Richard Armitage (2) (1971–)

Scary in a couple of ways - the overt thriller and what Daniel is hiding about his real motive for wanting to go to the Shiller thing. And also dementia & Alzheimers. Having been through it somewhat with my FIL, I DREAD doing it again with my parents or with me and/or my husband. It's awful on so many levels.

Now with more facts revealed like D's affair with H, things are amping up. How much of S's increasing symptoms are real and how much are induced by him and/or Helen? S's initial show more diagnosis could also be a fake, something that D can use to not only get her to endorse NeuroCell, but to gain power over her entire life if he can get her declared incompetent. Starting with the pilfered passport, he could easily do this because she's had a few public incidents of memory lapses, lost time and headaches/vomiting. Follow the money. and it's a more amped version of Gaslight, which I recently watched for the first time. This plot is more complex and involves other players who could be in on it or mere pawns.

Speaking of pawns, D can't really believe that Helen is genuine, that she really loves him, can he? He resents S for her brains, success and notoriety, but then he hooks up with someone genuinely ego-maniacal. Really? What a moron. show less

For his debut novel Richard Armitage takes as his inspiration Sarah Gilbert, the scientist who co-developed one of the first covid vaccines available for use in the UK. His creation is Sarah Collier, a Nobel prize-winner, who is showing early signs of the Alzheimer's that is already advanced in her father. Sarah is asked to endorse a technological advancement that could save lives, maybe even her own and so she travels to the conference at the Schiller Institute in Geneva with her husband, show more Daniel.

The story is told from the points of view of Sarah and Daniel. Sarah is becoming increasingly confused and Daniel is her rock. What would she do without him? There are also blog posts from a blogger called Terri Landau who specialises in exposing the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

Geneva is a fairly fast-paced intelligent thriller with a fascinatingly unreliable narrator in Sarah. Her story is distressing as she struggles with focus and knowing what is real. What's really interesting in this book is that no character is what they seem and it kept me guessing all the way through. Armitage pulls off some rather clever plot twists!

I enjoyed Geneva. I felt it had a cinematic feel to it (no surprise given the writer's background) and I suspect it will translate very well to the screen should that happen. Sarah's circumstances are told sympathetically, the villains are dastardly and the setting is icy and frosty which is perfect for a suspense-filled novel like this. An accomplished and well-written literary thriller debut. show less

A really interesting concept and very action-packed. I’d heard the author speak about how this was designed as an audiobook from the outset, envisioned almost like a movie, and it certainly has that cinematic feel - fast-paced, vivid, and full of set pieces.

For me, though, it leaned more toward a Hollywood-style thriller than something truly compelling. The story gestures toward a nuanced, even sympathetic rationale for the “villain” characters, but the sheer pace left that exploration show more feeling a little underdeveloped. Perhaps it’s the tension between action-driven storytelling and deeper character work that didn’t quite come together for me.

That said, it’s still an engaging and entertaining listen, and I appreciated the ambition of blending blockbuster energy with more complex questions of motive. show less

The village of Barton Mallet has tried to move on from events 30 years ago when a local girl was killed and her schoolfriend sent away for murder. Ben has tried to move on becoming a successful architect but financial mismanagement means his world is collapsing and now the filler is to be set free. His son and daughter have been cast in a horror film but as shooting goes on, Ben feels that it is becoming close to the truth of what really happened.
I quite enjoyed Armitage's first novel, this show more less so. There's a good idea here but it becomes very, very confusing as the dual timelines continue. There's lots of repetition which could have been more tightly edited and sometimes too much technical language about film-making. I'm glad I finished it, it does have a decent (if unbelievable) plot but none of the characters are particularly engaging. show less