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.

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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.

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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.

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So…what do you think? 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.

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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.

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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’.

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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. 

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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.

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So…what do you think? 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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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?

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.)

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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!

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

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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?

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! 😀

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?

TBR Thursday 370 – The People’s Choice…

Episode 370

(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.)

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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 June read. Three of these are from my newish Classics Club list, which I was finalising around this time: The Chill by Ross Macdonald from the Genre section, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad from the English section, and Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada from the Foreign in Translation section. The fourth is on my list just for fun – Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. A varied bunch!

I’m intrigued to see which one you pick…

Classic Crime

The Chill by Ross Macdonald

Added 3rd July 2021. 3,935 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.08 average rating. 352 pages.

The Blurb says: Private detective Lew Archer has better things to do than take on an investigation for Alex Kincaid, a young man claiming that his new bride, Dolly, has gone missing. Snapped by a hotel photographer on the day of their wedding, the beautiful girl vanished only hours after and Alex has heard nothing since. But when Archer begins digging, he finds evidence that links Dolly to brutal murders that span two decades, and a terrible secret.

In this byzantine and compelling tale, Ross Macdonald explores the darkest experiences that can bind a family together – and tear it apart.

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Classic English Fiction

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Added 19th July 2021. 21,447 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.59 average. 245 pages.

The Blurb says: Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in London’s Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be “a simple tale” proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats, and London’s fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising interrelations.

Based on the text which Conrad’s first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a full and up-to-date bibliography, a comprehensive chronology and a critical introduction which describes Conrad’s great London novel as the realization of a “monstrous town,” a place of idiocy, madness, criminality, and savage butchery. 

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Classic Fiction in Translation

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada translated by Michael Hofmann

Added 21st August 2021. 29,670 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.25 average. 612 pages.

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 …

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Horror

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Added 1st September 2021. 130,875 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.03 average. 257 pages. 

The Blurb says: Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor–husband, Guy, move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them; despite Rosemary’s reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant, and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare; as the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets’ circle is not what it seems.

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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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TBR Thursday 369…

Episode 369

I seem to be in a bit of a reading slump at the moment – too much politics going on in my neck of the woods! So the TBR has increased again, but only very slightly – up 1, to 170! I’m sure the bounce will only be temporary though…

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

Fiction

The Sea by John Banville

One that I’ve dug out from the deep recesses of the TBR, on the grounds that it would be suitable for Cathy’s Reading Ireland challenge. That is, if I finish it in time to review it this month, and if I enjoy it – I’ve had a somewhat mixed experience with John Banville to date…

The Blurb says: WINNER OF THE 2005 MAN BOOKER PRIZE

When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma.

The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow.

Vintage Crime

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Courtesy of HarperCollins. As I’ve mentioned before, HarperCollins sometimes randomly send me an Agatha Christie novel, and it’s always a pleasure to go back to reading a paper copy every now and again as opposed to my beloved Hugh Fraser and Joan Hickson audiobooks. I won’t be reviewing this one because I’ve reviewed it already on the blog, but since it’s one of my all time favourites I’m looking forward to yet another re-read!

The Blurb says: ‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

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Crime 

Exiles by Jane Harper

Courtesy of Macmillan via NetGalley. A new Jane Harper is always an anticipated treat, and it’s good to see that this one stars Aaron Falk, the detective from her earlier books…

The Blurb says: A mother disappears from a busy festival on a warm spring night. Her baby lies alone in the pram, her mother’s possessions surrounding her, waiting for a return which never comes. A year later, Kim Gillespie’s absence still casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations on a rare break from work is federal investigator Aaron Falk, who begins to suspect that all is not as it seems. As he looks into Kim’s case, long-held secrets and resentments begin to come to the fore, secrets that show that her community is not as close as it appears.

Falk will have to tread carefully if he is to expose the dark fractures at its heart, but sometimes it takes an outsider to get to the truth…

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Vintage Crime on Audio

A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh read by Philip Franks

Having recently very much enjoyed my first re-visit in a very long time to an old favourite, Ngaio Marsh, I’m looking forward to listening to more of them. This is the first in her long-running Inspector Alleyn series…

The Blurb says: At Sir Hubert Handesley’s country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of “Murder.” Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin. Scotland Yard’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game.

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Historical Fiction on Audio

Rizzio by Denise Mina read by Katie Leung

I’ve called this historical fiction, but it might be truer to say it’s a fictionalised account of a real event. It’s novella length, and is part of a newish series called Darkland Tales from Polygon, an imprint of independent Scottish publisher, Birlinn. The publishers say: “In Darkland Tales, the best modern Scottish authors offer dramatic retellings of stories from the nation’s history, myth and legend. These are landmark moments from the past, viewed through a modern lens and alive to modern sensibilities. Each Darkland Tale is sharp, provocative and darkly comic, mining that seam of sedition and psychological drama that has always featured in the best of Scottish literature.” Sounds intriguing, and if this one is a success I look forward to investigating the others in the series so far…

The Blurb says: From the multi-award-winning master of crime, Denise Mina delivers a radical new take on one of the darkest episodes in Scottish history—the bloody assassination of David Rizzio  private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the queen’s chambers in Holyrood Palace.

