Tony Parsons (1) (1953–)

The final volume in the trilogy featuring Harry Silver, finds him remarried for 10 years and with a son, stepdaughter and a daughter with his second wife, Cyd. His son, Pat is entering his turbulent teens, when Harry’s first wife, Gina, reappears after a long absence and now wishes to mend fences with Pat. Parsons explores their growing relationship as Pat struggles with problems at school and Harry befriends an old army companion of his now deceased father. The stormy relationships that arise from these, make for a fascinating and revealing tale, the outcomes of which are in doubt right to the end.… (more)

I am one of those readers who likes to read in bed, and I was that engrossed by The Slaughter Man, that I ended up staying up all night just to finish it.

The book is a fast paced mixture of gory violence and a loving relationship between a father and his daughter. Fast paced, but gives the reader sufficient time to digest what is happening before throwing in the next twist in the tale! The plot evolves in a way that the reader might not expect, and the whole story ends up being more than just a typical murder crime thriller.

It is really well written and set in contemporary London with a new cop hero by the name of Max Wolfe, a nard as nails detective and single father of a young daughter called Scout. The relationship between father and daughter bring another level to the story and is a breath of fresh air, needed at times. There are some fairly graphic violence and I like the excessive goriness tbh! It is also a really great touch adding the explanations of the science behind the gruesome stuff. It's good to have an explanation as to why most gun shot wounds to the gut are fatal for example.

A wealthy family are murdered on New Year's Eve and their youngest son vanishes. Max has to find the killer and hopefully locate the missing boy.

The crime resembles one which happened years ago, for which a man was imprisoned and now has been released.

Wolfe and the team have to work out whether the same man could be responsible for these deaths.

It seems Max has miraculous healing powers as he is stabbed, buried, ripped apart, knocked out and drugged and still has only one overnight hospital stay. There was definitely some disbelief that needed suspending throughout! He makes James Bond seem soft and that man should be dead years ago! But, I loved this guy long may he continue! :-)

I'd worked out quite early on "who done it" but what I hadn't worked out was why and there were plenty of surprises.

I will be looking forward to the next book from Tony Parsons and eagerly awaiting the return of Max Wolfe!

Highly Recommended Reading!… (more)

This novel about babies and is set mainly in a London, a city where everyone apparently goes through the motions of having jobs, relationships and going on holiday, but in reality are only really interested in babies, spending all their time either thinking or talking about babies even if they've no interested in actually having one.

The book centres around three sisters whose mother walked out on them when they were young girls; each seemingly have a baby obsession of one form or other. Jessica, is desperate to get pregnant, but can't. Megan, in her last year as a trainee doctor, isn't "ready" to have a baby, but gets pregnant after a one-night stand. She contemplates having an abortion but as the foetus develops, so does her maternal instinct. Cat, the eldest sister, is happy with her life enjoying her job and has no desire to be a mother at all. But Parsons doesn't really believe that any real woman could possibly think that way. He seems to despise career women who have no maternal instinct and Cat is suddenly convinced that she's incomplete without one: "Without children all you had was now, and reminders of the past."

The men are obsessed about babies as well. Rather than going down the pub or at a football match they seem to spend their days talking about women wanting babies, about the women's body-clocks; "Their bodies were in extra time, their eggs were still hopeful of a penalty shoot-out." or about being fathers. Some of their dialogue is quite laddish as exampled above whilst some of it is more reflective " what would he tell his daughter about men? How could he prepare her for their lies, their tricks, and their black hearts? Our black hearts."

Thankfully in Parsons's world everything turns all right in the end. Jessica and Cat fall pregnant against all the odds, Megan successfully completes her training and is able to move from the vicious NHS to genteel private practice, and as an extra reward for the sisters their faithful father finds new love whilst the absconding mother has MS and her latter years will rapidly go down the drain.

I must confess that this is my first book by the author and whilst there were a few parts that made me smile, when I finished it I was left with absolutely no desire to read another book that featured a pregnancy for quite a while.… (more)

I've read three of Parsons's books, all of them in the very enjoyable DI Max Wolfe series, so it was intriguing to read something quite different by him.

"Secrets and lies eat away what is good and leave only destruction." (Cassandra Clare) They very certainly do. This has you scratching your head throughout. Who's lying, who's telling the truth, who’s keeping secrets? How can one mysterious woman change so many lives?

I enjoyed this, but I was just a smidge frustrated by the either/or ending. However, that's just a little niggle. Parsons's expertise and talent for writing a captivating story is all in there in bucket-loads.… (more)