Faber & Faber

This month we hear from readers with their thoughts on Liam McIlvanney's All the Colours of the Town, his debut novel, and Nicola Upson's period-crime thriller, Angel with Two Faces.

All the Colours of the Town by Liam McIlvanney

When Glasgow journalist Gerry Conway receives a phone call promising unsavoury information about Scottish Justice Minister Peter Lyons, his instinct is that this apparent scoop won't warrant space in The Tribune. But as Conway's curiosity grows and his leads proliferate, his investigation takes him from Scotland to Belfast. Shocked by the sectarian violence of the past, and by the prejudice and hatred he encounters even now, Conway soon grows obsessed with the story of Lyons and all he represents. And as he digs deeper, he comes to understand that there is indeed a story to be uncovered; and that there are people who will go to great lengths to ensure that it remains hidden.

David Barnett's Review:

A tour de force of a novel. This thriller takes you into a world of violence, political corruption and deception. No one can be trusted.

As the story twists and turns, Gerry Conway, a Glasgow journalist, finds himself travelling to Ireland to revisit a troubled past that has more surprises than one. He uncovers political and religious rifts that have driven communities apart ... old wounds that have yet to heal.

It is not until Gerry himself is violently assaulted that he realises that he has stumbled upon a story much larger than anything he has previously dealt with. He has uncovered a minefield, which threatens to blow his own future if he puts a step in the wrong place.

Gerry's uneasy relationship with his now divorced wife is almost like a metaphor for the turbulent and bumpy ride we are about to witness in this challenging debut.

Angel with Two Faces by Nicola Upson

Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his family home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in An Expert in Murder. Josephine welcomes the opportunity, especially since Archie's home is near the famous Minack open-air theatre perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. However, Josephine's hopes of experiencing a period of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse inexplicitly leapt into the nearby lake.

When another young man disappears and the village's curate falls from the cliffs of the Minack Theatre onto the rocks below, Josphine and Archie begin to suspect the involvement a cold-blooded murderer.

As Josephine and Archie try to unravel the mystery, they begin to see death as an angel with two faces - one gazing at the violence in the present, the other looking back to the crimes hidden in the past.

Cheryl Pasquier's Review:

Cornwall, with its long-standing reputation as a land of wild coastal landscapes at the mercy of the elements, mysterious legends and white witches and 'piskeys' creating mayhem on moonlit nights, is the perfect setting for this tale of dark secrets and murder. Inspector Archie Penrose returns home to his family estate hoping for a peaceful, uneventful break but before long there are more suspicious deaths than you can shake a stick at - and as he struggles to unravel the mystery, just about everyone grabs the wrong end of the aforementioned stick as deep dark family secrets and deceptions come to light.

Fiction is at the very heart of the story. The magnificent but dangerously exposed Minack open-air theatre provides a stunning backdrop to one of the crimes. Josephine Tey (which is the name of a real-life Golden Age crime writer), Archie's novelist friend who has been invited along to the supposed peace and quiet of the estate so that she can make a start on her new book, is dragged into the enquiry and soon finds out that in this community, where everybody knows everybody else's business, they only know the more or less-fictionalised version that each individual has decided to present to the world. As one earth-shattering confidence and revelation leads to another, it becomes apparent that nothing is quite as it seems and each person has their own interpretation of the facts.

Are these deaths murders? Accidents? Suicides? When the truth is finally established, everybody needs to come to terms with past actions and their consequences, with often poignant results.

Part criminal investigation, part exploration of a close-knit Cornish community, the novel is often poignant and tragic. It will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing right until the final page.

For the first half of the book, I had great difficulty situating the story in a specific period. While references to workhouses, old pennies and people losing friends, loved ones and youthful innocence in the Great War set it firmly in the past, the female characters seemed feisty and independent enough to be at ease in a totally modern setting. The author eventually lets slip that it is 1935.

I was surprised to see that this is the second instalment in a series of books featuring Josephine Tey, but I enjoyed it no less for not having read the first part. I will definitely go back now to fill in some background and eagerly await the sequels.