Book Review: Backlash by Lynda LaPlante

I was lucky enough to have TLC Book Tours send me a copy of Lynda La Plante's newest crime thriller, Backlash. 

Award-winning and international bestselling author Lynda La Plante returns with the eighth installment in her acclaimed series featuring London’s Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis.

Late night on a notorious high-rise estate in the borough of Hackney. A woman on the street never makes it home after a long night of drinking. A white van is being driven erratically. The driver is pulled over by the police and questioned. A suspect . . . an arrest . . . a confession. Case closed?

Five years earlier, a thirteen-year-old girl disappeared in broad daylight on a busy London street. Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton headed the investigation; the case was never solved. It has haunted him ever since. And now comes another confession, to this murder, and to one more besides. But is it too good to be true? After being pulled into the fray, Anna Travis isn’t so sure that they have their man.

Then the suspect changes his story. . . .

I liked Backlash for the same reason that I liked Prime Suspect. Prime Suspect is a Jane Tennison novel and Backlash is a Anna Travis novel; if you followed the Prime Suspect series, you should love this series as well. Just like Prime Suspect, it is fast-paced, keeps you on your toes, keeps you guessing, and is full of fun British lexicons. The characters are fully-developed, dynamic, and realistic. Again, I didn't fall in love with any of the characters, but that makes it more realistic, because I don't love everyone I meet.

It was interesting to read a crime novel this long, as it is a bit long compared to other books in the genre, but like Prime Suspect, it was not extemporaneous details; instead, it was all adding to the story, and definitely not just fluff. All in all, it was a great read, and makes me wish more of La Plante's books were available in my library.

This book was provided to me free by TLC Book Tours, but I was not compensated for this review. All opinions are my own.

So It Begins

You know what you don't think of when you view a potential house on a very temperate day? That the upstairs attic-turned-master bedroom will be brutally hot in the summer (even with central air) and freezing cold in the winter (even if the heat is cranked so high you're sweltering on the first level).

This means you'll have to deal with your perpetually-hot husband who thinks the heat should never be on anyway even more than usual.

It's only October and it's already begun:

P.S. Jeremy said I could only post this if I "made it explicitly clear" he was joking. Soooo ... I think I've done my best with this little P.S. in which I tell you he told me to tell you he was joking. Nailed it .

Josie Says, Vol. 3

Genevieve: (coughing)

Me: Oh, you poor little coffee cake*. Why are you coughing?

Josie: I think she ate a cold.

*Jeremy calls the girls "coffee cake" whenever they cough. It must have rubbed off on me.

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Josie: (Looking in the mirror and dancing) I am myself! I am myself! I am myyyyyysellllllllllf!

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Jeremy, making a sandwich to take to work, came around the corner to tell me something, still holding the bottle of mustard.

Josie: (bolting toward him, panic in her voice) Don't take the mustard to work with ya!!!!!

Jeremy: Don't worry, I won't. I know how much you love mustard.

Josie: Whew! (wiping forehead)

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Aunt Kayla: Wow, your hair is getting really long, Josie.

Josie: Yeah, Jeremy said it's almost to my butt.

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Me: Please quit putting your hair in your bowl of macaroni and cheese.

Josie: Why did you say that to me?

Me: Because I want you to stop putting your hair in your food.

Josie: OHHHHHHHHH. THAT'S why you said that!

Photo Friday*

*Aren't you glad I didn't call it "Foto Friday?"

This week in photos, because words are over-rated.

Free date-night dessert (for Jeremy, anyway)

Sunday drive

Washing hands in Grandma's sink

Toddler art project/sensory activity!

... that only lasted 15 seconds.

Back-up activity: Free stickers

Josie projects

Getting a big girl desk in her room (Thanks, Aunt Tracy!)

A long walk at the nature center with great friends

Finding a "rainbow tree"

Genevieve: Hates everyone and everything because she's teething, but will happily stop and say "cheese" when a camera appears

Roller skating 

Painting. Always painting.

Dance class!

And we still have all day Friday. Hope you all had a lovely week.

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P.S. Posts up at Sean Purcell Photography. Last week: Prove your superiority by seeing color better than your spouse. This week: Awesome no-carve pumpkins.

Language

Bedtime is strict in these here parts. At 7 PM SHARP, we head to the bathtub, usually using the whole race format to convince Josephine to get to the tub before her sister. No later than 7:30, lotion and diapers and jammies are procured, books chosen, and little girls retire to their individual rooms where I convince Genevieve to sleep and Jeremy reads Josephine two books, sings the special song twice, convinces her she doesn't need fifty more stuffed animals in her bed or a bandaid or another song, then inevitably has to take her to the bathroom again (the night diapers are just because I am scared and even though she's 95% overnight trained I hate washing sheets). Then BAM, by 8 PM, bedroom doors are closed and usually both girls are asleep.

So bedtime is the same EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and has been for forever.

Tonight dinner was a little late and therefore playtime with daddy was cut a bit short, and since he gets home at 6 and bedtime starts at 7, I always feel terribly guilty if dinnertime bleeds into playtime, so at 7 I asked Josephine if she wanted to take a bath or if she wanted to skip bath and play with daddy for an extra half an hour.

She chose skip bath and play with daddy and told him he was a horsey and she was off to get her "wee-ha" hat (As is yee-haw, as in one a cowboy would wear while riding a horse and saying yee-haw. Obviously.)

A half an hour later, when it was time to get jammies and head to bed, Josephine had a complete meltdown. She was crying and begging for a bath. When I gently tried to remind her that she chose to skip her bath (while feeling like a complete ass -- she loves her schedule. When her schedule changes she has issues. I KNOW this.), she said, "I know. I said I wanted to SKIP my bath! SKIP IT!"

It took me a couple times to realize that she had no idea what it meant to skip her bath. Perhaps the only time we have used the word skip is in reference to the physical activity?

I felt like a total maroon. 

Here is a kid who is rapidly mastering the American Sign Language alphabet, who tells me "I'm afraid you do this all the time, mama" when I say I can't stop kissing her, the kid who will tell me "Not quite yet. May I have another moment, please?" when I ask her if she is ready for lunch.

And she didn't know what it meant when I asked her to skip her bath and I never even considered it and she probably thought it meant she got to do something extra cool at bathtime and ... I suck.