Books read in August

Another busy month for me but five books read so that's not bad considering.

41. O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King

42. The Wolf in Winter - John Connolly

43. Follow that Bird! - Bill Oddie

44. Jacquot and the Waterman - Martin O'Brien

45. True Grit - Charles Portis

True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory.

I rather enjoyed this western adventure, told in the first person by fourteen year old, Mattie Ross. I haven't seen the newer movie version of True Grit but remember with a deal of fondness the late 60s version starring John Wayne, Kim Darby and Glen Campbell (though I'd forgotten Glen Campbell was in it even though he was one of my favourite singers back then). Anyway... I felt it portrayed very well how it was to live in 1870/80s Arkansas, I was fascinated by it all to be honest but then I have always enjoyed westerns on the screen even if I haven't read all that many. I gather there are considerable differences between the film and the book but as I haven't seen the film in a while I wasn't affected by that. I loved Mattie and her struggle to avenge her father's death even though she was only a fourteen year old girl. I would have liked more detail about The Territory... the area outside Arkansas inhabited by Indians and outlaws... which would have meant a longer book and that would have been fine. I felt that I'd no sooner got into the book than it was finished. It made me want to read more in the same vein so I'll have to look on Goodreads to see what there is in the way of realistic westerns. Not a bad read at all.

Another good batch of books... all were decent reads and I even managed a non-fiction. Favourite read this month? Well they were all good but this one was just a tad above the others in interest and enjoyment:

September is now upon us and it's starting to feel very autumnal in the mornings and evenings. Delightful. And the R.I.P. challenge has started so I need to get my post up sharpish. Happy reading!

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Catching up... again.

As seems to be the case most of this summer I'm behind with book reviews. So this is one of my catch-up posts... three short(ish) reviews of a mixed bag of books read this month.

First up, The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly. I'm going to pinch the blurb from Goodreads for this one.

The community of Prosperous, Maine has always thrived when others have suffered. Its inhabitants are wealthy, its children’s future secure. It shuns outsiders. It guards its own. And at the heart of Prosperous lie the ruins of an ancient church, transported stone by stone from England centuries earlier by the founders of the town… But the death of a homeless man and the disappearance of his daughter draw the haunted, lethal private investigator Charlie Parker to Prosperous. Parker is a dangerous man, driven by compassion, by rage, and by the desire for vengeance. In him the town and its protectors sense a threat graver than any they have faced in their long history, and in the comfortable, sheltered inhabitants of a small Maine town, Parker will encounter his most vicious opponents yet.

First-class entertainment as always from John Connolly with this, book twelve, of his Charlie Parker series. He never disappoints with the weirdness of his situations, and the characters inhabiting said situations. Prosperous is a mighty peculiar town and it soon becomes apparent that its population is hiding a very dark secret indeed. Cue Charlie Parker's entrance stage left... poking his nose in where it definitely isn't wanted and opening up a real can of worms. It's all great stuff and gets even better when his pet assassins, Louis and Angel, join the investigation. For my money the ending fizzled out a bit, not enough explanation, but the rest of the book with its suspense, strong sense of place, and excellent storyline more than make up for that. Terrific.

Next, Follow that Bird! by Bill Oddie. This is my book twenty for Bev's Mount TBR 2016 challenge.

People of a certain age (mine!) will know Bill Oddie as one of The Goodies from the 1970's comedy sketch TV series. Nowadays he's probably more well known as a birdwatcher who appears on TV rather a lot in wildlife documentaries or programmes such as Springwatch... or used to... not around as much these days I notice. Follow that Bird! recounts some of his early adventures watching birds and making TV programmes. I say 'watching birds' - for much of his early bird watching years he was actually a twitcher which is slightly different. Twitchers like to keep lists of rare birds and tick them off as they see them, they'll travel all over the country for a rarity. Your average robin or blackbird does not really interest them. Anyway, six sections make up this book each recounting his various adventures - on holiday in Morocco, on the Isles of Scilly in October (when American rarities fly in), in India, Papua New Guinea, Ireland and on Shetland. There are anecdotes galore, amusing situations, 'dangerous' situations. One of the most chilling for me was the death of one of his twitching friends who was killed by a tiger in India. Bill wasn't there when it happened but when he did visit the area some while later he was saddened to discover more about how the tragedy actually occurred. I like Oddie's easy and humorous writing style, he's very self-deprecating and informative but so much concentrating on rare birds I'd never heard of and didn't know became a bit tedious. Nevertheless this was a perfectly good bedtime read for me.

