Book reviews

Published on Saturday 9 May 2009 11:05

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child is published by Bantam Press, priced £18.99

He's British, but few people write an America-based thriller better than Lee Child. His books, featuring renegade loner Jack Reacher, have reached the top of the best-selling lists on a number of occasions, both in Britain and the United States. Gone Tomorrow is a hot favourite to follow suit.

It opens on a late-night New York subway train, where Reacher is passing the time by observing passengers. There are 12 tell-tale signs that reveal a suicide bomber . . . and he can spot them all in the woman sitting further up the carriage.

What happens next drags Reacher into a tangled web of terrorism and intrigue, and he will need to call upon all of his hard-won skills if he's to get out of it alive.

A real cracker that keeps the reader involved from start to finish.

9/10 Review by Sandra Mangan

Mystery Man by Bateman is published by Headline, priced 17.99.

The life of a crime fiction bookshop owner is normally a quiet one, but when the private eye firm next door goes out of business, the hero of Mystery Man starts on an adventure that would rival the plots of his stock. This gritty, comic crime novel follows his madcap adventures that range from seeking a missing pair of leather trousers to being hot on the trail of a serial killer.

The author doesn't reveal his name, and neither does our hero. We are told he is the opposite of a classic detective, investigating from the safety of his shop computer, living in fear that someone will discover he regularly scratches personalised cars and is stalking the woman who becomes his sidekick.

Mystery Man is a witty and slightly bizarre crime novel, featuring the odd grizzly murder. Just like all good mysteries, you're never sure what will happen next.

7/10 Review by Rebecca Taylor

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult is published by Hodder, priced 14.99.

Five-year-old Willow has osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle bone disease she has had from birth, which means her body breaks every time she falls.

Her mother Charlotte, father Sean and sister Amelia love her dearly, but their lives can never be normal. This is particularly difficult for teenager Amelia.

When Willow falls in Disneyland, Sean insists the family sue for mistreatment. He gets more than he bargains for when lawyers tell him and Charlotte they should sue their doctor for wrongful birth instead.

But their doctor is Piper – Charlotte's best friend.

She goes ahead with the lawsuit against Sean's wishes, tearing her family and friendships apart. But will she win the case?

A gripping novel based on morality and complex family ties, which keeps you guessing to the end.

8/10 Review by Caroline Davison

Senna Versus Prost by Malcolm Folley is published by Century, priced 18.99.

Formula One is the ultimate sporting paradox – and the competition gets fiercer when two team-mates have a driving ambition to beat one another at all costs.

Such rivalries are legendary and still exist in the modern day – think Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at McLaren two seasons ago.

Perhaps the fiercest of all team-mate rivalries was that of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren.

The complex Senna, who hounded Prost out of the team only to beg him to return to the sport as he had nobody worth racing against, and the mercurial Prost would rank among a dream team selection for any F1 fan.

Folley is granted access to the private thoughts of Prost, Senna's other F1 rivals Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill, and F1 bigwigs such as Bernie Ecclestone and Sir Frank Williams, allowing him to build an incisive picture of the sport.

With the inside track of having covered the sport for a number of years, Folley writes with authority as he weaves a picture of the lives of two of the sport's greats and how their rivalry played out.

7/10 Review by Roddy Brooks

The Mistresses of Henry VIII by Kelly Hart is published by The History Press, priced 20.

King Henry VIII (1491-1547), who ruled England for 38 years, is best remembered for his six wives, two of whom he had beheaded.

He is also famed for being a trencherman at meal times, which turned him into a king-sized monster with a 54-inch waistline by the time he reached middle age.

This well-researched book examines in fascinating detail his less well-known vice of promiscuity which dominated his life until age, ill-health and obesity effectively neutered him.

Hart tells us much about Henry VIII's mistresses and known illegitimate offspring. His roving eye constantly combed the ranks of his current wife's ladies-in-waiting for potential recruits into adultery. The women were a varied bunch, not always young or beautiful, but happy to accommodate the king for the advantages this would bring.

Henry VIII was a classic example of the dictum that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today, he is accurately described as "England's Stalin" yet, amazingly, he seems to have been loved by the mass of his subjects.

7/10 Review by Anthony Looch