"Za drzwiami" to rozmiarowo dosyć niewielka, bo tylko 192 stron, ale przeczytanie jej trochę mi zajęło czasu.
Książka jest historią chłopca o imieniu Mark, którego rodzice się rozwiedli, a jego mama ponownie wyszła za mąż za dawnego kolego z młodzieńczych lat. Wraz z matką i ojczymem został zmuszony do przeprowadzki z tętniącego życiem Londynu do Brighton - małej miejscowości nad oceanem. Okazało się też, że jego mama jest chora na raka płuc i nie poświęcała mu tyle uwagi co kiedyś. Z tego powodu chłopak czuł się nieszczęśliwy i samotny. Poznaje starszą panią, która mieszka w tym samym budynku i zaprzyjaźnia się z nią. Poznaje też sekret jej mieszkania, gdzie czas płynie inaczej, a teraźniejszość miesza się z przeszłością.
Najbardziej podobały mi się wiernie oddane cechy i myśli dziecka z rozbitej rodziny. Relacja Marka i Davida jest bardzo naturalna, tęsknota za ojcem prawdziwa i oczywista, tak samo jak nastawienie do matki.
Książka jest smutna i refleksyjna, ale niosąca też nadzieję. Metaforyczna opowieść o chorobie, przemijaniu, cierpieniu... O przeszłości i przyszłości, które przenikają się tu z teraźniejszością w magiczny sposób.

"The crucial thing about Michael Marshall is that he is enormously readable....Once you have started one of his books you won't want to stop" (The Independent uk) His books are much more than mere thrillers and his characterization creates memorable participants in stories that have a certain gothic/horror feel similar to the Charlie Parker series created by the amazing John Connolly. Connolly in his books has the shadowy figure of "The Collector" and Marshall has created in this trilogy (The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead and Blood of Angels) a group known as the Straw Men who operate outside the conventional rules of society guided in their endeavours by a serial killer known as The Upright Man...."He's a serial killer. He also abducts people for others to murder for kicks. He has a theory that mankind was infected by a virus tens of thousands of years ago. It made us more sociable, enabled modern society to coalesce by obscuring some or our natural enmity towards our fellow men. We started living closer together, began farming, developed the modern world. They don't like it. They want the planet back the way it was."

Raged against this attempt by a shadowy group to spread fear, confusion and death amongst an unsuspecting populace is an eclectic group of characters; Ward Hopkins ex CIA agent recovering from the shock and death of his parents and their association with The Straw Men; John Zant an ex LA homicide detective with a personal interest in the capture of The Upright Man who he believes was responsible for the death of his only daughter Karen; Nina Baynam discredited FBI agent believing totally in both the existence of The Straw Men and their murderous agenda; Paul Hopkins, brother to Ward and identified as the notorious serial killer The Upright Man.

What is so readable about Blood of Angels is that even the minor characters we meet play an important role in the unfolding drama and they all contribute to the pulsating tension that radiates from page one; James Kyle/Jim Westlake is a killer in retirement in Key West Florida until his services are required by The Straw Men one last time; Lee h

Hudek his friends Grant and Sleepy Pete all wealthy middleclass kids dealing drugs until they encounter The Upright Man, a meeting that will alter their lives irrevocably......there is no going back!

The search is on for Ward's brother The Upright Man who has escaped from a secure institution. Has he been broken out for  a reason? Have The Straw Men got a hidden agenda that will ultimately mean the destruction of society as we know and love. Ward, Nina and John are on the case and in the very capable hands of Michael Marshall we are treated to an extraordinary reading experience. The UK paperback version of this story is some 540 pages but I can honestly say I devoured this story in some 3 reading sessions. It still puzzles me that Michael Marshall, although a popular author, has never received the acclaim and credit he so deserves.....so, dear reader of my review, do yourself a favour and read all 3 books in this well researched, intelligent, dark and above all well written tale. A pleasure to read and a pleasure to recommend 5+++++ stars!

Some weeks ago I read The Straw Men by Michael Marshall the first part of a trilogy by an author who has never received the acclaim and recognition that he so richly deserves. I thought The Straw Men was an excellent read and was doubtful if the style, character development, and story could be bettered in a sequel. I need not have worried, The Lonely Dead has exceeded all my expectations, it is quite simply a stunning novel told by an expert author.

Ward Hopkins, ex CIA agent, is a man with a secret past, and he is determined to confront the murderers of his parents and trace the whereabouts is his lost brother Paul “The Upright Man” a deranged serial killer. His parents had been murdered by a group that his father had belonged to 35 years earlier...”the Straw Men, and believed themselves the only portion of humanity uninfected by a virus promoting social conscience above the cold-hearted individualism they believed inherent to our species. Whether they genuinely thought this, or it was just a convenient cover for acts of violence and depravity, was not clear.”

