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Mar 30, 20231 min read
1054. RJ Ellory - A Quiet Belief In Angel
I love this book, although the plot has its incoherences. A very lyrical bildungsroman, but peppered with a series of very gruesome...
Dec 1, 20221 min read
1033. Audrey Magee - The Undertaking
This is her first book, and very different from The Colony (no.1019). Set in 1940’s Germany, the central figures are a soldier on the...
Jan 22, 20221 min read
937. Jim Eldridge - Murder At The Savoy
Never heard of the author; one of a series set in London during the blitz. Unclear why the central detective has to be an aristocrat...
Nov 7, 20211 min read
914. Cristina Loggia - Lucifer's Game
This is a pretty good WW2 thriller, set in Italy. It reminded me a bit of Sebastian Faulks’ Charlotte Grey. I didn’t like the title, as...
Sep 26, 20211 min read
898. Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue
I think I may have read one of his before – a trilogy called 'Berlin Noir', many years ago. This was long and ponderous at times, but a...
Dec 10, 20161 min read
451. Elizabeth Buchan - The New Mrs Clifton
Paul Scott apart, this would I think be my book of the year this year. A library book that Paddy enjoyed, set in post war England. Quite...
Sep 2, 20161 min read
427. Paul Scott - The Day Of The Scorpion
Continued brilliance. Sarah Layton quite prominent in this book, which ends with her losing her virginity. To what extent is her sexual...
Sep 20, 20151 min read
338. Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
Took this to Spain for aeroplane reading. I had remembered it mainly as a ‘French resistance’ novel with the dropped in British heroine,...
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...
Mar 18, 20131 min read
87. Jennie Rooney - Red Joan
Best holiday read so far. About an English girl who goes to Cambridge pre-WW2 and falls in love with a Russian émigré communist. She is...
Jul 16, 20121 min read
26. Peter Robinson - In A Dry Season
I had read this before and had always been a bit put off by the fact that (I think) Reginald Hill has written a book with a similar theme...
Jul 12, 20121 min read
25. R.J. Ellory - A Quiet Belief In Angels
An early book, I think, very much coming of age/ 'Catcher in the Rye' (have I ever read this?) type of book. The coming of age is...