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Jul 27, 20231 min read
1081. Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbour
This is a more conventional Morse novel than no.1072 and I didn’t enjoy it as much. A suburban Oxford street, a murder, several suspects,...
Jun 3, 20231 min read
1072. Colin Dexter - The Daughters Of Cain
Haven’t read any of these for years, but thought I would read something a bit less contemporary, and this is brilliant (compared to some...
Jun 1, 20231 min read
1071. Elly Griffiths - The Woman In Blue
I am not really sure that I like these. The character Ruth is interesting and attractive, but the plotting is weak – a couple of murders,...
May 25, 20231 min read
1068. Elly Griffiths - The Stranger Diaries
This is a good gothic/modern crime novel, about several murders in a school. There are three narrators who intersperse, Clare, a teacher...
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...
Apr 21, 20231 min read
1059. Ian Rankin - Fleshmarket Close
Another Ian Rankin for Edinburgh, although finished this back home. The mid-phase books are a bit similar; this one features mainly...
Apr 15, 20231 min read
1058. Seichō Matsumoto - Tokyo Express
Bought this in Blackwells in Edinburgh. A Japanese detective novel, published in the late 1950’s and, apparently, never out of print,...
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...
Mar 8, 20231 min read
1050. R. J. Ellory - A Simple Act Of Violence
Have read this before and it is brilliant. Starts with a murder, and then looks for the next 100 or so pages like a police-procedural,...
Mar 1, 20231 min read
1049. Peter Robinson - A Dedicated Man
An early Inspector Banks book and a very good, if slightly old fashioned detective novel. A body is found in a field in the North...
Feb 26, 20231 min read
1048. Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
Quite enjoyed this. Particularly the opening scenes set in rural Kansas, reminded me of Patrick White on the Australian outback. The plot...
Feb 18, 20231 min read
1047. Robert Galbraith - The Ink Black Heart
I have enjoyed most of these books, but not this one. The Strike/Robin relationship continues to be well chronicled and on a ‘Will they,...
Jul 31, 20221 min read
1000. Robert Galbraith - Lethal White
The fourth (I think) Cormoran Strike book and the best I have read so far. Begins with Robin marrying Matthew (reluctantly) but they have...
Jun 20, 20221 min read
991. R. J. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta
Last read this 10 years ago and it remains brilliant. A Cuban ex-Mafia killer tricks the FBI or CIA into listening to his whole life...
May 28, 20221 min read
983. Joanna Cannon - A Tidy Ending
I enjoyed this but found the plot frustrating. Linda the narrator and central character is a wonderfully drawn marginal character,...
May 27, 20221 min read
982. Anthony Horowitz - The Word Is Murder
Possibly the first of the Hawthorne/Horowitz stories, and this one at least had a more coherent plot certainly than no.977, where I don’t...
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...
May 7, 20221 min read
974. Anthony Horowitz - The Sentence is Death
This is very good. Horowitz fictionalises himself as the writer of Foyles War who also acts as DR Watson to a fictionalised ex-CID...
Mar 26, 20221 min read
960. Reginald Hill - A Killing Kindness
I read these as fillers, but this one (which I have read before) is really good. A succession of apparently unmotivated murders of young...
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...