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Aug 10, 20231 min read
1085. Peter Robinson - Watching The Dark
I have read this before but was possibly binge-reading Robinson at the time and enjoyed it a lot more this time. This one begins in north...
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...
Aug 26, 20221 min read
1007. Clare Clark - Trespass
This is very good. A young trendy woman has had an affair and child with a political activist, who has subsequently disappeared. She...
Dec 18, 20211 min read
924. David Mark - Past Life
I have read this guy before, a bit of a reading binge in Malaga in 2017, see no.490. But I hadn’t read this one; I think a fairly recent...
Dec 5, 20211 min read
920. Max Seeck - The Ice Coven
A variant on Scandi noir, this is set in Helsinki, so Finnish noir, which lacks resonance. A quite good police procedural, with a very...
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...
Oct 5, 20211 min read
902. Reginald Hill - Pictures Of Perfection
I like Reginald Hill, but his later books do veer into a level of obscurity that I don’t enjoy. If so, this must be a mid-period book, a...
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 19, 20211 min read
896. Johanna Mo - The Night Singer
A Skandi–noir novel, I guess. Well plotted especially toward the end, but I found the central characters totalling un-interesting. Hanna,...
Jun 9, 20211 min read
866. Mick Herron - London Rules
I think this is the title. It is the one that begins with a massacre, cunningly written so that I assumed set in Africa until the last...
May 23, 20211 min read
862. Tana French - The Searcher
I have read I think all Tana French’s books but this is the best. I find her prose style can get a bit Jamesian and convoluted but not in...
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...
Jul 22, 20191 min read
698. Ed McBain - Kings Ransom
Insomniac night after finishing 697, grabbed another short book from the (crime) bookshelf. Despite, I think, what people would say,...
Jul 7, 20191 min read
694. Kate Atkinson - Big Sky
The return of Jackson Brodie. This was good, but not as rich as some of the previous books; read a bit as if her agent or backers had...
Apr 12, 20191 min read
676. Ed McBain - Nocturne
McBain is a very good writer and I have lots of his books on the bookcase, which I haven’t read for years. I have wasted a lot of money...
Mar 17, 20191 min read
668. Ed McBain - Romance
Mc Bain is undoubtedly a clever writer and the general ‘police procedurals’ summary masks this. Here we have a play within a play within...
Mar 2, 20191 min read
664. Ed McBain - Long Time No See
A midnight flit downstairs to find a book having finished 663 at 83% on the kindle; an annoying habit of the modern publishing industry...
Feb 23, 20191 min read
662. Susie Steiner - Persons Unknown
First book on my very challenging to use new kindle. I re-read 650 with a view to re-reading this, but my kindle then died, hence a...
Aug 25, 20181 min read
619. Reginald Hill - Under World
Enjoyed no’s 597 and 615, so thought I would give Hill another go. This is the one where Ellie Pascoe comes close to having a Lady...
Jun 13, 20181 min read
597. Reginald Hill - Good Morning, Midnight
Airport, aeroplane reading en route to Malaga. Same book as no.1, 6 years ago. Very clever plotting, probably Hill and the Daziel novels...