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May 13, 20231 min read
1065. Elly Griffiths - The Crossing Places
Recommended by Eve, our librarian. Crime meets archaeology. The crime is a plus for me, the archaeology less so. Ruth, the central figure...
May 5, 20231 min read
1063. R J Ellory - The Darkest Season
I like Ellory, but he seems to be obsessed with the murder of teenage girls (see no.1054). This approaches the same issue from a...
Oct 17, 20221 min read
1022. Antoni Horowitz - With A Mind To Kill
I like Horowitz, but this is no.3 of a series of post Ian Fleming James Bond novels. The last Ian Fleming I read must have been about 50...
Sep 7, 20221 min read
1011. Kate Atkinson - Big Sky
Have read this before, but struggling to find things in the library. A bolt on, I think, to the earlier four Jackson Brodie books. Brodie...
Jun 9, 20221 min read
988. Mick Herron - Dolphin Junction
Variety of short stories, mostly undistinguished apart from a brilliant Slough House one involving Lamb and the lady in the wheelchair,...
May 25, 20221 min read
981. Rachael Blok - The Fall
A curious mixture of chick lit and crime, with the chick lit predominant, and all taking place in or around St Albans cathedral. The...
Apr 9, 20221 min read
965. Richard Osman - The Man Who Died Twice
I didn’t enjoy the first of these, I think called ‘The Thursday Murder Club’. But that is because I didn’t understand the genre. This is...
Feb 28, 20221 min read
951. RJ Ellory - The Darkest Season
I like Ricky Ellory, but this disappointed me. Felt very repetitive and structurally very similar to others; gruesome murder of women, a...
Feb 12, 20221 min read
945. Peter Robinson - Many Rivers To Cross
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...
Jan 26, 20221 min read
939. Maxim Jacubowski (Ed) - Daggers Drawn
An anthology of modern crime short stories. Quality quite variable; the best I thought by Denise Mina, about a family with a disturbed...
Nov 3, 20211 min read
913. David Palin - The Armistice Killer
I enjoyed this with some caveats. The character of Logan is better portrayed than in no.911 and the impact of his prosopagnosia comes out...
Oct 24, 20211 min read
911. David Palin - This Changed Everthing
Definitely worth another read. A complex and at times bewildering thriller, which is difficult to do justice to without revealing the...
Oct 21, 20211 min read
909. David Palin - This Changed Everything
Didn’t like the title, so not a good start! Very opaque, but quite a good thriller once I had (just about) worked out the plot! Worth...
Oct 7, 20211 min read
903. William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin - The Dark Remains
The first Laidlaw novel, completed by Rankin following McIvanney’s death in 2015. I found it very hard work and with few characters of...
Sep 29, 20211 min read
899. Ann Granger - The Dead Women Of Deptford
Never heard of the author, but this was very good, and beautifully written. A crime novel, set possibly in Edwardian or late Victorian...
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...
Aug 22, 20211 min read
887. Ted Lewis - GBH
Never heard of the author (he wrote ‘Get Carter’ apparently) and worked on the animation of 'Yellow Submarine'. This is basically London...
Feb 26, 20211 min read
849. R. J. Ellory - City Of Lies
This could have been called 'Gangs of New York', but I think someone else got there first. A long and at times hard work book. The...
Jan 2, 20211 min read
840. Ian Rankin - A Song For The Dark Times
Xmas present from Dan, signed by the author. Parallel plot lines; Clarke in Edinburgh doing conventional police work; Rebus now...
Nov 28, 20201 min read
830. Denise Mina - The Less Dead
I like Denise Mina, with her weird punk hair, and enjoyed her on the TV recently with Frank Skinner on Boswell & Johnson’s tour of...