TBR Thursday 380…

Episode 380

Three new books arrived this week while I’ve been stuck for what feels like forever in two lengthy reads – both done now, happily! So the end result is the TBR has jumped up by 1 to 169. Not complaining for once – the three that arrived were another batch from HarperCollins’ gorgeous new hardback editions of Agatha Christie. I just have to find time somehow to read them all…

Meantime, here’s a few more that will be exercising my little grey cells soon… 

Fiction

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Courtesy of Penguin Viking via NetGalley. At the beginning of every year I’m horrified by how little new fiction I read the year before, so in a fit of masochism enthusiasm I request a ton of new stuff from NetGalley. Then by the time I come to read them, I wonder what on earth could I have been thinking? This book sounds so like something I am programmed to hate that if it surprises me it can only be in a good way…

The Blurb says: An exhilarating new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from the award-winning, No.1 bestselling author of Open Water.

Dancing is the one thing that can solve Stephen’s problems.

At Church with his family, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise. With his band, making music speaking not just to their hardships, but their joys. Grooving with his best friend, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone to his father’s records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known. His youth, shame and sacrifice.

Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of him when the music fades?

Set over the course of three summers, from South London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is a novel about the worlds we build for ourselves. The worlds we live, dance and love within.

* * * * *

Paranormal(!) Mystery 

Grave Expectations by Alice Bell

Courtesy of Corvus via NetGalley. The same applies to contemporary crime! To be fair, this one does sound like it might be fun (or possibly toe-curlingly awful), but reviews suggest it’s aimed at the younger end of the youth market and I’m not sure I still match that profile. What’s “My Favourite Murder”??

The Blurb says: How do you solve a murder when the ghost of a 17-year-old keeps telling you you’re doing it wrong?

Claire Hendricks is a hapless 30-something true crime fan treading water in the gig economy working as a medium. When she is invited to an old university friend’s country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire’s side, because she’s been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of 17.

When the pair arrive at The Cloisters, they find themselves drawn to a tragic and unrecognizable ghost, clearly an unquiet spirit who met an untimely end. Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family – depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage reactionary Alex – Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when.

Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them, in this funny, modern, media-literate debut mystery for the My Favourite Murder generation.

* * * * *

Thriller on Audio

The Accomplice by Steve Cavanagh read by Adam Sims and Laurel Lefkow

Cavanagh’s plots usually veer well into preposterous territory but they’re usually fast-paced fun anyway, and I suspect that might make them perfect for audio. It’s certainly got high ratings on Audible!

The Blurb says: THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA

The Sandman killings have been solved. Daniel Miller murdered fourteen people before he vanished. His wife, Carrie, now faces trial as his accomplice. The FBI, the District Attorney, the media and everyone in America believe she knew and helped cover up her husband’s crimes.

THE LAWYER

Eddie Flynn won’t take a case unless his client is innocent. Now, he has to prove to a jury, and the entire world, that Carrie Miller was just another victim of the Sandman. She didn’t know her husband’s dark side and she had no part in the murders. But so far, Eddie and his team are the only ones who believe her.

THE FORMER FBI AGENT

Gabriel Lake used to be a federal agent, before someone tried to kill him. Now, he’s an investigator with a vendetta against the Sandman. He’s the only one who can catch him, because he believes that everything the FBI knows about serial killers is wrong.

THE KILLER

With his wife on trial, the Sandman is forced to come out of hiding to save her from a life sentence. He will kill to protect her and everyone involved in the case is a target.

Even Eddie Flynn… 

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Fiction on Audio

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood read by Shelley Thompson

I read this one long ago, and I think I enjoyed it! But I really don’t remember much about it, so a re-read seemed in order… 

The Blurb says: Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness, is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Is Grace a female fiend? A bloodthirsty femme fatale? Or is she the victim of circumstances?

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

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Bookish Selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….Later, he would not admit that he was scared, but just then, at that instant, he had never been more terrified in all six years of his life. A lady was lying in wait for him. She was on her back, staring straight up at him with her eyes wide. His first instinct was to flee before she caught him playing here when he wasn’t supposed to be. Maybe she would force him to tell her where he lived and then drag him home to Mamma and Pappa. They would be so furious, and they were sure to ask: how many times have we told you that you mustn’t go to the King’s Cleft without a grown up?
….But the odd thing was that the lady didn’t move. She didn’t have any clothes on either, and for an instant he was embarrassed that he was standing there looking at a naked lady. The red he had seen was not a piece of cloth but something wet right next to her, and he couldn’t see her clothes anywhere. Funny, lying there naked. Especially when it was so cold.

~ The Preacher by Camilla Läckberg

* * * * *

….There was a small fountain in the middle with two trees on either side. The trees had been pruned down to their essentials: gnarled branches which seemed deformed and grotesque like arms and legs with bits chopped off. It was impossible to imagine how they could grow again.
….The square was irregular and dimly lit; there seemed to be another narrow passageway at the other side and I made a note that I would go out that way, although I did not know where it would lead. There was a small church on one side, its walls all damaged by what looked like bullet marks or shrapnel marks. I went over to the opposite side and sat on a ledge. I had been in Barcelona for about a week and suddenly I felt as though I had found the place I had been looking for: the sacred core of the world, a deserted square reached by two narrow alleyways, dimly lit, with a fountain, two trees, a church and some church buildings.

~ The South by Colm Toibin

* * * * *

….Uncle Sam and Britannia were the god-parents of the new Japan. In less than two generations, with no background but the remote past, the Japanese people advanced from the two-handed sword of the Samurai to the ironclad ship, the rifled cannon, the torpedo, and the Maxim gun; and a similar revolution took place in industry. The transition of Japan under British and American guidance from the Middle Ages to modern times was swift and violent. China was surpassed and smitten. It was with amazement that the world saw in 1905 the defeat of Czarist Russia, not only on the sea, but by great armies transported to the mainland and winning enormous battles in Manchuria. Japan now took her place among the Great Powers. The Japanese were themselves astonished at the respect with which they were viewed. “When we sent you the beautiful products of our ancient arts and culture you despised and laughed at us; but since we have got a first-class Navy and Army with good weapons we are regarded as a highly civilised nation.” But all they had added was the trappings and panoply of applied science. All was on the surface. Behind stood Old Japan. I remember how in my youth the British caricaturists were wont to depict Japan as a smart, spruce, uniformed messenger-boy. Once I saw an American cartoon in quite a different style. An aged priestly warrior towered up, august and formidable, with his hand upon his dagger.

~ The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill

* * * * *

….“Why, it’s everything you want,” Halsey said. “View, air, good water and good roads. As for the house, it’s big enough for a hospital, if it has a Queen Anne front and a Mary Anne back,” which was ridiculous; it was pure Elizabethan.
….Of course we took the place; it was not my idea of comfort, being much too large and sufficiently isolated to make the servant question serious. But I give myself credit for this: whatever has happened since, I never blamed Halsey and Gertrude for taking me there. And another thing: if the series of catastrophes there did nothing else, it taught me one thing – that somehow, somewhere, from perhaps a half-civilized ancestor who wore a sheepskin garment and trailed his food or his prey, I have in me the instinct of the chase. Were I a man I should be a trapper of criminals, trailing them as relentlessly as no doubt my sheepskin ancestor did his wild boar. But being an unmarried woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime will probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my last acquaintance with anything.

~ The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

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So… are you tempted?

TBR Thursday 379…

Episode 379

The TBR seems to have stabilised since I last reported – three out, three in, leaving the total steady at 168…

 Here are a few more that should ride off the TBR soon…

Winner of the People’s Choice

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

An exciting race this month! Ragtime took an early massive lead that looked as if it would be unassailable, but gradually both Our Man in Havana and The Lost World began to creep up behind – real hare and tortoise stuff! A couple of very late votes pulled Our Man in Havana right up alongside Ragtime and the end result is a tie! So the casting vote is mine, and I’ve opted for Ragtime, for two reasons: I’ve read quite a lot of Greene recently and never like to read too much from one author too close together; and secondly, I’ve never read anything by Doctorow and would like to try him. So the responsibility for this month’s choice is shared. Thanks for voting, People – it will be an August read!

The Blurb says: Welcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the financial world and Henry Ford manufactures cars by making men into machines. Emma Goldman preaches free love and feminism, while ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder the architect Stanford White. In this stunningly original chronicle of an age, such real-life characters intermingle with three remarkable families, one black, one Jewish and one prosperous WASP, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that brings to life an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth, and incredible change – in short, the era of ragtime.

* * * * *

Factual

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

I’ve enjoyed several of Larson’s other books, and since I’m steeped in WW2 at the moment courtesy of Churchill, it seems like a good time to tackle this one. 

The Blurb says: The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.

A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamoured of the New Germany, she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honourable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.

Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Goring and the expectedly charming—yet wholly sinister—Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

* * * * *

Foreign Classic 

The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher

I loved Rudolph Fisher’s only other novel, The Conjure-Man Dies, so much that I had no choice but to include this one on my Classics Club list! Can’t wait to meet Jinx and Bubber again! My expectations are pretty stratospheric…

The Blurb says: When Black lawyer Fred Merrit purchases a house in the most exclusive white neighbourhood bordering Harlem, he has to hire the toughest removal firm in the area to help him get his belongings past the hostile neighbours. The removal men are Jinx Jenkins and Bubber Brown, who make the move anything but straightforward.

This hilarious satire of jazz-age Harlem derides the walls people build around themselves—colour and class being chief among them. In their reactions to Merrit and to one another, the characters provide an invaluable view of the social and philosophical scene of the times.

First published in 1928, The Walls of Jericho is the first novel by Rudolph Fisher, author of The Conjure-Man Dies, whom Langston Hughes called ‘the wittiest of the Harlem Renaissance writers, whose tongue was flavoured with the sharpest and saltiest humour’.