On the evening of March 9th, 1566, David Rizzio, the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots, was brutally murdered. Dragged from the chamber of the heavily pregnant Mary, Rizzio was stabbed fifty six times by a party of assassins. This breathtakingly tense novella dramatises the events that led up to that night, telling the infamous story as it has never been told before.

A dark tale of sex, secrets and lies, Rizzio looks at a shocking historical murder through a modern lens—and explores the lengths that men and women will go to in their search for love and power.

Rizzio is nothing less than a provocative and thrilling new literary masterpiece.

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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?

TBR Thursday 368…

Episode 368

Well, during my hiatus I didn’t do a lot of reading but I also didn’t do a lot of book acquiring. So over the course of the five weeks or so since I last reported. the TBR has fallen – by 6 to 169! I think I’ve got the hang of this at last!

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

Winner of the People’s Choice

Mystery at Lynden Sands by JJ Connington

I missed the People’s Choice poll for May, so decided to use the runner up in the April poll. It’s also one of the books for my Murder, Mystery, Mayhem challenge…

The Blurb says: In the fourth Sir Clinton Driffield mystery, the detective finds himself up against a missing heir, an accidental bigamist, a series of secret marriages and impersonations and an ingenious scientific murder. Aided by his wit and powers of reasoning, as well as Wendover, his very own Watson, Sir Clinton once again succeeds in piecing together a solution as the novel reaches its thrilling climax.

Political Memoirs

My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown

It’s terribly unfashionable in the UK today to admit to being a Brownite or a Blairite, but happily I’ve never been ruled by fashion. I admired Gordon Brown greatly as Chancellor, and have never doubted him as a man of principle and integrity, one of very few in recent political life. A pragmatist, he actually achieved things – something some of those currently on the Momentum wing of Labour could learn from, if they weren’t already so erroneously convinced of their own moral and intellectual superiority… *smiles sweetly*

The Blurb says: Former Prime Minister and the country’s longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story.

In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately-held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve. Reflecting on the personal and ideological tensions within Labour and its successes and failures in power, he describes how to meet the challenge of pursuing a radical agenda within a credible party of government.

He explains how as Chancellor he equipped Britain for a globalised economy while swimming against the neoliberal tide and shows what more must be done to halt rising inequality. In his behind-the-scenes account of the financial crisis and his leading role in saving the world economy from collapse, he addresses the question of who was to blame for the crash and why its causes and consequences still beset us.

From the invasion of Iraq to the tragedy of Afghanistan, from the coalition negotiations of 2010 to the referendums on Scottish independence and Europe, Gordon Brown draws on his unique experiences to explain Britain’s current fractured condition. And by showing us what progressive politics has achieved in recent decades, he inspires us with a vision of what it might yet achieve today.

Riveting, expert and highly personal, this historic memoir is an invaluable insight into our times.

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Fiction

The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru

One for my Looking Forward challenge. I’ve loved a couple of Kunzru’s later novels, so am looking forward (!) to back-tracking to this earlier one. It sounds extremely odd but then his books often are…

The Blurb says: This is the extraordinary story of a child conceived in a wild monsoon night, a boy destined to be an outsider, a man with many names and no name.

Born into luxury but disinherited and cast out onto the streets of Agra, Pran Nath must become a chameleon. Chasing his fortune, he will travel from the red light district of Bombay to the green lawns of England to the unmapped African wilderness. He will play many different roles — a young prize in a brothel, the adopted son of Scottish missionaries, the impeccably educated young Englishman headed for Oxford — in order to find the role that will finally fit.

Daring and riotously inventive, The Impressionist is an odyssey of self-discovery: a tale of the many lives one man can live and of the universal search for true identity.

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Crime

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

This is currently the oldest crime novel on my TBR, having been on there since 2014! When it came out, it was one of those that everyone seemed to be talking about, so it’s long past time I finally found out if it lives up to the hype…

The Blurb says: When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world.

Lies, rumours and guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna and Alistair, to slowly turn against each other.

Finally Joanna starts thinking the unthinkable: could the truth be even more terrible than she suspected? And what will it take to make things right?

The Cry is a dark psychological thriller with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart and characters who will keep you guessing on every page.

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Reading Ireland on Audio

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy read by Brid Brennan

I had a NetGalley copy of this when it came out, but it was so badly formatted I decided not to read it. I still wanted to, though, so picked up the audiobook and hope to listen to it in time to review it this month for Cathy’s Reading Ireland event. But I’m so slow at audiobooks, so it may slip into April…

The Blurb says: Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.

Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment – Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married – Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.

As tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish.

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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?

