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5.0 out of 5 stars
Cold Hillside will keep you reading, 6 Oct 2011
This review is from: Cold Hillside (Kindle Edition)
Martin Cooper's Cold Hillside is one of the books that keeps you focused until the very end. Cooper spins the tale of two brothers in Southern England, one a dealer of all kinds of items, and the other a folk musician. Their lives separate as most sibling lives do, but they keep in touch. Giles dies in a road accident, forcing Simon to take stock of his inheritance. This peoves a daunting task as more and more irregularities appear, and eventually the book evolves into a full-fledged crime novel on focused on Giles' role in illegal immigration. Many books today are such thrillers, but rarely have I come across one as readable as this. Martin Cooper is a master in showing us what happens, and his fully developed characters act believably, even if the magnitude of the immigration crime soon daunts them. His prose is immaculate, creative, and very enjoyable to read. I was impressed in his way of walking the reader and the soaked, wretched illegal immigrant women up from the seaside and into their hellish life as prostitutes. It takes a gifted narrator to make that trip in a credible and interesting way, and he succeeds eminently. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in well-written surprise crime novels.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Cold Hillside, 16 July 2011
This review is from: Cold Hillside (Kindle Edition)
I was recommended this book as being "a bit like Dick Francis, but better written." This description is unfair to Mr. Francis but gives the potential reader a good idea of the type of book he is about to choose. It is a fast paced novel, a real page turner, and it is well written. The story is told largely in the first person by Simon. The story begins with the death of the Simon's brother in a car crash. Is it an accident or murder? As Simon investigates facts about the brothers life emerge and throws into question the motives of Simon. The plot is not particularly substantial or original, but nevertheless it is a good read and I look forward to Martin Cooper's next book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Cold Hillside, 28 Jun 2011
This review is from: Cold Hillside (Kindle Edition)
Simon Coltraine is a professional songwriter and musician who left the family home in Dorset to make his way in the music world in London. Older brother Giles is a bit of a wheeler dealer with fingers in various pies. Simon knows from experience that maybe not all of those pies are legitimate ones but when details of Giles' life begin to unravel after his death he discovers his brother was in deeper than he ever thought. The book is written largely in the first person, from Simon's viewpoint. I quite enjoyed this, bringing a greater immediacy to the events. From the very beginning the story jumps around in time and whilst we are given little glimpses of the grand scheme it is only later in the book that the bigger picture starts to become clear. I did find I needed to pay proper attention and at the start, getting to grips with names, found myself flicking back once or twice to make sure I was getting things right. However I think as a result I appreciated the approach as I started to have Ahhh moments, when I could see where it was all going. The book provides very descriptive and, possibly because it is partly set in a county I have a degree of familiarity with, I found some of it very vivid and so close to my own thoughts and experiences. Although the author sets the scenes well he doesn't employ the flowery, gushing prose some authors love, and which I'm generally not keen on especially in this type of book. I found the crime story interesting and quite topical, but liked the balance with Simon's gradual discovery of his brother's seedy past and the details of their personal histories, including Simon's music career as a fiddler. By the time I had finished the book the ends were nicely tied up and I wasn't left with any nagging questions. I'm not great at classifying books but I felt that this was a successful merger of a crime novel with a literary style, and really enjoyed the read.
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