* * * * *

Vintage Crime Anthology

Crimes of Cymru edited by Martin Edwards

Courtesy of the British Library. I thoroughly enjoyed their Scottish themed anthology a while back, so am looking forward to finding out if the Welsh are just as deviously criminal! (Two extras for subscribers to the Crime Classics series this month – a bookmark with the cover design on it, and a pamphlet containing an additional short story!)

The Blurb says: Mystery and murder runs amok amidst ominous peaks and icy lakes. In hushed valleys, venom flows through villages harbouring grievances which span generations. The landscapes and locales of Wales (“Cymru”, in the Welsh language) have fired the imagination of some of the greatest writers in the field of crime and mystery fiction.

Presenting fourteen stories from ranging from the 1909 through to the 1980s, this new anthology celebrates a selection of beloved Welsh authors such as Cardiff’s Roald Dahl and Abergavenny’s Ethel Lina White, as well as lesser-known yet highly skilled writers such as Cledwyn Hughes and Jack Griffith. Alongside these home-grown tales, this collection also includes a handful of gems inspired by, or set in, the cities and wilds of Wales by treasured authors with an affinity for the country, such as Christianna Brand, Ianthe Jerrold and Michael Gilbert. 

* * * * *

Fiction on Audio

The South by Colm Tóibín read by Aoife McMahon

Another one for my Looking Forward challenge, and this also sounds as if it should be an interesting addition to my recent Spanish Civil War reading…

The Blurb says: “This was the night train to Barcelona, some hours before the dawn. This was 1950, late September. I had left my husband. I had left my home.”

Katherine Proctor has dared to leave her family in Ireland and reach out for a new life. Determined to become an artist, she flees to Spain, where she meets Miguel, a passionate man who has fought for his own freedoms. They retreat to the quiet intensity of the mountains and begin to build a life together. But as Miguel’s past catches up with him, Katherine too is forced to re-examine her relationships: with her lover, her painting and the homeland she only thought she knew. . .

The South is the book that introduced readers to the astonishing gifts of Colm Tóibín, winning the Irish Times First Fiction Award in 1991. Arrestingly visual and enduringly atmospheric, it is a classic novel of art, sacrifice, and courage.

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

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Bookish Selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….At Fane Court, fifteen miles away, the two-seater containing Anthony Fane and his friend Teddy Fraser was coming to a snorting stop at the top of the drive. The two occupants slung long legs over the sides and made their way over the lawns to where a number of people sat in low deck-chairs about a tea-table. Doctor Henderson, the local general practitioner, and one of the family in every house for miles around; Helen Manning, lovely, quiet, and with little of the carefree laughter which should be in the eyes of every young girl of twenty; Kay Fane, nineteen, Eton-cropped, too red-lipped, too saucy altogether about the face, and making one think whenever one looked at her how much more piquantly attractive she might have been with the big crop of unruly curls which would have grown on her head if only she would let them; big Bill Brent, solemn, and as wise as an owl, as became the private secretary of so important a public man as Sir Anthony Fane; Lady Fane, who spent most of the time saying “Yes, Anthony” to her husband and the rest of it hoping for her son to grow up, and her daughter to grow younger again; and finally Sir Anthony himself, portentous, important, and withal just sufficiently brainless to make even these qualities likeable.

~ Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston

* * * * *

….She keeps mentioning the sea – her sea, the place she came from, far from this northern moor. When they were courting, and when they were first married, she used to tell him stories of her youth in Penzance, the lively little port on the soft under-tip of Cornwall. The great glittering bay, the coming of the pilchard shoals with their miraculous millions of fishes, her father’s warehouse smelling of tea and pepper. Hard to recall now when she stopped mentioning it. (He is a busy man, with a large scattered parish to see to, and he must ration his attention.) Perhaps indeed it was when they came here . . . His old parish of Thornton, where the children were born, had been a gentler and kindlier place altogether – but this was a better living and a bigger parsonage-house. He was pleased with it from the beginning. Cool sturdiness, stone stairs – no flammable timber, thank heaven, for he had a horror of fire – and a roomy study. He has always spent a good deal of time there, separating himself from the messy contingencies of six young children. It is necessary to him; and he is sure his wife has always understood. She is nothing if not dutiful.

~ The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

(Sadly, despite the great writing and a good narrator, I found this audiobook didn’t hold my attention, and abandoned it. My fault – I can’t imagine why I thought I’d be interested in the lives of the Brontës. Not my thing.)

* * * * *

….Bernard Freyberg and I had been friends for many years. When as a young volunteer from New Zealand in the First World War he had made his way through many difficulties to England he had an introduction to me, and met me one day in the Admiralty in September 1914 and asked for a commission. I was at that time forming the Royal Naval Division, and I soon made the necessary recommendations. In a few days he became a sub-lieutenant in the “Hood” Battalion. Here is no place to describe the long succession of glorious deeds of valour by which he rose in four years of front-line war to the command of a brigade, and in the crisis of the German summer offensive of 1918 was placed in command of all the troops, amounting almost to a corps, which held the gap in front of Bailleul. The Victoria Cross and the D.S.O. with two bars marked his unsurpassed service.
….Freyberg, like his only equal, Carton de Wiart, deserved the title with which I acclaimed them of “Salamander”. Both thrived in the fire, and were literally shot to pieces without being affected physically or in spirit. One day in the 1920s when I was staying at a country house with Bernard Freyberg I asked him to show me his wounds. He stripped himself, and I counted twenty-seven separate scars and gashes. To these he was to add in the Second World War another three. But of course, as he explained, “You nearly always get two wounds for every bullet or splinter, because mostly they have to go out as well as go in.”

~ The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill

* * * * *

….Mira was scowling. It annoyed her, almost as a matter of principle, that anyone of this man’s age, race, gender, wealth, and associated privilege should have used his power – allegedly – for good, should have built his business – allegedly – up from the ground, from nothing, and should possess – allegedly – the very kind of rural authenticity that she herself most envied and pursued. Even more annoying was the fact that she had never heard of the orange-fronted parakeet, which she now searched for, still scowling, in a separate tab. Like all self-mythologizing rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo. But because this was not a conscious habit, she experienced only a vague feeling of righteous defiance as, unable to dismiss Owen Darvish, she told herself instead that she disliked him.

~ Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

* * * * *

So… are you tempted?

TBR Thursday 378 – The People’s Choice…

Episode 378

(A reminder of The People’s Choice plan. Once a month, I shall list the four oldest books on the TBR, then the next four, and so on, and each time you will select the one you think I should read, either because you’ve read and enjoyed it, or because you think the blurb looks good. And I will read the one you pick within three months! If I begin to fall behind, I’ll have a gap till I catch up again. In the event of a tie, I’ll have the casting vote.)

* * * * *

OK, People, time for another batch of four, still all from 2021. I like to run three months ahead with these polls, so the winner will be an August read. Ragtime by EL Doctorow is a leftover from my long-ago Great American Novel Quest. I picked up Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana when it was on a Kindle deal. The last two were both included in Mike Ashley’s history of early British SF, Yesterday’s Tomorrows, and since I owned them already in Kindle collected works, I shoved them onto the TBR. Conan Doyle’s The Lost World will be a re-read and is also on my Classics Club list. I had no idea Rider Haggard had written SF, so I’m intrigued by When the World Shook. An unusual batch this month – not sure which one I’d choose myself!

I’m intrigued to see which one you pick…

Fiction

Ragtime by EL Doctorow

Added 29th September 2021. 42,280 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.89 average rating. 258 pages.

The Blurb says: Welcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the financial world and Henry Ford manufactures cars by making men into machines. Emma Goldman preaches free love and feminism, while ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder the architect Stanford White. In this stunningly original chronicle of an age, such real-life characters intermingle with three remarkable families, one black, one Jewish and one prosperous WASP, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that brings to life an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth, and incredible change – in short, the era of ragtime.

* * * * *

Fiction

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Added 26th October 2021. 33,523 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.95 average. 256 pages.

The Blurb says: Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he’s tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true, things suddenly get more complicated and Havana becomes a threatening place.

* * * * *

Classic Science Fiction

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Added 30th October 2021. 64,240 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.93 average. 224 pages.

The Blurb says: There’s only one way for Professor George Edward Challenger to prove that dinosaurs still roam the earth. He invites sceptical journalist Edward Malone to accompany him and a group of adventurers to see the creatures with his own eyes. But when they arrive at the fantastic volcanic plateau in the Amazon where time stands still, their expedition quickly becomes one of survival.

With its cliff-hanging escapes, rousing humour, and nailbiting suspense, The Lost World is a pioneering work of fantasy-adventure that paved the way for every thrill ride to follow.

* * * * *

Early Science Fiction

When the World Shook by Sir Henry Rider Haggard

Added 30th October 2021. 166 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.69 average. 272 pages. 

The Blurb says: Haggard’s When the World Shook is a bit of science fiction made before the form had a name. Humphrey Arbuthnot, Basil Bastin, and a physician, Bickley, are off on just such an adventure — and where it leads them is a SF-style land of the weird. Somewhere in the south Pacific they take refuge in a cave on a forbidden island, and there they find skeletal ruins of machines — flying machines. In the ruins they find two tombs with crystal lids: One contains the body of an elderly man — and the other holds a beautiful young woman. Naturally enough, our heroes open the coffins, resurrect the entombed . . . and begin a great and remarkable adventure. Haggard was a heck of a writer, and the book tells a whopper of a tale: When the World Shook is not a thing to miss.

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

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VOTE NOW!

(Click on title and then remember to also click on Vote, or your vote won’t count!)

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Bookish Selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….On the morning of April 6 German bombers appeared over Belgrade. Flying in relays from occupied airfields in Roumania, they delivered a methodical attack lasting three days upon the Yugoslav capital. From roof-top height, without fear of resistance, they blasted the city without mercy. This was called Operation “Punishment”. When silence came at last on April 8 over seventeen thousand citizens of Belgrade lay dead in the streets or under the débris. Out of the nightmare of smoke and fire came the maddened animals released from their shattered cages in the zoological gardens. A stricken stork hobbled past the main hotel, which was a mass of flames. A bear, dazed and uncomprehending, shuffled through the inferno with slow and awkward gait down towards the Danube. He was not the only bear who did not understand.
….Operation “Punishment” had been performed.

