REVIEW
Meg O’Brien " A Bright Flamingo Shroud"
The Women’s Press £5.99 ISBN 0 7043 44637
The Women’s Press have again come up with two great novels! Though widely differing in style, you’re in for a treat with both.
In the first, Meg O’Brien’s "A Bright Flamingo Shroud", Jesse (Jessica) James comes bounding back onto the sleuthing scene for her 4th adventure, when a down-and-out con-man turns up on her doorstep claiming to be her long-lost grandfather. As the old saying goes, "You can’t con a con", and Jessica is nobody’s fool, she doesn’t believe the old man’s story for one moment. But it is freezing out and the park isn’t really the place for anyone to be sleeping these nights. There’s even a possibility that "Gramps’s" tale of someone out to kill him may well be true, even if he isn’t who he says he is! So, against her decidedly better judgement, Jesse agrees to check things out and help get "Gramps" out of town unharmed. An ingenious scheme is cooked up, but of course things go wrong, and Jesse herself is now in serious danger.
Tension builds and the story blisters on to a final, rip-roaring climax, when all hell is let loose - and all at the instigation of Jesse herself. She actually enjoys this sort of thing! The book is definitely the type you want to read in one sitting, for all the best reasons: a wonderfully intricate and exciting storyline; great characterisation and dialogue, and totally outrageous humour.
Jesse’s great fun, she gets to do and say things that a more reserved PI would never dream of. Meg O’Brien is a talented writer who brings both characters and places fully to life. Jesse James is certainly worth looking out for. (EAL)

REVIEW
Hannah Wakefield - " Cruel April"
The Women’s Press £6.99 ISBN 0 7043 4475 0
Hannah Wakefield’s new mystery "Cruel April" was something of a trip down memory lane for me, having read and enjoyed her first novel, "The Price You Pay" back in 1987 when it first came out. Dee Street and her partner set up an all women solicitor practice, in the heydey of the Women’s Movement and with Cruel April, the story is brought bang up to date. The practice is based in multi-cultural Bethnal Green and Dee’s latest case involves representing a young Asian man who has been accused of murder. The situation seems to be that the man was merely in the wrong place at the right time, from the police’s point of view, that is. There’s little evidence that he was involved at all and Dee and the man’s family suspect that there are racial motives behind the willingness of the police to prosecute.
Dee and her colleagues are still fighting battles for those who need it most - those with little money and little hope of anything other that Legal Aid. But the Legal Aid Budget is being cut, and money for the business itself is short. It’s come to the point where the practice has to recuperate some of it’s outstanding debts or the whole enterprise will go under. Dee is obliged to ask her old friend Janey Riordan for the large sum of money she owes them. Despite warnings to the contrary, Dee believes that Janey will pay up. But a massive public argument follows the request, and Janey is found dead soon after. While no-one would seriously believe that Dee could be involved in the death, any bad publicity at a time when merger with a bigger more prosperous solicitor’s firm may be their only hope of salvation has to be avoided at all costs, and Dee needs to find out who killed her friend.
What makes Cruel April special is the way that Hannah Wakefield allows Dee’s personal and political inclinations to shape and develop the story-line. The history of the character(s) determine the present situation and strongly influence how the story will unfold. Actions and characters ring true. Things don’t just happen to these characters, they make things happen, and whether for good or bad, alter the course of their own lives. The story is highly entertaining, well-plotted, packed with contemporary issues and above all, has heart. The women in this novel make a difference. Plus it’s one of the few crime novels I’ve read where Asian women are given strong, significant roles.
This is one of the best novels I’ve read for a while. Not only is it a first rate, pacy murder mystery that keeps you guessing to the end, but the underlying message is positive and uplifting, a great feeling amidst all of the despair and compromise that seems to be a hallmark of the 90’s. (E.A.L)