Genre: Crime, Thriller

Pub Date: 12 Oct. 2023

Publisher: Pegasus Crime

Length: 288 pages (HB edition)

Hardback Edition: £24.86

Geneva is a debut novel described as ‘A bold and unpredictable debut thriller set in the biotech world (and deceptive beauty) of Switzerland, by acclaimed actor Richard Armitage.’ 

Synopsis:

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sarah Collier has taken a step back from work to spend more time with her family. Movie nights with her husband Daniel and their daughter Maddie are a welcome respite from the scrutiny of the world’s press. As much as it hurts, it’s good to be able to see her father more too. He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and needs special care. Sarah has started to show tell-tale signs of the disease too. She’s been experiencing blackouts and memory loss. It’s early days but she must face the possibility that she won’t be there to see her daughter grow up. Daniel, a neuroscientist himself, is doing his best to be supportive but she already knows that she will have to be the strong one. For all of them.

So when Sarah is invited to be the guest of honour at a prestigious biotech conference in Geneva she declines, wanting to stay out of the public eye–that is until Daniel shows her the kind of work that the enigmatic Mauritz Schiller has been developing.

This was a ticketed event run by Linghams Bookseller of Heswall, and took place at the Birkenhead School in Oxton (Wirral). The hall was pretty much filled to capacity with a surprising mix of ages – twenty-somethings to seventy-plus, at a guess. Clare Mackintosh; a successful crime writer herself, was our host and interviewer for the evening.

Armitage is known for his film and TV work, but I was unaware that he was also a narrator. He told us that he had been narrating since before Audible was a thing. He enjoys reading, and reads aloud even when reading by himself, it is to do with hearing the sound of words, he told us. Now, this is the amazing thing – especially if you are a struggling writer of novels (like I am), and one might get a bit envious, jealous, even cynical, about how this book came to be written.

Amazon approached Armitage and asked if he would like to write a thriller. He said yes, because he didn’t think it would actually happen. Had he ever written before? Not books, but he has a habit of writing out character profiles and backgrounds for those he plays. Amazon offered him a ghostwriter, which he refused. They asked for samples of his writing, which he duly sent them. So, how does this happen? Armitage himself laughed and said he thought there was some weird algorithm that Amazon uses – probably checks how many people downloaded his narrated works.

So, anyway, he completed the book; on flights, train journeys, travelling between filming. He planned it the way moving image producers plan filming – with a sort of ‘Call Sheet’ – everything in each scene of each chapter in a sentence.

The book – what was I expecting? Not a lot to be honest. When someone is asked to create something in a craft that isn’t their own, I have my doubts. Let’s be honest, would Amazon have asked if they didn’t think his name would draw the punters? I think not.

However,

I was pleasantly surprised. This is a fairly solid debut novel. All the references to Harlan Coben, and his (Coben’s) endorsement, did put me off. (I have read Coben’s work and it’s okay, and I have not enjoyed any of the TV adaptations of his work.) Fear not, Armitage has come up with an intriguing set-up. World-class professor, Sarah Collier, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She is to attend an important event in Geneva to endorse new technology that will forever change how illnesses of the brain are treated. But Sarah is slowly losing confidence in her abilities. She cannot be sure of what is real anymore and who she can trust.

It’s not brilliant. It’s not going to be a classic, in the true sense of the word, but it is good writing. I finished it in two days, it’s not long, and the story kept me engaged throughout. I wasn’t sure how believable some of the plot twists were, but by the time I questioned them, I’d moved on. I did want to find out what happened to everyone in the story, and I was taken by surprise as it neatly rounded to the opening scene.

It’s a fun and engaging read. I’m  giving Geneva 4 stars.