Reviews 

The first book group book. About the five victims of Jack the Ripper. Not the sort of thing I would normally read. Written by a feminist...

Thought this was a new one, but I have read it before. Worth a re-read through as Robinson is one of my favourite writers. His scope is...

A commentary, by a political journalist, on British prime ministers from Wilson to Johnson, so roughly covering my adult life. Very good,...

The first Laidlaw novel, completed by Rankin following McIvanney’s death in 2015. I found it very hard work and with few characters of...

Book of the year, so far. Beautifully written. About a single location – Glen Conach – in the Scottish highlands over several centuries....

This is rather overblown by the publishers ‘the iconic number one bestseller’, ‘the classic lost thriller’. In point of fact, as Rankin...

Good, but not one of his best. Murders in N Yorkshire meet sex trafficking and people smuggling from central Europe. Banks apart, the...

Xmas present from Dan, signed by the author. Parallel plot lines; Clarke in Edinburgh doing conventional police work; Rebus now...

One that I am sure we used to have. An English diplomat in Berlin in the late 1950’s falls in love with a German girl, and needs to trace...

We used to have a few of this guy’s books, but this is the only one left after a purge a few years ago. It is very good as a variant on...

This was brilliant. Must have read it before and quite recently as published in 2016, but didn’t remember it at all. Three plot elements...

Another thriller for the Tesco queue; I have got quite good at finishing a serious book on a Friday night. But this is the last Ruth...

Another easy read book for the Tesco queue. Not a Wexford book but I thought this was better- Wexford is annoyingly English middle class...

Another detective novel to start in the Tesco’s coronvirus queue and finish mostly in the garden on a sunny Saturday afternoon. This was...

Bingeing on detective novels at present, partly to have a nice easy book to read in the COVID queue at Tesco’s on a Saturday morning. (A...

An earlier book, I think, than 769 and 771 above. Plot more compressed which I thought was good, but also very convoluted towards the...

These books are quite good, and a welcome change. This has a fairly complex plot, about protests against a by- pass, and a series of...

Haven’t read any Ruth Rendell for years. This was good although I found it a bit ponderous for the first 300 pages. But her style at...

I have read this before (published 2018) and it is good. The thing that irritates me about the later Banks books is that Banks has turned...

Felt like a Peter Robinson after all these rather difficult books. He is probably my favourite detective novelist, and the earlier books,...