Book reviews – March 2018

By Tim Lawrence

I haven’t read the first two Orphan X novels, but I did read and review another Hurwitz novel last year, Tell No Lies, where I said: “ The story is set in San Francisco, the hero is a rich kid with a tough, wealthy mother; he gives up everything to marry his sweetheart and becomes a psychologist who works with ex-prisoners to rehabilitate them. Mother does not approve. It’s a murder mystery with twists and turns and flashbacks to his growing up with the overbearing but smart mother”.

After reading Hellbent (#3 in the Orphan X series), I will be definitely be reading the other two novels.

Orphan X is the hero – unpredictable, focused but believable. Though it gets off to a slow start, Hellbent’s plot is good and gathers momentum well, throwing in unpredictable twists and turns that keep you guessing about where is this going. I like the characters and their lines. Not reading the first two in the series did not disadvantage me reading this one.

Hellbent gets a 5 out of 5.

Chakraborti is a Wellington-based Indian writer of five novels and a book of short stories. I like the way Indian culture has become more mainstream in movies and music, so this novel was right up my alley, as he brings Indian culture to New Zealand. A good story, with many unpredictable twists and turns and insights into various viewpoints of the same series of events, as, interestingly, each chapter is written from a different character’s point of view. This adds to the multiple layers of the plot. I’d like to know his trick of so smoothly switching his writing from a man’s perspective to a woman’s point of view, chapter by chapter.

I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

 

Winton is quite an accomplished writer with this being his 28th book. When I started reading The Shepherd’s Hut, I wondered “what the hell is going on here?” The story is told completely by a teenage boy in rural western Australia who’s whole world has just been turned upside down. So he does what any teenager would do, he runs away to the outback of Australia where he has to fight to survive. The situations he gets into include some really good deep and meaningful conversations I found very philosophical. Reading this book is real escapism and I recommend you immerse yourself in it and read on from “what the hell is going on here”!

I give it 5 out of 5.