Now Reading – Jane Eyre

As part of my pledge to read one book from my 50 Books to Read Before You Die list every month I am reading “Jane Eyre”. Never read this before and really looking forward to it.

A Stolen Life – Jaycee Dugard

“A Stolen Life” is the story of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped by Nancy and Phillip Garrido at 11 years old, held captive for 18 years and who had 2 children by Garrido whilst in captivity. At times the book is difficult to read, although Dugard obviously doesn’t go into graphic detail about the things Garrido did to her it is not pleasant to read about the rape of an 11 year old girl.

What was extremely evident from reading this was how many times Dugard was let down by the system. Garrido was a known sex offender on parole yet, despite visiting his house, his parole officer didn’t know about the buildings he had in his garden. On one occasion his parole officer saw one of Dugard’s children in Garrido’s house and, again, despite knowing Garrido’s history it didn’t strike him as strange that there was a child on the premises. Garrido’s mental state towards the end of Dugard’s captivity was rapidly declining and mental health professionals seemed to be ignoring the signs.

The mental abuse Garrido subjected Dugard to was to such an extent that when she was eventually allowed to leave the property on shopping trips with Nancy she never once tried to escape and even on being asked by staff at Garrido’s parole office she was reluctant to say who she really was. He had ground her down over her years of captivity and convinced her she was only safe with him and the outside world was a place to be feared.

I find the behaviour of Nancy to be completely beyond the pale. What must have been going on in her head to not only allow her husband to kidnap a child but to assist him with this and to be complicit in the rape and abuse of that girl for 18 years?

To Dugard’s credit her account is very well written, despite having received very little schooling in her life due to her imprisonment. She comes across as a very intelligent and strong willed woman who, despite all she has gone through, is doing her best to raise her children well and keep them out of the limelight, to the extent that she isn’t always able to do things she would like with them for fear of the media connecting them to her and printing pictures. Media intrusion in cases like this makes me sick, do they not have a heart? Can they not understand that Dugard wants to live the rest of her life in peace and be free to have a normal family life with her children? She is not an actress or a singer who has chosen an occupation that puts her in the public eye, she is a young woman who has been through a horrific ordeal and just wants to put it behind her and move on.

I found this account very interesting and also inspiring, if this young woman can overcome this level of adversity then the little trials and tribulations of my life should be easy to overcome.

Now Reading

Sticking with the true crime theme I am now reading “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard.

Evil Relations – David Smith with Carol Ann Lee

I’ve always been interested in the Moors Murders case, probably because it was local and the story is so well known. Having read Carol Ann Lee’s book “One of Your Own”, which focused mainly on Hindley, when I saw this I knew I had to read it. One thing I’ve always been curious about when it comes to famous criminals, especially serial killers, is what happens to the families of the killers? They are innocent of any crime but just their surname can link them to horrific acts.

David Smith was a normal kid who fell in love with a girl named Maureen. He’d had a fairly troubled childhood but settled down with Maureen. They marry and have a daughter together. They spend some time socialising with Maureen’s sister and her boyfriend but it’s not until their 6 month old daughter, Angela, dies that things spiral out of control. You see, David’s sister-in-law is Myra Hindley and her boyfriend, obviously, Ian Brady. I don’t see how people can lay blame at the door of David and Maureen for actions carried out by Hindley and Brady.

I thought I knew a fair bit about the Moors Murders, I knew Smith was present at the murder of Edward Evans and I knew he was the one who went to the Police and finally put an end to their evil. What I didn’t know was how many people blamed Smith and thought of him as the “Third Moors Murderer”. When Pauline Reade was murdered Smith was 14. Now I know children are capable of horrific things but I find it hard to believe a man like Brady would take on a 14 year old accomplice. Also let’s bear in mind that he hardly knew Smith at that point.

On reading Smith’s account it becomes clear that Brady was grooming him. In these modern times a 26 year old man spending so much time getting drunk with an impressionable 16 year old boy would definitely arouse suspicion but back in 1965 this wasn’t the case. Smith was young and extremely vulnerable following the death of his baby daughter and Brady would drink with him and fill his head with his crazy ideas. He made him read books by the Marquis de Sade and forced his opinions on him every chance he could.

Of the people who think Smith should have stopped the murder of Edward Evans I ask them to do one thing. Put themselves in Smith’s shoes. He’s a 16 year old boy who has arrived at his sister-in-law’s house to find the 26 year old man, who he thinks of as a friend, repeatedly hitting a young man with an axe until he is just about breathing. He then strangles him to make sure he is dead. Smith is alone with Hindley and Brady, how is he supposed to stop them single handedly? The best thing he can do for Evans is keep calm and find a way to get out of that house alive so he can get to the Police.

I was shocked at the level of abuse the Smiths received, continuing long after the trial was over. Maureen couldn’t even take her baby son to the shop without having abuse hurled at her and being spat on, scratched and punched. She was a young woman with a baby in a pram and people thought this was acceptable. Maureen never hurt anyone, she was just unfortunate enough to be related to someone who did.

Even after Hindley admitted they lied in Court to try and implicate David people still believed he was involved. It saddened me to read of his struggles and all because he did the right thing. If he’d kept quiet more children would undoubtedly have been killed. People like Hindley and Brady only stop if they are killed or imprisoned.

“Evil Relations” gives an incredible insight into what it is like to be related to a serial killer. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who, like me, is curious about this. At times the subject matter is hard to read but it’s very well written and really gives you a feel for the man who stopped the Moors Murderers.

After writing this review I found out that, sadly, David Smith died this week from cancer. My thoughts are with his family and I hope he can find the peace in death that he rarely had in life.

I would also like to use this opportunity to remind people that although Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans have been laid to rest, Keith Bennett is still missing. I hope one day he will also be found and laid to rest.

Top Five Male Authors

To follow on from my post about my Top Five Female Authors I have been working on my Top Five Male Authors. On creating this list I looked carefully at my book shelves and realised I don’t read many male authors, certainly not in fiction anyway. This has obviously made the list a little more difficult to write but I got there in the end. I have also decided to make this a more traditional Top Five in that they are in order of favouritism rather than just being a random list. In other words the person at number 1 is my absolute favourite male author. I think I prefer ranking them in this way so will probably continue to do that with future Top Five posts.

5) Thomas Harris
I love the Hannibal Lecter series of books by Harris. All the characters are incredibly well written, especially Lecter himself. I truly feel scared of Lecter when reading them, he’s an all too real monster and so well written it may as well be a work of non-fiction as opposed to fiction. Harris also does an exceptional job at writing the investigative aspects of the books and I find these parts very believable too.

4) Dean Koontz
I have been a fan of Dean Koontz since my Dad first recommended “Lightning” when I was a kid. Some of his more recent works haven’t been brilliant but I think all writers go through a dry patch. His characterisation is good, although at times, especially more recently, can lean towards extremes with his “good” characters being pretty much perfect and his “bad” characters being absolutely evil with very little shades of grey in between. That being said, I still like the stories he weaves and am always happy to read his books.

3) James Patterson
I’ve mentioned my love of Patterson’s characters several times now, whether it’s Alex Cross or the ladies of the Women’s Murder Club series, he has some of the best characters around. His villains are almost always quite complex, it’s rarely a simple case his characters have to solve, and his crime fighters are all fully fleshed out with personal back stories. I’d be hard pushed to pick a favourite out of his characters as I love them all but if I could have one man and one woman I would say Alex Cross and Lindsay Boxer.

2) Stephen King
Another author my Dad introduced me to. I’ve read so many of King’s books over the years and loved most of them. Again, he had a bit of a dry spell where some of his books weren’t as good as his earlier ones but recent outings with “Under the Dome”, “Full Dark, No Stars” and “11.22.63” were certainly back to his best. Although some of his books are extremely long they never feel too long to me. Every page, indeed every sentence, is important to the telling of the story and his characterisation is second to none. I don’t think I’ve ever read a King book and felt that a character did something or said something that seemed out of character for them. Sometimes I feel authors can decide to make their characters do things just because it is needed to further the narrative but feels really out of character as far as their behaviour previously goes, King doesn’t do this. He seems hyper-aware of how his characters would behave in any given situation and doesn’t force them to do things that don’t come naturally. If a character is going to behave differently at the end of the book compared to the beginning it is because the events that have taken place over the course of the book have caused a natural change in the character.

1) Roald Dahl
I think there was only ever one man who was going to top this list. Dahl was one of the first authors I ever read, probably the first male author I read as the other author I read a lot in childhood was Enid Blyton. I fell in love with his stories straight away and would gobble my way through them on a regular basis. I love his mix of humour and horror and I think it’s this mix that allows his books to stand not only the test of time, with new generations of children coming to love his books every year, but to appeal to adults as well as children. Even now I will occasionally dig out my Dahls and escape into the world of “Matilda” or “The BFG” or “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. I love them all, they remind me of my childhood and I can’t wait to have kids of my own to share them with. I genuinely think it was having an author like Dahl to read when I was younger that encouraged me to keep reading and led to me becoming the person I am today. If he hadn’t captured my imagination the way he had I might have become one of those kids who doesn’t really like reading and I don’t know where I would be now without my love of books.

50 Books to Read Before You Die – Update

I’ve been slightly neglecting my 50 books list lately so have decided I am going to start making a real effort and read at least 1 book from the list per month. The Harry Potter ones I’ll probably read in a row as I’ve been wanting to do a re-read and the others I’ll try and do at least 1 per month. Wish me luck!

Now Reading

Just started “Evil Relations” by David Smith with Carol Ann Lee. Smith was Myra Hindley’s brother-in-law and the chief witness for the Prosecution in the Moors Murders trial. Always been interested in what happens to families of criminals like Hindley and Brady. Hoping this will give me some insight.

