I need to start by admitting that Graham Hurley is one of my favourite authors. I discovered the Joe Faraday series a few years ago and inhaled them almost in one and I also enjoyed his recent WW2 series.

This book is a departure and I won't spoil it for other by describing the action but all I will say that it is well up to standard.

The writing is sharp and concise and the characters well drawn. There are passages that remind me of the Faraday series in terms of time and place but the plot is clever, credible and highly relevant to the main issues of today.

All in all an excellent book which deserves a wider readership.

Enora has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her neurosurgeon asks about her husband for support. Enora tells him that Berndt, her husband, is in Stockholm, planning to remarry. Her son, Malo, is also at Berndt's penthouse in Stockholm. Enora tells her good friend and next door neighbor, Evelyn, of her diagnosis. Evelyn also mentions that a man, Mitch Culligan, had stopped by for Enora, yesterday. The following day, Enora and Mitch have breakfast and she finds out that Mitch is a journalist. Enora gets very ill at the restaurant. An ambulance is called and she wakes up to the news that she had brain surgery. It is doubtful if the tumor will be back - Enora needs another MRI in 3 months.

Enora was an actress has been fairly often in the spotlight. Mitch is writing a book about Hayden (Saucy) Prentice, and he shows Enora some pictures and her memory is jogged. She had a one-night stand many years ago with Hayden and he told her that he was an accountant. Malo comes to live with Enora. He is on drugs and she does her best to help him to straighten out. But when Mitch calls her to tell Enora about Hayden's accident, he suggests she go see him. She does and brings Malo with her. Malo is fascinated by Hayden. Hayden and his "gang" were "MAFIA - style" types in the past. - "these guys were no strangers to violence - it builds loyalty
and family bonds.

Malo and Enora become more entrenched with Hayden ("H" as he is now known) as the story continues. Crucial political differences are at a fevered pitch.This to a point where H is becoming more important to Malo than his mother. After a talk with Evelyn, Enola decides to take the "wait and see" approach - for now.

But as the story continues.....

Many Thanks to Severn House Publishers and NetGalley for the ability to read this moving story.

Ooo, I blooming loved this book, written by one of my favourite authors. It's billed as a stand alone but I personally think you'll get so much more from it if you have already read the author's Faraday and Winter series as there is more than just a passing nod to some of the main characters from this series contained herein. The other reason I loved it so much is that I have lived in Portsmouth for pretty much all my life and, for me anyway, it's always lovely to read about places I am familiar with. Especially given that this book delves into some Portsmouth's not so glamorous history, specifically around the football club. He really did get across the symbiosis between the city and the place known as Fortress Fratton. I was gutted when the author ended his Faraday and Winter series so this book was a bit of a blast from the past for me.
Not that the rest of the book wasn't good, what I have just mentioned was just the icing on, what for me, was a very well baked cake.
So, successful actress Enora Andresson has just been diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumour. Not really the news she needs being as she is already trying to come to terms with a pending divorce which has already claimed her son from her; he having chosen to side with his father. But she is trying her best and has a good agent who is still getting her acting work. What she didn't factor into her life is meeting and investigative journalist who asks her to help him with a book he is writing about Hayden Prentice, her one time (and I do mean one) lover back in the dim and distant past. Needing a friend and him appearing to be just that, she agrees. Never believing that this will put the cat very much amongst the pigeons as it literally turns both her life and that of her son upside down and inside out and into the realms of the very dangerous.
I have already mentioned several things I loved about this book so I won't repeat myself. Added to those was a whole new level of intrigue, the author delivering punch after punch throughout the book to keep me wondering for its majority and then, as we raced to the end, leaving me wholly satisfied at the book's conclusion. There's definitely a lot going on in what is a relatively short book that there really are no wasted words as the author really gets on with the story at a fair pace.
Characterisation is spot on - you're never sure when you are dealing with theatrical people how much is real and how much is acting, add to that a really rather shady character and you get yourself a bit of an explosive mix.
Ok, so there was also a lot about Brexit in this book. Not something you can ignore living in the UK at the moment but, what was included was well handled and fitted into the narrative very well. Some may think it's a bit too political but, for me anyway, the balance was just about maintained.
All in all this was a cracking read for me which also took me down memory lane through some very familiar places. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I loved this book as I knew I would as having read all the Joe Faraday books. I hope that there is another book about Enora as I would like to know what happened to her. Thank you Netgalley and the Publisher and of course the author

Graham Hurley could never be accused of playing safe. Having created one of the genuine originals in English crime fiction, Portsmouth copper Joe Faraday, he has the poor bloke take an overdose to end it all. Sorry if that’s a spoiler, but it was a few years ago. Then, he takes Faraday’s brightest apprentice and moves him down to Devon along with his restless wife and their daughter. Jimmy Suttle was another ‘one-off’ in terms of crime writing, but although he is presumably still in the land of the Quick rather than the Dead, he was last heard of in The Order Of Things (2015)

Hurley has never been a slave to police procedurals. His many standalone novels will testify to this, but now he brings us a deliciously inventive thriller which is a smartly-delivered slap in the face to those people who simply have to organise their To-Be-Read pile into genre boxes. Curtain Call, published by Severn House, describes a few week in the life of Enora Andresson. She is 39 years old and an established actress with CV boasting several highly thought of movies. She is estranged from her charismatic film director husband and, in collateral damage, from their teenage son Malo.

Enora’s world is wickedly spun off its comfortable axis by the fact that she is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Surgery removes the immediate threat and Enora picks herself up, dusts herself down, and tries to resume her career. Her life becomes infinitely more complicated when she is contacted by a campaigning Left Wing journalist. Mitch Culligan has done his homework and discovered that Enora has a link to a controversial businessman/fixer/gangster called Hayden Prentice. Prentice, nicknamed ‘Saucy’ after his initials (HP – geddit?) once had his way with Enora aboard a luxury yacht moored off Antibes. But this was back in the day, both enjoyed the fling, and there were no recriminations.

Culligan’s mission is to write an exposé outing Prentice as a mystery donor to the campaign which made all the pollsters look stupid, and ended up with Britain voting, in 23rd June 2016, to leave the European Union. Like many people, now categorised as ‘Remainers’, Culligan is determined to prove graft and corruption, and wants Enora to revisit her relationship with Saucy and feed back any juicy details.

As Robert Burns so memorably put it:

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley"

Enora’s reunion with her one-time lover has unintended consequences, particularly in relationship to her son, who turns up in London having fallen out with his father who, in turn is facing bankruptcy after a severe career downturn. There is crime – of a sort – in the novel, most horrifically when Culligan’s Syrian boyfriend is beaten within an inch of his life, but Curtain Call is much more complex and multi-layered. Admirers of the Faraday novels will love the fact that Saucy was a long-time confrère of the ebullient and occasionally unhinged King of the Portsmouth underworld, Bazza Mackenzie, a nemesis who Joe Faraday spent twelve memorable novels trying to put behind bars.

Enora is a wonderfully drawn character; intelligent, worldly and occasionally sentimental, but the linchpin of the novel for me was Hayden Prentice. He is a constant surprise, and a walking tangle of contradictions. Hurley does a brilliant job of first establishing him as an archetypal barrow-boy turned ruthless businessman, with all the sensitivity of an axe murderer, but then dismantling all our impressions one presumption at a time. Saucy delivers his pithy opinion of UKIP supporters:

“They don’t much like abroad, and they definitely don’t like Pakis nicking their seat in the bus, and given half a chance they’d shut their doors and spend the rest of their lives listening to the fucking Archers.”

Enora’s view of political zealotry is more measured:

“Beware of Causes, I tell myself. No matter how worthy.”


Readers will no doubt build their own visual image of Hayden Prentice and Enora Andresson but if I may be allowed to play the indulgent game of Fantasy Casting for a moment, I see Bob Hoskins playing opposite Anne Bancroft. Other pairings are, of course, available and if, when you have read this splendid novel, you would like to have your turn, then please do get in touch!

It’s only February, and there will be dozens more books to come in 2019, but I will be a lucky man if I find one more nuanced, thoughtful and stamped through with a lucid honesty about modern England than Curtain Call. One final nod to those who get misty eyed about the glory days of the Joe Faraday novels, Saucy’s favourite preface to any of his many sardonic utterances about the state of mankind, is just two words:

“Happy Days….”

A new Graham Hurley book is always something to look forward and Curtain Call largely doesn't disappoint.
The plot is rather convoluted. Enora Andessen is a successful actress recovering from an unsuccessful marriage and,very soon after the beginning of the book, an operation to remove a brain tumour..She's approached by investigative reporter Mitch Culligan to help investigate his theory that a shady character she had a fling with some 18 years earlier is financing UKIP. At the same time her estranged and troubled son Milo, who had been living in Sweden with her ex-husband re-enters her life. The aforementioned dodgy geezer is Hayden Prentice, former associate of Bazza Mackenzie who Hurley fans will remember from the superb Joe Faraday series and the story mainly revolves around the changing relationships of the main characters as they manoeuvre around and learn more about each other and themselves. As always in a Hurley book human nature,perceptions and feelings are a big part of the story and most of the first half of the book is taken up with the various characters and their relationships before events escalate and the pace picks up rapidly.
An engrossing book but I could have done without the constant political references , I realise Brexit is part of the story but while agreeing with many of the character's comments on current politicians I read the newspapers for that kind of thing,novels to be entertained. I also realise they were "the voice" of a character and part of his make up but that didn't make rants about Theresa May,UKIP and Brexit any more thrilling..
I didn't find the book wholly convincing,to say why would spoil things for others but there were a couple of "are you serious Graham" moments when one character re-appears somewhere unexpected and another joins the story in the same place. That and the politics aside it was a very good read and the ending was almost poetic.
Something a bit different from Graham Hurley and worth a read.....but please Graham can we have another Jimmy Suttle book?

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.
I love this book! Having read and enjoyed Graham Hurley's Joe Faraday novels, I was excited to start Curtain Call and wow, I was not disappointed...
Actress Enora Andressen is shattered when she is diagnosed with a brain tumor, death lurking around the corner. An operation to remove the tumor gives her hope and time. When she's approached by a journalist she's reminded of an incident 18 years ago while working on a movie, which involved a one-night stand. Little did she know it would rock her world. Recently divorced, she's ecstatic when her son shows up, having left his filmmaker father after deciding to live with him in Sweden. This is Enora's chance to reconnect with her beloved son. She's determined to make up for the years of motherly neglect due to her career. Life changes irrevocably for the both of them when her last catches up with her.
This beautiful book involves many interesting strands: Brexit, politics, the media, immigration and the murky world of crime syndicates. What's right and what's wrong...do we close our eyes to supposed acts of violence, how do we stear our moral compass so we can live with ourselves? Is a mother's love enough to right the wrongs of the past?
A dangerous trip on a vessel to France towards the end of the book is heart pounding and the final chapters are poignant. I sincerely hope to meet Enora again in a follow up book. A must read, highly recommended for anyone who loves a book that's not only a mystery, but also a tense, well written novel.