Tag: murder

The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman

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Oh Lyra Belacqua, Lyra Silvertongue. I devoured the original trilogy of your journeys to the North. Bolvangar, Svalbad, Iorek Byrnison, The World of the Dead. I adored the Miltonic and Blakean echoes. Fell in love with the mercurial, quick witted, innocent girl. Loved the world created by Pullman, the familiarity of it, the uncanniness, the… Continue reading The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman

Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver

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This was my first Paver read having heard some good things about her, and it thrust me straight into a solid Gothic historical yarn with some genuinely creepy moments! The novel is perhaps misnamed: it focuses on the house Wake's End set beside the local fen, some three miles from the village of Wakenhyrst; and,… Continue reading Wakenhyrst, Michelle Paver

The Mitford Murders, Jessica Fellowes

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What a classy cover! Don't be judging a book by its cover, but even so... classy! I want to describe it as being in an art deco style but I'm not entirely sure what that term means... Similarly classy is the pedigree of the author: Jessica Fellowes is a well renowned journalist and editor; she… Continue reading The Mitford Murders, Jessica Fellowes

The Sentence is Death, Anthony Horowitz

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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

The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah

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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

The Black Book of Secrets, F. E. Higgins

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Every year, I determine to teach at least one text which is new to me that year - which with a shrinking pool to choose from at GCSE becomes harder year-one-year - and that is why I have stumbled upon F. E. Higgins' The Black Book of Secrets. It is an odd little book -… Continue reading The Black Book of Secrets, F. E. Higgins

The Pure In Heart, Susan Hill

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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

In The Woods, Tana French

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This is my second Tana French novel, and it was her debut with the Dublin Murder Squad series. And I do enjoy her writing style.    We have here, ostensibly, a crime novel. A twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, is discovered dead on the altar stone at an archeological dig. Detective Rob Ryan and… Continue reading In The Woods, Tana French

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

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There is so much to admire about this book that I feel almost guilty that I didn't love it. And I feel I might struggle to explain why without losing sight of the fact that it is a great book and beautifully written in places. As you'd expect from Waters, The Paying Guests inhabits a… Continue reading The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

The Yard, Alex Grecian

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What was this book about? Murder and a new detective in the Murder Squad of Scotland Yard. What was the detective like as a character? (Shrugs) I didn't think he was a very confident person in what he did but he was actually very good at it. How would you compare him to other detectives?… Continue reading The Yard, Alex Grecian

Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell

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I'm not sure why but I had high hopes for Kurt Wallander. Perhaps it was the fact that it had been adapted for TV, wherein he was played by Kenneth Branagh; perhaps it was because I'd read some good reviews. And certainly the opening chapter of Faceless Killers looked set to fulfil those hopes. An… Continue reading Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell