Scandal, Lies and Tattoos – What I Thought #1

You know how it is. Sometimes you read a book, you like a book, and yet don’t have all that much to say about it. It happens. But you still want to talk about them. I don’t think there’s a wrong or right way to review a book. If you are familiar with my full reviews, you know sometimes they are quite random. “What I Thought” is a new series on the blog that will feature books I read and enjoyed, but for whatever reason I don’t feel like talking about at length. Maybe I liked one aspect, but on the whole it was a flop, or it touched on subjects that upset me and at this moment don’t feel like debating. We’ll see.

So let’s see the first three books I’ve read recently, and what I thought about them.

The Tattoo Thief by Alison Belsham

Genres: Mystery, Crime
Published: 3rd March, 2018
Series: N/A
Rating: 3.5

Someone is stealing tattoos off dead people in Brighton. When Detective Inspector Francis Sullivan starts sniffing around, tattoo artist Marni Mulligan finds herself involved in a tattoo expert capacity. She doesn’t trust the police and wants nothing to do with the investigation, but at the same time finds herself drawn to Francis, whom she calls Frank, just to annoy him.

Alison Belsham’s story is quite an intricate mystery, and the whole tatto angle is pretty fascinating. I learned a lot about different techniques and styles, which I found quite interesting.

Francis Sullivan is the youngest DI at age 29. Disliked by his team, this gangly ginger dude is not quite convinced he deserved the promotion. Great start, isn’t it? He comes across sort of clumsy and weird, which made me question his promotion too, if I may say so. His boss, DCI Bradshaw is totally unprofessional, swears like a motherfucking sailor and calls Francis “boy” and calls him an idiot in front of colleagues. Other colleagues spent most of their time spying and snitching on each other. This behaviour was carried throughout the whole story, which, frankly sort of distracted me from the mystery on hand.

Let’s just hope the actual police is not a bunch of scheming wankers like these ones, otherwise we are all doomed.

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Our Little Lies by Sue Watson

Genres: Domestic Thriller
Published: 11th October, 2018
Series: N/A
Rating: 5

Once I finished this one I felt like a wrung out dishcloth. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and just wanted to flop down on the sofa and feel sorry for myself.

Marianne is living the sort of life other women envy. Her sexy surgeon husband, Simon is a proper dream dude. You know, flowers, holidays, amazing house, and so on.

But you see, Marianne doesn’t have many friends. And that’s exactly how Simon likes it. When he mentions the name of another woman, Caroline, Marianne gets suspicious. Is Simon having an affair? Marianne starts digging and as she uncovers more information, she slowly becomes obsessed with Caroline. But what is real? She can’t even remember what she did the previous afternoon because of the medications she takes for her manic depression.

Our Little Lies is such a sad and heartbreaking story. It’s so easy to label someone weak, but if you’ve never been in a situation where you felt scared of the person you are supposed to trust the most, you probably don’t know half of it.

Some passages of this book were describing things that actually happened to me, and I felt sick to my stomach. But I just wish it was more out in the open and people would start talking about it more.

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Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Legal
Published: 23rd January, 2018
Series: N/A
Rating: 3

James, a handsome and charismatic junior MP is accused of raping a woman. Kate, the barrister prosecuting the case knows just how hard to prove such cases. Sophie, the wife just wants to hold her family together and wants nothing to do with such scandal.

I love a good legal drama like the other guy; the courtroom arguments, the evidence, the testimonies are all pretty intriguing. Still, somehow this book managed to be somewhat repetitive and boring. A cross examination that might work on screen doesn’t necessarily work in a book when you have to slog through pages and pages of the same thing.

I loved the psychological aspect and seeing events unfold from Sophie’s perspective. Kate was a great narrator too, but the flashbacks to Holly in 1993 felt excessive. At nearly 400 pages this book was just simply too long for me. I felt like a lot of tension was lost because of the over-explaining nature of the writing.

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Have you read any of these? What did you think?