The Shadows in the Streets

September 5, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: , | 1 comment

I’m a little bit behind in reading the Simon Serailler crime series by Susan Hill; The Shadows in the Street came out last year and a new one is due shortly (in October I think). Probably just a by-product of my reading slump this year as my normal August is Crime Month personal challenge didn’t really happen and this would definitely have been swept up in that.

This was a bit of a slow start for me; a lot of time was spent setting up the characters and context for the crimes that were to follow which although not putting me off did make me slightly impatient and there was certainly not enough of the boy Simon in the first couple of chapters though luckily I like his sister and step-mother who made up for his absence.

So, the story is once again set in Lafferton though this time we see more of the underbelly of the town if I can put it like that; a number of the characters (and indeed three of the victims) are young women who have turned to prostitution either because of drugs or simply no other way to make ends meet. There is a thread of poverty and unemployment and hopelessness that runs through the story which is an interesting contrast to the lives of many of the characters in this series, who if not wealthy are comfortably middle class, and there is a certain amount of looking the other way which is of course not sustainable once the murders begin. The novel also delves into what it is like to be considered a suspect and the impact that can have on your life which was rather sad.

I mentioned in a post here that I found one of the characters to be dreadfully unsympathetic and hoped she would get her comeuppance; of course we learn more about her during the course of the novel and I was a bit harsh (and felt slightly guilty as well) and it just goes to show that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

This is a well written police procedural; I wouldn’t say that the story was compelling but I wanted to know what would happen and although (without wanting to give anything away) I was mildly annoyed at one of the plot points towards the end which I thought was a bit too convenient, I didn’t work out who the murderer was and that’s always a good thing in this type of non-puzzle crime novel. But I do think this is one of those series that you really need to read in chronological order because of the Serailler family back story which is so important. And I’ve already pre-ordered the next one.

Sunday Salon – a bit of an update

September 4, 2011 in Book buys, Sunday Salon | 3 comments

It has been an interesting reading week, though I only actually finished one book, The Shadows in the Streets by Susan Hill which I’ll review properly in the next couple of days.

I bought the following new books:

  • The Keep by Jennifer Egan – because I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad and wanted to read more of her stuff, and this has a mysterious castle, a sinister baroness, a tragic accident and so on
  • A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore – because someone whom I can’t remember blogged about it and said it was good; pre-WWI, dark secrets etc
  • A Stranger in Mayfair by Charles Finch – because I have read and enjoyed the first three and enjoy a good mid-Victorian tale

I’ve signed up for the RIP VI challenge and selected quite a good range of books and committed to the short story and movie perils as well as the main reading challenge. The details are here, and I am already well into my first read, Stephen King’s Duma Key. Now this is turning out to be a real page-turner; I only started it on Saturday morning and am already well over 400 pages into it and likely to finish it today assuming I get my chores and other stuff out of the way. Enjoying it thoroughly, really creepy.

I’m also thinking about signing up for Fall into Reading 2011, but want to give some more consideration to the goals for that challenge before I commit myself. All looking good on the reading front at the moment!

RIP VI Challenge

September 3, 2011 in Challenges | Tags: , , , , , , | 6 comments

It’s that wonderful time of the year when Carl hosts his RIP challenge and I am determined this year not only to take part but to actually finish the challenge and I have selected an interesting (well I think so) bunch of books from the stacks to help me do so.

I’m actually going to take part in three of the challenges – books, short stories and films, between 1 September and 31 October. Exciting stuff.