~ The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill

* * * * *

….It was sleeting, and Jussiaume had taken shelter for a moment in a doorway on the corner of Rue Fontaine and Rue Pigalle. Picratt’s red sign was one of the few in the neighbourhood still to be on, its reflection leaving what looked like splashes of blood on the wet cobbles.
….It was Monday, a slack day in Montmartre. Jussiaume could have told you the order in which most of the night clubs had shut. He saw Picratt’s neon sign go out in its turn, and the proprietor, short and stout, a beige raincoat over his dinner-jacket, came out onto the pavement to wind down the shutters with the crank.
….A figure – a street urchin, it looked like – slid along the walls and went down Rue Pigalle towards Rue Blanche. Then two men, one of them with a saxophone case under his arm, headed up towards Place Clichy.
….Almost immediately another man set off towards Carrefour Saint-Georges, his overcoat collar turned up.
….Officer Jussiaume didn’t know their names, he barely knew their faces, but these figures, and hundreds of others, meant something to him.

~ Maigret at Picratt’s by Georges Simenon

* * * * *

….The ship inside the bottle was a little work of art, in Henrik’s opinion: a three-masted frigate with sails made out of scraps of white fabric, almost six inches long and carved from a single piece of wood. Each sail had ropes made of black thread, knotted and secured to small blocks of balsa wood. With the masts down the ship had been carefully inserted into the old bottle using steel thread and tweezers, then pressed down into a sea of blue-coloured putty. Then the masts had been raised and the sails unfurled with the help of bent sock needles. Finally the bottle had been fastened with a sealed cork.
….The ship in the bottle must have taken several weeks to make, but the Serelius brothers destroyed it in a couple of seconds.
….Tommy Serelius swept the bottle off the bookshelf, the glass exploding into tiny shards on the new parquet flooring of the cottage. The ship itself survived the fall, but bounced across the floor for a couple of yards before it was stopped by little brother Freddy’s boot. He shone his torch on it with curiosity for a few seconds, then lifted his foot and smashed the ship to pieces with three hard stamps.
….“Teamwork!” crowed Freddy.

~ The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin

* * * * *

….The dawn spread itself slowly across the sky, the horizon merging with the dull waters of the Thames. It had been oppressively hot for weeks, and the river had shrunk, revealing the mudflats by the water’s edge, which were strewn with empty bottles, sandwich papers and cigarette ends – souvenirs of the cheering crowds that had thronged London’s streets on Peace Day. They had long gone now, in a haze of alcohol and good humour, taking the lonely journey homewards to the far shores of the Metropolitan line.
….At first the body had been indistinct, a bundle of rags that the currents nudged rhythmically back and forth against the brick supports of London Bridge. But as the sun climbed slowly into the sky, it resolved into an outstretched arm, a crumpled blue coat and finally a face. An early morning commuter, pausing to light a cigarette by the side of the bridge, had been shocked to find that he was gazing down into a woman’s blank stare, and his shout of horror brought a crowd of curious onlookers.

~ The Lodger by Helen Scarlett

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So… are you tempted?

TBR Thursday 377…

Episode 377

Well, after being subjected to what can only be described as a horrific and traumatising co-ordinated campaign of online bullying in response to my trilogy question, I admit defeat – three it is. And I thought you were my friends!

So last week the TBR leapt up to 170. This week it has dropped by two (Hah! That’ll show you!) so it’s now 168!

Do you ever look at Goodreads’ ‘because you’re reading this, you might enjoy this’ recommendations? They often leave me baffled as to whether their algorithm designer is… well… sober. This week I felt they excelled themselves with this one…

Haha, I’m still trying to decide whether they think Alex Jones is a great politician and war leader, or whether they think Churchill is a discredited crazed conspiracy theorist! I can cheerfully assert I will not be following their recommendation on this occasion!

Anyway, here’s a few more that should melt off my list soon… 

Psychological Thriller

A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates

Courtesy of Serpent’s Tail via NetGalley. A random pick based on the blurb, this one is getting pretty mixed reviews so I’m not sure how it will go. It sounds as if it has potential though…

The Blurb says: A nephew. An uncle. A psychopath – but which of them is it? Gil knows his nephew Matthew is dangerous. The signs were there early – on a family holiday Gil’s daughter was discovered nearly drowning at the bottom of a swimming pool, while Matthew looked on from the deck. Now seventeen, Matthew is orphaned when his parents die in a car crash. He must leave his Upper East Side Manhattan life behind, to live with Gil, his wife and daughters in rural Vermont. He is insolent, bored, disconnected. At least that’s Gil’s take. To the women in the family he is charming, intelligent, wry. But when he disdainfully joins Gil’s writing classes at the local university, Matthew’s fiction shows a vivid and macabre imagination spilling onto the page. Matthew is clearly announcing his intentions to Gil, taunting him before he does something awful to his family. But why is Gil the only one who can see this? As Gil begins to follow Matthew around, his own behaviour becomes increasingly unstable. Is he losing his mind? Which of the two of them is likely to kill someone?

* * * * *

Literary Thriller

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Courtesy of Granta Publications via NetGalley. It’s been a long, long wait for a new book from Catton, after her 2013 Booker-winning The Luminaries, which I loved. This sounds very different, but intriguing!  

The Blurb says: Birnam Wood is on the move…

A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass in New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike, leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, a guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. But they hadn’t figured on the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine, who also has an interest in the place. Can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

A propulsive literary thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama and immersion in character. It is a brilliantly constructed tale of intentions, actions and consequences, and an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

* * * * *

Scandi Crime 

The Preacher by Camilla Läckberg

One for my Looking Forward challenge. This has been sitting on my TBR since 2015, so it’s probably about time I read it! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of Läckberg’s novels, and thoroughly not enjoyed others. Let’s hope this falls into the former category! 

The Blurb says: Twenty years ago, two young women disappeared whilst holidaying in the peaceful Swedish resort of Fjällbacka. Now their remains have been discovered, along with those of a fresh victim, sending the town into shock.

Local detective Patrik Hedström , whose girlfriend Erica is expecting their first child, has personal reasons for wanting to find the killer. And when another girl goes missing, his attention focuses on the Hults, a feuding clan of misfits, religious fanatics and criminals. Which of this family’s dark secrets will provide the vital clue?

* * * * *

Vintage Crime on Audio

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart read by Cathleen Fuller

I’ve seen many enticing reviews around the blogosphere of books by Mary Roberts Rinehart so felt it was time that I tried her for myself…

The Blurb says: Rachel Innes, a middle-aged spinster, has barely settled in at the country house she has rented for the summer when a series of bizarre and violent events threaten to perturb her normally unflappable nature. A strange figure appears briefly in the twilight outside a window. At night, a rattling, metallic sound reverberates through dark halls, and–most disconcerting of all–the body of a strange man is found lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of a circular staircase.

Before this spine-tingling tale ends, five connected deaths shatter the normally placid atmosphere of the vacation retreat. Rachel’s devoted niece and nephew are among the prime suspects in one of the murders; stolen securities and a bank default threaten the young pair’s financial security, and Aunt Ray ultimately fights for her life in an airless secret room.

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Looking forward to…

Episode 11

Another selection in my occasional looks back at old reviews which I finished by saying something along the lines of “I’ll be looking forward to reading more of her work/this series/his books in the future” to see if I actually did read more and, if I did, did I like the ones I looked forward to as much as the ones that made me look forward to them?

Let’s see then…

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver

First reviewed 12th June 2013. This is about a woman on death row, telling the story, unreliably, of what brought her there. As much an examination of the US justice system as a mystery, I found it an impressive debut – well written and interesting. I said “I look forward to seeing more from this talented author in the future.” But did I?

I didn’t! Sometimes even when a writer has made it onto my Looking Forward list, their next books simply don’t appeal enough for me to read them. Silver’s next book was The Tincture of Time, a medical memoir of her daughter’s first year of life and involvement with the medical system following a series of seizures that led to a stroke. Her most recent book is a fictional version of the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, The Majority. Neither of these is my kind of thing, so I decided against reading them. As a result Silver has dropped off my list, although I’ll still keep an eye out to see what she does in the future.

* * * * *

Crime of Privilege by Walter Walker

First reviewed 17th June 2013. This is a thoughtful legal thriller, more Turow than Grisham, and with some echoes of the world of The Great Gatsby – a parallel the author himself hints at; a world where the powerful use their position, patronage and wealth to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions; a world where corruption distorts every part of the system. I said “Well written and thought-provoking in its look at how power corrupts, the book also has plenty of action and humour to keep the story moving along. An enjoyable and interesting read and one that will encourage this reader to backtrack to the author’s previous work.” But did I?

I didn’t! This is a really odd one. It turns out Walker published five novels in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and then nothing till this book appeared in 2013, and then nothing again since. Unfortunately his earlier books are all out of print, in the UK at least – he’s an American author so may be available over there – and second hand copies are rare and prohibitively priced. So I haven’t read any of his other books and am unlikely to unless an enterprising publisher decides to reissue them. Pity – they look interesting in a noirish kind of way. Another who has dropped off my list then – if I check every month for several years and nothing becomes available, I give up!

* * * * *

The 7th Woman by Frédérique Molay

First reviewed 18th June 2013. ‘Seven Days, Seven Women’ – this is a serial killer crime novel set in Paris, the first in a series starring Chief of Police Nico Sirsky. I noted it was quite gruesome in places, but enjoyed it – I gave it four stars. I said “The Paris setting and insight into the French police methods add an extra layer, and Nico himself is a character I will look forward to meeting again.” But did I?

