Review: Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil by Melina Marchetta

Title: Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil
Author: Melina Marchetta
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Release date: October 11th 2016
Source: Netgalley
Format: eARC

Rating: 4/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

In the wake of a devastating bombing, a father risks everything to find out who was responsible.

When Bish Ortley, a suspended cop, receives word that a bus carrying his daughter has been bombed, he rushes to be by her side. A suspect has already been singled out: a 17-year-old girl who has since disappeared from the scene.

The press has now revealed that she is the youngest member of one of London's most notorious families. Thirteen years earlier, her grandfather set off a suicide bomb in a grocery store, a bomb her mother confessed to building. Has the girl decided to follow in their footsteps?

To find her, Bish must earn the trust of her friends and family, including her infamous mother, now serving a life sentence in prison. But even as he delves into the deadly bus attack that claimed five lives, the ghosts of older crimes become impossible to ignore.

A gripping fusion of literary suspense and family drama, Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is a fast-paced puzzle of a novel that will keep readers feverishly turning pages.

From Melina Marchetta I´ve read Jellicoe Road, Saving Francesca and The Piper´s Son, which are among my favorites and although I have not read her fantasy trilogy - Lumatere Chronicles...yet, I´ve read very good reviews of it, so that´s why when I saw her name in a new book, I didn´t hesitate to ask for her new novel for review even though I didn´t read the synopsis before I request it, because so far I haven´t been disappointed by any of her books. Tell the Truth, Shame Devil is her first adults novel and it´s a crime/mystery novel.

The story is set in the UK and France, it begins in the city of Calais, with a bomb exploding in a bus of english teenagers that were on a summer tour in France. Bish Ortley, is a police officer who is suspended from his job, and when he gets a call telling him that the bus where his teenage daughter was traveling might be the one where a bomb exploded. Bish travels to Calais to find out if his daughter was on that bus, once there, he discovers that Violette, one of the teenagers traveling on the tour is the granddaughter of the person that thirteen years before was responsible of a suicide bomb in London, which automatically makes her one of the suspects. So when she disappears, Bish is involved in the search party.

Bish is a middle-aged man, divorced, has problems with alcohol, has a teenage daughter, he´s a chief inspector, that at the time of the beginning of the book was suspended from his police work. Bish is dragged in the search for Violette, so he must visit her Violette´s mother on prison, as part of its investigation and it is during this search, that Bish begins to uncover dark truths about Brackenham Four (the name that the paper´s gave to Violette´s family) and the investigation that took place.

Something I'm not sure if I liked, is that as Bish only speaks English, some conversations (in French or Arabic) weren´t translated, unless there was some translator present at the scene, perhaps it was so we got to feel the language barrier that Bish is feeling at the moment, because many characters around him speak more than one language except for him.

The book is told mostly from the point of view of Bish, but we have some chapters from the point of view of other secondary characters,

Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is a a good mystery novel that has a good main and secondary characters and I was invested in their well being, also the book covers topics such as family, racism, terrorism and other strong themes, so I recommend it for adults only.

The Piper´s Son by Melina Marchetta

Title: The Piper´s Son
Author: Melina Marchetta
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Release Date: Mar 8 , 2011
Rating : 5/5

Buy the book: Book Depository , Amazon
Read Excerpt HERE
Audio sample HERE

Melina Marchetta's brilliant, heart-wrenching new novel takes up the story of the group of friends from her best-selling, much-loved book Saving Francesca - only this time it's five years later and Thomas Mackee is the one who needs saving.

Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget parents who leave and friends he used to care about and a string of one-night stands, and favourite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.

But when his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at the Union pub with his former friends. And winds up living with his grieving father again. And remembers how he abandoned Tara Finke two years ago, after his uncle's death.

And in a year when everything's broken, Tom realises that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them.

The Piper´s Son is the companion novel of Saving Francesca.

This is the story of Thomas Mackee my favorite character of Saving Francesca.  The book has two points of view of Tom and his aunt Georgie. Now 5 years later Tom is at his lowest, drop out uni, on drugs, alienate of his true friends and hanging with bad company.  After been thrown out of his apartment he moves in with his pregnant aunt who is having her own problems; been pregnant at 42, single, and the father of her unborn child is her ex-boyfriend that broke her heart.

As Tom says all came down to one event that happens 2 years before, the dead of his uncle. That changes everything and everyone in his family. And now the Mackees are struggling  to move on.

We get to see characters from Saving Francesca as Francesca, Justine, Will, Luca and Tara. 

The Piper´s Son is a contemporary novel well written, very emotional, heartbreaking and beautiful story about family, friendship, love, grief and loss. This novel is a must read.

Quotes:

“I think we´re getting our Tom back.”

“Maybe she'd always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them. ”

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Title: Saving Francesca
Author: Melina Marchetta
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books
Release Date: May 9 , 2006
Rating : 5/5

Buy the book: Book Depository , Amazon
Read Excerpt HERE

Francesca is stuck at St. Sebastians, a boys' school that's pretends it's coed by giving the girls their own bathroom.  Her only female companions are an ultra-feminist, a rumored slut, and an an impossibly dorky accordion player.  The boys are no better, from Thomas who specializes in musical burping to Will, the perpetually frowning, smug moron that Francesca can't seem to stop thinking about.

Then there's Francesca's mother, who always thinks she knows what's best for Francesca—until she is suddenly stricken with acute depression, leaving Francesca lost, along, and without an inkling who she really is.  Simultaneously humorous, poignant, and impossible to put down, this is the story of a girl who must summon the strength to save her family, her social life and—hardest of all—herself.

Saving Francesca is a book that had me laughing one minute, the next sad about the situation that Francesca was going through and the next I was laughing again.

Francesca Spinelli is a 16 years old girl that is going through some changes in her life, she just enter high school in a school that used to be all boys St. Sebastian. Her best friends went to a different school, so she hates being there. At St Sebastian Francesca will make new friends, some a bit forced at the beginning, some a little more natural,  but at the end she will learn who her true friend really are.

Mia is the mother of Francesca, she´s the rock of the family; she also is the kind of person that knows what is best for everyone including Francesca, who does not appreciate her mother’s comments. Mia has a nervous breakdown and everyone in the Spinelli family feel lost. So the family has to do everything that´s possible to stay together.

I have to mention Thomas Mackee and Jimmy Hailer, they´re hilarious and are the characters that lightening the story and they´re going to be a fundamental part of  Francesca life along with Tara, Justine and Siobhan. And there´s also Will to whom Francesca fells attracted to and can´t take of her mind.

Saving Francesca is a story about family, friendship and a little love.

Quotes:
“Do you think people have noticed that I'm around?"
"I notice when you're not. Does that count?”

“You go shake your foundations, Will. I think it's about time I saved myself.”