Author: Belinda Bauer

BELINDA BAUER is the award-winning author of seven previous novels that have been translated into twenty-one languages. She won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year forBlacklands, the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award forRubbernecker, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. Her previous novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Wales.

#BookReview Exit by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauerBooks @PGCBooks @groveatlantic #Exit #BelindaBauer

#BookReview Exit by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauerBooks @PGCBooks @groveatlantic #Exit #BelindaBauer Title: Exit

Author: Belinda Bauer

Published by: Atlantic Monthly Press on Feb. 2, 2021

Genres: Dark Comedy, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

Belinda Bauer is “Britain’s most original crime writer” (Crime Scene), one of the few authors in the genre to be longlisted for the Man Booker prize. Now she returns with a heart-pounding, heartbreaking, and often hilarious new crime novel in which it’s never too late for life to go fatally wrong.

Felix Pink is retired. Widowed for more than a decade, a painfully literal thinker, he has led a life of routine and is, not unhappily, waiting to die a hopefully boring death. He occupies himself volunteering as an Exiteer–someone who sits with terminally ill people as they die by suicide, assisting with logistics and lending moral support, then removing the evidence so that family and friends are not implicated in the death. When Felix lets himself in to Number 3 Black Lane, he’s there to perform an act of kindness and charity: to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath.

But just fifteen minutes later Felix is on the run from the police–after making the biggest mistake of his life. Now his routine world is turned upside down as he tries to discover whether what went wrong was a simple mistake–or deliberate. Murder.

Belinda Bauer continues to redefine the boundaries of crime fiction, with a novel that is part murder mystery, part coming-of-old-age story–however short that future may be. With the compassion and dark humor of Jonas Jonasson and the twisted thriller plotting of Rear Window, Exit is a novel readers will not soon forget.


Review:

Clever, darkly comedic, and touching!

Exit is a twisty, mischievous tale that takes you on a journey into the lives of an elderly widow who likes to help people pass peacefully, a neighbour with good intentions, an unscrupulous loan shark, an accidental victim, a slovenly cleaner, and a police office determined to keep his family full of misfits a secret.

The prose is tight and witty. The characterization is spot on with a whole slew of characters who are eccentric, sharp-witted, and endearing. And the plot, including all the subplots, unravel and intertwine into an irresistibly thrilling tale of deception, compassion, manipulation, moral dilemmas, drama, tragedy, skewed perception, oddball shenanigans, slapstick moments, and unlikely friendships.

Overall, Exit is a fresh, edgy, intricate tale by Bauer that was so much better than I ever expected. It thoroughly entertained me, and I absolutely loved it.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Belinda Bauer

BELINDA BAUER is the award-winning author of seven previous novels that have been translated into twenty-one languages. She won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year forBlacklands, the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award forRubbernecker, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. Her previous novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Wales.

#BookReview Snap by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauer @PGCBooks @groveatlantic

#BookReview Snap by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauer @PGCBooks @groveatlantic Title: Snap

Author: Belinda Bauer

Published by: Atlantic Monthly Press on Jul. 13, 2018

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 352

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

SNAP DECISIONS CAN BE FATAL . . .

On a stifling summer’s day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack’s in charge, she said. I won’t be long.

But she doesn’t come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever.

Three years later, mum-to-be Catherine wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note that says: I could have killed you.

Meanwhile Jack is still in charge – of his sisters, of supporting them all, of making sure nobody knows they’re alone in the house, and – quite suddenly – of finding out the truth about what happened to his mother.

But the truth can be a dangerous thing . . .


Review:

Ominous, twisty, and unnerving!

Snap is a menacing, creepy police procedural that delves into a cold case involving a murdered, pregnant mother of three and immerses you into the lives of the Bright family as they struggle to cope with their emotional fragility, economic instability, endless grief, and irrepressible desire for justice after the senseless loss of their matriarch.

The writing is descriptive, vivid, and chilling. The characters are desperate, tormented, and resourceful. And the plot, including all the subplots, intertwine and unravel quickly into a compelling investigative tale filled with life, loss, family, survival, heartbreak, misdirection, manipulation, violence, and murder.

Overall, Snap is an intelligent, atmospheric, exceptionally gripping novel that highlights once again Bauer’s ability to create unique stories with a mood and tone that is tense, dark, and eerie without excessive violence or gore that still clearly remind us that even the most heinous of evil is often concealed behind masks of normality.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Belinda Bauer

BELINDA BAUER is the award-winning author of seven previous novels that have been translated into twenty-one languages. She won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year forBlacklands, the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award forRubbernecker, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. Her previous novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Wales.

#BookReview The Facts of Life and Death by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauer @PGCBooks

#BookReview The Facts of Life and Death by Belinda Bauer @BelindaBauer @PGCBooks Title: The Facts of Life and Death

Author: Belinda Bauer

Published by: Grove Press on Apr. 11, 2017

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 366

Format: Paperback

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

‘Call your mother.’
‘What do I say?’
‘Say goodbye.’

This is how it begins.

Lone women terrorized and their helpless families forced to watch – in a sick game where only one player knows the rules. And when those rules change, the new game is Murder.

Living with her parents in the dank beach community of Limeburn, ten-year-old Ruby Trick has her own fears. Bullies on the school bus, the forest crowding her house into the sea, and the threat of divorce.

Helping her Daddy to catch the killer might be the key to keeping him close.

As long as the killer doesn’t catch her first…


Review:

Absorbing, gritty and exceptionally dark!

This is a compelling story set in North Devon, England and is told from the perspective of Ruby, an innocent 10-year-old girl who finds herself not only struggling with coming-of-age but with a family in turmoil and a village plagued by a serial killer.

The prose is direct and clear. The characterization is well done with a cast of characters that are troubled, raw and distinctive and a setting that is a character itself with its dreariness, history, rugged terrain and isolation.

This truly is an intelligent, atmospheric novel with a clever, meticulous plot filled with tension, danger, suspense, twists, intrigue and murder that delves into the murkiest corners of the human psyche and highlights how much rage and malice can actually exist in those you least expect.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Belinda Bauer

BELINDA BAUER is the award-winning author of seven previous novels that have been translated into twenty-one languages. She won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year forBlacklands, the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award forRubbernecker, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. Her previous novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She lives in Wales.