I didn’t! Because it only got four stars Molay didn’t make it onto my list, so I’d only have picked up another of her books if I’d happened across it, which clearly hasn’t happened! Looking now at book 2 in the series, Crossing the Line, it again sounds quite gruesome and I’m increasingly less willing to tolerate that than I used to be. However, it also sounds intriguing and is quite highly rated on Goodreads. Hmm… onto the wishlist, but it might linger there for a while, and might even get culled at some point. A definite undecided on this one! Have you read it, and if so do you recommend it?

* * * * *

Villain by Shuichi Yoshida

First reviewed 22^nd June 2013. A study of people affected by the aftermath of crime, I found this book overly detailed and poorly translated. However, I also thought it gave an interesting and credible picture of contemporary Japanese society, and towards the latter stages I found it quite moving. I said “Not a traditional crime story by any means, I felt this book gave many insights into a rapidly changing society, a youth culture centred on the online world and, resultantly, the alienation of the different generations. If you can overlook the translation issues, this is a book well worth reading.” I gave it four stars and didn’t specifically say I’d look forward to more. But did I?

I did! I read Parade the following year, and enjoyed it even more, especially since the translation seemed better despite it being the same translator. Although again a crime novel, I felt it fell more into the fiction category since the examination of society took prominence over the crime. I titled my review “Strangely discombobulating” and even several years later that’s the feeling that lingers when I think of it. I thought it was excellent and would love to read more from this author. Sadly these are the only two of his works that are available in English. But he stays on my list and I live in hope!

* * * * *

I knew my success rate would drop off! I’ve only read more from one of these authors and none of them are currently on my TBR, but in the case of two of them that’s really not my fault since no other books are available. The third author’s newer books simply don’t appeal to my tastes, and the fourth I admit I’d completely overlooked and forgotten about. End result – one book added to the wishlist!

Have you read any of these authors?
Are they on your “looking forward to” list?

TBR Thursday 376…

Episode 376

The burning question of the week is: Does a trilogy count as one book or three, if it comes as one giant tome? For instance, I’ve always thought of Lord of the Rings as one book, because I first read it in an edition containing all three volumes in one book, but I know a lot of people think of each volume as a separate book. Why is this the burning question? Because this week I acquired a book that is in fact a trilogy. If I count it as one, the TBR has gone up by one this week, but if I count it as three, the TBR has leapt up by three! So until the decision is reached the TBR is either 168 or 170…

Here’s a few that are all definitely singletons… 

Historical Fiction

The Lodger by Helen Scarlett

Courtesy of Quercus via NetGalley. A random pick based on the blurb, though on re-reading it I’m not sure it really appeals. It’s getting pretty good reviews so far, though, so I’ll keep an open mind…

The Blurb says: This second novel from the author of The Deception of Harriet Fleet takes us back to the aftermath of the Great War in another haunting, atmospheric Gothic tale.

London in 1919 was a city of ghosts and absences, haunted by the men who marched away but never came back from ‘the war to end all wars.’

Grace Armstrong believes that she has come to terms with her own loss, the death of her fiancé, the brilliant and dazzling best friend of her brother. He was declared Missing in Action during the Battle of the Somme, but he starts to reappear both in her waking life and dreams.

Grace is appalled when a body, dragged from the Thames, is identified as Catherine Smith, who has lodged with Grace and her family for the last eight years before suddenly disappearing.

Catherine had been more than a lodger; she had become a close friend to Grace, who feels compelled to find out what happened. In doing so she is drawn reluctantly into the sordid and dangerous underbelly of London and a scandal that rocked Edwardian society. Soon Grace finds herself under threat, and the only person prepared to listen is the brooding Tom Monaghan. But Tom has dark shadows of his own to navigate before being able to put his past behind him to help Grace in her quest for the truth.

* * * * *

Crime

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

Courtesy of Little, Brown Book Group via NetGalley. Another random pick from a new-to-me author. This one appeals more and is also getting mostly positive reviews, so fingers crossed!  

The Blurb says: A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past: the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the 1995 murder of a classmate, Thalia Keith. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletics coach, Omar Evans, are the subject of intense fascination online, Bodie prefers-needs-to let sleeping dogs lie.

But when The Granby School invites her back to teach a two-week course, Bodie finds herself inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t as much of an outsider at Granby as she’d thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.

* * * * *

Vintage Crime 

Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston

Courtesy of the British Library. Apparently this was this Scottish author’s only book – she was one half of a successful music hall variety act, with her sister, and wrote the book between performances. (The subscription freebie with this one is a couple of lovely postcards of Billie Houston – originally publicity shots for her stage act, I’d imagine.)

The Blurb says: “It is past the half-hour. My time is coming nearer with every tick of the clock.” Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and ‘closed book’ even to his friends is found dead in his study at 4am, following a dinner in honour of his daughter’s engagement. An ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as the houseguests gather round to witness the awful crime. The telephone line has been sabotaged – a calculated murder has been committed.

Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and evening unfold, revealing a multitude of clues and motives from a closed cast of suspects until the narrative reaches 4am again – then races on to its riveting conclusion at 4pm as the reader is led twice round the clock.

First published in 1935, the sole novel from the actor and dancer Billie Houston is a lively country house mystery and a true lost gem of the Golden Age of crime writing.

* * * * *

Fiction on Audio

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan read by Phyllida Nash

One for my Looking Forward challenge, having previously loved Morgan’s take on The Secret Life of William Shakespeare. Let’s see if he can do the same for the Brontës…

The Blurb says: From an obscure country parsonage came the most extraordinary family of the nineteenth century. The Brontë sisters created a world in which we still live the intense, passionate world of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights; and the phenomenon of this strange explosion of genius remains as baffling now as it was to their Victorian contemporaries.

In this panoramic novel we see with new insight the members of a uniquely close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy.

Emily, the solitary who turns from the world to the greater temptations of the imagination: Anne, gentle and loyal; Branwell, the mercurial and self-destructive brother; and the brilliant, tormented Charlotte, longing for both love and independence, who establishes the family’s name.

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Bookish Selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….Sir Clinton’s features displayed an exaggerated expression of coyness, as though he were a boy half inviting chaff on the subject of a feminine conquest.
….“I find her interesting, squire. And good-looking. And charming. And, shall we say, fascinating? It’s a very rare combination, you’ll admit; and hence I’d be sorry not to profit by it when it’s thrust upon me.”
….Wendover was somewhat relieved by the impish expression in Sir Clinton’s eye.
….“I’ve never known you to hanker after semi-society ladies before, Clinton. Is it just a freak? Or are you falling into senile decay? She’s fairly obvious, you know, especially against this background.”
….Sir Clinton failed to suppress his grin.
….“Wrong both times, squire, making twice in all. It’s not a freak. It’s not senile decay. It’s business. Sounds sordid, doesn’t it, after your spangled imaginings? ‘Chief Constable Sacrifices All for Love’, and that sort of thing. It’s almost a pity to disappoint you.”

~ Mystery at Lynden Sands by JJ Connington

* * * * *

….After many futile inquiries, the doctor ascertained that Mr. Jonah had expressed some admiration for Bridget’s youthful charms, and had, in the absence of Janet, thrown himself at the lady’s feet in a manner which had not been altogether pleasing to her. She had defended herself stoutly and loudly, and in the middle of the row Janet had come down.
….‘And where is he now?’ said the doctor.
….‘Why, sir,’ said Janet, ‘the poor girl was so put about that she did give him one touch across the face with the rolling-pin, and he be all bloody now, in the back kitchen.’ At hearing this achievement of hers thus spoken of, Bridget sobbed more hysterically than ever; but the doctor, looking at her arm as she held her apron to her face, thought in his heart that Joe must have had so much the worst of it, that there could be no possible need for the interference of Thomas the groom.
….And such turned out to be the case. The bridge of Joe’s nose was broken; and the doctor had to set it for him in a little bedroom at the village public-house, Bridget having positively refused to go to bed in the same house with so dreadful a character.

~ Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

* * * * *

….‘I’ve got it now,’ volunteered the young man with the camera and the guide-book. ‘I was on the wrong page before. This is number thirty-nine, isn’t it? Right. Here we are. Number thirty-nine, three stars. House of Aulus Lepidus the poisoner.’
….There was a silence.
….Up to this time they had seemed an ordinary family-or-friendly group, with the tempers of the elder members a little upset by heat or the wear of travel. By a certain family resemblance, no less than their tendency to snap at each other, it might be deduced that Doctor Joe and the little man in the Panama hat (addressed as Marcus) were brothers. The girl called Marjorie, too, was some relation to them. All as usual.
….But, at the reading of the words out of the guide-book, there was a change of atmosphere as palpable as a chilling or darkening of the courtyard. Only the young man with the book seemed unconscious of it. Everyone else half turned round; and then remained very still. Four pairs of sun-glasses were turned towards the girl, as though she stood inside a ring of masks. Sunlight gleamed on the glasses, making them as opaque and sinister as masks.
….Doctor Joe said uneasily: ‘The what?’

~ The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr

* * * * *

….I spent an hour driving round the worst hit places, and then repaired to the University. Everything proceeded with strict formality, but the large building next to the University was still burning and the bright academic robes of some of the principal actors did not conceal the soaked and grimy uniforms of their night’s toil. The whole scene was moving.
….“Many of those here today,” I said, “have been all night at their posts, and all have been under the fire of the enemy in heavy and protracted bombardment. That you should gather in this way is a mark of fortitude and phlegm, of a courage and detachment from material affairs, worthy of all that we have learned to believe of ancient Rome or of modern Greece.
….“I go about the country whenever I can escape for a few hours or for a day from my duty at headquarters, and I see the damage done by the enemy attacks; but I also see side by side with the devastation and amid the ruins quiet, confident, bright and smiling eyes, beaming with a consciousness of being associated with a cause far higher and wider than any human or personal issue. I see the spirit of an unconquerable people. I see a spirit bred in freedom, nursed in a tradition which has come down to us through the centuries, and which will surely at this moment, this turning-point in the history of the world, enable us to bear our parts in such a way that none of our race who come after us will have any reason to cast reproach upon their sires.”

