Murder by Natural Causes
- Brand: Unbranded
Description
Currently, she kills people for the owner of TGR's bridge club in London, Vladimir Haugr, in return for a flat, a retainer and expenses: five jobs a year for the man also knows as Haugr the Ogre or, to those who get on the wrong side of him, Vlad the Impaler. And under conditions she very strictly controls, she does a bit of selective freelance work. Her attitude is pragmatic to the extreme, rather chilling, in fact. Cilla used to live a normal, merely boring life. The days and weeks passed on and all resembled the same routine. Murder by Natural Causes is published by Muswell Press and comes out on May 25th 2023. It is available via Waterstones and all good bookshops. I didn’t start playing bridge until I was in my thirties which makes it difficult to progress beyond a certain point. I make up for this deficit with good system and great partners. I’ve had some success playing with my husband Espen Erichsen. We won the European Mixed Teams in 2005 and were 4th in the same event in 2013. More recently we won the Norwegian Mixed Teams in 2020. I also play with Fiona Brown. We’ve qualified to play in the Lady Milne together a number of times. She is a brilliant bridge player and a good friend. But what if that’s not what you want in life? What if you’d like to live a somewhat normal life? How easy getting out of it would be?
As the storyline unfolds, we learn of Cilla's childhood and education - born in a very communist Soviet Union, she was whisked away at a young age and trained at the specialist academy 43 where she excelled. Cilla is a young woman who appears harmless when in actual fact she’s a contract killer for a local gangster. In her youth, Cilla was chosen and trained to work in Soviet Russia, carrying out killings. She manages to escape and ends up working for Vlad. Cilla puts a lot of effort in to make her killings look like natural causes. Feeling trapped by her life, she tries to escape from the dangerous world she’s operating in. I came across this Book while browsing the Kindle library, and dismissed it several times but then decided to read it. And I am so glad I did. We are so thrilled to be publishing this deliciously dark début, featuring a strong, beguiling anti-hero, the inimitable Cilla, in an original and expert thriller,” Sarah and Kate Beal said. “Helen Erichsen is a rising star and one to watch.”It is hard to believe this is debut novel as the story is so well crafted and the prose is of a high quality and written with an assurance one would expect of a more experienced author.
What a fantastic audiobook. I was hooked right away. I was so intrigued by Cilla and her job as an assassin specialising in “dry jobs” where it someone is murdered in such a way where it looks like natural causes. I'm really hoping that it's because there is going to be a sequel, but even if not, this is definitely an author that I'll be reading again! Brilliant read! I loved that Cilla, although completely invisible, she was the bravest, cleverest and strongest character I've read about in a while. When I’m not involved in bridge, I write dark psychological thrillers and garden obsessively. My debut novel: Murder by Natural Causes comes out in May 2023. It's not high literature, more of a ripping yarn. And there is some bridge involved.Villanelle was stunning, a standout beauty and mistress of disguise (and fashion). Cilla is non-descript, neither strong nor memorable. But she is well-trained with a wealth of chemical and potions at her disposal and the ability to make her murders appear as accidents or as the result of natural causes. And she's getting tired, at 22, of being at Vlad's command and having no future outside of murder.
The only detail I’m not so sure about is the ending. The very last sentence, I mean. It’s open to interpretation, and while I chose the worst outcome for her, I’m not sure I’m right. If there’s something I hate is not knowing for sure, haha. Thanks to Pigeonhole and the publisher for allowing me to read a copy. This was read over ten days, with a ‘stave’ released daily, as part of the Pigeonhole book club.
Murder By Natural Causes is the first novel by British bridge champion and author, Helen Erichsen. The audio version is narrated by Natalie Pela. Plain, ordinary, unremarkable: Cilla Wilson finds these attributes useful in her career as a contract killer. She’s twenty-two, but she’s been killing since she was fourteen. She’s very good at it, an expert at making a death look like it is from natural causes. A very engaging audiobook, didn't lose concentration once, enjoyed the narrator's voice as Cilla and even sped it up to 2x speed to keep the flow! Not too gory for its genre, but with plenty of detail on training, plants and toxins, Communist ideology and hit-planning. They are trained in all manner of covert killing, but are assessed for their special quality to be harnessed in service to the state. Cilla enjoys botany and its importance in toxicology, making a myriad of poisons from plants in the Academy’s greenhouse. Her favourite subject, though, is English. She is thoroughly immersed in every aspect of English culture, which will eventually serve her well when she eliminates targets overseas. But never neglected is the children’s indoctrination into Soviet state dogma.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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