Stacking the Shelves (April 2)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you’re adding to your shelves, be it buying or borrowing. From ‘real’ books you’ve purchased, a book you’ve borrowed, a book you’ve been given or an e-book they can all be shared.

Having been captivated by the recent true life cases I’ve read about poisoners with Last Woman Hanged by Catherine Overington and then Mrs Maybrick by Victoria Blake I was lucky enough to receive and review The Secret Poisoner by Stratmann which is a comprehensive look at poisoning in the nineteenth century so you’d think that was enough poison for one person, but no, I have now bought a copy of Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims by Katherine Watson!

Blurb

Poisoners from Mary Anne Cotton, the Victorian mass murderess, to Dr Crippen have attracted a celebrity unmatched by violent killers. Secretly administered, often during a family meal, arsenic (the most commonly used poison) led to a slow and agonising death, while strychnine (with its faint smell of almonds) could kill very quickly. Poisoned Lives is the first history of the crime to examine poisoning as a whole. Unwanted husbands, wives or lovers, illegitimate babies, children killed for the insurance money, relatives, rivals and employers were amongst the many victims. Difficult to detect before 1800, poison undoubtedly had its heyday in the nineteenth century. In response to many suspected cases, forensic tests were developed that made detection increasingly likely. The sale of poisons also became much more tightly controlled. Because of this, twentieth-century poisoning became a crime carried out largely by professionals, notably doctors and nurses, including Harold Shipman and Beverley Allitt. Amazon

Through the post I got a surprise package from Corvus; Distress Signals by Irish author, Catherine Ryan Howard which will be published on 5 May 2016.

Blurb

Did she leave, or was she taken?
The day Adam Dunne’s girlfriend, Sarah, fails to return from a Barcelona business trip, his perfect life begins to fall apart. Days later, the arrival of her passport and a note that reads ‘I’m sorry – S’ sets off real alarm bells. He vows to do whatever it takes to find her. Adam is puzzled when he connects Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate – and to a woman, Estelle, who disappeared from the same ship in eerily similar circumstances almost exactly a year before. To get the answers, Adam must confront some difficult truths about his relationship with Sarah. He must do things of which he never thought himself capable. And he must try to outwit a predator who seems to have found the perfect hunting ground…Amazon

My friend lent me a copy of Standing in the Shadows by Jon Stasiak which she won in the Jersey Evening Post, the way we Islanders keep abreast of all the local news!

Blurb

The discovery of a brutally murdered young woman has shocked a peaceful island community.
Tom Nowak, photographer for the Jersey Evening Post, had been eagerly awaiting his best friend’s visit from the mainland, until accidentally capturing a series of ghostly silhouettes in his pictures.
With few leads, and the impending trial of the island’s most notorious criminal, the local police force seems powerless to help.
Are these ethereal shadows a way to identify and apprehend the murderer, or will Tom’s obsession in seeking justice cost him more than his career. Amazon

From NetGalley I have a copy of The Good Mother by A.L. Bird which I was resisting because I thought it was by a new to me author, and then I found out this is Amy Bird who wrote Hide and Seek, which I really enjoyed!

Blurb

The greatest bond. The darkest betrayal.
Susan wakes up alone in a room she doesn’t recognise, with no memory of how she got there. She only knows that she is trapped, and her daughter is missing.
The relief that engulfs her when she hears her daughter’s voice through the wall is quickly replaced by fear, knowing that whoever has imprisoned her has her daughter, too.
Devising a plan to keep her daughter safe, Susan begins to get closer to her unknown captor. And suddenly, she realises that she has met him before. NetGalley

The Good Mother will be published by Carina UK on 4 April 2016.

I completely through away the rule book and requested a copy of A Tapping at my Door by David Jackson which is due to be published on 7 April 2016 by Bonnier Publishing.

Blurb

A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She’s disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven, and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes. DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case. But the police have no leads, except the body of the bird – and the victim’s missing eyes. As flashbacks from his past begin to intrude, Cody realises he is battling not just a murderer, but his own inner demons too. And then the killer strikes again, and Cody realises the threat isn’t to the people of Liverpool after all – it’s to the police. Following the success and acclaim of the Callum Doyle novels, A Tapping at My Door is the first instalment of David Jackson’s new Nathan Cody series. NetGalley

And finally I simply had to have a copy of A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters when it came up on a list of books being offered by Lovereading – this sounded like a unique read and I had it on my wishlist before I was approved by HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate. A Life Discarded will be published on 5 May 2016.

Blurb

Unique, transgressive and as funny as its subject, A Life Discarded has all the suspense of a murder mystery. Written with his characteristic warmth, respect and humour, Masters asks you to join him in celebrating an unknown and important life left on the scrap heap.
A Life Discarded is a biographical detective story. In 2001, 148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a skip on a building site in Cambridge. Tens of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, anonymous diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few weeks before the books were thrown out. Over five years, the award-winning biographer Alexander Masters uncovers the identity and real history of their author, with an astounding final revelation. Amazon

How good do these finds sound? I think I have fair bit of variety here; true-crime, a murder set in a local setting, a couple of psychological thrillers, the start of a new crime series and a book about the provenance of a diary!

TBR WATCH
Since my last count I have read 6 books, and gained, 6 so the total has remained the same 172 books!
87 physical books
68 e-books
17 books on NetGalley

 

What have you found to read this week?