Lastly, Jacquot and the Waterman by Martin O'Brien. This is my fourth book for the 2016 Europeanen Reading Challenge which is being hosted by Rose City Reader and covers 'France'.

There's a killer on the loose in Marseilles. Young women are being drugged and then drowned, earning the killer the nickname of The Waterman. It falls to CI Daniel Jacquot of the French police to investigate the murders, he is an international rugby player turned policeman now working with homicide in the south of France. After three deaths Jacquot still hasn't got anything to go on and then a body turns up with a tattoo which he is able to trace the origin of and the chase is on. But so many people are involved and from the highest echelons of Marseilles business life to boot. Jacquot will have to tread on some seriously sensitive toes to get a result with this one, not to mention work with a new, very annoying, partner *and* recover from being dumped by his girlfriend. And all the time the body count is increasing...

This series was recommended by Elaine at Random Jottings, so I thought I'd try the first book. So glad I did, it was *excellent*. Being a rabid armchair traveller I loved the setting of the city of Marseilles. I seem to be reading quite a few books set in and around The Med at the moment, so the setting for this book was very much an added attraction for me. The sense of place created is superb. I also liked the convoluted plot with its twists and turns... I'm not generally into crime stories that involve big business and shady business deals but this was well done and kept my interest. Daniel Jacquot is a slightly unusual detective with his ponytail and rugby player build, likes his food too and the author describes French food with a great deal of love. I've already reserved the second book from the library... a word of warning... if you decide to try this series and like to read series in order, check the order after The Waterman as there is some confusion. The correct order is (Jacquot and...) The Waterman, The Master, The Fifteen and The Angel. After those four I think Fantastic Fiction have the order correct.

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O Jerusalem

My 19th. book for Bev's Mount TBR 2016 is O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King.

Sherlock Holmes and his apprentice, Mary Russell, are forced to flee Britain at the end of 1918. There are various choices as to where to go, each destination harbouring some kind of useful, governmental task to be undertaken for Holmes' brother, Mycroft. They plump for Palestine, newly occupied by the British who have recently ousted the Turks from the region. Mycroft, of course, has not told them the nature of the task he wants them to perform in Palestine: they have to discover that for themselves.

They're met by two Arab brothers, Ali and Mahmoud, who're not at all pleased to have to nursemaid two visitors from Britain and even more appalled when they discover that one of them is a young woman. Holmes and Mary disguise themselves as Arabs, Mary insisting that she will not pretend to be an Arab woman and cover herself in a burka - thus she 'becomes' a male, Arab youth. Their Arab guides are scandalised.

A journey around Palestine ensues, during which they come across several murders of Jews and Arabs alike. And there are rumours. Is there a plot and if so who is behind it and what is their intention? The region is like a tinderbox, one spark and the whole lot will ignite... which may be what some criminal mastermind intends. Holmes and Mary experience everything Palestine can throw at them, arid terrain, oppressive heat, flea-ridden accommodation, cliff-top monastries, a murder attempt, kidnapping. And then there is Jerusalem, where things become really exciting...

