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May 9, 20141 min read
205. Brian Moore - Lies Of Silence
What a joy and relief to read a book with a (great) plot, characters, and even themes - a catholic family in Belfast targeted, as a...
May 4, 20141 min read
203. Peter May - The Lewis Man
The second of the trilogy, which I have read in order three, one, two. This is pretty good — the central character has Alzheimer's which...
Apr 17, 20141 min read
200. Peter May - The Blackhouse
This is the first of the Lewis trilogy, no.199 above being the third. Again very good, the same central character (Finn) is not yet an...
Apr 14, 20141 min read
199. Peter May - The Chessmen
How nice to find a good writer I had never heard of on what I thought was a rather wasted trip (all 200 yards from the door) to the...
Apr 4, 20141 min read
194. Olivia Manning - Friends & Heroes
Volume three of the above. They are now all in Athens, although only briefly as the Germans invade toward the end, and they flee on a...
Apr 1, 20141 min read
193. Olivia Manning - The Spoilt City
Volume two of the above. Rumania rather passively allows itself to be occupied by the Germans because there is no political will there,...
Mar 29, 20141 min read
192. Olivia Manning - The Great Fortune
Not entirely sure whether volume one of 'The Balkan Trilogy' counts as a book, but volume two (no.193 below) certainly re-introduces the...
Feb 16, 20141 min read
184. Ian McEwan - Sweet Tooth
Marketed as a spy thriller, this was, at best, a very literary take on the genre. I can’t pretend I liked it much; poorly written...
Sep 17, 20131 min read
144. Henning Mankell - Italian Shoes
Not a Wallander story. About an old man, living alone on an island/archipelago in the north of Sweden whose past life come back to haunt...
Sep 6, 20131 min read
142. Ross MacDonald - The Ivory Grin
I wanted something cheap and easy to read; never read any Ross MacDonald. It wasn’t bad — he is billed by some people as better than...
Sep 4, 20131 min read
141. Denise Mina - Sanctum
This is the third time I have read this book, and I have never fully understood it! The narrator, who is both dis-likeable and probably...
Aug 30, 20131 min read
139. Denise Mina - Resolution
The third and best of the Garnethill trilogy, I have said to Paddy good enough to read as a stand alone. Everything does get resolved in...
Aug 19, 20131 min read
137. Denise Mina - Exile
The follow-up to 'Garnethill', which I must have enjoyed more than no.134 above indicates. The plot is less personal to Maureen this time...
Aug 6, 20131 min read
134. Denise Mina - Garnethill
A break perhaps between the Enderby’s. I had read this before, but couldn’t remember a great deal about it. It is quite good, with a...
Jul 24, 20131 min read
129. Iris Murdoch - The Sacred And Profane Love Machine
Haven’t read any for years and doubt I will again. The plot is a man with wife and child and mistress and child, and his absurd...
Jun 17, 20131 min read
119. Henning Mankell - The White Lioness
A strange Wallander book that begins with an apparent Swedish domestic and expands into an attempt by the African white supremacists to...
May 27, 20131 min read
109. Henning Mankell - The Dogs Of Riga
This is a really good book; Mankell is a cut above most thriller writers. It gathers pace, a bit like a lot of films where more attention...
May 16, 20131 min read
104. Torquil MacLeod - Meet Me In Malmö
The first in a series, written by an English man (I assume) featuring a Swedish female detective. Basically a police procedural, leans...
May 16, 20131 min read
105. Torquil McLeod - Murder In Malmö
You can see where this is going, in several senses. ('Meet me in M...,' 'Mayhem in M..), just need enough crime related nouns beginning...
May 10, 20131 min read
103. Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers
Mankell can write, unlike Billingham. This is a short and quite slight book, possibly the first Wallander novel, but Mankell creates...