TBR Thursday 367…

Episode 367

Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!!! Okay, well, I’ll just say it fast and get it over… *deep breaths*… the TBR has leapt up by 5 to 175!! What shall I do?? What shall I DO?!?

Maybe I could get the cat to read these ones while I lie down in a darkened room…

Winner of the People’s Choice

The Third Man and The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

Well, there was never any doubt about the winner this month! Graham Greene raced into the lead within the first hour and never looked back, finally winning with a huge margin over the other three also-rans. An excellent choice, People – it will be an April read!

The Blurb says: The Third Man is Graham Greene’s brilliant recreation of post-war Vienna, a ‘smashed dreary city’ occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates…

The Fallen Idol is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight’s holiday, Philip realises too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

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Crime

Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

First up for my brand new Looking Forward challenge is this Scandi crime from an author whom I’ve enjoyed very much in the past, sometimes, while at other times she has become far too gruesome for my wimpy taste. There is one particular murder method she invented that I truly wish I could scrub from my mind! The blurb of this one looks dark…

The Blurb says: At a university in Reykjavík, the body of a young German student is discovered, his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest. Police waste no time in making an arrest, but the victim’s family isn’t convinced that the right man is in custody. They ask Thóra Guðmundsdóttir, an attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. It isn’t long before Thóra and her associate, Matthew Reich, uncover the deceased student’s obsession with Iceland’s grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts. But there are very contemporary horrors hidden in the long, cold shadow of dark traditions. And for two suddenly endangered investigators, nothing is quite what it seems…and no one can be trusted.

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Vintage Crime

Death of an Author by ECR Lorac

Courtesy of the British Library. Always happy to see the wonderful Lorac pop up the BL’s Crime Classics series…

The Blurb says: ‘I hate murders and I hate murderers, but I must admit that the discovery of a bearded corpse would give a fillip to my jaded mind.’

Vivian Lestrange – celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse – has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself, it appears that crime and murder is afoot when Lestrange’s housekeeper is also found to have disappeared.

Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim, as ECR Lorac spins a twisting tale full of wry humour and red herrings, poking some fun at her contemporary reviewers who long suspected the Lorac pseudonym to belong to a man (since a woman could apparently not have written mysteries the way that she did).

Incredibly rare today, this mystery returns to print for the first time since 1935.

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Hard to categorise…

The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray

Courtesy of Random House Cornerstone via NetGalley. Not quite sure what this is – thriller? Dystopian? Science fiction? Speculative fiction? I picked it mostly because I enjoyed his first book, The Last Day, but also because the blurb sounds intriguing. Hopefully by the time I’ve read it I’ll know where it belongs!

The Blurb says: In a disintegrating and increasingly lawless Britain, a young man is travelling north.

Ben is a young painter from the crowded, turbulent city. For six months his fiancée Cara has been living on a remote island known as Sanctuary Rock, the property of millionaire philanthropist Sir John Pemberley. Now she has decided to break off their engagement, and stay there.

Ben resolves to travel to the island to win Cara back. But the journey there is a harsh and challenging one, and when he does arrive, a terrible shock awaits him.

As Ben begins to find his way around the island, he knows he must also work out – what has made Cara so determined to throw her old life away? And is Sanctuary Rock truly another Eden – or a prospect of hell?

By the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Day, this high-concept thriller will intrigue and haunt you as you too work to find out what secret is buried on the island.

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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?

TBR Thursday 366 – The People’s Choice…

Episode 366

(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.)

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OK, People, time for another batch of four, all from 2021. I like to run three months ahead with these polls, so the winner will be an April read. Mystery at Lynden Sands by JJ Connington is one for my Murder, Mystery, Mayhem challenge. I added The Brownie of Bodsbeck after enjoying James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Graham Greene’s two-novella volume, The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, is on my Classics Club list. And I added Hemingway’s Complete Short Stories because it came up as a Kindle sale! It’s a strange batch this time, I think!

I’m intrigued to see which one you pick…

Vintage Crime

Mystery at Lynden Sands by JJ Connington

Added 19th April 2021. 88 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.08 average rating. 294 pages.

The Blurb says: In the fourth Sir Clinton Driffield mystery, the detective finds himself up against a missing heir, an accidental bigamist, a series of secret marriages and impersonations and an ingenious scientific murder. Aided by his wit and powers of reasoning, as well as Wendover, his very own Watson, Sir Clinton once again succeeds in piecing together a solution as the novel reaches its thrilling climax.

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Fiction

The Brownie of Bodsbeck by James Hogg

Added 22nd May 2021. 7 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.29 average. 203 pages.

The Blurb says: “Walter’s blood curdled within him at this relation. He was superstitious, but he always affected to disbelieve the existence of the Brownie, though the evidences were so strong as not to admit of any doubt; but this double assurance, that his only daughter, whom he loved above all the world besides, was leagued with evil spirits, utterly confounded him.” (Extract)

(FF says: I can’t find a proper blurb for this one, but apparently it’s about the persecution of the Covenanters by the Royalists led by Claverhouse in late 17th century Scotland, if that means anything to you!)

