Nicki`s Life of Crime : BLOG TOUR BOOK REVIEW - The Big Chill by Doug Johnson

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Running private investigator and funeral home businesses means trouble is never far away, and the Skelf women take on their most perplexing, chilling cases yet in book two of this darkly funny, devastatingly tense and addictive new series!

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.

While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.

But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?

Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.

Seventy year old Dorothy Skelf, her daughter Jenny and grand daughter Hannah (Dorothy's Angel's as I nicknamed them) combine running a funeral home with being Private Investigators. Three generations of feisty women who have dedicated their lives to assisting both the living and the dead as they travel along their individual paths. After almost being run over in a graveyard during a funeral service, Dorothy becomes obsessed with uncovering the identity of the driver who had inconveniently decided to park a vehicle in the grave into which they were planning on burying Dorothy's latest client. She also found herself investigating the mysterious disappearance of Abi, one of her drummer girl's, someone whose mother and step father didn't seem overly concerned about despite the fact that Abi was only fourteen years old. Dorothy was also struggling with her feelings of grief over the death of her husband Jim and her feelings for Thomas plus her concerns over how Jenny and Hannah were coping after the shocking events from the previous book. Each of them living every day with the shadow of Jenny's ex husband Craig still hovering above them like the devil incarnate. Jenny found herself assisting Dorothy with her investigation into the driver of the vehicle in the graveyard whilst Hannah became obsessed with investigating something that had happened at her university whilst struggling with her mental health issues and her fears that she had inherited some of her father's darkness. Each one of the women was a well rounded individual with their own personal character traits and flaws, I thought Dorothy was a fantastic character and I also really liked lovely Thomas. I loved the white boards that the women had on the wall in the operations room, one for the funerals and one for their investigations. I spent many of my younger years living in Scotland and could picture in my head many of the landmarks that were mentioned in the story including the forth bridges. My favourite bridge has always been the forth rail bridge and I would really love to go back and see it again one day.

I loved the unique premise of this well written enthralling mystery/thriller/family drama combining funeral directors and private investigators is just a absolute genius idea. The living and the dead, the day to day struggles of three courageous women interspersed with the peace and serenity of the funerals,the various mysteries being the proverbial calm before the storm. The story gradually built in intensity and there was a unsettling sense of danger and foreboding interwoven into the pages. The author has created a fantastic group of believable women who the reader swiftly feels a connection with even if they haven't read #ADarkMatter. You take these women to your heart and find yourself routing for them and wanting them to experience at least one tiny bit of happiness in their lives. Although this is the second book in the series and technically a continuation of the story from the first book, it can be read and enjoyed as a standalone. I really enjoyed this captivating thriller,the writer had written a story that paid homage to the classic pi stories of the 70s and 80s and look forward to finding out what the future holds for the Skelf women in book 3.

AUTHOR BIO

Doug Johnstone is a writer, musician and journalist based in Edinburgh. His tenth novel, Breakers, was published by Orenda Books in May 2019, and was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. His previous books include The Jump, shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Gone Again, an Amazon bestseller, and Hit & Run, which was an Amazon #1 as well as being selected as a prestigious Fiction Uncovered winner. His work has received praise from the likes of Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, William McIlvanney, Megan Abbott and Christopher Brookmyre.

Doug has been Writer in Residence with William Purves Funeral Directors. He is also a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow, and was RLF Fellow at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh 2014-2016. Doug was also Writer in Residence at the University of Strathclyde 2010-2012 and before that worked as a lecturer in creative writing there. He’s had short stories appear in various publications and anthologies, and since 1999 he has worked as a freelance arts journalist, primarily covering music and literature. He is also a manuscript assessor for The Literary Consultancy and Emergents in the Scottish Highlands. He has taught creative writing at festivals and conferences and regularly at Moniack Mhor, and he has mentored aspiring writers for New Writing North and Scottish Book Trust.

Doug is one of the co-founders of the Scotland Writers Football Club, for whom he also puts in a shift in midfield as player-manager. He is also a singer, musician and songwriter in several bands, including Northern Alliance, who have released four albums to critical acclaim, as well as recording an album as a fictional band called The Ossians. Doug has also released three solo EPs. He plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a crime writing supergroup featuring Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Chris Brookmyre, Stuart Neville and Luca Veste.

Doug has a degree in physics, a PhD in nuclear physics and a diploma in journalism, and worked for four years designing radars. He grew up in Arbroath and lives in Portobello, Edinburgh with his wife and two children.

Publication date: 20th August 2020
Print Length: 300 Pages
Puvlisher: Orenda Books
Genre: Psychological Thriller