~ The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill 

* * * * *

So… are you tempted?

TBR Thursday 375…

Episode 375

I did quite well on the reading this week but the postie paid an unscheduled visit, so the end result is the TBR is unchanged on 167! Not complaining for once, since the unexpected package contained three lovely hardbacks of Miss Marple novels from HarperCollins – part of a new edition they’re bringing out in May, as far as I can tell. 

Here’s a few more that should be jumping off my list soon… 

Winner of the People’s Choice

The Hireling by L.P. Hartley

There were only two in it from the start this month. The Hireling took an early lead, but Garnethill caught up and for a while was the frontrunner. But The Hireling fought gamely back and in the end won by a healthy margin. Good choice, People! It will be a July read…

The Blurb says: Overcome with grief at her husband’s death, Lady Franklin, an eligible young widow, unburdens herself to Leadbitter – a gallant, hard-bitten ex-soldier who has invested his savings in the car he drives for hire – as he takes her on a series of journeys. He in turn beguiles her with stories of his non-existent wife and children, drawing her out of her self-absorption and weaving a dream-life with Lady Franklin at its heart. Half-hoping to make his dream come true, Leadbitter takes a bold, not to say reckless, step which costs him dearly, and brings these characters’ tangled story to a dramatic and unexpected conclusion.

Vintage Crime

The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr

Courtesy of the British Library. I’ve had a mixed reaction to Gideon Fell – a rather rude detective who specialises in impossible crimes. But this one sounds intriguing! (The freebie with the BL subscription for this one is a pair of cardboard-framed magnifying spectacles – not perhaps a fashion statement, but fun!)

The Blurb says: According to Marcus Chesney, eye-witnesses were unreliable. To observe something, then to relate accurately what was just seen, he felt was impossible.

To prove his point, Chesney set up a test. With witnesses looking on, he calmly sat still while a sinister scarecrow of a man entered the room, walked over to him…and murdered him!

All the suspects were witnesses; each could alibi another. Logically, therefore, no one could have murdered Marcus Chesney. But then why was he dead?

It takes Gideon Fell to unravel this Golden Age classic.

* * * * *

Fiction 

The Guest by Emma Cline

Courtesy of Chatto and Windus via NetGalley. Emma Cline’s debut, The Girls, got somewhat mixed reviews but I loved it, so I’m hoping this one has the same effect… despite it also having mixed reviews so far…

The Blurb says: Summer is coming to a close on Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome…

One misstep at a dinner party and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources, but a gift for navigating the desires of others, Alex stays on the island. She drifts like a ghost through the gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world, trailing destruction in her wake.

Taut, sensual and impossible to look away from, The Guest captures the latent heat and potential danger of a summer that could go either way for a young woman teetering on the edge.

* * * * *

Crime

The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin

One for my Looking Forward challenge, this is the second book in Theorin’s Õland Quartet. I’ve previously thoroughly enjoyed the 1st and 4th books so I have high hopes for this one.

The Blurb says: On the idyllic island of Öland, off the coast of northern Sweden, a young couple from Stockholm tries to start life afresh. For Joakim and Katrine Westin, reclaiming a long-neglected family manor will be a labor of love, as they slowly bring the sprawling home back to life and introduce their two children to the island’s woodlands, glens, and beaches. But in the Westins’ new home, there are things that cannot be repaired, lives that have gone wrong, and secrets that have followed them. When the family is struck by tragedy, it’s up to grief-stricken Joakim to put together a puzzle of inexplicable loss, unbearable suspicion, and tangled lives. In this powerhouse of suspense–at once a crime novel and a searing family drama–a home built as a shelter from the sea becomes a human storm of murder. 

* * * * *

Maigret on Audio

Maigret at Picratt’s by Georges Simenon read by Gareth Armstrong

When I finish the lengthy Dr. Thorne, I’ll be in need of something light and short for my next audiobook – always the time when I turn to Maigret. Mind you, looking at the (extremely short) blurb, I’m not sure how light this one will be!

The Blurb says: ‘He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the huge corridor, then hesitate at the top of the stairs. Heads turned as she passed. You sensed she came from a different world, the world of the night, and there was something almost indecent about her in the harsh light of a winter’s day’

A young cabaret dancer in a black silk dress leads Maigret into a seamy world of nightclubs, drug addiction and exploitation on the streets of Montmartre.

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Bookish Selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….I showed Martins the photostat of a note. ‘Can you identify that?’
….‘It’s Harry’s hand.’ He read it through. ‘I don’t see anything wrong.’
….‘No, but now read this note from Harbin to Kurtz – which we dictated. Look at the date. This is the result.’
….He read them both through twice.
….‘You see what I mean?’ If one watched a world come to an end, a plane dive from its course, I don’t suppose one would chatter, and a world for Martins had certainly come to an end, a world of easy friendship, hero-worship, confidence that had begun twenty years before in a school corridor. Every memory – afternoons in the long grass, the illegitimate shoots on Brickworth Common, the dreams, the walks, every shared experience – was simultaneously tainted, like the soil of an atomized town. One could not walk there with safety for a long while. While he sat there, looking at his hands and saying nothing, I fetched a precious bottle of whisky out of a cupboard and poured out two large doubles. ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘drink that,’ and he obeyed me as though I were his doctor. I poured him out another.

~ The Third Man by Graham Greene

* * * * *

….“What’s her job?”
….“Tryin’ on hats for ugly old women who can’t face themselves in the glass. Margaret puts on the hat, the old woman thinks she looks a bit of a daisy in it, pays five or ten guineas, and goes away as pleased as Punch. Give you my word that’s how it’s done. Amazin’ – isn’t it?”
….Charles frowned.
….“What’s the shop?”
….“Place called Sauterelle in Sloane Street – frightfully smart and exclusive.”
….Charles detached himself with a jerk from a vision of Margaret trying on hats for other people.
….“The Hula-Bula Indians say that a vain woman is like an empty egg-shell,” he observed.
….“Women are all vain,” said Archie. “I only once met one that wasn’t, and I give you my word she was a grim proposition. You should see my Aunt Elizabeth’s nightcaps.”

~ Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth

* * * * *

Like so many young women in service, Elizabeth was isolated and vulnerable to abuse. She began her service at the end of June, and by the end of July Sandlin had forced his way into her bed and taken ‘carnall knowledge of her body’. By the end of October Elizabeth was three months pregnant and beginning to show. As soon as the penny dropped Sandlin immediately terminated her contract and turned her out on to the street. He was quick to climb into her bed, and moved with equal rapidity to rid himself of her. She was not only an inconvenience, but potentially a source of great scandal; henceforth she was shamed as a ‘bastard bearer’, a ‘harlot’ and a ‘whore’. Women such as Elizabeth were despised creatures who existed outside the accepted models of womanhood: not a maid, a married mother nor a widow. Her first steps into the home of Samuel Sandlin had been accompanied by the festive melodies of midsummer celebrations, but it was in the uneasy shadow of All Hallows’ Eve that she found herself cast out, utterly alone and confronted by a terrifying new reality.

~ Great and Horrible News by Blessin Adams

* * * * *

The sight of the cenotaph reminded Marradine that Remembrance Day was nearly at hand again. This annual ceremony, the heart of which lay so close to his own work, always filled him with an intensity of patriotic and heroic feeling. What a wonderful sight it must be for those million dead Britons to look down – if they could look down – upon the dense black and white sea of their comrades and descendants, motionless and silent in memory of them. To see the King – head of the greatest empire the world has ever known – and all his ministers, his admirals and generals, standing there in reverence, with bared heads. Quaint in a way, when you thought of some of the million whose memory they were hallowing – scoundrels, a lot of them, cowards a good many, and the great bulk only fighting and dying because they had to. Still it was a noble death. War itself was a noble, an heroic affair, in a way, bringing out all that was best in a man. Sir Leward felt a thrill of pride that he himself had been a soldier.

~ The Duke of York’s Steps by Henry Wade

* * * * *

….The all-important conversation passed in this wise. The site of the passionate scene was the sea-shore, on which they were walking, in autumn.
….Gentleman. ‘Well, Miss ——, the long and the short of it is this: here I am; you can take me or leave me.’
….Lady—scratching a gutter on the sand with her parasol, so as to allow a little salt water to run out of one hole into another. ‘Of course, I know that’s all nonsense.’
….Gentleman. ‘Nonsense! By Jove, it isn’t nonsense at all: come, Jane; here I am: come, at any rate you can say something.’
….Lady. ‘Yes, I suppose I can say something.’
….Gentleman. ‘Well, which is it to be; take me or leave me?’
….Lady—very slowly, and with a voice perhaps hardly articulate, carrying on, at the same time, her engineering works on a wider scale. ‘Well, I don’t exactly want to leave you.’
….And so the matter was settled: settled with much propriety and satisfaction; and both the lady and gentleman would have thought, had they ever thought about the matter at all, that this, the sweetest moment of their lives, had been graced by all the poetry by which such moments ought to be hallowed.

~ Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

* * * * *

So… are you tempted?

TBR Thursday 374 – The People’s Choice…

Episode 374

(A reminder of The People’s Choice plan. Once a month, I shall list the four oldest books on the TBR, then the next four, and so on, and each time you will select the one you think I should read, either because you’ve read and enjoyed it, or because you think the blurb looks good. And I will read the one you pick within three months! If I begin to fall behind, I’ll have a gap till I catch up again. In the event of a tie, I’ll have the casting vote.)

* * * * *

OK, People, time for another batch of four, still all from 2021. I like to run three months ahead with these polls, so the winner will be a July read. H. Rider Haggard’s She is from my Classics Club list. Garnethill is on there because I’ve enjoyed some of Denise Mina’s books before. I keep acquiring books by Scottish author James Robertson but then never seem to find time to read them – The Testament of Gideon Mack is one of them. And I added LP Hartley’s The Hireling after loving The Go-Between. I’m frightened to say it after my recent track record, but I think all of these look good, so You, the People, can’t go wrong!