James Hogg (1770-1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorized biography.

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Fiction

The Third Man and The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

Added 6th June 2021. 2,750 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.74 average. 146 pages.

The Blurb says: The Third Man is Graham Greene’s brilliant recreation of post-war Vienna, a ‘smashed dreary city’ occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates…

The Fallen Idol is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight’s holiday, Philip realises too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

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Short Stories

Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway

Added 27th June 2021. 35,296 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.29 average. 676 pages. 

The Blurb says: This stunning collection of short stories by Nobel Prize­–winning author, Ernest Hemingway, contains a lifetime of work—ranging from fan favorites to several stories only available in this compilation.

In this definitive collection of short stories, you will delight in Ernest Hemingway’s most beloved classics such as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” and discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

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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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TBR Thursday 365…

Episode 365

Reading-wise, this year has got off to a terrible start – I just haven’t been in the mood, for some obscure reason. So I haven’t finished a book this week, but fortunately I also haven’t received any. The TBR is staying balanced on 170!

(Yeah, I’ve used that gif before, but it’s too good to only use once!) Anyway here are a few more I should get to soon…

Factual

The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards

Courtesy of HarperCollins. An unsolicited one, and a giant tome. To be honest, much though I enjoyed Martin Edwards’ much shorter delve into the history of mystery writing, I’m not sure I’m interested enough to read over 600 pages on the subject. But I’ll dip in and see – I suspect this may be a book more intended for dipping than reading straight through anyway. I’ll soon find out!

The Blurb says: In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world’s most popular form of fiction.

Author Martin Edwards is a multi-award-winning crime novelist, the President of the Detection Club, archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association and series consultant to the British Library’s highly successful series of crime classics, and therefore uniquely qualified to write this book. He has been a widely respected genre commentator for more than thirty years, winning the CWA Diamond Dagger for making a significant contribution to crime writing in 2020, when he also compiled and published Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club and the novel Mortmain Hall. His critically acclaimed The Golden Age of Murder (Collins Crime Club, 2015) was a landmark study of Detective Fiction between the wars.

The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded as his magnum opus, Martin Edwards has thrown himself undaunted into the breadth and complexity of the genre to write an authoritative – and readable – study of its development and evolution. With crime fiction being read more widely read than ever around the world, and with individual authors increasingly the subject of extensive academic study, his expert distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors – from the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann to the novels of Patricia Cornwell – into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes for compelling reading.

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Fiction

Edith and Kim by Charlotte Philby

Courtesy of HarperCollins. Another unsolicited one, but one I would have picked for myself even if I hadn’t been sent a copy. I’m intrigued by the fact that it’s written by Charlotte, granddaughter of probably the most famous British traitor of the last century, Kim Philby. Whether that will give her any additional insight is a rather moot point as far as I’m concerned, since Philby ran off to his masters in the USSR in 1963 and died in 1988. But we’ll see!

The Blurb says: To betray, you must first belong…

In June 1934, Kim Philby met his Soviet handler, the spy Arnold Deutsch. The woman who introduced them was called Edith Tudor-Hart. She changed the course of 20th century history.

Then she was written out of it.

Drawing on the Secret Intelligence Files on Edith Tudor-Hart, along with the private archive letters of Kim Philby, this finely worked, evocative and beautifully tense novel – by the granddaughter of Kim Philby – tells the story of the woman behind the Third Man.

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Historical Crime

The Bookseller of Inverness by SG MacLean

Courtesy of Quercus via NetGalley. I’ve had a mixed reaction to MacLean’s books – her Seeker series didn’t really work for me, but I did enjoy one of her Alexander Seaton books. This one is set in the aftermath of Culloden, which gives it the advantage that I will be familiar with the historical background, and the disadvantage that I’m bored with the Scottish obsession with the Jacobites. So it could go either way! Fingers crossed…

The Blurb says: After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.

Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he’s searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night.

The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him – a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites. With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for – and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.

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Dalziel and Pascoe on Audio

Good Morning, Midnight by Reginald Hill read by Shaun Dooley 

Continuing my re-read of my favourite police procedural series via audio, this is the 21st book. While I’ve been irritated by the constant changing of the narrator in the later books, I did quite enjoy Shaun Dooley’s rather understated narration of the last book, once I got used to it. 

The Blurb says: Like father like son. But heredity seems to have gone a gene too far when Pal Maciver’s suicide in a locked room exactly mirrors that of his father ten years earlier.

In each case accusing fingers point towards Pal’s stepmother, the beautiful enigmatic Kay Kafka. But she turns out to have a formidable champion, Mid-Yorkshire’s own super-heavyweight, Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel. DCI Peter Pascoe, nominally in charge of the investigation, finds he is constantly body-checked by his superior as he tries to disentangle the complex relationships of the Maciver family.