So, when it comes to books I’m going to take part in Peril the First and will be reading four books (at least) from the following list. I’ve already started the Stephen King and am already enjoying it in that “why haven’t I read this already” way that I always get when I pick up a King book that’s been sitting on the tbr pile. Anyhow the list goes something like this:

  • The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan – a recent purchase, mentioned here;
  • The Possessions of Doctor Forrest by Richard T Kelly – another recent buy, mentioned here;
  • The Small Hand by Susan Hill – a ghost story
  • Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge – winner of the Bram Stoker award and a fantastic cover (fiery pumpkin-headed things can’t be missed) (I think Susan may also be reading this one);
  • Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist – had this for ages and Silvery Dude tells me it’s excellent
  • The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley – a boy, a mysterious guardian and a haunted house with a terrible secret;
  • The Rapture by Liz Jensen – “electrifying psychological thriller” apparently
  • Duma Key by Stephen King – as mentioned above

Not a bad list, I think

For the short story challenge I’m going to concentrate on Lovecraft Unbound; edited by the wonderful Ellen Datlow this is exactly what it says on the tin, a collection of short stories inspired by the works of one of my all-time favourites HP Lovecraft. A lot of the authors are unknown to me, which is no bad thing, but it does include stories by Michael Chabon and Joyce Carol Oates.

And finally a movie challenge. I am going to watch as many of the following as I can (given that I’m actually going to be in Germany for a chunk of October but we’ll see what can be done:

Right, well that lot should keep me busy. What’s on your list??

A Visit from the Goon Squad

August 31, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: | 7 comments

So, you know that feeling when one of your dearest friends, someone whose opinion you respect and rely on, goes on and on and on about a book they’ve discovered that you absolutely must read, and you do the “yeah yeah” thing and they still go on about it, not just to you but to anyone who will listen, about how excellent said book is, and how it’s “just all about life, y’know?” and you finally give in and get a copy so that you can have something that resembles a grown up conversation about something that clearly had an impact on them but secretly you reckon it won’t live up to the hype, but it does and you are grateful that they brought it to your attention?

Or is that just me?

Take that first paragraph and insert me, Silvery Dude and A Visit from the Goon Squad at appropriate points and you have a fair idea of what the bits of my life that crossed with the Dudeness over the past few weeks have been like. For more of a picture alcohol should probably be included, and for total accuracy that alcohol should be in the form of red wine and Cosmopolitans.

OK, I will put my hands up and say that I have been a tad unfair to the Silvery One as I often suggest titles to him as a means of “enriching his cultural life” in that annoying “I have a book blog and therefore know of what I speak” way that I sometimes can’t resist just as a wind-up. But he did really enjoy this and said he thought I would as well and so it became my homework while he and his lovely family are having their annual holiday in la belle France. And this is by way of a book report.

And, well AVFTGS is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel and must therefore be both interesting and well written and have something to say, and I settled down to read it and finished the whole thing in two sessions, including a Friday night marathon which led to a late dinner because I wanted to get to the end. And it is all about life, specifically that of a group of friends and acquaintances which takes place over an unspecified period of time (but we are talking years here) with all the good and bad bits and even a bit of a vision of the near future.

I loved the structure which is sort of linked short stories but it doesn’t just take a character from the first and drop them into the second and proceed like that, it goes backwards and forwards and loops about and comes to a satisfying end.

And I didn’t want it to finish and when it did I wanted to start reading it again, I loved it so much. I have ordered a couple more Jennifer Egan novels just to see if this is a one-off (hoping it’s not).

And Silvery Dude can be smug for as long as he likes, because he was right.

The End.

Gentlemen & Players

August 30, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: , | 3 comments

I haven’t read very much by Joanne Harris, one novel (before my blogging days) and half a book of short stories (really must get round to finishing that one day – if only I could remember exactly where I put it). I’m not even sure why I bought this one; must have been a review somewhere that caught my eye because buy it I did, and it has languished on the tbr pile for ages, until I spied it last week when looking for something a little different to read.

So Gentlemen and Players is set in a boys’ grammar school somewhere in England (I think it’s meant to be in the north but that wasn’t entirely clear). It’s the start of a new term and that brings all sorts of rivalries among the teaching staff to the forefront as timetables are changed, rooms re-allocated and the pecking order re-established. We see St Oswald’s partly through the eyes of one of the teachers, Roy Straitley, who has been at the school since the year dot and is fighting against inevitable retirement. We also see the school through the eyes of an unknown narrator, one of the new teachers but we’re not sure which one, a person with a real grudge against the school and everyone in it, and who has come back to take revenge. That story is told as a mixture of reminiscence and present day plotting, and what plotting there is!

This is a gloriously nasty book, and I mean that as a compliment. The unknown protagonist has thought things through very clearly and has a plan which, while it may need to modified as circumstances dictate, is designed to totally  destroy St Oswald’s. There is scandal and murder and spite and I thought it was fantastic. At one point in the novel I thought  “I wonder…” and as I was proved right I felt real satisfaction; for once getting slightly ahead of the author was a joy and not a disappointment as the outcome was as I predicted and just added to the fun (if you can refer to fun in a book where very horrible things happen to people who often don’t deserve them); very satisfying.

This was a slow starter for me but a few chapters in when I realised exactly where this might be going I just couldn’t stop reading, and even broke my rule of not reading too late on a work night, sitting up in bed until I had finished it. One of the quotes on the back of my paperback copy referred to this as “wickedly fun” and I’m not sure I can better that description.

Currently Reading…

August 29, 2011 in Currently reading | 1 comment

The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill, the fifth Simon Serailler crime novel. I am just 112 pages in, and already heartily dislike (as I think I’m supposed to) one of the new characters; is it too nasty of me to hope that she will come to an unfortunate end, or at the very least get her comeuppance somehow? If this were Agatha Christie I would have her pegged as the third or fourth victim, killed due to her having let something slip in the hearing of the murderer which implied that she knew more than she did. Of course this is a police procedural so that’s sort of unlikely, but one can hope.

More new books

August 26, 2011 in Book buys | Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

Going through a bit of a “must buy” phase at the moment, and these are the newest additions to the TBR pile (which now resembles one of the Alps….)

  • The Deadly Space Between by Patricia Duncker: after the success of The Composer (as reviewed here), why read the books by her that I already have when I can go out and buy a new one?
  • Famous Players by Rick Geary: following on from Jack the Ripper, I thought I’d try one of the titles from the Treasury of XXth Century Murder
  • A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan: “You must read this!” said Silvery Dude; I always do what I am told….
  • The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood: this is actually sort of a present for the Book God but once I saw it I realised I want to read it too, a blend of history and dark fantasy in 1407 Venice
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: everyone will know what this is all about; with the film being heavily touted I thought I should give this a go;
  • Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver: having thoroughly enjoyed Dark Matter and following a recommendation from Silvery Dude, I thought I would try her children’s series;
  • Your Presence is Required at Suvanto by Maile Chapman: I know absolutely nothing about this book, it was simply lying on a table in the Wimbledon branch of Waterstone’s and I liked the cover and found the idea of a sanatorium in early twentieth century Finland intriguing;
  • The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: the only one of the Booker long list that has piqued my interest so far;
  • How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran: bought because I follow her on Twitter and everyone (including the young woman at the till in Waterstone’s while I was paying for it) told me how funny it was;
  • The Possession of Dr Forrest by Richard T Kelly: Scottish doctors, friends since boyhood, one goes missing, bizarre, unnerving, menacing, one for RIP

It’s good to be excited by books again.

Dark Matter

August 21, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: , , | 7 comments

I really enjoy a good ghost story and Dark Matter is a very good ghost story indeed. This had been on my tbr list since I read a number of favourable reviews when the book first came out last year, and the Book God was kind enough to buy me a copy as a present for either Christmas or my birthday (I can’t always remember which as they are so close together).

I had thought to save it for RIP this year but for some reason decided it was just what was needed for a humid and over cast August and was totally gripped by the story as soon as I picked it up.

So it is 1937 and Jack Miller is poor and unhappy and takes up the opportunity to be the radio operator on an expedition to the Arctic. There is tension from the very beginning; there are class issues (everyone else is much more posh than Jack) but he goes along anyway as this is his chance to prove himself – to himself as much as anyone. Through various incidents Jack finds himself alone at their camp on Gruhuken as the sun disappears for months, with only the huskies for company.

Well not only the huskies.

For there is something else on Gruhuken.