I finished this on Friday and here I am on Sunday still thinking about it. Some books affect you that way and it's often hard to see why that is. Historically, it was a fascinating read. A couple of books I've read recently have touched on the troubles in the Middle East... Carol Drinkwater's, The Olive Route, and there's a section in the non-fiction I'm currently reading, The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane, where he walks in Israel and Palestine. Both talk about the heartbreaking situation there and in O Jerusalem Laurie King goes some way to explaining how the seeds of the trouble were sown after World War One. The British had just ousted the Turks from Palestine and the whole region had become dangerous to travel in. I don't know enough to express an opinion on either the history of the region, going back to biblical times, or the current situation, other than to say it's complicated and tragic. I need to read more about it and that's the truth.

Aside from the obvious historical interest this is a great 'ripping yarn'. 'Loads' going on as Holmes and Mary Russell stagger from one adventure to another. It's great fun, but at the same time thought provoking and informative. It is slightly confusing in that the timeline here is not after the last book, The Moor, but after, I think, book one, which is The Beekeeper's Apprentice. So their relationship is still in its fledgling state, ie. they're not married as they are in The Moor and Mary is still struggling to make Holmes think of her as a partner rather than an apprentice. Like her, I found his attitude rather condescending, but then Sherlock Holmes was ever thus with everyone. Mary Russell is one of my all time favourite fictional characters. I like her determination to be included in the action, not to be thought of as a weak, helpless woman and to stand up for herself. She has to prove herself and does so with aplomb.

It won't be years before I read the next Mary Russell book, Justice Hall. I don't have a copy of it unfortunately (I own several after that) but I shall be grabbing myself a copy as soon as I can. It's a terrific series, well written, always historically interesting... and fun!

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Books read in July

Heavens above, has another month really come and gone? Apparently so. I was busy, so reading took a bit of a back seat and just four books were read. These are they:

37. The Ghost Fields - Elly Griffiths

38. Heirs of the Body - Carola Dunn

39. The Hanging Wood - Martin Edwards, book five in the Lake District series.

This one starts with a young woman, Orla Payne, committing suicide by jumping into a silo full of grain on her father's farm. Her brother, Callum, had dissappeared when he was fourteen and Orla seven. She has never stopped looking for him. At her place of work, a residential library, is a man who looks so much like Callum that Orla thought it might be him. Who is he? Hannah Scarlett is given a week to look into the disappearance of Callum. The case is and was complicated with many of the close-knit community involved and clearly keeping things back. Daniel Kind is also drawn into the investigation as he was a friend of Orla's. Hannah, now free, or free-ish, is reluctant to start anything with Daniel until she's sorted her head and heart out. But she certainly has no objection to working with him on this extremely difficult case. A good instalment of this excellent series, so glad I got back to it after a couple of years. I managed to follow the plot despite lots of different characters, all seemingly related by blood or marriage, muddying the waters and requiring a bit of concentration. Good writing, a bit of sexual tension, and a terrific sense of place.

40. Play with Fire - Dana Stabenow, book five in the Kate Shugak series.

Picking mushrooms out in the wilds of Alaska with friends, Kate Shugak finds a body in the ashes of an area that was burnt by a wildfire some months ago. A day or so later she's approached by a ten year old boy. Matthew Seabolt lives with his grandfather, Reverand Seabolt, a fundamentalist Christian. His father, Daniel, a teacher, disappeared at the time of the fire but no one reported him missing: the boy wants Kate to find him. It's clear that the body is Daniel Seabolt but he didn't get caught in the fire - he died of anaphylactic shock, completely naked. The authorities don't think the death is suspicious but Kate is convinced it is. Looking into the teacher's background she finds there are many questions but can she get the village community to answer any of them? Another excellent Kate Shugak outing. In this book we find out a lot about Kate's history... how she coped when she left her Native Alaskan community to go to college in the city for instance. All very interesting. The murder mystery is perhaps a little predictable, it's fairly clear what happened from early on but when the precise circumstances were revealed, at the end, I did find it quite shocking. From a fairly average beginning this series just gets better and better.

So that was my July reading. I'm not going to name a favourite as all four books were very much on a par quality-wise... all excellent, all well written, all just what I needed. Basically, because I was busy, I stuck to tried and tested crime series that I knew I would enjoy plus knew I needed to catch up on. I shall probably continue with that in August. I'm currently reading one of Laurie King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books, O Jerusalem! This is a series I've long neglected, which is a shame as the book is really good. Perhaps it's not such a bad idea if you get a bit jaded with a series to leave it for a year or two before you go back to it. That seems to have worked very nicely for me.

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New books!

I had my 9th. blogging anniversay this week... Tuesday to be exact. Nine years! I never thought I would be able to keep yakking on about books for that long. LOL! And it seems that this is post 666. Now that really should have occurred during the R.I.P challenge. Bad timing.

Anyway, enough prevaricating. Onwards. I really thought I hadn't acquired many books since Christmas. Ha! Right. It seems that might not be quite accurate. In my defense I had a bookish birthday and was given half a dozen books (I know, I know... excuses.) What I certainly haven't done in a very long time is a 'new books' post and as I love looking at other people's new bookish buys I thought some might like to see mine. As always, click on the photo for a larger view.

First up, a few birthday books:

The Natural History of Dragons - Marie Brennan (Fantasy)
Weatherland - Alexandra Harris (Non-Fiction about the weather)
Dancing on Ice - Jeremy Scott (Non-Fiction, polar exploration)
Sacred Sierra - Jason Weber (Non-Fiction, mountains)
Winter Tales - George Mackay Brown (short stories, maybe weird)
The Boat Who Wouldn't Float - Farley Mowat (Non-Fiction, Canadian travel)


Some new buys with lovely covers:

Uprooted - Naomi Novik (Fantasy)
The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry (Historical weirdness, an RIP read perhaps?)
Fair and Tender Ladies - Lee Smith (American historical fiction)


Lastly, a few odd purchases:

There's a Seal in My Sleeping Bag - Lyn Hancock (Non-fiction, found in a charity shop)
Bill Oddie Unplucked - Bill Oddie (Bits & pieces by the famous bird watcher... a couple of quid from The Works... newly arrived in my town, which is dangerous as they sell jigsaw puzzles as well as cheap books.)
The Olive Tree - Carol Drinkwater (Non-fic, sequel to The Olive Route)
The Dream of Rome - Boris Johnson (Non-fiction, history)
Pompeii - Mary Beard (Non-fiction, history)

I think that's fourteen in all and I may have missed a couple. So much for doing the Mount TBR challenge and getting books OFF the reading pile! Hopeless, Lost Cause... fully paid up member of.

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Catching up with several crime titles

I haven't had a lot of reading time recently and am behind on reviews of the books I have read. So this is very much a catch-up post... a few brief reviews of several crime novels.

First up, The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. This is my book 17 for Bev's Mount TBR 2016 challenge and also qualifies for Bev's Vintage Mystery Cover Scavenger Hunt under the category, 'Jewellry of any sort'.

Inspector Alan Grant is in hospital after some kind of accident. He's flat on his back and likely to be for weeks. And he's bored. Various people bring him books, none of which are to his liking. His actress friend, Marta, brings him some pictures of various people from history with interesting faces, so he can decide whether or not they were criminally minded. From them Grant eventually chooses Richard III and embarks on a reading investigation, from his sickbed, the aim of which is to discover whether or not he really did kill the princes in the tower.

No real need to say any more about the plot of this book because that's it really. The story is much more of a history lesson than it is a traditional whodunnit crime yarn. I thought it was all fascinating to be honest. I knew there had been a lot of doubt about whether or not Richard III was guilty of the double murder but in this book Josephine Tey sets out the evidence for and against by having Alan Grant read up about it and also giving him an assistant researcher. I learnt much that I didn't know about that time period but there is also the usual wry humour running through the book. I loved Grant's housekeeper, Mrs. Tinker, and her outfit that she refers to as 'me blue' by which she gauges the importance of any event she has to go to... ie. 'It wasn't good enough for 'me blue''. Hilarious. And there is much more gentle humour in this vein. Sadly, I think I now only have two more Josephine Tey books left to read. What a shame.

