A few books from February

Not so many books finished last month, though I seem to be halfway through reading quite a few. Still, here we are!

E.S. Thomson, The Blood: I'm slightly out of order on this series. As dark as ever, this episode takes us to London’s filthy docklands with some of the worst and most downtrodden of its inhabitants and a naval hospital ship where Jem has to stand in as apothecary when a friend dies. Poor Will continues to be embroiled in Jem’s investigations as their friendship grows stronger and potentially more ambiguous, and the plot revolves around one of the greatest challenges to medical expertise. Fascinating as always.

Jodi Taylor, Santa Grint: This is a bit of an excursion, a day at the seaside as Grint takes unexpected pity on a young lad in a children’s home waiting for his mother. Since the mother is said to be building an illicit time-travel pod, the Time Police take an interest, putting Grint and Jane in danger with hilarious consequences. I do enjoy the voices in Jane’s head!

Alex Gray, Questions for a Dead Man: And completely out of order on this series - this is only the second one I have read. A car bomb kills an MSP – or does it? The plot involves the drug trade from several different angles as Lorimer’s friend Daniel finds to his cost. Unusual for the genre, Gray’s team are all nice, normal people who live fairly ordinary lives and care for each other in uncomplicated ways. It’s a pleasant place to be, despite the murders and drug dealers. One question, though: why would a woman wear fishnets over a corset and skirt?

Kelly Oliver, Mystery in Manhattan: Also  known as Chaos at Carnegie Hall, and either No.1 or  No.4 in the series depending on what series you might think you're reading. I wasn’t really convinced by this. There has been some good research but still plenty of oddities – for one thing, hobble skirts were going out by this time and anyway the things she does manage to do in a hobble skirt would mean they were hardly worthy of the name. Fiona is self-obsessed and thick as mince, and I would not employ her as an office junior, let alone a spy. The book feels much more American than British (probably written for the American market – ‘classified’, for example, is still an American term), and the author seems to be obsessed by the word ‘lav’, using it when she actually means the British term ‘bathroom’ and not just the W.C. She calls the police station ‘the nick’ which is not a term someone of her class would have used, or not consistently, at that time (never mind ‘mate’ and ‘knackered’ – most unseemly, even if she does use the word ‘blimey’). The heroine says her gloves were ruined by ‘fingerprints’ at the police station and is then slightly baffled when her ward mentions fingerprinting. And why are they always tugging at the hems of their jackets?

Ragnar Johansson, Black Out: The three-man police force in northern Siglafjordur has to deal with a murder, which is simultaneously being investigated by a journalist from Reykjavik escaping from the cloud of volcanic ash and with issues of her own to deal with. This is a very good, serious series, translated into English by the inestimable Quentin Bates who writes his own Icelandic crime fiction.

Now, then, updates. The Gowden Wifie, Cattanach 2, is all ready to go except for the cover which has been delayed, as you'll know if you're on the mailing list, by the unpredictable drying time of air-drying clay in a cold house. Once the cover is ready, we're off! In the mean time I am now one day behind schedule on Murray 14, Murder on the King's Jaunt, but it's still going strong and I'm now 2/5 through the first draft. Often by this stage I would have ordered the cover for this one from my cover illustrator (she is not responsible, by the way, for the air-drying clay issues) but I've hit the ground running so quickly on this one that I haven't spoken to her about it yet. I'd better get on with it!