This is fabulous stuff. You know right from the outset that the expedition does not go well, that someone is injured and someone dies but not who or how. The bulk of the story is told through Jack’s own journal which gives it an immediacy that a third-person narrative wouldn’t have delivered so well. Whether or not you are afraid of the dark (and I’m not really) the idea of being in a world without the sun for such a long period of time and with no other people around (except for one rather touching interlude) is a daunting prospect to consider. And there is a real sense of foreboding which builds as the story develops.

I am not ashamed to say that this really creeped me out; I was reading in bed and absolutely had to stop, though I devoured the remainder of the story the next day. I found the ending really poignant and have gone back to it a couple of times as it was so affecting and effective.

If you love ghost stories you really must read this; it’s one of my favourite reads of the year so far.

I didn’t know anything about Michelle Paver but understand from Silvery Dude (who has read her back catalogue and has taken a copy of Dark Matter on holiday to France) that she has written a whole series of children’s books and I’m really tempted to give them a try.

But this is one story that will linger with me for a long time.

Roseanna [The Martin Beck Series 1]

August 13, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: , , | 2 comments

What is it about Scandinavian crime? I’m not reading it all, but there is quite a lot in the stacks and I’m not sure why; I don’t think it’s a bandwagon on which I have jumped along with many others as everything I’ve read so far has been great, but it is interesting how much has been published over the past few years.

Although I have to confess that I picked this up without really registering that it actually was Scandinavian; for some reason I thought it was German – probably just because the hero’s name is Martin Beck, which (feebly) sounds faintly German to me.

Bit of a rambly intro into a review of a book which I enjoyed very much.

Roseanna is the first of 10 novels in the Martin Beck sequence which look at crime as a reflection of Swedish society (as explained by Henning Mankell in his fascinating introduction) and was published in 1965. It is the story of the investigation of the murder of Roseanna, though at the beginning we know nothing about her for quite a long time, she is simply a body pulled from a lake by a dredger, clearly murdered but by whom?

What makes this such an interesting read is how it concentrates on the tedium of much police work. It takes Beck and his colleagues ages to find out anything about the victim other than the stuff that is revealed by the post-mortem, and what they do find out is partly based on luck.

Beck himself is not what I expected; yes, like a lot of detectives, he isn’t entirely happy at home, though he at least is still married to his wife unlike so many others, and he is prone to depression and has problems with his digestion which gives an interesting perspective on how he handles his job. The importance of team work comes across; Beck is not one of those detectives who goes off on his own following hunches, this is a proper police procedural. And the killer and his motive (if it can be called that) was sadly all too plausible.

Will definitely be looking for others in the series.

Jack the Ripper

August 8, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: , , , | 4 comments

This is part of the Treasury of Victorian Murder series, and was the one I was always going to get first simply because I have been fascinated by the Jack the Ripper, and indeed serial killers of all sorts, since I can remember, all the way from Gilles de Rais to Ted Bundy.

A bit morbid, I know, and the sort of admission that immediately gets you marked as the obvious suspect in any decent American crime series. Especially when coupled with the kind of books on the subject that I have in the stacks.

Can’t explain it, just once of those things, no need to be afraid, honest.

So Jack; well, iconic killer largely because his murders not only remained unsolved but have spawned the wildest of theories about his identity, from the Duke of Clarence to Walter Sickert to Sir William Gull, which in turn has led to some great books, both fiction and non fiction. And of course the movies; my particular favourite being Murder by Decree with the great Christopher Plummer.

But I digress.

This is a great little book, which tells the basics of the story as it happened as if through the diary of a contemporary who had access to the police. I loved the artwork which managed to give a real sense of place and conveyed the gruesomeness without dwelling on it, probably helped by being in black and white.

A very nice addition to my true crime library.

Bride of the Book God

Follow brideofthebook on Twitter

Scottish, in my fifties, love books but not always able to find the time to read them as much as I would like. I’m based in London and happily married to the Book God.

I also blog at Bride of the Screen God (all about movies and TV) and The Dowager Bride, if you are interested in ramblings about stuff of little consequence

If you would like to get in touch you can contact me at brideofthebookgod (at) btinternet (dot) com.

The Sunday Salon.com

Goodreads

Blog Stats

  • 48,541 hits
March 2026
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Categories

Archives