At first these inquiries seem local and domestic. What really happened between Pal and his stepmother? And how has key witness and exotic hooker Dolores, Our Lady of Pain, contrived to disappear from the face of Mid-Yorkshire?

Gradually, however, it becomes clear that the fall-out from Pal’s suicide spreads far beyond Yorkshire. To London, to America. Even to Iraq. But the emotional epicentre is firmly placed in mid-Yorkshire where Pascoe comes to learn that for some people the heart too is a locked room, and in there it is always midnight.

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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?

TBR Thursday 364…

Episode 364

Well, after boasting last week about my amazing success in reducing the TBR, I don’t know how to break the news that it’s gone up in the first five days of the year – by 6! Now at 170.

The only solution is to read these ones at warp speed. Engage!

Winner of the People’s Choice

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

There was never any doubt about the winner this month! In This House of Brede leapt into a commanding lead with the first few votes and continued to pull further ahead all the way through, eventually winning by what I think may be the biggest ever margin. ECR Lorac made a valiant effort to catch up, but never even got within touching distance. An excellent choice, People – it will be a March read!

The Blurb says: ‘The motto was Pax but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort . . .’

Bruised by tragedy, Philippa Talbot leaves behind a successful career with the civil service for a new calling: to join an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. In this small community of fewer than one hundred women, she soon discovers all the human frailties: jealousy, love, despair. But each crisis of heart and conscience is guided by the compassion and intelligence of the Abbess and by the Sisters’ shared bond of faith and ritual. Away from the world, and yet at one with it, Philippa must learn to forgive and forget her past.

A vivid and exceedingly insightful portrait of religious community, In This House of Brede is the second instalment in Godden’s acclaimed ‘convent novels.’

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Short Stories

The Virgin of the Seven Daggers and Other Stories by Vernon Lee

Courtesy of Oxford World’s Classics. The porpy and I thought we’d reached the end of this year’s mammoth batch of spooky collections and anthologies, but when I saw that OWC and one of my favourite editors, Aaron Worth, were issuing a new collection, how could I resist? We’ve started it already, and even the porpy thinks this one is well worth delaying hibernation for!

The Blurb says: Vernon Lee was a polymath whose copious writings include deeply learned studies of art, music, literature, and history, but also a small but exquisitely crafted group of Gothic tales, most of which first appeared in fin de siècle periodicals including the iconic Yellow Book. In these stories of obsession and possession, transgressive desire reaches out from the past — through a haunting portrait, a murdered poet’s lock of hair, the uncanny voice of a diabolical castrato — dragging Lee’s protagonists to their doom. Among those haunted by Lee’s ‘spurious ghosts’ was Henry James, who praised her ‘gruesome, graceful…ingenious tales, full of imagination’.

This new edition includes Lee’s landmark 1890 collection Hauntings complete, along with six additional tales and the 1880 essay ‘Faustus and Helena’, in which Lee probes the elusive nature of the supernatural as a ‘vital…fluctuating…potent’ force that resists definite representation. Aaron Worth’s contextual introduction, drawing upon Lee’s newly published letters, reassesses her place in the pantheon of the fantastic.

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Thriller

Hunting Time by Jeffery Deaver

Courtesy of HarperCollins via NetGalley. Having thoroughly enjoyed Deaver’s Colter Shaw trilogy, I was pleased and not terribly surprised to discover there would be a book four after all! Wonder how it will work now that the trilogy’s background storyline has been completed…

The Blurb says: THERE ARE TWO FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF SURVIVAL.
#1: NEVER BE WITHOUT A MEANS OF ESCAPE.
Allison Parker is on the run with her teenage daughter, Hannah, and Colter Shaw has been hired by her eccentric boss, entrepreneur Marty Harmon, to find and protect her. Though he’s an expert at tracking missing persons–even those who don’t wish to be found–Shaw has met his match in Allison, who brings all her skills as a brilliant engineer designing revolutionary technology to the game of evading detection.

#2: NEVER BE WITHOUT ACCESS TO A WEAPON.
The reason for Allison’s panicked flight is soon apparent. She’s being stalked by her ex-husband, Jon Merritt. Newly released from prison and fueled by blinding rage, Jon is a man whose former profession as a police detective makes him uniquely suited for the hunt. And he’s not alone. Two hitmen are also hot on her heels–an eerie pair of thugs who take delight not only in murder but in the sport of devising clever ways to make bodies disappear forever. Even if Shaw manages to catch up with Allison and her daughter, his troubles will just be beginning.

SHAW IS ABOUT TO DISCOVER RULE #3:
NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING.
As Shaw ventures further into the wilderness, the truth becomes as hard to decipher as the forest’s unmarked trails…and peril awaits at every turn.

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Shardlake on Audio

Lamentation by CJ Sansom read by Steven Crossley

Continuing my re-read of this great series via audiobook. Rumour is there’ll be a new book next year – hope so, since I’ll soon run out of re-reads! I won’t be reviewing this one since I already have.

