The Candidate – Daniel Pembery

Crime Fiction
4*’s

There is a change of country from The Harbour Master which I read earlier this year with The Candidate being set in Luxembourg. There is also a change of style, although thankfully not substance, as this book is not a police procedural, it is a fast paced thriller set in the world of corporate business.

The book opens with Nick Thorneycroft finding a pair of ladies underwear on his floor, the only problem is he has no memory of what happened the night before and no idea who they belong to. At the office things are heating up, Nick is a head-hunter and the woman the company want to acquire is Kate Novakavich a Russian executive, as beautiful as she is smart. Nick feels he knows her from somewhere but is unable to place where. So the mystery is set and coupled with some very suspicious colleagues and odd landlords the tension soon mounts to fever pitch.

Anyone who has worked in an office will find the setting familiar as the internal politics don’t vary much no matter which country it happens to be set in. With whispers about a take-over being exchanged at smoker’s corner and in bars after work everyone is on edge. Nick however is trying to find out more about Kate, he has suspicions about what she is up to and has become more than a little obsessed. He’s also struggling with an on/off relationship with his girlfriend Claire.

As you can see this book might be short at roughly 140 pages but it packs an awful lot in, all of it exciting and Daniel Pembrey manages to keep the various strands separate enough that it doesn’t fall into confusion. The ending is perfect for a novella with the reader able to fill in the ‘what happens next’ for themselves.

All of this makes for a very accomplished novella that is full of action without being too macho.

I’d like to thank the author Daniel Pembrey for sending me a copy of this book in return for my honest review.

This Week In Books (May 6)

Hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found my Wednesday post gives you a taste of what I am reading this week. A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words

I am currently reading The Lost Garden by Katharine Swartz

Blurb

Marin Ellis is in search of a new start after her father and his second wife die in a car accident, and at thirty-seven she is made guardian of her fifteen-year-old half-sister Rebecca. They leave Hampshire for the picturesque village of Goswell on the Cumbrian coast, and settle into Bower House on the edge of the village church property. When a door to a walled garden captures Rebecca’s interest, Marin becomes determined to open it and discover what is hidden beneath the bramble inside. She enlists the help of local gardener Joss Fowler, and together the three of them begin to uncover the garden’s secrets. In 1919, nineteen-year-old Eleanor Sanderson, daughter of Goswell’s vicar, is grieving the loss of her beloved brother Walter, who was killed just days before the Armistice was signed. Eleanor retreats into herself and her father starts to notice how unhappy she is. As spring arrives, he decides to hire someone to make a garden for Eleanor, and draw her out of – or at least distract her from – her grief and sorrow. Jack Taylor is in his early twenties, a Yorkshire man who has been doing odd jobs in the village, and when Eleanor’s father hires him to work on the vicarage gardens, a surprising – and unsuitable – friendship unfolds. NetGalley

I have just finished the book I read as a tribute to the death of the wonderful Ruth Rendell; The Face of Trespass which was first published in 1974.

Blurb

Two years ago he had been a promising young novelist. Now he survived – you could hardly call it living – in a near derelict cottage with only an unhooked telephone and his own obsessive thoughts for company. Two years of loving Drusilla – the bored, rich, unstable girl with everything she needed, and a husband she wanted dead. The affair was over. But the long slide into deception and violence had just begun. Goodreads

Next I plan to read The Candidate by Daniel Pembry, a thriller set in Luxembourg.

Blurb

WHEN HEADHUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED: Nick Thorneycroft is a British headhunter working in Luxembourg. His company asks him to recruit a high-flying executive for the company’s Russian business. The best candidate turns out to be smart, beautiful… and mysterious. Soon the effects of Russia’s political upheaval, and the arrival of an ex-girlfriend who won’t leave him alone, make Nick’s Luxembourg life increasingly perilous; worlds collide in this gripping, atmospheric tale. Goodreads

What have you found to read this week? Please share in the comments box below.

See what I’ve been reading in 2015 here

Stacking The Shelves (April 11)

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!

From good old NetGalley I have Redemption Road by Lisa Ballantyne whose first novel The Guilty One was definitely a five star read for me.

Blurb

The crash is the unravelling of Margaret Holloway. Trapped inside a car about to explode, she is rescued by a scarred stranger who then disappears. Margaret remembers little, but she’s spent her life remembering little – her childhood is full of holes and forgotten memories. Now she has a burning desire to discover who she is and why her life has been shrouded in secrets. What really happened to her when she was a child? Could it have anything to do with the mysterious man who saved her life?
Flitting effortlessly between past and present, this is a suspenseful, gritty and emotionally charged journey of an estranged father and daughter, exploring the strength of family ties and our huge capacity for forgiveness. NetGalley

Redemption Road is due for publication on 1 July 2015

From Bookbridgr I have a copy of The Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice

Blurb

Set in the 1950s, in an England still recovering from the Second World War, this is the enchanting story of Penelope Wallace and her eccentric family at the start of the rock’n’roll era.
Penelope longs to be grown-up and to fall in love, but various rather inconvenient things keep getting in her way. Like her mother, a stunning but petulant beauty widowed at a tragically early age, her younger brother Inigo, currently incapable of concentrating on anything that isn’t Elvis Presley, a vast but crumbling ancestral home, a severe shortage of cash, and her best friend Charlotte’s sardonic cousin Harry… Bookbridgr

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is also due for publication on 1 July 2015

From Amazon Vine I have a copy of What She Left by T.R. Richmond

Blurb

Who is Alice Salmon? Student. Journalist. Daughter. Lover of late nights, hater of deadlines.
That girl who drowned last year.
Gone doesn’t mean forgotten.
Everyone’s life leaves a trace behind.
But it’s never the whole story.
“I will stand up and ask myself who I am. I do that a lot. I’ll look in the mirror. Reassure myself, scare myself, like myself, hate myself. My name is Alice Salmon.”
When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples from her tragic drowning could be felt in the news, on the internet, and in the hearts of those closest to her. However, the man who knows her best isn’t family or a friend. His name is Professor Jeremy Cooke, an academic fixated on piecing together Alice’s existence. Cooke knows that faithfully recreating Alice, through her diaries, text messages, and online presence, has become all-consuming. But he does not know how deep his search will take him into this shocking story of love, loss and obsession where everyone – including himself – has something to hide . . . Amazon

And finally I have courtesy of Daniel Pembrey whose book Harbour Master I recently reviewed has sent me a copy of The Candidate.

Blurb

WHEN HEADHUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED: Nick Thorneycroft is a British headhunter working in Luxembourg. His company asks him to recruit a high-flying executive for the company’s Russian business. The best candidate turns out to be smart, beautiful… and mysterious. Soon the effects of Russia’s political upheaval, and the arrival of an ex-girlfriend who won’t leave him alone, make Nick’s Luxembourg life increasingly perilous; worlds collide in this gripping, atmospheric tale. Goodreads

Any of these take your fancy? What have you found to read this week? Please do share in the comments below