The Missing by Chris Mooney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have never been a huge fan of the serial killer sub-genre; I love Thomas Harris's 'Silence of the Lambs' and consider the predecessor, 'Red Dragon', a masterpiece. And the movies made from these novels are classics (I am including Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' here, not the Anthony Hopkins 'Red Dragon') as is Fincher's 'Seven'. However, aside from these, and very few others, and perhaps because of the success of 'Seven', it seems that every serial killer novel has to have a fiendish villain who meticulously lays out his victims in biblical tableaux, or in the styles of the great artists, or in tribute to classic 'Friends' episodes - actually that's not a bad idea, "The One with the Missing Limbs".

Chris Mooney is an author I had never come across and, though drawn by endorsements from Michael Connelly, George P. Pelecanos and, especially, John Connolly, I approached the first Darby McCormick novel with some trepidation. I am glad I did.

The book is well-written and Mooney has a talent for description and an ear for dialogue. The plot follows Darby, whose teenage encounter with a killer and survivor's guilt, has led her to a career as a CSI. The book speeds along with some genuinely tense and frightening sequences. Darby is an interesting protagonist and the bulk of the story is hers with visits into the head of the killer used sparingly and in short scenes to keep the suspense level just right. There a couple of twists which, in less capable hands, could have fallen into the clichés of the genre but which Mooney makes work. I enjoyed 'The Missing' a lot and look forward to the rest of the series, although I will still be wary that, should Darby McCormick stumble from one serial killer to another, Mooney may struggle to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

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Blood Tide by Claire McGowan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aside from one short story, this is the first time I have read Claire McGowan (courtesy of Headline and NetGalley) and, despite it being the fifth book in the Paula Maguire series, I had no difficulty in picking up the story. Maguire, a Forensic Psychologist and missing persons expert, is sent to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland to aid in the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of an English husband and wife. Bone Island resonates with Paula as this was the last place she holidayed with her parents before her mother's equally mysterious disappearance over 20 years before. Wife of a Roman Catholic RUC officer in Northern Ireland, Margaret Maguire was assumed to be among 'the disappeared', victims of IRA killings, presumed 'touts', buried in secret, but Paula has recently discovered a note left by her mother which suggests that she may have left voluntarily.

The two threads run in parallel as Paula discovers that the couple's disappearance is only the latest in a series of strange occurrences on the island while we also discover in flashback that an ex-colleague of her father's may have more knowledge of Margaret's fate than he has ever revealed. Some of the missing couple's life on the island, including some suspicions about the local seaweed processing plant, are revealed through the words of the wife, Fiona, the local GP of whom many of the islanders appear wary.

Claire McGowan is excellent at creating suspense and generating a feeling of unease. What appears initially to be a police procedural takes a left turn into almost gothic horror but never becomes unbelievable. She is also good at dialogue, realistically capturing the differences between the Northern and Southern Irish voices. My only criticism is that one or twice things are revealed to the main character and artificially withheld slightly longer from the reader to try and increase the tension - the story does not need this. Paula's messy personal life and her mother's arc are obviously series storylines and I look forward to both going back to the start of the series and finding out what happens next....

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Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite having listened to Elvis Costello’s music since 1977, following his career from his early angry, spiky New Wave recordings with The Attractions, through the country songs of ‘Almost Blue’ and later collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Paul McCartney, knowing he is married to Diana Krall, when I think of Costello it is still the skinny, snarling young man spitting cynical lyrics from behind a Fender Jazzmaster that I picture. Only when you list the artists that Costello has written, recorded and performed with - Attractions, Imposters, Nick Lowe, Specials, Daryl Hall, Diana Krall, Ray Brown, Chet Baker, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Ann Sofie Mutter, Brodsky Quartet, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Burt Bacharach ,Bill Frizzell, Allen Toussaint, George Jones, James Burton, Jerry Scheff, T-Bone Burnett, Paul McCartney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Wyatt, London Symphony Orchestra, The Roots - do you appreciate the breadth of his music and the impact he has had on the musical landscape of the last 40 years.

In ‘Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink’, written without ghostwriters and narrated in the audiobook version by the author himself, Elvis Costello tells of this perhaps unlikely journey and his experiences along the way. It is not a traditional chronological autobiography - “I was born in Paddington in 1954….” - rather a series of themed chapters dealing with particular aspects of his love of music. Costello is candid about his personal life but these stories are told in context and always framed by the music. The music is the most important character in this book. We learn about his grandfather, a White Star Line trumpet player, and his father, the big-band singer, Ross McManus, through Costello’s reflections on the life of a musician on the road. His chapters on, for instance, Allen Toussaint and Burt Bacharach concentrate on these collaborations across several years.

Costello, as anyone who has listened to his lyrics will know, is a natural storyteller and his stories here are frank and honest, as when he talks of his drinking and his marriage failures, but also comical like the unlikely sounding story of how he and Solomon Burke stood in a corridor outside Aretha Franklin’s dressing room hoping to speak with her only to have the Queen of Soul fling the door open and snap their picture with a disposable camera, or he and Bob Dylan accidentally locking themselves out of a concert hall and having to make their way back through queuing fans.

This is a big book but it rattles along. It is almost liking sitting with Costello as he relates a series of “Did I ever tell you about the time…” stories, illustrating points by quoting song lyrics, both illuminating their meaning and sending you back to the recordings. I began this book as an Elvis Costello fan, albeit intermittently over the last 10 or 15 years. I finished it with an increased admiration for, and appreciation of, one of the most singular talents of the last 40.
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Link to Costello speaking about the book on November 3, 2015 as part of the 26th annual Chicago Humanities Festival - https://youtu.be/_wVjxAN8j-8

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