Reviews 

There are good books to read in the run up to 31 January, fast-paced detective stories. Like no.1044, this is quite Freudian, featuring...

This is the first of his books that I ever read and it is very good – prompted me to buy lots more a few years ago. Beautifully written...

This is pretty low grade. From the writer of the French TV serial 'Spiral', which we enjoy. This is just violent turf wars and political...

Best novel I have read for a while. Beautifully constructed and written. The plot covers a 35 year period from the mid 1970’s to the...

I am inclined to an aversion for celebrity authors, but this is extremely good, and I’ll read his others. The plot begins with a young...

Quite enjoyed this; had heard it on the radio a year or two ago. A first love story, loosely structured around 'Romeo and Juliet' which...

I have read a lot of the Inspector Van Veeteren books, but these were five stand alone novellas in which he doesn’t feature. Three have...

Quite good. I had heard bits on the Radio 4 book of the week slot a month or so ago. A young, class-crossed love story set against the...

I had no idea this guys wrote books, as well as being a chat show host. I wouldn’t say this was very well written, but the plot was...

Another Susan Hill recommendation. I don’t think I will follow these anymore as our tastes don’t match at all. This is an early novel by...

Juliet Nicolson is the 4th generation of the Nicolson daughters; granddaughter of Vita Sackville West. Her great great grandmother was a...

Not as good as part 1 (464), but he had set the scene then and doesn’t add much to it in Part 2, apart from dropping in various...

I think this guy is also a TV script-writer, but this was very good. Set in the East End post war, a bunch of working class on the...

Another book from the ‘Best Crime Thriller’ website. Patrick Neate (or at least his hero) is a Ugandan Asian private eye, living in...

Read this largely in the garden on a gloriously sunny Sunday. It is a very good mystery, I suppose, novel. A Swedish TV personality locks...

A library book via P, although probably a ‘woman’s book’, I loved this, beautifully written with a really well constructed plot – would...

I normally like this guy, but thought this was poor, particularly the first half where the plot was telegraphed from about ½ way through....

I read the first half of this thinking it was a novel with a rather slow start. It is difficult to say what sort of book it is – lots of...

Read this intermittently; started it before no.249 and no.250 had the libraries imperative. I enjoy Nesser, but really van Veeteren is...

Needed a proper novel, with a plot, after no.241. This has a great plot with apparently quite unrelated deaths (one not a murder) linked...