I’m intrigued to see which one you pick…

English Classic

She by H. Rider Haggard

Added 25th September 2021. 12,473 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.57 average rating. 384 pages.

The Blurb says: On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father’s quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does – in an unexpected form. Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration, discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthrall.

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Scottish Crime

Garnethill by Denise Mina

Added 29th September 2021. 9,314 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.84 average. 450 pages.

The Blurb says: When psychiatric patient Maureen O’Donnell finds her boyfriend dead in her living room, she is thrown into a difficult situation. Glasgow police view her as both a suspect and an unstable witness – and even her mother is convinced of her involvement.

Feeling betrayed by friends and family, Maureen begins to doubt her own version of events. Panic-stricken, she sets out in pursuit of the truth and soon picks up a horrifying trail of deception and suppressed scandal. Then a second body is discovered. Maureen realises that unless she gets to the killer first, her life is in danger…

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Scottish Fiction

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

Added 29th September 2021. 4,525 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.82 average. 386 pages.

The Blurb says: The Testament of Gideon Mack is James Robertson’s acclaimed novel exploring faith and belief.

For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, unfaithful husband and troubled soul, the existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies. Until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan himself.

Mack’s testament – a compelling blend of memoir, legend, history, and, quite probably, madness – recounts one man’s emotional crisis, disappearance, resurrection and death. It also transports you into an utterly mesmerising exploration of the very nature of belief.

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English Fiction

The Hireling by L.P. Hartley

Added 29th September 2021. 328 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.70 average. 240 pages. 

The Blurb says: Overcome with grief at her husband’s death, Lady Franklin, an eligible young widow, unburdens herself to Leadbitter – a gallant, hard-bitten ex-soldier who has invested his savings in the car he drives for hire – as he takes her on a series of journeys. He in turn beguiles her with stories of his non-existent wife and children, drawing her out of her self-absorption and weaving a dream-life with Lady Franklin at its heart. Half-hoping to make his dream come true, Leadbitter takes a bold, not to say reckless, step which costs him dearly, and brings these characters’ tangled story to a dramatic and unexpected conclusion.

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

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VOTE NOW!

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Looking forward to…

Episode 10

Another selection in my occasional looks back at old reviews which I finished by saying something along the lines of “I’ll be looking forward to reading more of her work/this series/his books in the future” to see if I actually did read more and, if I did, did I like the ones I looked forward to as much as the ones that made me look forward to them?

Let’s see then…

Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

First reviewed 30th May 2013. When a developer wants to buy up an apartment block in Bombay, one man holds out. This is the story of the residents – their friendships, sorrows, joys, dreams and fears. It is also the story of how the promise of wealth changes and corrupts a community. A wonderful book! I said “By a long way, this was my favourite book of 2011 and winner of that year’s FictionFan Award, the prize for which, as regular readers may know, is that I guarantee to read the author’s next book.” But did I?

I certainly did! First I backtracked to his earlier The White Tiger, and felt it showed the promise that he later fulfilled in Last Man in Tower, cementing his place on my favourites list. His next book, Selection Day, was another wonderful five-star read for me, with much to say about cricket, colonialism and corruption, and a healthy dose of sibling rivalry. His latest I haven’t read – Amnesty – because it’s about the “immigrant experience” and, to be frank, I’m very tired of that grossly over-used subject. I may read it one day, though. And I have his early collection of linked short stories, Between the Assassinations, on my list to be read this summer. That’s all there is since he’s not very prolific, but I shall certainly be looking out for his next book whenever it comes.

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The Men Who Lost America by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy

First reviewed 31st May 2013. In this scholarly but very accessible book, O’Shaughnessy argues that Britain’s loss in the War of Independence was not inevitable, and that in most cases the commanders and political leaders were scapegoated for the failure. He takes a biographical look at the main players, political and military, on the British side, showing the constraints that contributed to their defeat. I said “…though I’m now much better informed about the British side of the war, I remain almost entirely ignorant of the American side, so I sincerely hope that O’Shaughnessy is working on a companion book on The Men Who Won” and the five-star rating should have put him on my watch list to look out for future books. But did I?

I didn’t! I fear I have never thought of him or, indeed, the War of Independence again since the day I posted the review until now! I’ve checked and no, he hasn’t written about the men who won. He has, however, written about why the Caribbean colonies sided with the Brits rather than the mainland colonies, in An Empire Divided, and it looks very interesting and highly rated by reviewers. One for the wishlist!

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The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach

First reviewed 1st June 2013. In the form of a murder mystery and courtroom thriller, this novella considers Germany’s war-time past and how attitudes to guilt and innocence have changed over the last few decades. I said “…von Schirach is facing some of his personal history in this book. This background only adds to the intense and powerful effect of this book, which is far more than just another courtroom story.” The five-star rating meant I would look forward to reading more from the author. But did I?

I did! Unfortunately I found The Girl Who Wasn’t There a serious disappointment – overly padded, full of graphically sexual descriptions of women, not terribly well written (or perhaps not well translated – I’m not competent to judge) and goes so far over the credibility line in the latter stages as to become laughable. I gave it 2 generous stars, and I’m afraid it knocked von Schirach straight off my watch list. And on consideration I’m not tempted to put him back on.

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Death of the Demon by Anne Holt

First reviewed 10th June 2013. A Nordic crime novel set in Oslo which I enjoyed at the time but, to be honest, have zero recollection of now. It’s the third in a series, but was the first I’d read. Although I only gave it four stars, I said “Overall, a very enjoyable read that will certainly encourage me to read more in the series.” But did I?

I did! I read the second book in the series, Blessed Are Those Who Thirst, and again it has faded totally from my memory. Although I gave it four stars too and praised the writing and characterisation, my review tells me I had reservations about the plotting and found it a bit of a misery-fest – my short-lived love affair with Nordic crime was on the wane by this point, I think. I finished my review by saying “this is a series I will look forward to returning to in the future”, but I never did. And again, I’m not really tempted to do so now.

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So, I’ve followed up on three of these authors, only one of whom has stayed on my Looking Forward To list. A mixed result, but I’m glad to have reminded myself of all these books that gave me pleasure at the time even if some of the authors have since been dropped from my future reading plans. And glad to add back in the fourth author about whom I had unjustly forgotten!

Have you read any of these authors?
Are they on your “looking forward to” list?

TBR Thursday 373…

Episode 373

Yes! Back on track after my slumpiness and racing through the books at the moment, with the result that the TBR has plummeted! Down 2 to 167! I’m on a roll…

Here’s a few more that should be dropping off my list soon… 

Winner of the CC Spin #33

Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth

The winning number in the latest Classics Club Spin is 18, which means I’ll be reading this one! It’s very unlike the Spin Gods to pick me a nice easy genre book so I’m duly grateful. I must say I hope the book makes rather more sense than the blurb!

The Blurb says: Grey Mask is the start of this series, written by Wentworth in 1928. Charles Moray leaves home after being jilted by Margaret Langton on the eve of their wedding and returns four years later to find his home open and a strange meeting taking place. Watching through a childhood hideout, he sees a man in a grey mask talking to several different people – calling each by a number. When Charles hears them discussing “removing” a girl if a “certificate” is found, he is shocked. He is even more shocked when he recognizes one of the agents – his former fiancée.

When he reads about Margot Standing, whose millionaire father dies leaving her inheritance in the balance because of a missing marriage certificate, he puts two and two together and approaches Miss Silver, a private investigator with a high success rate in missing jewellery. He is sceptical until Miss Silver astutely guesses he will not go to the police because of his former love.

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Factual

The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill

The third in Churchill’s monumental six-volume history of the Second World War. At the rate I’m going, it’ll take me as long to read these as the war lasted! 

The Blurb says: Winston Churchill’s six-volume history of the cataclysm that swept the world remains the definitive history of the Second World War. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction and is an enduring, compelling work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Grand Alliance recounts the momentous events of 1941 surrounding America’s entry into the War and Hitler’s march on Russia – the continuing onslaught on British civilians during the Blitz, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the alliance between Britain and America that shaped the outcome of the War.

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Crime 

The Close by Jane Casey

Courtesy of HarperCollins via NetGalley. A new entry in the Maeve Kerrigan series is always highly anticipated, and this is the tenth! Getting rave reviews so far…

The Blurb says: At first glance, Jellicoe Close seems to be a perfect suburban street – well-kept houses with pristine lawns, neighbours chatting over garden fences, children playing together.

But there are dark secrets behind the neat front doors, hidden dangers that include a ruthless criminal who will stop at nothing.

It’s up to DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent to uncover the truth. Posing as a couple, they move into the Close, blurring the lines between professional and personal as never before.

And while Maeve and Josh try to gather the evidence they need, they have no idea of the danger they face – because someone in Jellicoe Close has murder on their mind.

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Scottish Classic

Doom Castle by Neil Munro

One from my Classics Club list. I loved Munro’s The New Road so have high hopes for this one, although it’s not nearly so well known and is out of print at the moment as far as I can tell – I got my copy from Project Gutenberg. The blurb sounds very appealing though!

The Blurb says: “No pomp, no pleasant amenities; the place seemed to jut into the sea, defying man’s oldest and most bitter enemy, its gable ends and one crenellated bastion or turret betraying its sinister relation to its age, its whole aspect arrogant and unfriendly, essential of war. Caught suddenly by the vision that swept the fretted curve of the coast, it seemed blackly to perpetuate the spirit of the land, its silence, its solitude and terrors.”

This was the Count Victor’s fist sight of Castle Doom. His mission to Scotland from France in 1755 brought him into this wild land of danger and mystery, where he met the haunting Count Doom, the lovely Olivia, the dastardly Simon MacTaggart – and gothic jeopardy armed with claymores, dirks, and bagpipes.

Here is the most unusual historical novel you will ever read, by a Scot worthy to sit at the right hand of the throne of Sir Walter Scott!

