Trigger Warning: child sexual abuse and rape. Ah, Susan Hill, you seemed to have taken a different direction with this book from the rest of the Serrailler series. Had the gentility of Lafferton started to wane for you? Was there only so much you could do with the cloistered - and I choose that metaphor… Continue reading The Soul of Discretion, Susan Hill
Category: ⭐⭐⭐
The Sentence is Death, Anthony Horowitz
Why do we read detective stories? It is a strange genre. Every piece of advice is that tension and conflict are the driver of a narrative and, with this genre, unlike the thriller genre, the most significant conflict - the one which traditionally culminates in murder, as it does with this one - occurs significantly… Continue reading The Sentence is Death, Anthony Horowitz
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The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah
Hercule Poirot. Arrogant and dandy and moustache firmly in place. An extended cast of somewhat two-dimensional characters. A convoluted and contrived plot - very contrived in this instance. Very contrived. Let's face is, when the plot of a novel revolves around the construction of a battenburg cake, that novel is - for fear of being… Continue reading The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah
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Faithful Place, Tana French
Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series is a delight, but has sometimes only vague connections to the eponymous Murder Squad. In The Woods, the first novel, centred on it; but the follow-up The Likeness, centred on Cassie Madox from the first book who is now in Domestic Violence rather than murder and being supervised by… Continue reading Faithful Place, Tana French
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Touch, Claire North
Poor Claire North. She brought out The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August as I read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life; I pick up Touch just after reading A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge. And both times, she comes a slight second in similar and comparable fantasy scenarios. Imagine being able to switch your… Continue reading Touch, Claire North
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The Word Is Murder, Anthony Horowitz
Sometimes you want to like a book just so damn much that it feels like you're the failure when you end up not liking it. So it was for me with this novel. Now there is no doubt that Horowitz can plot a cracking crime story: Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Magpie Murders are all testimony… Continue reading The Word Is Murder, Anthony Horowitz
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The Loney, Andrew Michael Hurley
There is something very frustrating about this book. It was so close to being great that the fact that it wasn't great is so disappointing. The premise sounded brilliant: members of a religious community go on a retreat to an isolated location; suspicious and sinister villagers mill around; a young boy is being prayed for… Continue reading The Loney, Andrew Michael Hurley
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The Keeper Of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan
My daughter is four. She loves Talking Tom games and You Tube episodes. I was more invested in the relationship between Tom and Angela on those cartoons than I was in the relationships between Laura and Freddy, or the post-death relationship between Anthony and Therése or between Eunice and Bomber. It is a nice enough… Continue reading The Keeper Of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan
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A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
We all know that old bloke on the corner who glowers at us, the one with a face like a bulldog sucking lemons, the one who barks at us for dropping litter or parking in the wrong place. The one who we suspect goes around the house grumbling about the radiators being on. Hell, I fear… Continue reading A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
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The Humans, Matt Haig
There's nothing new or original in this novel. Touches of Doctor Who, perhaps. Touches of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime. Touches, indeed, of Eleanor Oliphant Is Perfectly Fine. An outsider struggles to fit into humam society and ultimately fights to understand what it is to be human. Wrap that up with… Continue reading The Humans, Matt Haig
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The Boy On The Bridge, M. R. Carey
There are times when comfort, familiarity and ease are, actually, exactly what you need; at other times, by all means, challenge me, make me confront my preconceptions, subvert my genres in different ways. When I'm tired, poorly and stressed, however, enfold me in familiar settings, tropes and - hell, yes - even the comfort of… Continue reading The Boy On The Bridge, M. R. Carey
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The Plague Charmer, Karen Maitland
As the image above shows, this book is another historical fiction novel by the author of Company of Liars, which I read and enjoyed a while ago. It wasn't a great book but it was an enjoyable enough read, earning a decent four star review here. I was expecting something similarly entertaining and comfortable reading.… Continue reading The Plague Charmer, Karen Maitland
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The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch
It's a funny thing about series. What is original and unique can become familiar and even - dare I say it? - stale as a series goes on. They become perhaps over-thought or overworked like a piece of dough that's had the life kneaded out of it. I wonder whether that's what has happened with… Continue reading The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch
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The Risk Of Darkness, Susan Hill
This will be a fairly brief review for two reasons: firstly, I thought I'd already reviewed it and only realised when I tried to link my review of The Vows of Silence to it that I'd not; and secondly, it is very much a continuation of the second novel, The Pure In Heart. Serrailler is… Continue reading The Risk Of Darkness, Susan Hill
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Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
It's a Dresden File. It's Harry Dresden; it's Jim Butcher. Even after reading only the previous two novels, I already know what to expect. It's also a step up from the previous two novels in the series: the prose is still very, well, prosaic; Dresden is still a wise cracking hard boiled detective with magic;… Continue reading Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
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The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
You know when you hope you got a book series wrong? Other people are telling you it's great but you just don't get it? You end up offering excuses for the writer: maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind; maybe I was too tired; maybe I read it too quickly. Sometimes, it is… Continue reading The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
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The Vows Of Silence, Susan Hill
Susan Hill is, without doubt, a fantastic writer. The Woman In Black is an exquisitely crafted horror; Strange Meeting is exceptional. so I am persevering with these detective novels hoping for ... well something. But I've not found it yet. I really don't know what it is that's missing but something is. The plots are decent enough: this… Continue reading The Vows Of Silence, Susan Hill
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The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
Okay. I'm putting my hands up to this. I did not like this book. Yes, I know that Robert Galbraith is J. K. Rowling and the sainted J. K. can do no wrong in the eyes of many... but this did not work for me. The plot was decent enough: the death of Lula Landry,… Continue reading The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
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The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson
I tend to have three books on the go simultaneously most of the time: an audiobook for the drive to and from work; a thoughtful, dare I say literary, book for when I'm at home; and a just-entertain-me book for when I don't actually want to think too much. We all need a just-entertain-me book… Continue reading The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson
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The Pure In Heart, Susan Hill
I'm genuinely unsure of what to make of this book. Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad book; listening to it as an audiobook was a pretty pleasant way to spend my journeys to work. But it didn't seem to be what it was packaged as and marketed as: a crime mystery. It felt… Continue reading The Pure In Heart, Susan Hill
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The Rosie Effect, Graeme Simsion
There are some great books that I've read over the years. Neither this, nor it's predecessor, The Rosie Project, belong in that category. There are, however, other mental categories into which I file books and this did fall into one labelled silly-books-I've-read-extracts-of-to-my-wife and this does fall into that category. It is predictable; it follows an… Continue reading The Rosie Effect, Graeme Simsion
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Library Of Souls, Ransom Riggs
I'm not going to dwell long on this review: it concludes the story begun in Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and continues in Hollow City from which this book continues directly. It is also my last book of 2015, and Miss Peregrine was my first book of 2015 so it gives my year a… Continue reading Library Of Souls, Ransom Riggs
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Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
Okay. I confess. I only read this and the next book (Library Of Souls) to complete a trilogy for my 2015 Reading Challenge. And because I was running out of time. I did complete them by 31st December... just a little slow blogging about them. Due in part to a busy Christmas and also to… Continue reading Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
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Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson
Opening with a murderous rampage at a party held by a corrupt politician, once again, Sanderson plumbs the possibilities of his Mistborn universe in Scadriel extending the reach of the characters Waxillium Ladrian, Wayne and Marasi, whom he had introduced in The Alloy Of Law. The feel of this novel is distinctly Industrial Revolutionary with… Continue reading Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson
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Storm Front, Jim Butcher
literary lineage going back to Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade and Philips Marlowe. Dresden is in that line of hardboiled detectives; however, Butcher is not a writer of the same calibre as Hammett, Chandler or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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