The Blurb says: Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government of Henry’s successor, eight-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across London, and the radical Protestant Anne Askew is burned at the stake, the Catholic party focus their attack on Henry’s sixth wife, Matthew Shardlake’s old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr.

Shardlake, still haunted by events aboard the warship Mary Rose the year before, is working on the Cotterstoke Will case, a savage dispute between rival siblings. Then, unexpectedly, he is summoned to Whitehall Palace and asked for help by his old patron, the now beleaguered and desperate Queen. For Catherine Parr has a secret. She has written a confessional book, Lamentation of a Sinner, so radically Protestant that if it came to the King’s attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers crashing down.

But, although the book was kept secret and hidden inside a locked chest in the Queen’s private chamber, it has – inexplicably – vanished. Only one page has been found, clutched in the hand of a murdered London printer.

Shardlake’s investigations take him on a trail that begins among the backstreet print shops of London but leads him and Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of the politics of the royal court. Loyalty to the Queen will drive him into a swirl of intrigue inside Whitehall Palace, where Catholic enemies and Protestant friends can be equally dangerous, and the political opportunists, who will follow the wind wherever it blows, more dangerous than either.

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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?

TBR Thursday 363 and Quarterly Round-Up

TBR Quarterly Report

I usually include a summary of how I’m progressing (or not) towards the targets I set myself for the year, but since I’ll be looking at my New Year’s Resolutions old and new tomorrow, I’ll leave that for then. So just a round-up of the books I’ve read and reviewed for my various ongoing challenges this time.

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The Classics Club

I’ve read another two from my list this quarter, but haven’t reviewed either of them yet. And I had three still to review from the quarter before and have reviewed just one of them! So four outstanding – must do better…

10. The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler – This ‘thriller’ completely failed to thrill, becoming bogged down in turgid descriptions of obscure Eastern European politics that may have interested a contemporary audience but didn’t interest me. I said “Have never been quite so bored in my entire life, except possibly during the whale classification sections of Moby Dick.” Abandoned at 30%. 1 star.

Oh dear! A pity, since I enjoyed all four of the ones I haven’t reviewed! 😉

10 down, 70 to go!

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Murder Mystery Mayhem

I’ve read four for this challenge this quarter and had another two left still to review from the quarter before, and have reviewed five, so just one left outstanding…

54. Calamity Town by Ellery Queen. A slightly weak plot, perhaps, and could have done with some trimming of the length. But the depiction of the town and the characterisation of the family and townspeople are excellently done and the writing is great. 5 stars.

55. Max Carrados by Ernest Bramah. A collection of short stories about blind amateur detective Max Carrados. The stories are well written and some of the plots are interesting, though others are pretty dull, but I tired very quickly of Carrados’ superhuman compensating sensory abilities. 3 stars.

56. Israel Rank by Roy Horniman. I could probably have tolerated the anti-Semitism as of its time, but I found the book dull and overlong, and eventually abandoned it halfway through. It’s the book that the film Kind Hearts and Coronets is based on, and my advice is forget the book and watch the film! 2 stars

57. The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh. A revisit to an old favourite series, which happily I found has stood the test of time well despite some of the usual Golden Age snobbery. Alleyn is quite a cheerful detective, who enjoys his job and has a keen sense of justice, so the books fall neatly into that sweet spot that is neither too cosy nor too grim. 4 stars.

58. Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr. The murder of a conductor mid-performance provides a unique little puzzle that’s told almost entirely through letters and documents related to the case, including newspaper clippings,  a chart of the orchestra and even four pages of the score of the relevant part of the music being played at the time of the victim’s demise! I loved the sheer fun and novelty of the musical clues, which allowed me to overlook the book’s other weaknesses. 5 stars.

As has been the case throughout this challenge, a mixed bunch, but more good than bad this time!

58 down, 44 to go!

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Reading the Spanish Civil War Challenge

I read and reviewed the final two books for this challenge, and posted my wrap post yesterday…

12. The Gate of the Sun by Derek Lambert. This is a long book which covers the years from the early stages of the war, 1937, by which time the International Brigades were active, to 1975, the year of Franco’s death. Lambert’s desire to paint a panoramic picture of Spain’s development over forty years sometimes took him too far from the personal stories which turn history into novels. But for the most part I found the book absorbing, very well written and deeply insightful about the war-time conditions, its aftermath and the impact on some of the people caught up in events. 4 for the novel, 5 for the accuracy of and insight into the historical setting, so overall 4½ stars.

13. Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom. 1940, and four people, all British, play out their own drama in a Madrid still wrecked and reeling, its people starving and afraid. Well written as any book by Sansom is, grounded in accurate history but seen through an obvious left-wing lens, and more of a slow thoughtful look at the period than a fast-paced political or action thriller. 4 stars.

Two good books to finish off this challenge triumphantly!

13 down, 0 to go!

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The People’s Choice

I read three this quarter and had two still to review form the quarter before. I’ve reviewed all five and am up-to-date! So did You, The People, pick me some good ones…?

