I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

As a dabbler in true crime fiction, I’ve got to the stage where I feel I can appreciate a really good, well researched book. And this is such a book. It follows the jagged history of the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker (later renamed the Golden State Killer by McNamara) and his reign of terror and misery through Sacramento and the surrounding areas during the 70s and early 80s before mysteriously vanishing without a trace. It’s a story of countless victims, and the ongoing hunt to find the man responsible. 

Michelle McNamara lived and breathed the Golden State Killer case, and this comes across in I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. It’s heavy on details, descriptions and the numerous ways that she and others have tried to find this illusive serial killer over the years. It’s an obsession that she readily admits too, and this book is essentially years of labour and the delicate piecing together of every bit of evidence and clue that could possibly relate to him and his journey from burglar to serial rapist and murderer. The passion and determination for the case and the need to solve it is obvious in every page. 

It’s also the style of writing that drew me in. It’s at once captivating and personal, with sections reading almost like a memoir of Michelle’s life and what initially drew her to this case. It’s endearing, and I couldn’t fail to like Michelle and her relentless pursuit of a man she’s never met yet knows so intimately. 

What makes this book all the more interesting is the fact that a suspect was arrested in April 2018. Two years after Michelle’s death, a man may finally feel that cell door close behind him as justice could be just around the corner. The fact that he was found via DNA from a genealogy site - a suggestion that Michelle herself alludes may help to find him, makes this all the more bittersweet. It’s also always with hindsight that we can see the clues and hints that were missed. Reading this through the eyes of someone who knows a little about the arrested made the clues and trails that Michelle goes down that little bit more exciting, as I could see how tantalisingly close they were to discovering who this man was. 

I found the third part of the book set a different tone to the rest due to Michelle’s untimely death leaving the book unfinished, resulting in her researchers having to piece together her thoughts from notes and old transcripts. This left the last third feeling a little more disorganised than I would have liked, however this was an excellent true crime novel overall, made all the more interesting through recent break through sin the case and the hint of personal reflection involved. If only Michelle were still here to see what she has helped to accomplish.

 - 4 stars

Book Review: This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay

I loved this. In part funny and heartwarming, yet also utterly heartbreaking and disillusioned. I think this strikes a particular cord with me at the moment as the author was an obs & gynae doctor, and I’ve recently spent time myself as an inpatient on such a ward.

This is the first book in a while where I’ve read passages out to my husband while laughing out loud one minute and then had to hold back tears the next. It’s a full on rollercoaster of emotions that also seems to very accurately describe what it’s like to work as front line staff for the NHS. I should know, I do it everyday too, and we all have our stories to tell that encompass the best and worst of British medical care. It’s one of my favourite things about the job, hearing stories from everyone about ‘that time a patient shoved a remote control up their rectum’ or ‘remember that night shift a woman faked passing out’. I think it’s what binds and bonds you all together. The camaraderie. Told with a liberal dose sarcasm and self deprecating humour, the author manages to walk that tightrope between friend, colleague and reliable narrator to a finely tuned ‘T’.

My admiration for other healthcare professionals is limitless, and will continue to be so. It’s really the awful and gut wrenching stories interspersed throughout (especially the last chapters) that make you realise how much pressure and guilt our doctors are under. And for little pay might I add. Day after day, night after night they fight to provide the best level of care they can without succumbing to sleep deprivation, depression or worse. There’s a lot of emotion here, a lot of anger and sadness that’s so hard to see, yet is oh so common in the increasingly frequent demoralised NHS worker.

It’s a very bittersweet read, that I devoured in one day, and I’m sorry it’s over. It’s one of the best memoirs of this kind I’ve read in a long time and I loved following Adam Kay on his journey through life as a junior doctor.

This is Going to Hurt is available to purchase now from: Amazon

 - 5 stars

Book Review - The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Makhne

A perfect book for Halloween.

The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures is a guide to the weird and wonderful bits of folklore and legend that roam our earth surrounding mysterious creatures. Each chapter presents a specific type of 'creature' for examination, before providing a number of local legends that relate to that creature with beautifully illustrated prints throughout.

The author does a good job at 'setting the scene' with these creatures. Each chapter is well defined, and categorised well, which makes the writing easy to follow and very engaging. This is certainly one of those books you can pick up and put down with ease, and the author also does a really good job at creating a decent atmosphere. Reading this late at night, I was certainly creeped out by certain chapters (the dolls and ghost in particular).

As with most books of this nature, I found some chapters more interesting than others. I was less interested in the 'flying animal' stories than I was with the dolls, ghosts and vampires. I also would have at least liked a mention of Whitby when discussing Dracula and Bram Stoker. I felt at times the writing was definitely geared more towards an American audience in this sense.

That said, I thought this was a very thorough introduction into the world of folklore, and it's certainly piqued an interest in this area for future reading material at this time of year.

 - 4 stars

Book Review - The Diary Of A Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

One of my favourite comedies from the early '00's was Black Books, a comedy set in a second hand book shop and starring Dylan Moran as a misanthropic book seller who hates people and drinks copious amounts of wine. This is the book equivalent to that comedy, and I absolutely loved it.

The book outlines a year in the life of Shaun Bythell, owner of The Book Shop, and his daily interactions with customers and excursions to source books. It's never pretentious, and often very, very funny. I particularly warmed to shop assistant Nicky, who is basically described as a wombling Jehovah's Witness, who often turns up to her shifts in the book shop in an all in one black ski suit with an accompanying assortment of food found in the skip behind Morrisons. The daily struggle with customers was also very funny and informative - I gained a particular fondness for regular customer Mr Deacon, but ultimately reminded me that I never want another career in retail!

The book serves as a great insight into the dying breed of booksellers, and provided a lot of information about books that I didn't know, such as books published before 1501 known as 'incunabula'. I liked the little excerpts from George Orwell which proceeded every month too, as they provided some cohesiveness to the structure of the book and made it feel less like a traditional diary.

I think the only section I didn't enjoy was where the author got sidetracked talking about fishing for a few pages in August. Again, they only lasted a few pages, but they felt a little bit out of place.

In all honesty, I think this is one of the best books I've read this year, and has had me heartily reminiscing about the old book shop that I use to frequent as a youngster. Now, unfortunately, it's been turned into a pub (!) but this book proves just how vulnerable and invaluable book shops are in our country since the rise of the ebook and major retailers. My only regret is that I read this on my kindle, but make no mistake, I'll be buying the hardback.

- 5 Stars