Virals – Kathy Reichs

So after finishing all Reichs’ Temperance Brennan books I moved on to her first young adult book, “Virals”. This book introduces us to Brennan’s grandniece, Tory Brennan, who has only recently been sent to live with her Father, Kit, Brennan’s nephew, and discovered the paternal side of her family. They live on Morris Island, just off the Carolina coast, with Kit working for a research lab on nearby Loggerhead Island. Tory and her group of friends are used to exploring Loggerhead without incident but when one such trip leads to the discovery of some dog tags caked in dirt they soon find themselves in the middle of a dangerous mystery.

To clean the dog tags they break in to a disused lab at the research institute their parents work for. Whilst there they find a wolfdog puppy that had been missing from the area, locked in a cage and sick from parvovirus. Paperwork indicates whatever experiment is being done on the dog is failing and Coop, as Tory christened him, is scheduled to be destroyed. The gang steal him and hide him away in their bunker to nurse back to health but soon begin to experience strange symptoms themselves.

Once cleaned, they discover the dog tags belonged to a Francis Heaton, a local soldier who died in Vietnam. His dog tags were last known to have been with his daughter, Katherine, who went missing not long after her Father’s death and has never been found. On examining aerial shots of the area they found the dog tags, Tory thinks she can see signs of a possible grave. Her and her friends go back late at night and she is proved right when they dig up the skeletal remains of a young girl. Unfortunately, whilst examining the bones they are shot at by a group of people. They flee and the next day tell their parents. Although initially skeptical their parents eventually persuade the Police to check it out, however when they get back to the island the Director, Karsten, is there and is not happy with the kids meddling. There’s more bad news when they get to the grave and find only monkey bones.

Karsten later interrogates them all about what has been going on, also asking if they’ve been ill. He slips up with Tory and tells her he knows it was her who stole Coop. She puts two and two together and figures the cause of their symptoms must be whatever virus Coop is carrying.

As their illness changes and they start exhibiting strange powers they wonder how this is all connected. Will they be able to solve the mystery? Is there a cure for what’s happened to them?

Although “Virals” is clearly aimed at teenagers rather than adults I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s just as well written as Reichs’ other books. Obviously some of the language is simplified and she makes greater use of pop culture references but that’s to be expected from a book of this nature.

I enjoyed the mystery, the kids worked the case as well as in any crime fiction. I was slightly sceptical about the reasoning behind Tory’s surname being Brennan when her Father’s isn’t. Seemed a little like a desperate attempt to make sure readers knew she was related to Reichs’ more famous character. That being said I would quite like to see an appearance by Brennan in this series. I’d be interested to see Tory interact with her famous relative who she clearly idolises.

All in all a good first book in this series, definitely want to read the next one.

Now Reading

Just started “Virals”, the first in Kathy Reichs’ new series of young adult books about Tory Brennan, Temperance Brennan’s great niece. Hopefully it’ll be as good as the Temperance Brennan books.

Spider Bones – Kathy Reichs

“Spider Bones” is an intriguing tale of stolen identities, army identification procedures and drug dealers. Sound interesting? It really is. Brennan is called to examine a body found in a lake in Quebec. The victim has been wrapped in plastic with a rock tied to their ankle. Finger prints reveal the victim to be John Lowery, which is very strange as he supposedly died in Vietnam during the war and is buried in North Carolina. On further investigation he is revealed to have been living in Canada as Jean Laurier and has died as a result of an autoerotic adventure that went wrong.

This then begs the question, who is buried in John Lowery’s grave? To get answers Brennan exhumes the body and accompanies it to Hawaii where the military has a base who’s sole function is to identify dead soldiers who are recovered from all manner of battle zones.

Whilst in Hawaii, Brennan is also asked to look at some remains from a shark attack for the local ME. Whilst looking into this she is purposely run off the road and crashes her car into the ocean. The remains turn out to be those of 2 drug dealers who may have strayed into another dealer’s patch.

Meanwhile the bones in John Lowery’s grave are almost certainly not his but his dog tags turn up on some other unidentified remains from Vietnam. Can Brennan figure out who these remains belong to as well and grant all 3 families closure? Why is John Lowery’s Father so reluctant to provide a DNA sample to help identify his son’s body? The second set of remains appear to belong to a Xander Lapasa, brother of a local businessman with suspected mob ties, however when a man calling himself Al Lapasa is located in California the plot thickens. Could Brennan be wrong about the remains or is Al Lapasa an imposter?

“Spider Bones” really kept my attention to the very last page. There were lots of twists in the story and I also liked the more personal story running through it with Brennan’s daughter, Katy, mourning the death of a close friend who had been killed in Afghanistan where he was working as part of an Aid convoy. Brennan wants to help Katy but also has to go to Hawaii for the case so the best plan seems to be to take Katy with her. Katy is desperately struggling to understand why her friend is dead and I imagine the same struggle is going on throughout homes in America and the UK for the very same reasons.

I liked that Brennan invited Ryan and his daughter, Lily, to stay with them too. Although it was obvious Katy and Lily would not hit it off immediately. The romantic tension between Ryan and Brennan was very well written although I do wish they would hurry up and get back together now.

Overall an excellent case with lots of twists. Sad my Temperance Brennan journey is over for now!