August – The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler. Sadly it fared no better as a People’s Choice than it did as a Classic! 😉 1 star.

September – Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. While willing to accept that this is probably a good depiction of a time and a place, I fear I never get along with plotless novels, and by 20% of this long book no plot had begun to emerge. Abandoned. 2 stars.

October – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Probably best described as a literary science fiction set in a dystopian world but in our own recent past, this is not about a struggle against injustice, a battle for rights – it is a portrait of brainwashing, and of a society that has learned how to look the other way. I found it thought-provoking and quietly devastating, and sadly all too relevant to the world we live in. 5 stars.

November – The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson. A raid by Barbary pirates results in a group of Icelanders being taken to a life of slavery in Algiers. The historical aspects are interesting and, I assume, accurate. But I found the central romance between slave and slave-owner outdated and rather nauseating. 2 stars.

December – The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie. Poirot and Hastings on the trail of a murderer in France. An early one from when Christie was still developing her characters and her style, but already her trademark plotting skills are evident in this entertaining mystery. 4½ stars.

So a mixed bag to finish the year, but the couple of great books well outweighed the rather less stellar ones. Good work, People! Possibly my favourite challenge since I never know what You will choose! Let’s do it all again next year!

12 down, 0 to go!

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So a few duds this quarter, but many really excellent books too! I’m still a mile behind with reviews, especially of Classics, but hopefully I’ll get on top of the backlog in the New Year. Thanks as always for sharing my reading experiences!

Here’s to more great reading next quarter! 😀

TBR Thursday 362 – The People’s Choice…

Episode 362

(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.)

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OK, People, time for another batch of four, all from 2021. I’m early this month because Santa will be here soon! Again these are all ones I really want to read from authors I’ve previously enjoyed, so you can’t go wrong whichever one you vote for. I like to run three months ahead with these polls, so the winner will be a March read. I added See You in September by Charity Norman after enjoying her later book, The Secrets of Strangers. Philip Roth’s The Human Stain will complete my re-read of Roth’s brilliant American Trilogy. ECR Lorac is one of my favourite vintage mystery writers, which is why I acquired Rope’s End, Rogue’s End. And I added Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede to my Classics Club list after enjoying Black Narcissus.

I’m intrigued to see which one you pick…

Thriller

See You in September by Charity Norman

Added 1st February 2021. 2,870 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.24 average rating. 413 pages.

The Blurb says: It was supposed to be a short trip – a break in New Zealand before her best friend’s wedding. But when Cassy waved goodbye to her parents, they never dreamed that it would be years before they’d see her again.

Having broken up with her boyfriend, Cassy accepts an invitation to stay in an idyllic farming collective. Overcome by the peace and beauty of the valley and swept up in the charisma of Justin, the community’s leader, Cassy becomes convinced that she has to stay.

As Cassy becomes more and more entrenched in the group’s rituals and beliefs, her frantic parents fight to bring her home – before Justin’s prophesied Last Day can come to pass.

A powerful story of family, faith and finding yourself, See You in September is an unputdownable new novel from this hugely compelling author.

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Fiction

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Added 3rd February 2021. 38,416 ratings on Goodreads, with a 3.90 average. 361 pages.

The Blurb says: The American psyche is channelled into the gripping story of one man. This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Philip Roth at his very best.

It is 1998, the year America is plunged into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president. In a small New England town a distinguished professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues allege that he is a racist. The charge is unfounded, the persecution needless, but the truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret that he has kept for fifty years. This is the conclusion to Roth’s brilliant trilogy of post-war America – a story of seismic shifts in American history and a personal search for renewal and regeneration.

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Vintage Crime

Rope’s End, Rogue’s End by ECR Lorac

Added 18th February 2021. 364 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.06 average. 192 pages.

The Blurb says: Wulfstane Manor, a rambling old country house with many unused rooms, winding staircases and a maze of cellars, had been bequeathed to Veronica Mallowood and her brother Martin. The last time the large family of Mallowoods had all foregathered under the ancestral roof was on the occasion of their father’s funeral, and there had been one of those unholy rows which not infrequently follow the reading of a will. That was some years ago, and as Veronica found it increasingly difficult to go on paying for the upkeep of Wulfstane, she summoned another family conference – a conference in which Death took a hand.  Rope’s End, Rogue’s End  is, of course, an Inspector MacDonald case, in which that popular detective plays a brilliant part.

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Classic Fiction

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Added 2nd March 2021. 5,461 ratings on Goodreads, with a 4.34 average. 392 pages. 

The Blurb says: ‘The motto was Pax but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort . . .’

Bruised by tragedy, Philippa Talbot leaves behind a successful career with the civil service for a new calling: to join an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. In this small community of fewer than one hundred women, she soon discovers all the human frailties: jealousy, love, despair. But each crisis of heart and conscience is guided by the compassion and intelligence of the Abbess and by the Sisters’ shared bond of faith and ritual. Away from the world, and yet at one with it, Philippa must learn to forgive and forget her past.

