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Dec 23, 20151 min read
364. Hakån Nesser - The G File
I normally like this guy, but thought this was poor, particularly the first half where the plot was telegraphed from about ½ way through....
Oct 11, 20151 min read
344. Lawrence Block - A Dance At The Slaughterhouse
A lot more fun than Conrad, despite the title. Block writes a very good story and Matt Scudder is an interesting character. The ending is...
Sep 11, 20151 min read
336. Kate Atkinson - When Will There Be Good News
Enjoying these so much, I immediately bought the 3rd Brodie novel (no.335 is the 1st and no.336 the 2nd). This took a bit of time to get...
Jul 5, 20151 min read
320. Sarah Hilary - Someone Else's Skin
Nominated for a Theakstons Crime Book of the Year award, this was certainly different, with a good plot, but for me totally let down by...
May 17, 20151 min read
304. Ed McBain - King's Ransom
Haven’t read one of these for years. This is an early book (1959) and surprisingly good. The story is beautifully constructed, as the...
Jan 2, 20151 min read
274. Fred Vargas - The Chalk Circle Man
This is the one I had read before; it has a very clever ending, although I found there was too much interior monologue from Adamsberg,...
Nov 18, 20141 min read
262. Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue
I loved this, it is dedicated to ‘Lucia, with love and squalor’. Beautifully written/translated (reads as if written in English), the...
Oct 27, 20141 min read
257. John Harvey - Flesh And Blood
Having seen this guy in the library last week, thought I would try some of his other books. This one doesn’t feature Resnick, but another...
Oct 6, 20141 min read
252. John Harvey - Cold In Hand
Another John Harvey from the library; there are lots. They are well plotted, and one of the interesting aspects is that the narration is...
Oct 2, 20141 min read
251. Håkan Nesser - The Return
Read this intermittently; started it before no.249 and no.250 had the libraries imperative. I enjoy Nesser, but really van Veeteren is...
Aug 30, 20141 min read
239. R. J. Ellory - A Simple Act Of Violence
Have read this before but it is really good. It is about a huge CIA conspiracy which two CIA members try to uncover by creating an...
Jun 7, 20141 min read
216. Håkan Nesser - The Weeping Girl
Brilliant. Nesser is really good. This story features Eva Moreno, his only female detective, a sexier version of Siobhan Clarke in Rebus,...
Jun 1, 20141 min read
213. Håkan Nesser - The Strangler's Honeymoon
This is the only thing I lost in the crash – a writer I had never heard of before, but branded in some marketing quarters as ‘the...
May 27, 20141 min read
212. Ian Rankin -The Falls
Needed a bit of a detective, after all that rather literary stuff. I have come to enjoy Ian Rankin rather more second time round,...
Feb 23, 20141 min read
185. Mike Nicol - Of Cops & Robbers
Heard the author interviewed on the radio and he sounded like a nice guy. White (I assume) South African crime writer. You need to follow...
Feb 11, 20141 min read
183. James Lee Burke - Creole Belle
L used to be a big fan of James Lee Burke (and James Ellroy), but Burkes’ more recent books seem to me have to become very repetitive...
Jan 31, 20141 min read
180. R. J. Ellory - City Of Lies
I picked this up to escape from a dreadful library book by Sophie Hannah called... can’t remember. I have read this before. He is a...
Jan 24, 20141 min read
179. David Hewson - The Killing
An adaptation of the TV series, a lot of which I had forgotten or missed. Very good, very long (700+ pages) but fast-paced. Although...
Oct 25, 20131 min read
158. Jake Arnott - Johnny Come Home
Read this as an interlude between my two new books, no.157 & no.159. It is quite good — can’t really make my mind up about Jake Arnott,...
Oct 9, 20131 min read
153. Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire
L was reminded of this when I read 'Strange Affair' (no.148) recently. It was the first in the poorly televised series, but it is not...