Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

Liza Klaussmann's Tigers in Red Weather tells the story of Nick and her cousin Helena who have grown up together, sharing long hot summers at Tiger House. With husbands and children of their own, they keep returning. But against a background of parties, cocktails, moonlight and jazz, how long can perfection last? There is always the summer that changes everything.

Tigers in Red Weather is a delicious novel, a book that simmers with tension, threat and an intoxicating cocktail of money, sex, heat, boredom and beauty. Gracefully drawn and utterly intriguing, it's the perfect summer blockbuster.

This was the book I was most excited to get reading this summer. It's a good example of some fantastic marketing - fantastic cover, title, a blurb that makes you feel the heat of summer... even when it's snowing in April... and all those wonderfully addictive cliches dropped in - jazz, cocktail parties, materialism, 'the summer that changed everything' etc - that I fall for every time.

Unfortunately, I found the whole book a bit disappointing. I'm not going to say it was bad because it really wasn't. Ostensibly it has some great themes - coming-of-age, crime, forbidden love (and lust) and a little voyeurism thrown in for good measure - but the execution, for me at least, lacked sophistication.

On the character side of things, I found the problem was that I couldn't find anyone to side with. Everyone was flawed, which is fine as otherwise it'd be unrealistic, but none of them were 'nice' people (the 'nice' police will have to excuse that one) and I too often found myself irritated by them.

One thing that Liza Klaussmann did succeed with, though, and the area where I felt the book was faithful to the blurb, was that I really did feel hot reading it. Not in a Fifty Shades kind of way, more that Klaussmann really got across that intense summer heat and the atmosphere that creates. In that way, the world very much came alive for me; I could imagine the huge house, the scorching tennis courts, the sweat dripping, the never-cold water.

Overall, though, it was a disappointing read for me. Probably not fair to have read it straight after Alone in Berlin though... not sure much could compete with that.

It gets a 5/10 from me, I'm afraid.