John Zandt, former LA homicide detective has his own special agenda for seeking out The Upright Man, an enforcer under the auspices and protection of The Straw Men. His daughter Karen was brutally murdered by him, and he seeks revenge whatever the cost. Adding to the intrigue is Nina Baynum, FBI agent, and former friend and lover to John Zandt.

What makes for a good thriller is the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention from the first page and to retain that enthusiasm throughout a multi layered tour de force journey straddling the coasts of America. What on the face of it seems like a complex novel is made eminently readable by a very direct and approachable writing style. I found myself richly involved in the storyline whether that was in the cold mountain forests of Washington State, the Verona logettes of Bill and Patrice Anders, or the corridors of the Seattle Fairfew hotel where “Miss Katelyn” the night manager meets an       unexpected intruder with murderous intent. This second book in the trilogy also imparts a little history on The Straw Men and it seems their ancestry reached back many hundreds of years..”The Straw Men were here back in the 1500’s? Get real. They were here long before that. They got here first, Ward. They stole America from the locals four thousand years before anyone else knew it was here”.

This is truly a wonderful read, a thriller with elements of the supernatural, and a storyline that pulses excitement and thrills at every page. The ending when it occurs is perfect and leaves the setting poised for the third and final instalment. If you only read one thriller this year let that  story be The Lonely Dead...of course I am presuming you have already enjoyed its predecessor The Straw Men. Highly highly recommended!!

There are two authors from the shores of Great Britain one English and one Irish and they both, in my opinion, have similarities in their style and subjects of writing. I am speaking firstly about John Connolly and his wonderful antihero Charlie Parker who suffered the sad loss of his wife Susan and daughter Jennifer and this in turn haunts all that follows “I have learned to embrace the dead and they in turn have found a way to reach out to me” Former homicide detective John Zandt is the creation of Michael Marshall and in a similar way to Parker has suffered great loss with the kidnap and murder of his own daughter Karen.”They tried to hold it together. They failed. His position had been untenable. Either he bore the horror of Karen’s disappearance and remained strong for his wife, while feeling like he was going to break apart into small sharp pieces: or he could reveal the pain he was in. When he did so he lost the male claim to strength without gaining any foothold on the high ground of revealed trauma that was the preserve of women. It was her job to express the outrage; it was his to withstand it.”

In The Straw Men Zandt is persuaded to come out of early retirement since it appears that the psycho who abducted and killed his daughter has found another victim. Both authors have a great knowledge of the American landscape used to great effect in their storytelling and it is a shame to realize that Michael Marshall has really not achieved the acknowledgement and acclaim he so richly deserves.

The Straw Men is the story of the search for those who kidnapped Sarah Becker...but it is much more than that. Ward Hopkins returns to the home of his recently deceased parents where a note awaits him and makes him question the truth behind not only their recent car crash but his very existence. As Hopkins is drawn deeper and deeper into the past he encounters the shadowy sinister world of the Straw Men and fate will lead to a meeting with John Zandt and an incredible revelation connected to The Upright Man.

The story is fast, multi layered but never over complex, with a very descriptive and intelligent yet observant prose. There is a scene where Ward Hopkins is in a bar waiting for his ex CIA buddy Bobby to arrive and as he looks around he observes.....”They looked up at me grimly when I came in. I didn’t blame them. When I get to their age, I’ll resent young people too. I resent them already, in fact, the slim little fresh-faced assholes. I don’t find it surprising that super-old people are so odd and grumpy. Half of their friends are dead, they feel like shit most of the time, and the next major event in their lives is going to be their last. They don’t even have the salve of believing that going to the gym is going to make things better,that they’ll meet someone cute in the small hours of a Friday night or that their career is suddenly going to steer into an upturn and they’ll wind up married to a movie star. They’re out the other side of all that, onto a flat, grey plain of aches and bad eyesight, of feeling the cold in their bones and having little to do except watch their children and grandchildren go right ahead and make all the mistakes they warned them about.”

This is a wonderful rich dark tale which the author manages to balance with a growing feeling of uneasiness and fear. It is also an observational study of access and the true value of existence..”They were doing it for some god, some ideology, some fallen comrade or ancient grievance. They weren’t just doing it for themselves. Bobby realized this made a difference, and also that if we were all the same species, there was little hope for us; that nothing we ever did in the daytime would bleach out what some of us were capable of at night. Some aspects of human behaviour were inevitable, but this was surely not. To believe so was to accept that we had no downward limit. Just because we were capable of art didn’t mean what lay in front of him could be dismissed as aberration, that we could take what we admired and fence that off as human, dismissing the rest as monstrous. The same hands committed both. Brains didn’t undermine the savagery. They made us better at it. As a species we were responsible for all of it, and carried our dark sibling inside.”

A brilliant dark story...an astounding author....my highest recommendation!!