...

This is going to be another of those rare books that I review in which I must say from the beginning: If you are squeamish at all - Do not read this book. If you are under 16 - Do not read this book. No, seriously, I'm not kidding.

This is a crime novel, yes, but it also a brilliantly written journey into the psychotic mind. And I do love those. And so rarely do you find one not only so fantastically written - but one that can also hold up three different perspectives. Most notably - YOU are the killer. You know how he thinks and what he will do next.

Then you have the four 'heroes' of the story - brothers Kris and Wolf, and long-time friends Tamara and Frauke - who have unwillingly been thrown into this nightmare and each have different opinions and ways of dealing with it - some more fatal than others...

Interspersed are chapters with someone unknown. You know this person is watching both the friends and You, but who is this person and what is the connection? Only reading till the end will everything make sense.
Never have I encountered a novel crafted so masterfully. Set across an icy Berlin backdrop, this tale will seriously chill you to the bone.

Published: March 2012 by Harper Collins (First published in German 2009)

Book Review: The Dead - David Gatward

"The Dead envy the living. It consumes them. They will do anything to take what you have, for even the briefest of moments, to experience life again." p.45






Lazarus Stone is about to turn sixteen when, one night, his normal life is ripped to shreds by a skinless figure drenched in blood.
He has a message: The Dead are coming.
Now Lazarus is all that stands in their way. To fulfil his destiny, he must confront not only the dark past of his family, but horrors more gruesome than even Hell could invent. And it all begins with the reek of rotting flesh...

Hell is coming... and David Gatward means business!

All his life Lazarus has been a fairly ordinary kid - causing mischief at school, playing computer games and hanging out with his best friend Craig. With his father constantly away at work, Lazarus has had a great deal of independence. So when he first learns of the world of the Dead and his dad's role with them Lazarus is naturally very confused and scared; wanting to do whatever it takes to get back to the 'normal' life he had before.
But even through all of the chaos and horror, Lazarus still remains switched-on and has a very commanding presence about him that gives the reader a glimpse into the person he must become if he is to find his father and prevent the Dead from crossing over into the real world...

I feel quite privileged to have received a proof copy of The Dead as it is not quite like any other horror novel I've read before. David's writing is so sense-driven that it wasn't like I was just seeing the story like a particularly gory horror movie but also living and smelling it! Yeuch! It was SO much fun (though far too short for my tastes) and I will be hanging out for book two - The Dark - due in October 2010.

Published by HodderChildren's Books - July 2010

Book Review: Mortlock - Jon Mayhew

"Maybe it was my reading diet as a child, maybe it's just the way I am but my writing always comes out a little bit... dark." - Jon Mayhew






The sister is a knife-thrower in a magician's stage act, the brother an undertaker's assistant. Neither orphan knows of the other's existence. Until, that is, three terrible Aunts descend on the girl's house and imprison her guardian, the Great Cardamom. His dying act is to pass the girl a note with clues to the secret he carries to his grave. Cardamom was one of three explorers on an expedition to locate the legendary Amarant, a plant with power over life and death. Now, pursued by flesh-eating crow-like ghuls, brother and sister must decode the message and save themselves from its sinister legacy.

I had a lot of fun reading this. Josie is bright and snappy, while Alfie is calm and reasoning - together they make a great team. Though just 13 years old, they go through the very depths of hell, caught up in the whirl-wind of their guardians past of mystery and power. Set in a dark and dangerous Victorian London they are ruthlessly hunted through the streets by the 'Aunts' (who are just down-right creepy) and their ghoulish crow-minions.

There are some parts in the story which are truly frightening and I realised this is becoming a common theme in a lot of younger children's these days - and I think this is a good thing. Kids are growing up in a very different world these days and their capacity of understanding what they see on the television or on the streets is much more than we give them credit for. And that's one of the beauties of books - they not only provide entertainment - they help us understand ourselves, our world around us and even why we do the things we do.

I cannot wait for this book to be released and I do hope there is room for a sequel.

Published by Bloomsbury - April 2010.