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So The Dead of Winter is the third in the John Madden mystery trilogy; I read the first a long time before I started blogging, but reviewed the second here.
Another police procedural, this one is set during the Second World War, and begins with a murder in Paris and the theft of a number of valuable diamonds. The action then moves to London in the blackout, where a young Polish girl is murdered, seemingly at random. Of course, as with all good mysteries, there is significantly more to this than meets the eye.
Madden gets drawn into the investigation surrounding this crime because the girl in question, Rosa Nowak, was a land girl working on his farm. He feels that this wasn’t a random crime, that there was a reason Rosa was killed, and determines to help his former colleagues in any way he can. And of course he is right, and as the bodies pile up all over the place it becomes clear they are dealing with a particularly ruthless and efficient killer and that the motive is buried in Rosa’s past.
It’s always difficult reviewing books in a series because you tend to find that the things that you loved in the earlier book(s) are repeated in the later ones. So again, a sense of melancholy in Madden’s character, his happy home life contrasting with the lives of the people drawn into this crime are all very satisfying; what’s different here is how effectively Airth gives a sense of London as the war is coming to an end, the weariness of the population and the need to make do in their everyday lives. There’s also an interesting subplot about the introduction of women police officers and the limitations that were imposed on them.
Very well written as always, I devoured this one pretty quickly. It’s a real shame that it doesn’t look like there will be any more in the series.
This is not my first exposure to the Gothic creepy tales of Chris Priestley; last year I read and reviewed this, and Tales of Terror from the Black Ship has a very similar structure.
Ethan and Cathy are ill, and have been left home alone by their father who has gone off in search of a doctor. But this is no ordinary home; The Old Inn is perched on top of a cliff which is only joined to the Cornish coastline by a bridge of rock. A huge and powerful storm has blown up and while they wait for their father to return, they are joined by a mysterious stranger called Thackeray, a youngish man who has somehow managed to make his way to the inn through the treacherous weather. He settles in to see out the storm, and to “entertain” the children he tells them creepy stories, all connected with the sea and sailors.
And after that it’s more of the same, which is no bad thing in my book. The stories are nicely unsettling, as is the wraparound tale, because it becomes very clear that something is not quite right in Ethan and Cathy’s world.
Favourites for me were The Boy in the Boat (beware innocent looking little children), Nature (you will never look at snails the same way again, though in all honesty I have trouble looking at them at the best of times), and The Scrimshaw Imp (I didn’t know what scrimshaw was until I read this).
I really enjoyed this book, and the unsettling nature of some of the tales wasn’t lessened by the fact that I was reading it during a more or less sunny late July. Recommended for the Gothic lovers among us, this would have worked really well for Carl’s RIP challenge.
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.
I know I said that I was going to buy less this year and read more from the tbr pile, but the whole point of some resolutions is that they are meant to be broken, and we’re now in August so I’ve done quite well really (special pleading or what?). So the latest additions are, in no particular order:
The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams – well reviewed on a number of blogs, I love books where “dark, unspoken secrets surface”
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – because it feels like I’m the only person who hasn’t read this, and the Book God wanted it too
1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII by Suzannah Lipscomb – because it’s 16th century history and that’s what I do; besides I’ve read a bit about this and her theory has a lot of merit, I just want to see the detail
The Children’s Book by AS Byatt – because I love AS Byatt and had been thinking that she was due for a re-read before I saw that this had come out; and the cover is just gorgeous
And then on payday I went to Forbidden Planet in London with Silvery Dude and got these:
The Margarets by Sheri S Tepper – because I want to read more science-fiction by women and this looks so good
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd – as recommended by Silvery Dude and a possible for Carl’s RIP challenge later this year
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan – because I’ve read some good reviews and it just looked really interesting
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Long Way Home – just because it’s Buffy and I’ve been meaning to get this for ages
Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? – because two of my favourite things come together: Neil Gaiman and the Dark Knight himself
Where Madness Reigns: The Art of Gris Grimly – because I fell in love with his style when I read The Dangerous Alphabet.
And I think that’s quite enough to be getting on with, don’t you?
Bride of the Book God 