Reviews 

Read this on holiday but was really not well at the time and didn’t enjoy or follow it at all. Get this from Waterstones

This is a more conventional Morse novel than no.1072 and I didn’t enjoy it as much. A suburban Oxford street, a murder, several suspects,...

Haven’t read any of these for years, but thought I would read something a bit less contemporary, and this is brilliant (compared to some...

Never read this before, and probably won’t again. A short morality tale, featuring Ebenezer Scrooge who is visited first by the ghost of...

I always try to take a Dickens or big 19th C novel on holiday. If Galbraith can be prolix and needs editing, what do you say about...

Probably the worst book I have read for a while; don’t know why I bothered to finish it. Set in North Italy, near the border with Germany...

I love the Alexandria Quartet, but this is a fairly lightweight thriller set in communist-occupied Serbia in the 1950’s. The central...

This is very good. Set in Nigeria, Adunni, a village girl is sold at 14 into marriage, as the third wife of a wealthy villager, to pay...

I felt quite cynical about this. Alan Davies, the comedian and TV personality, was sexually abused, in a fairly minor way, by his father...

Never read any Roddy Doyle before, but listened to bits of this on Radio 4 and enjoyed it. Good, but quite hard work. Shades of both...

Started this after my kindle ran out of power, mid way into 824. This was so baffling obscure, that I was relieved when Lewis sat down...

Thought I would try another Dickens after 819 and not really enjoying the 21st century 820. Quite enjoyed this, but Dickens' characters...

Not being a big Dickens fan, I thought I would try one yet again and took this on holiday. Deliberately chose a book I knew nothing...

The last of the 3 Xmas books from Dan’s Waterstones token. Couldn’t make my mind up about this – the writing was poor, but the plotting...

I enjoyed the first ¾ of this enormously; beautifully written (not something I remember from Colin Dexter). Morse is in hospital; another...

Disappointing. Darley returns to Alexandria with Nessim’s daughter, who is immediately taken home by Nessim. War has now broken out and...

No 3 in this wonderful quartet. Mountolive is a career diplomat, who early in the book is posted to Alexandria where he has an affair...

I think I summarised this quite well when I first read it (no.352), nearly 5 years ago. (no.779 above is a better summary of Justine than...

I thought I would give these, or at least one, another go. They are quite difficult and I think I enjoyed it much more 2nd time round....

1/3 of The Divine Comedy. Inspired to give this a try, partly because Dorothy Sayers translated it, but I couldn’t find her version on...