Daily Archive

I don’t like August very much. It can be too hot (though the weather here in London up till now has suggested otherwise, but I bet a mini-heatwave will sneak up on me when I least expect it); all my friends and a large proportion of my team at work head off on holiday (and I get grumpy because my hols aren’t until October but they’ll all miss me when I’m not here, just wait and see); there is very little on TV and all of these things added together mean that I get very bored very easily.

But there are two things that help to keep me going. One is the BBC Proms (and I am going to five concerts this year between 4 August and 12 September) and the other is Crime Month on Bride of the Book God. Because of all the things I’ve said above, I don’t want to read anything too heavy or difficult where my brain has to work even though I’m sitting in a hot train trying to manage a bottle of water, a fan, my bags, my iPod and a book, and crime fiction has been the perfect solution in the past.

So between now and August Bank Holiday (after which life gets back to a semblance of normality) I intend to read as many of the following as I possibly can (in no particular order):

Broken Skin, Flesh House and Blind Eye, all by Stuart MacBride

The Victoria Vanishes and Bryant and May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler

When Will There be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

In the Dark by Mark Billingham

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

Dead Clever by Scarlett Thomas

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson

Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder by Giles Brandreth

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

The September Society by Charles Finch

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

I hope that the Language of Bees by Laurie King will arrive very shortly and if it does it will almost immediately go to the top of the pile. And I’ve made a start with The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth. If you’ve read any of the above I’d love to know what you think.