A vivid and exceedingly insightful portrait of religious community, In This House of Brede is the second instalment in Godden’s acclaimed ‘convent novels.’

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

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TBR Thursday 361…

Episode 361

I’m stuck in the middle of four chunky books this week, so no movement in the TBR – still on 162! I have a horrible feeling more books will be arriving soon though…

It’s getting close to Santa time, so I’m sorting out some festive reading this week…

Vintage Crime

The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson

Courtesy of the British Library.  This sounds perfect for Yuletide reading! Carter Dickson is a pseudonym of John Dickson Carr, who’s become one of the authors I look forward to in the BL’s Crime Classics series. I haven’t read him in this incarnation though, so I’m intrigued to see if he uses a different style. 

The Blurb says: James Bennett has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas among the retinue of the glamorous Hollywood actress Marcia Tait. Her producer, her lover, the playwright for her next hit and her agent are all here, soon to become so many suspects when Tait is found murdered on a cold December morning in the lakeside pavilion. Only the footprints of her discoverer disturb the snow which fell overnight – and which stopped just shortly after Marcia was last seen alive. How did the murderer get in and out of the pavilion without leaving a trace?

When Bennett’s uncle, the cantankerous amateur sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale arrives from London to make sense of this impossible crime, the reader is treated to a feast of the author’s trademark twists, beguiling false answers and one of the most ingenious solutions in the history of the mystery genre.

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Short Stories

The End of the Tether and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad

Courtesy of Oxford World’s Classic. Not obviously festive, I admit, but I can’t imagine much better than curling up with hot chocolate, mince pies and a new collection of Conrad’s stories! The blurb suggests I might need the porpy’s support for these…

The Blurb says: ‘(Conrad) thought of civilised and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths’
~ Bertrand Russell

This selection of four tales by Conrad is about radical insecurity: lone human beings involuntarily forced into confrontation with a terrifying universe in which they can never be wholly at home. It leads with ‘The End of the Tether’ and includes also ‘ The Duel’, ‘ The Return’, and ‘Amy Foster’ – Sailor, Soldier, Rich Man, Immigrant. These powerful shorter works remind readers that Conrad is not just the teller of sea stories and tales of imperialist action, and not only the author of the ubiquitous ‘Heart of Darkness’. This is the Conrad who is master of the terror element – global crisis, individual test, and personal trauma – in modern literature.

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Crime

The Craftsman by Sharon Bolton

I usually read Bolton’s new releases more or less as soon as they come out, but for some reason this one slipped past me and has been lingering on my TBR for so long that the sequel is now out! I can’t pretend this one is Christmassy, but I’m looking forward to it as much as to Christmas cake!

The Blurb says: Old enemies… New crimes

Thirty years ago, WPC Florence Lovelady’s career was made when she arrested coffin-maker Larry Glassbrook for three shocking murders.

Larry confessed; it was an open and shut case. But now he’s dead, and events from the past are repeating themselves.

The town Florence left behind still has many secrets. Will she finally uncover the truth? Or will time run out for her first?

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Hard Times by Charles Dickens

No Christmas would be complete without Dickens! This year’s re-read is one of his shorter books so I’ll have to read it slowly to savour it for longer. I chose it because I read Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South this year, and they share the “industrial” theme, so I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast, as the old exam questions used to say. I’ve still to review North and South though. (Note to self: stop procrastinating!)  

The Blurb says: Thomas Gradgrind is the guiding luminary of the Coketown school, stern proponent of the Philosophy of Fact, whose ill-conceived idealism blinds him to the essential humanity of those around him, with calamitous results. His daughter Louisa becomes trapped in a loveless marriage and falls prey to an idle seducer, and her brother Tom is ruined thanks to their father’s pet theories. Meanwhile Sleary’s circus offers a vision of escape and entertainment, a joyful contrast to the dreariness of life in Coketown. The hardship of the workers and the victimization of Stephen Blackpool are set against the exuberance of the circus people in Dickens’s much-loved moral tale. Gradgrind is forced to reconsider his cherished system when he realizes that ‘Facts alone’ are not, after all, enough.

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Gothic Horror on Audio

The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker read by Simon Vance 

How could I possibly celebrate Christmas without some spine-chilling Gothic horror? The porpy would never forgive me! Bram Stoker is sometimes too dark for me, often concentrating on real horrors like rats and humans, which I find far scarier than the supernatural! But this sounds delightfully creepy – who doesn’t love ancient Egyptian curses?

The Blurb says: “Hither the Gods come not at any summons. The Nameless One has insulted them and is forever alone. Go not nigh, lest their vengeance wither you away!”

The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.

Now, in a bedroom filled with ancient relics, a distinguished Egyptologist lies senseless, stricken by a force that challenges human understanding. From beyond the grave Queen Tera is reaching out for the mysterious jewel that will bring her 5,000-year-old plan to fulfilment.

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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?
What’s on your Christmas TBR?