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Jan 13, 20191 min read
651. Reginald Hill - A Killing Kindness
Re-read this as a substitute to 650 above, and can’t remember that much about it now, maybe not a recommendation. A series of unrelated...
Jan 5, 20191 min read
647. Fydor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
This is a huge and very challenging book. The basic plot is relatively simple – three brothers with an unpleasant and dissolute father,...
Nov 30, 20181 min read
643. Albert Camus - L'etranger
Inspired I think by no. 641 to re-read this as the books are thematically quite similar, in that both have an obscurely motivated murder...
Nov 5, 20181 min read
637. Alice LaPlante - A Circle Of Wives
Wanted a detective story/thriller for a change but this was poor, although the author is quite acclaimed. A real old fashioned ‘who...
Jun 28, 20181 min read
608. R. J. Ellory - The Devil And The River
Ellory is possibly my 2nd favourite thriller writer, unlike Herron which has bits of the best of Dickens and Le Carre, Ellory is an...
May 16, 20181 min read
592. A. J. Finn - The Woman In The Window
The 2nd long library book in 4 days. This one was much better written than the last, although I was disappointed by the ending. A woman...
May 6, 20181 min read
590. Joanna Cannon - Three Things About Elsie
I didn’t enjoy 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' (her first book) but this was much better. A thriller about dementia, which is a clever...
Apr 27, 20181 min read
588. R. J. Ellory - A Quiet Belief In Angels
Have read this before and am not entirely sure what to make of it. A bildungsroman (is that what they are called?), about a boy brought...
Mar 25, 20181 min read
581. R. J. Ellory - A Simple Act Of Violence
I have read this before with little memory of it, but would say it is the best of 2018 so far. Really clever plotting, looks like a...
Dec 26, 20171 min read
562. Keigo Higashino - Salvation Of A Saint
Always a bad idea this, to binge read writers you have discovered and enjoy. This one is quite good but the plot is very monothematic -...
Dec 24, 20171 min read
561. Keigo Higashino - The Devotion Of Suspect X
I’d have enjoyed this much more on kindle had I realised that there was a paperback copy of my bookcase! I realised, mid-way through page...
Dec 2, 20171 min read
554. Graham Greene - A Burnt Out Case
Read this about a year ago with little comprehension. So the plot is: Querry, a successful and celebrity architect turns up in a Catholic...
Nov 16, 20171 min read
551. Tim O'Brien - In The Lake Of The Woods
Bought this years ago, for obvious reasons and have never managed to read it. It is actually very good, about a couple who both disappear...
Sep 24, 20171 min read
529. Caz Frears - Sweet Little Lies
Quite a good modern female detective novel. Easily televisable I think. Plot clever, although maybe not all that believable in places,...
Sep 22, 20171 min read
527. Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
Struggled to get into this, but it is a cleverly written portrait, not so much of a psychopath but of a disintegrated marriage which...
Sep 18, 20171 min read
524. Jane Harper - The Dry
A BBC book of the week I think not long before we went away. Very good Aussie (although I think JH is English) crime thriller. Set in a...
Sep 15, 20171 min read
523. Susie Steiner - Missing Presumed
Wanted to re-read no. 488 to better understand the back-plot to 521. Fly (the adopted son) appears, but the sister and her baby only...
Sep 4, 20171 min read
519. Benjamin Black - Prague Nights
Benjamin Black is the non de plume of John Banville, not that I have heard of him either. This is a slightly picaresque quasi-historical...
Aug 10, 20171 min read
511. Thomas Hardy - Tess Of The d'Urbervilles
Triggered by 509; these Victorian (or maybe post in Hardy’s case) novelists are so prolix; 450 pages. The plot wasn’t that similar to...
Jul 12, 20171 min read
507. Fiona Melrose - Midwinter
Another of P’s from the library. Totally different from 506 - if that was a quasi 18th century novel about society, this was very 20th...