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Trollope on Audio

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope read by Timothy West

Timothy West is the perfect narrator for the Barchester Chronicles and I’m thoroughly enjoying listening to them in order! I don’t think I’ve read this third in the series before – the blurb isn’t ringing any bells anyway. 

The Blurb says: Son of a bankrupt landowner, Frank Gresham is intent on marrying his beloved Mary Thorne, despite her illegitimacy and apparent poverty. Frank’s ambitious mother and haughty aunt are set against the match, however, and push him to save the family’s mortgaged estate by making a good marriage to a wealthy heiress. Only Mary’s loving uncle, Dr Thorne, knows the secret of her birth and the fortune she is to inherit that will make her socially acceptable in the eyes of Frank’s family – but the high-principled doctor believes she should be accepted on her own terms. A telling examination of the relationship between society, money and morality, Dr Thorne (1858) is enduringly popular for Trollope’s affectionate depiction of rural English life and his deceptively simple portrayal of human nature.

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

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So…what do you think? Are you tempted?

Bookish selfie…

A snapshot of my recent reading in quotes…

….If anything, she was more worried about her daughter than her husband. Peter knew that his reaction was daft. Okay, he still went ahead, but he knew. Rosie, by contrast, had reacted to the news of Uncle Andy’s coma with apparent indifference. When Ellie had gently tried to ensure she understood the seriousness of the situation, she had reversed the roles and with the patience of mature experience addressing childish uncertainty, replied, “Uncle Andy will wake up when he wants to, don’t you see?”
….Ellie had promised herself when Rosie was born that she would never be anything but completely honest with her daughter. Often her resolution had been strained close to breaking point, but she’d always tried. Now she nodded and said, “Let’s hope so, love, let’s hope so. But he is very ill and we’ve got to face it. Maybe he’s so ill that he wouldn’t want to wake up. And he’ll just die. I’m sorry.”
….Her words clanged dully in her own ears, but Rosie’s expression didn’t change.
….“That doesn’t matter. He’ll still wake up when he’s needed.”
….Like King Arthur, you mean, thought Ellie. Or perhaps, more aptly, the Kraken.

~ The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill

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….The expert, on the other hand, would note certain tell-tale features that distinguish this group’s niche in the ecology of the university. There is the predominance of suede shoes. There is the brightness of the ties, some of which are made of silk. There is also the unusual length of hair, which in several cases approaches (scandalously, perilously) the collar. Such are the unmistakable marks of the Aesthete. These specimens are not fully fledged, being only first-year students, but later some of the more committed will come into their full plumage, sporting broad-brimmed hats, flowing trousers and jackets of unusual cut and provenance. Statistically at least one is likely to start wearing scent.
….Most will, if they persist, have their rooms trashed and their flowing trousers forcibly removed by Athletes. The Athlete is the Aesthete’s natural predator. Aestheticism is seen by him as a kind of illness, sign of moral and mental degeneracy. Debagging and room-trashing is a reasonable response to such evidence of decline, a sort of social shot across the bows intended to warm the Aesthete to spend more time on the rugger pitch and less reading Huysmans.

~ The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru

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….Think back. The signs were there. What were they?
….They all asked themselves the same questions afterwards. How did it come to this? Could we have stopped it?
….That was the key one, Aaron Falk knew. And the answer was probably yes. Even with no warning – and there were warnings – the answer was almost always yes. A million decisions paved the road to a single act, and a single act could be derailed in any one of a million ways. But choices had been made – some conscious and considered, some less so – and of all the million paths that had lain ahead, this was the one they found themselves on.

~ Exiles by Jane Harper

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….They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning under a milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes. The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The sea birds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again.
….Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.

(FF says: Best first paragraphs I’ve read in years!)

~ The Sea by John Banville

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….“The thing is – what to do next,” she said. “It seems to me we’ve got three angles of attack.”
….“Go on, Sherlock.”
….“The first is you. They’ve made one attempt on your life. They’ll probably try again. This time we might get what they call ‘a line’ on them. Using you as a decoy, I mean.”
….“No thank you, Frankie,” said Bobby with feeling. “I’ve been very lucky this time, but I mightn’t be so lucky again if they changed the attack to a blunt instrument. I was thinking of taking a great deal of care of myself in the future. The decoy idea can be washed out.”
….“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Frankie with a sigh. “Young men are sadly degenerate nowadays. Father says so. They don’t enjoy being uncomfortable and doing dangerous and unpleasant things any longer. It’s a pity.”
….“A great pity,” said Bobby, but he spoke with firmness.

~ Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie

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So… are you tempted?

Tilt-a-Whirl (Ceepak 1) by Chris Grabenstein

All the fun of the fair…

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Young cop Danny Boyle and his partner John Ceepak are having an early breakfast in one of the many eating places in Sea Haven, a small seaside resort town, before going on duty. Suddenly a young girl comes running along the street, covered in blood. She tells them her father has been shot in one of the many funfairs in the resort, while sitting on the ride known as the Tilt-a-Whirl. When they get there, the man is dead, riddled with bullets. It turns out he’s a prominent citizen – billionaire real estate tycoon, Reginald Hart. His daughter, twelve-year-old Ashley, saw the shooter and is able to give a good description, and suspicion soon settles on a local drug addict and leftover from the hippie era, known as Squeegie because he sometimes works in a car wash. But before they can find him, Ashley disappears…

This is the first in a long-running series about Danny, Ceepak and the town of Sea Haven. I’d read one of the later books a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, so decided to go back to the beginning. With only a couple of small reservations, I loved it! So let’s get those out of the way first. There’s way too much use of the f-word, especially for a book that is essentially a cosy in style. And the story takes a very dark turn which again I felt was out of tune with the overall style.

However, there’s so much to love that I was easily able to overlook these things. The story is told by Danny, a young man who has taken a job as a summer cop to boost the police presence in the town during the tourist season. He’s a lot of fun – innocent and maybe a little naive, but intelligent and good natured, and with a sense of humour. He’s developing something of a hero-worship for his partner, Ceepak, who lives by a strict moral code of his own devising. Ceepak has been through some harrowing experiences in his life which we learn about in this first book, so it was worth going back to the beginning for that. It explains why Ceepak has set himself such high standards, and also why Danny grows to admire him so much. But he’s not so perfect that he’s unlikeable – he makes mistakes sometimes, and he occasionally mocks himself, so as he would say, it’s all good.

Book 2 of 14

Sea Haven is a great setting. A ‘sunny, funderful’ place, as the advertising goes, tourism is its main business and it does it well. It reminded me of the town in Jaws, especially when the mayor tries to assure the tourists that a vicious killing and a child abduction shouldn’t put them off having a good time and spending money! Danny’s a native so he knows the town and most of the regular inhabitants inside out, which makes him very useful as a partner to the incomer, Ceepak.

The plot is very well done, though as I said it descends a little too far into darkness as it goes along. But Grabenstein misled me nicely, sent me off after red herrings, made me think at least twice I’d got it all worked out, and still managed to surprise me in the end. From about halfway through I was so hooked I found it quite difficult to pause and go do other things – the sign of a successful mystery!

Chris Grabenstein

The writing is very good – the style is light and Danny has a distinctively youthful voice, and makes a fun Watson for the more experienced Ceepak who does all the smart detection. The secondary characters are all given real personalities, some humorous, like the ageing hippy woman, some a little caricatured, like the mayor and the police chief, a couple of sultry temptresses, or at least they seem so to impressionable young Danny. The characterisation is enhanced by the truly great narration, by Jeff Woodman, who apparently has deservedly won numerous awards for his audiobooks. I’m delighted to see he’s the regular narrator for this series and I certainly won’t wait as long next time before grabbing another. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Audible UK Link

TBR Thursday 372 and Quarterly Round-Up

TBR Quarterly Report

At the New Year, as I do every year, I set myself some targets for my various reading challenges and for the reduction of my ever-expanding TBR. Usually I do brilliantly in the first quarter of the year while my enthusiasm for my new targets is high, but this year I had a big slump for most of February so let’s see how badly it all went wrong!

Here goes, then – the first check-in of the year…

Well, I think the most positive spin I can put on it is to say it could all be much worse! I’m back reading up a storm now, so hopefully I’ll pick up on the ones that are falling behind quite quickly. More concerning is the TBR which seems to be going in totally the wrong direction!

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The People’s Choice

I’m falling behind a bit on this challenge at the moment. I’ve read two and have reviewed them. I should catch up with the reading in April/May to get back on track. So did You, The People, pick me some good ones…?

January – In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. A noir psychological thriller told from the mind of  serial killer. Enjoyed the book, loved the film! 4 stars.

February – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. Against all expectation, this classic espionage thriller just didn’t work for me and I abandoned it. Very odd! 1 star.

One good one and I don’t blame You, The People, at all for my unexpected allergy to the other! Keep up the good work! 😉

2 down, 10 to go!

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The Classics Club

Just two read and reviewed for the Classics Club this quarter, though I have lots of goodies lined up for the next couple of months so again should be back on track soon! I also had four left over from 2022 and have only reviewed one of them. So three still to review from 2022 – is it ever going to happen? It might be easier after all this time just to swap in three replacement books rather than trying to write reviews of books that are already fading from my memory banks… I shall mull it over.

11. Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott – This tale of a missing heir includes gypsies and smugglers and is full of intrigue and action with lots of danger, spiced with just the right amount of romance! 5 stars.

12. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy – While I enjoyed this tale of a woman who picks the wrong man twice before finally picking the right one, it isn’t my favourite Hardy, possibly because I was forced to analyse it to death in school. 4 stars.

13. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes – It’s surprising how often The People pick one from my CC list! Clearly The People are Classics lovers! See above. 4 stars.

One great and two good – maybe that’s why they’re classics!

13 down, 67 to go!