Next, The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths.

A World War Two plane is unearthed by a digger in a field in Norfolk, the body of the airman is still inside. Forensic archaeologist, Ruth Galloway, is called in and she discovers immediately that there's a bullethole through the pilot's skull. The body is identified as Fred Blackstock, whose family own a large house on the marshes. The problem is, the body doesn't belong to the plane. Someone has dug the body up from elsewhere and planted it in the WW2 bomber. DCI Nelson sets about solving this mystery with Ruth's help. Ruth is glad to be working with Nelson again but wishes her life was just a bit less complicated emotionally.

Loved it. But then I always love Elly Griffiths's Ruth Galloway books. They're not for everyone I know that, but I love how Griffiths manages to get inside the head of all her regular characters amd make it all so real and amusing. Ruth with her lack of tolerance for attention seeking colleagues or impatience with stupidity or prats, is at times hilarious. I also the love the back story of Ruth and Harry Nelson and their daughter... though this instalment was a bit of a tease in that department I thought, but still very good. The mystery element was also excellent, involving as it did the WW2 airfields of Norfolk. Interesting stuff. And of course always, always a terrific sense of place. Definitely one of my favourite series at the moment.

Lastly, Heirs of the Body by Carola Dunn. This is my book 18 for Bev's Mount TBR 2016 challenge.

Daisy Dalrymple is asked by her cousin Edgar, the present Lord Dalrymple, to help find an heir to the title and estate... he and his wife being childless. Various contenders are found, a diamond magnate from South Africa, a sailor from Jamaica, a young boy from Trinidad and a hotelier from Scarborough. A mixed bunch, no question. And are they all who they say they are? A lawyer friend has the task of finding out and meanwhile they are all invited the family estate, Fairacres, for Edgar's birthday celebrations and to get to know them all. Daisy and Alec also attend. And then the accidents begin. First minor things to the children, but then one of the claimants narrowly misses being killed by a tram and Daisy and Alec realise that things are more serious than they thought. Alec is instructed to investigate... with Daisy's 'help', naturally.

This is a huge series now... Heirs of the Body is book 21 I think. It must be very hard with a series of this length to keep up the quality and all power to the author's elbow for managing it. This isn't my favourite, I will admit, but Daisy Dalrymple books are never anything less than readable and I enjoyed this very family orientated instalment as Daisy's relations take centre stage. It sort of reminded me of Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire books to be honest, which is never a bad thing, and Enid Blyton! After the interesting ending I look forward to seeing what happens to these new members of Daisy's family, so I hope Carola Dunn tells us. I'm sure she will.

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Books read in June

Yet another month has come and gone. Is time speeding up or what? June for me has been a month of looking after my husband after his knee replacement surgery. All is going well although the first week home was a bit rough: I have to admit that I underestimated how exhausting it would all be. Thank goodness he's now well on the road to recovery... and then in September we get to do it all again.

With all that was going on I still managed to read six books. These are they:

31. The Olive Route - Carol Drinkwater

32. The Judge's House - Georges Simenon

33. Resorting to Murder edited by Martin Edwards

34. The Serpent Pool - Martin Edwards

35. The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey (To be reviewed.)

36. The Illustrated Olive Farm - Carol Drinkwater. A companion piece to the author's Olive Farm trilogy (which I haven't read yet). Very nicely written and beautiful photography of the region in Southern France where the farm is.

And so.... four crime books and two non-fiction, all very enjoyable indeed. I don't need difficult reading at the moment and none of these were. Of the 'crime' books two books came out equal as being the most enjoyable and those were, Daughter of Time and The Serpent Pool. But 'overall' my favourite book was this:

Carol Drinkwater's The Olive Route. It deals with the origins and history of the olive tree and I thoroughly enjoyed the author's travels around the countries of the Mediterranean Sea. A truly excellent book.

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