The synopsis caught my eye from the get-go, and the actual novel didn’t disappoint. I’m so pleased by Murder by Natural Causes 😀 This was a complex plot but brilliantly written. I both read the book and listened on audio and loved them both. Murder by Natural Causes is not high literature. It’s more of a ripping yarn. If it does well I might embark on a prequel. I’d like to like to write about bridge in the 1950’s and 60’s when the game was still glamourous and people dressed for the occasion. I’ll make sure to include a few more murders, just for the non-bridge players you understand.

Cilla’s story is told in a dual timeline: one follows young Alexandria’s metamorphosis into the accomplished assassin, Cilla, and how she ends up with Vlad; the other details her present-day activities and her attempt at freedom. Cilla is certainly an interesting protagonist, proving eventually to not be quite as cold-blooded as she first seems, and making it hard not to cheer her on towards her goal.Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma Complex I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending, I had hoped for more of a conclusion, but I think it has been left open to allow for a sequel. If there is a sequel I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

In it, we delve into the life of Cilla, a contract killer, and her strive for… absolution? Reparation? Normalcy? A bit of everything, I’d say. It’s difficult to include bridge in a novel. Describe the technicalities of the game and there is every chance that non-bridge players will fall asleep after three sentences. Better perhaps to concentrate on the emotions; the heady highs and crushing lows that come from winning and losing at cards. Given that this is true, it seemed natural to use TGR’s, The Great Rose, one of the few bridge clubs where a high stakes money game is still played, as a setting for the action in my debut novel: Murder by Natural Causes. Take one gangster owner of the premises, add his pet assassin: Cilla, throw in a few murders along the way, ones where the victims are never identified as such because the executions are disguised as deaths by natural causes, and you have yourself a plot.She also knows that her main client, Vladimir Haugr, would rather kill her than let her go. Will Cilla be able to reinvent herself? And if so, at what cost?” 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. Cilla reminded me of Villanelle from Killing Eve. There are some dark, gruesome parts in the book but there’s also some humour too. The historical strand follows her shattered and disturbing childhood. Living in a rural family that is struggling and largely uncaring, we discover that Luna the dog is the only one she holds affection for, she is selected to go to a special school, Academy 43. Here their special talents are nurtured, but also, they are gradually desensitised to suffering and killing, to become highly trained killers. In Academy 43, Cilla of 8-years-old was taught and trained to soon be an asset to the soviet union, a deadly weapon. Using a mixture of botany, toxicology, archery and the art of manoeuvre, she managed to succeed in staging numerous “Death by natural causes” hit jobs.

Her speciality is the dry job, a method of murder that leaves no outward traces and mimics death by natural causes. When working for her pay masters she finds herself in London working for a new boss. Is she happy in her work? She seems to be ; but as time passes her position seems to be changing and she seems be more and more unhappy in her work. And is she seeking a way out. This is the question she and the reader are asking themselves. A fast paced thriller that asks more questions than giving answers.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. Muswell Press has landed Murder by Natural Causes, a thriller about a female assassin by début novelist Helen Erichsen.

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. A dual timeline and limited third person point of view put me in a good mood, technically speaking. Michael’s POV at the very beginning is the only exception, and it doesn’t bother me at all since the transition is flawless. Nice rhythm and pacing as well—nothing sounds mechanical, nothing drags. This is the author’s debut novel and I was intrigued by the synopsis. The eye catching cover drew my eye too. I'm going to leave it there as I don't think prospective readers will benefit from spoilers. However, I highly recommend this not only to those who might see it as a murder/thriller read, but to those who might find a what-the-Soviet-Union-used-to-be-like book an attractive proposition also. 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.After two years doing jobs for Vlad, Cilla starts making preparations to leave: she doesn’t want this to be her whole life, and Vlad’s mercurial moods mean there’s always a chance of falling foul of this powerful, violent man. But, as Smithy, the talented forger whom she sometimes babysits for Vlad says, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll ever let either of them go… In this novel, the POVs of Cilla’s upbringing, future and her lifeline leading to the point of wanting to get a fresh clean slate. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures