The Confession (Century, $55, hbk) is the first book by John Grisham I've reviewed, though I've read most of his novels, and I have to say it's a page-turner but not in the accepted sense.
Take a guilty-until-proved-innocent storyline, all-too-familiar corrupt cops and inept court officials, a climax that's more political statement than gripping denouement, irrelevant and over-long riot scenes, sub-plots that can be skipped without missing anything important, and you might wonder if Grisham has lost his edge.
Even so, Grisham fans won't be disappointed.
That's because as with all Grisham's crime and punishment novels, the characters are believable, the writing immaculate, and the legalities involved couched in terms easily understood by lay readers.
As for the confession, it revolves around Rev Keith Schroeder, 35-year-old senior pastor at St Mark's, a church in Topeka, Kansas, who gets the wobbles when an unknown man on parole, and with a brain tumour that may kill him at any time, wanders into his office and confesses to raping and murdering a college student in a Texas town nine years earlier, a crime for which her former boyfriend has been found guilty, and who is scheduled to die from a lethal injection in four days time.
Singing "Get me to the jail on time", the Reverend sets the wheels in motion to stop Donte Drumm's execution, Donte being, a black, but not very black, college student who excelled at football - the American variety, and had a white future until ...
One of the more interesting snippets gathered from The Confession is that in the United States, the lawyer leading the team trying to save Drumm's life says it's cheaper to keep murderers in prison for life rather than sentence them to death as the legal system, with its series of appeals - local court, state court, governor - can delay executions for decades and cost taxpayers millions.
- Ian Williams
No doubt Simon and Schuster decided to put out a new edition of her 1994 novel Cold Shoulder ($35, pbk) because of her strong following.
But be aware that this is the first of a trilogy La Plante has written involving police Lieutenant Lorraine Page. The other two books (Cold Blood and Cold Heart) are also on the market.
In this first book of the series Page is by no means an admirable character. In fact an impressive early career with the homicide squad has ended, her marriage is wrecked, she is a dirty alcoholic living on skid row, financing booze and drugs by prostitution.
In a twist of her nadir in fate she becomes a witness who could identify a particularly nasty serial killer.
Page is so thoroughly nasty herself that I was not convinced by La Plante's efforts to reinstate her ugly character, nor the fairly lame ending to this story. This woman was just too detestable for her to be later accepted as a heroine.
My advice is to leave this old bestseller alone, but go if you must for the other two in the trilogy.
In Cold Blood and Cold Heart you can be persuaded to trust and maybe even like Lorraine Page as a detective in more credible and gripping stories. In Cold Shoulder she is just too bad to be true, even in fiction.
- Geoff Adams
So What if I'm Broken, by Anna McPartlin (Penguin, $40, pbk), Alexandra leaves her flat one day on an errand and disappears without trace, leaving her family and husband Tom in grief-stricken limbo.
Convinced she's still alive, Tom campaigns tirelessly to find her and in the process meets dependable Jane, her flaky artist sister Elle, and Leslie - the sole surviving member of a family picked off by cancer.
The women join forces with Tom to help find his wife, battling their own issues along the way.
So What If I'm Broken uses humour to tackle tough subject matter such as alcoholism, depression and death.
I can't say I was incredibly moved by any of the storylines, but I was curious enough to read till the end and I didn't regret it.
- Laura Hewson
Sourland (HarperCollins, $49.99, hbk) have appeared in publications as diverse as Playboy and The Guardian.
Despite this, they are tied together by common themes and images; survivor guilt, the chill of hospitals where visitors' fingers freeze and memories pool beneath tables and in corners, the failure of parents to protect their children from the adult world, sexual and physical violation that shatters a life beyond recognition.
Oates' characters are typically vulnerable and damaged in some way by violence, loss and death.
Their stories are similarly bleak and seldom leavened by any hope of rescue or redemption. One that particularly disturbed me is told from the perspective of a terrified 4-year-old boy fleeing a father who has become a stranger to him.
Similarly unsettling are a trio that form the opening, closing and centrepiece of the collection.
Each features the literal or figurative rape of a newly widowed woman who, struggling with the sense her life too has ended, considers the abuse deserved and invites (challenges) the reader to concur.
Oates is a compelling writer, although her tales are neither easy nor comforting reading.
The worlds that she creates are real, albeit often alien to the white, middle-class audience for which she writes, and to the white middle-class characters confronted by them in her stories. This is what is makes this collection so discomfiting and so important; there but for the grace of God go we.
- Cushla McKinney
Matched (Penguin, $26, pbk) it's the not-so-distant future but life is very different.
Society is heavily controlled, from the jobs people do, how many children they are allowed, right through to when it's time to die.
The story begins with Cassia's Matching, the most important ceremony in a teenager's life, where future husbands and wives are introduced (over television monitors) for the first time.
However, the officials make an unheard-of mistake with Cassia's match, which sets her on the dangerous path of independent thought and rebellion.
This is essentially a romance aimed at teens but it didn't stop me enjoying it.
With hints of The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, Ally Condie describes an overly controlling society built on good intentions but gone horribly wrong.
Matched is the first book in a planned trilogy, which is good news, as many questions remain unanswered at the end, including what could have happened to create such a society and who is desperate to bring it down.
- Laura Hewson