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Murder Mystery Mayhem

I’ve only read two for this challenge this quarter and had another one left still to review from the quarter before. I’ve reviewed two, so still have one to come…

59. The Floating Admiral by Bernard Capes. Lovely idea to have various members of the Detective Club wite a mystery, one chapter each, with no conclusion. Sadly I thought it turned out to be a total flop. 1 star.

60. The Medbury Fort Murder by George Limnelius. Lots of psychology stops this from being a straightforward locked room mystery, though it is that too. Well written and surprisingly modern in some of the author’s attitudes. 5 stars.

These two kind of sum up this challenge – one dud, one great!

60 down, 42 to go!

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Wanderlust Bingo

(A click on the bingo card will take you to a bigger, more readable version!) I’ve read three books that might fit this challenge but have only reviewed one so far. If you’ve joined in with this challenge, how are you getting on?

1. Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir – An Icelandic murder mystery with a likeable main lead in lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, this one centres round the history of post-Reformation witch craft trials in Iceland. A perfect fit for the Nordic slot. 4½ stars.

1 down, 24 to go!

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The Looking Forward Challenge

Off to a great start with this challenge, having read three books for it this quarter, although I’ve only reviewed one of them so far.

1. Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir. I enjoyed this dark but entertaining Nordic murder mystery so much that I have promptly added the next book in the series to my wishlist. 4½ stars.

Hmm, I can see this new challenge isn’t going to help my TBR much!

1 down, 13 to go!

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A better quarter than might have been expected given I didn’t read for several weeks in the middle of it. Still have a reviewing backlog problem and I don’t think that’s going to go away any time soon unless I take drastic action – which I might! Thanks as always for sharing my reading experiences!

Here’s to more great reading next quarter! 😀

Six Degrees of Separation – From Springsteen to…

Chain links…

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with the book that Kate gives us and then create a chain of six books, each suggested by the one before. This month’s starting book is…

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. The blurb on Goodreads says…

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

Not my kind of thing, so I haven’t read it and am not tempted to.

Using autobiography as the link leads me to my first choice…

Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

This is a collection of short stories written by surely the most difficult to spell author of all-time. Writing under the Soviet regime in the early part of last century, most of his work didn’t get past the censors and remained unpublished until the period of Glasnost in the late ’80s. The stories are quirky and imaginative, sometimes fantastical, usually satirical, and often witty; and there are common themes of individual and social identity, reality and abstraction, life and death, space and time. Many are political…

“By morning many-hued military flags were hanging over building entrances and gateways. Men with newspapers held up to their eyes were walking down the sidewalks; men with rifles on their shoulders were walking down the roadways. Thus from the very first day newspapers and rifles divided us all into those who would die and those for whom they would die.”

A corpse also figures in the title of my second book…

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

Inspector Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle take on a case involving a woman who walked into the Musée Augustin waxworks one evening and was never seen alive again. Her body later turned up in the Seine. Before they can discover who killed her, they must find out why she went to the waxworks, and why so many other unlikely people seem to find it a place worth visiting late in the evenings…

The book is set in Paris and that links me to my third…

The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola

Paris, 1750. Madeleine is desperate to escape from the brothel that her mother runs, so when one of the brothel’s clients, a policeman, offers her money to take a position as a maid in the house of Doctor Reinhart in order to spy on him, she accepts. Doctor Reinhart is an automaton maker, already famed for his life-like creations of birds and animals which he animates using clockwork. Meantime Paris is in an uproar over the disappearances of several children… 

Still in Paris for my fourth choice, but this time the link is the name Madeleine…

Vertigo by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac

As Paris waits uneasily for war to begin, Roger Flavières is approached by an old college friend, Gévigne, who puts an odd proposition to him. Gévigne is concerned about his wife, Madeleine. She has been lapsing into odd silences, almost trances, and seems bewildered when she comes out of them. Gévigne wants Flavières to follow her, partly to find out what she’s doing and partly to make sure she is safe. Flavières assumes she is having an affair, but eventually agrees to Gévigne’s request. But a few days later, Madeleine steps quietly into the river and Flavières has to rescue her – a meeting that leads to him developing a strange obsession for her, which he calls love. This is the book on which the Hitchcock film of the same name is based, although, as so often, Hitchcock made some major changes…

And Hitchcock leads me to my fifth choice…

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Guy Haines is on a train to Texas, hoping that his estranged wife Miriam will finally give him the divorce he needs so that he can marry his new love, Anne. When another passenger, Charles Bruno, begins to chat to him, Guy little thinks that this is the beginning of an odd relationship which will eventually spiral into murder…

Hitchcock again made major changes (which in my opinion turned a good book into a great film), one of which was to incorporate a scene involving a runaway fairground carousel which he took from my final choice…

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

Poet Richard Cadogan decides he needs a break from routine so heads to Oxford. As he walks along a street at night looking at the window displays of the closed shops, he notices the door of a toyshop is open. His curiosity gets the better of him so he enters, but is shocked to find the corpse of a woman lying on the floor. Before he has the chance to leave the shop to report what looks like a murder, he is hit on the head and falls unconscious. When he comes round some time later he finds himself locked in a cupboard, but manages to make his escape and go to the police. However when they return with him to the spot, not only has the corpse disappeared but the whole shop has gone!

(NB The carousel scene is the climax of the film of Strangers on a Train, so is a bit spoilery.)

A bit of book merging that shows Hitchcock at his most brilliant!

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So from Springsteen to Crispin, via autobiographies, corpses, Paris, Madeleine, Hitchcock and carousels!

Hope you enjoyed the journey! 😀

TBR Thursday 371…

Episode 371

Oh dear, the TBR is still creeping up – another 1 this week, to 171! Being stuck in the middle of three rather large tomes doesn’t help!

Here’s a few more that should be slitherin’ off my list soon… 

Winner of the People’s Choice

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

It was neck and neck between all four contenders for the first several hours in this month’s poll, but then Alone in Berlin got its nose ahead and never looked back, gradually building a commanding lead. Excellent choice, People! This one, from the Foreign in Translation section of my Classics Club list, will be a June read…

The Blurb says: Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin is a gripping wartime thriller following one ordinary man’s determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule.

Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, deception, betrayal and murder ensue, tightening the noose around the Quangels’ necks …

Factual

Great and Horrible News by Blessin Adams

Courtesy of William Collins via NetGalley. A random choice, this one, picked on the basis of the blurb alone. Early reviews suggest it’s well written but quite gruesome…

The Blurb says: In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore, but desperate confessions and the grandest, most righteous human drama. Bookshops saw grisly stories of crime and death sell like hot cakes.

This history unfolds the true stories of murder, criminal investigation, early forensic techniques, high court trials and so much more. In thrilling narrative, we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net. We untangle the mystery of a suspected staged suicide through the newly emerging science of forensic pathology. We see a mother trying to clear her dead daughter’s name while other women faced the accusations – sometimes true and sometimes not – of murdering their own children. These stories are pieced together from original research using coroner’s inquests, court records, parish archives, letters, diaries and the cheap street pamphlets that proliferated to satisfy a voracious public.

These intensely personal stories portray the lives of real people as they confronted the extraordinary crises of murder, infanticide, miscarriage and suicide. Many historical laws and attitudes concerning death and murder may strike us as exceptionally cruel, and yet many still remind us that some things never change: we are still fascinated by narratives of murder and true crime, murder trials today continue to be grand public spectacles, female killers are frequently cast as aberrant objects of public hatred and sexual desire, and suicide remains a sin within many religious organisations and was a crime in England until the 1960s.

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Vintage Crime 

Death of Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson

Courtesy of the British Library. The first appearance in the BL’s Crime Classics series for this author, I think, and another “bibliomystery”…

The Blurb says: ‘A bookshop is a first-rate place for unobtrusive observation,’ he continued. ‘One can remain in it an indefinite time, dipping into one book after another, all over the place.’

Mr Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged.

In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses of Parliament (since an MP’s new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case), Ferguson’s series sleuth MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric and ingenious fair-play bibliomystery, first published in 1937.

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Dalziel and Pascoe on Audio

The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill read by Shaun Dooley

Getting very close to the end of my re-read/listen of this favourite series now – this is Book 22! (Note to self: Write review for Book 21…)

The Blurb says: There was no sign of life. But not for a second did Pascoe admit the possibility of death. Dalziel was indestructible. Dalziel is, and was, and forever shall be, world without end, amen. Chief constables might come and chief constables might go, but Fat Andy went on forever.

Caught in the full blast of a huge explosion, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel lies on a hospital bed, with only a life support system and his indomitable will between him and the Great Beyond. His colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe, is determined to bring those responsible to justice.

Pascoe suspects a group called The Templars, and the deeper he digs, the more certain he is that The Templars are getting help from within the police force.

The plot is complex, the pace fast, the jokes furious, and the climax astounding. And above it all, like a huge dirigible threatening to break from its moorings, hovers the disembodied spirit of Andy Dalziel.

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Spark on Audio

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark read by Juliet Stevenson

I’ve had a mixed reaction to Spark so far, so I’m hoping this one tips the balance in her favour – sounds like it should be fun!

The Blurb says: Set on the crazier fringes of 1950s literary London, A Far Cry from Kensington is a delight, hilariously portraying love, fraud, death, evil, and transformation. Mrs. Hawkins, the majestic narrator of A Far Cry from Kensington, takes us well in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London. There, as a fat and much admired young war widow, she spent her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher (“of very good books”) and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house. At work and at home Mrs. Hawkins soon uncovered evil: shady literary doings and a deadly enemy; anonymous letters, blackmail, and suicide. With aplomb, however, Mrs. Hawkins confidently set about putting things to order, little imagining the mayhem that would ensue. Now decades older, thin, successful, and delighted with life in Italy–quite a far cry from Kensington–Mrs. Hawkins looks back to all those dark doings and recounts how her own life changed forever. She still, however, loves to give advice: “It’s easy to get thin. You eat and drink the same as always, only half…I offer this advice without fee; it is included in the price of this book.”

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

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So…what do you think? Are you tempted?