Joan's picks: The Midnight Feast and Camino Ghosts

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley: a bunch of long time friends get together in Dorset to celebrate the imminent opening of a new resort, a heritage home which has been completely refurbished with no expense spared. It’s all very nice – champagne, great food, all dressed for the occasion – but the locals aren’t at all happy about this new development in their area and things take a sinister turn very quickly. In recent years Lucy Foley has made a name for herself writing “locked room” mysteries – where a lot happens in a small space and they’re good fun. 

Camino Ghosts by John Grisham: the third book in his Camino Island series where much of the action is set around the local bookseller – who in this case comes across a story which he recommends to a local author who starts investigating. An uninhabited island called Dark Isle, off the coast between Florida and Georgia has been identified by some property developers as the next great place to make a quick buck and they have big plans for it. Dark Isle was for many years home to a group of runaway slaves and an elderly woman who lived there until she was 15 years old and was the last inhabitant is claiming ownership to it and getting in the way of their plans. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News TALKSTB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Time to Talk Box. Joe Mackenzie joins me. Now, good morning, Hello.
Lucy Folly has a new book out called The Midnight Feast.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
I've been reading her probably for four or five years now,
and my favorite one of hers actually was The Hunting Party,
which she thinks was about maybe four or five years ago.
And what she specializes in these days is what they
call locked room mysteries, and actually the action doesn't all
take place within the confines of a single room, but
they're within a small parameter. And this new one, The

(00:42):
Midnight Feast, is set in a biggest state down on
the coast of Dorset, where a local woman has transformed
her grandfather's home, so the ancestral family home, I guess,
into what she's called the Manor, and she's making it
into a wellness retreat, very very high end. There's an
infinity pool and they're going to have a really big
opening night around the time of the Solstice, and a

(01:04):
number of people have come and check in to enjoy
the Solstice dinner that she's putting on, but also to
check out the venue before it officially opens, and you
find out early on that there's been some pretty unpleasant
goings on. There's a big fire on the estate and
somebody dies, and you discover that early in the book.

(01:25):
But then, of course, as these things do, it unravels
slowly towards the end, letting you know exactly what happened.
And Francesco, who's the woman who owns the property, she's
a really interesting character. She likes to think of herself
as a kind of Mother Earth guru character, and she's
got this wellness thing going on, but actually she has
a dark past, as so many in the book do,

(01:47):
and slowly you find out that not anybody is what
they seem to be, and it all comes together beautifully excellent.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
And John Grisham fans will be rubbing their hands with glee.
He has a new book out.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes he does. He's most well known for his courtroom dramas,
of course, but some years ago he started a series
called the Camino Island Books, and this is the third
in that series. It's called Camino Ghosts, and it does
have an element of the legal about it, but actually
it's just really good storytelling, which is what he's so
good at excuse me. And it's the story of a

(02:22):
small island off the coast of Florida, and some developers
down there have discovered that there's another island called Dark Isle,
which is between Georgia and Florida off the coast, and
they think it's right for development and they're going to
get in there and make a huge amount of money.
But there's a woman called Lovely, which is such a
nice name, who was the last person to live on

(02:43):
that island. She left at the age of fifteen. And
the island has a very dark past because it was
inhabited for a number of years by runaway slaves, and
so a lot of the locals think that actually it's
a bit spooky. And she's determined that nobody is going
to come in and take what she considers to be
her island and develop it to make big bucks. So
there's a good standoff coming between her and the developers.

(03:06):
And the local bookseller who features in all of these
books tells the story to a local author who then
decides to write the history of it. As I say,
it's just great storytelling, and John Grisham never ever disappoints me.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
No, it must be one. It must be wonderful for
him to have created a bit of a side project because,
as you say, yeah, so well known for writing in
a certain way about certain things. Yes, must be must
be quite limiting almost as an author, when your your
audience expects something that from you. It must be nice
to have this other little trilogy.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Just sort of Yeah, I'm sure that's true.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Listing away there. Thank you so much, Joan that The
Midnight Feast by Lucy Folly was the first book we
spoke about. Kemeno Ghost is the latest from John Grisham.
We'll talk next week.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
See you then.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio