High and Low by Amanda Craig

I love Amanda Craig's books, but this did take a little while to get into. There are a lot of characters, many of them writers, many of them not very nice. Once it got going, though, it was riveting.

Tensions in this very mixed part of North London are running high, and when they become focused on a hostel for asylum seekers, things start to boil over. Violence, rioting and looting suddenly controls the streets and shops of the neighbourhood. A disparate group of people - writers, and others - are trapped inside a cafe. Meanwhile a young boy, Zahi, is running away from big trouble....

Amanda does a careful job of representing - non-violent - views on both sides of the "asylum seekers" issue, avoiding any temptation to demonise. 

She's great at the state-of-the-nation stuff, but there's also a lot in here about writing and the writer's life. Or death, in some instances....

Amanda's novels are all interlinked to some extent and I've resolved to read them all in order from the beginning - I've already started her first, Foreign Bodies. I know some of the characters in High and Low have featured before - at least one of them in aforementioned Foreign Bodies. 

Excellent read.

Please Help Me by Gytha Lodge

Wow - this was an absolutely cracking read! I loved it.

Fourteen year old Sadie, on holiday with her family in Cyprus, spends her days crushing on an attractive lifeguard, resenting having to look after her little brother, and wishing something dramatic would happen. Then it does - she gets a message from an unknown girl asking for help. The girl has been abducted, she says, and the people she is with aren't really her parents.

Meanwhile, detective inspector Amanda is also holidaying there with her young son, Otis. When the police become involved - including abduction specialist Zak, with whom Amanda has a personal history - she soon finds herself also deeply involved in the case, as the police race to identify who the girl could be. 

There's not a lot of great parenting on show - I felt badly for many of these girls. The ending was emotional, though, and I did have a tear in my eye. 

There are some great women characters - Mariliza the lifeguard, military police officer Sona, and Amanda herself are all thoroughly badass characters. Sadie is a believable teenage girl - opinionated, judgy of adults, but basically very awesome and no doubt has a great future ahead of her.

The ending seems to leave space for further outings for Amanda and Zak, and I'd definitely be in favour of that.

Highly recommended. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review!