TBR Thursday 230…

Episode 230

Well, after last week’s dramatic rise, an even more dizzying drop this week – down SIX to 212! (Five finished, one abandoned.)

(No, this isn’t me – but I kinda wish it was…)

Here are a few more I’ll be dipping into soon…

Scottish Classic

Flemington by Violet Jacob

One from my Classics Club list. I know nothing about either book or author other than that this turns up frequently on Best Scottish Novels lists. I see it’s about the Jacobites again – clearly we still have some work to do to get that episode of history out of our systems! I may or may not read the included short story collection… I’ll see how I get on with the novel before deciding!

The Blurb says: Violet Jacob’s fifth and finest novel is a tragic drama of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, tightly written, poetic in its symbolic intensity, lit by flashes of humour and informed by the author’s own family history as one of the Erskines of the House of Dun near Montrose. Drawn back to these roots in her later years, Violet Jacob also wrote many unforgettable short stories about the people, the landscapes and the language of the North-east. In this volume fourteen of these stories are re-collected and re-edited as Tales from Angus.

* * * * *

Dalziel and Pascoe

A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill

Continuing my very slow re-read of my favourite crime series, this is book 6, by which time Hill was really getting into his stride…

The Blurb says: When Mary Dinwoodie is found choked in a ditch following a night out with her boyfriend, a mysterious caller phones the local paper with a quotation from Hamlet. The career of the Yorkshire Choker is underway. If Superintendent Dalziel is unimpressed by the literary phone calls, he is downright angry when Sergeant Wield calls in a clairvoyant. Linguists, psychiatrists, mediums — it’s all a load of nonsense as far as he is concerned, designed to make a fool of him. And meanwhile the Choker strikes again — and again!

* * * * *

Crime

The Guesthouse by Abbie Frost

Courtesy of HarperCollins, who occasionally send me books I haven’t specifically requested and probably wouldn’t. I love this, because it tempts me to keep a toe in the water of contemporary crime, which regulars will know I’ve been struggling with recently. I’m guessing this one is a deliberate take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None…

The Blurb says: Seven guests. One Killer. A holiday to remember…

Not all the guests will survive their stay…

You use an app, called Cloud BNB, to book a room online. And on a cold and windy afternoon you arrive at The Guesthouse, a dramatic old building on a remote stretch of hillside in Ireland.

You are expecting a relaxing break, but you find something very different. Something unimaginable. Because a killer has lured you and six other guests here and now you can’t escape.

One thing’s for certain: not all of you will come back from this holiday alive…

* * * * *

Christie on Audio

The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie

I’m pretty sure I’ve read all Agatha Christie’s mystery novels but I think there are some short story collections I’ve missed over the years, and this may be one of them. I know I’ve come across some of the individual stories in anthologies but I don’t think I’ve read them all together. The narrator is again the wonderful Joan Hickson…

The Blurb says: When her friends from the Tuesday Night Club visit Miss Marple’s house, the conversation often turns to unsolved crimes. Trying to solve these 13 mysteries are Raymond West, a young writer; the artist Joyce Lemprière; Dr Pender, the clergyman, who claims to know the hidden side of human character; Mr Petherick, a lawyer who is only interested in the logical approach; and Sir Henry Clithering, whose experience as commissioner of Scotland Yard speaks for itself. Then, of course, there is Miss Marple, who has observed enough about human nature to be more than a match for the most perspicacious investigator.

* * * * *

NB All blurbs and covers taken from Goodreads, Audible UK or Amazon UK.

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?