I find that at the end of October I'm halfway through several books, which will have to wait till next month's blogpost! And I'm afraid there's not a lot of variety here as I continued with a series I had not met until September, and am thoroughly enjoying. Anyway, take a look!
Cecilia Peartree, An Unsweetened Revenge: The twenty-ninth in the Pitkirtly series sneaked out under my radar a few months ago, and once I found it I plunged straight in. Though Christopher is away (we do get some chapters on what he’s up to, poor chap), the gentle council satire is alive and kicking, and I loved ’the computer screen, which currently displayed a West Fife Council screensaver with a carousel of images of recent road-mending projects.’ The plot itself is a little darker than usual, but of course all is well in the end and the people of Pitkirtly can carry on being as quietly mad as ever.
Natalie Jayne Clark, The Malt Whisky Murders: I found the initial
premise, that two women would conceal the fact they’d found several bodies in
whisky barrels in their newly bought distillery just because it would affect
their business launch, very difficult. All right, maybe there are people like
that, but I don’t necessarily want to spend time with them. However, the story
improved tremendously and there’s a real sense of knowledge of the whisky
industry, too, which works well. Eventually I came to see that the way the narrator
reacted to the bodies is part of her own character, and by then I was already
involved in the investigation. I could see the who, but not necessarily the why,
which was presented at the end in a fairly convincing way, in the context, even if it fell a little flat. I’ll
be interested to see what she writes next.
T.G. Reid, Bloodwater Falls: a few odd words like kneeled and
shined, and a lot of wandering speechmarks, but really I enjoyed this. The
tension over his son and ex-wife is a good layer, and though I spotted the
killer quite quickly it was an interesting read.
Tormod Cockburn, The Ice Covenant: All gloves are off now and Gill is definitely on a
supernatural mission, guarded by an angel-like biker. Nevertheless, he has to
get on with his career and though the reader knows a little more about the
angel, Gill is still an archaeologist at heart, taking on a rescue dig around
Killiecrankie. Meanwhile, on the alarming mountain of Ben Macdui (which I for
one never want to climb), there has been a discovery of quantities of human
teeth, deposited, or strewn, over several decades. The answer to that mystery
is just as disturbing as the discovery.
Aline Templeton, Death in Caithness: Once again, the setting in
the Flow Country was very well portrayed and I very much enjoyed the continued
relationship between Murray and Strang. The local DI was maybe a little
overdone but he was still horribly entertaining and well due his come-uppance,
and though I spotted the murderer early on, I still very much enjoyed the read.
I’ll certainly carry on with this series for now.
Aline Templeton, Death in the Borders: And again the setting is
good and the intrigue of the reclusive writer is well done. I did like ‘The
music made satisfying patterns in his head’ – I could relate to that. The
weather is a key part in the plot and Murray and Strang continue to bounce off
each other. A very satisfying mystery, and I’m afraid I’ve already bought the
next one – doesn’t often happen that a series grabs me this way.
Aline Templeton, Death in Inverbeg: All right, yes, another one.
Another thing about them is that the characters are very well drawn and layered
– I find my sympathies unexpectedly engaged by people I’d previously thought
horrible – but again this one has a fine sense of place. What fun to travel
around Scotland setting murder mysteries in different places!
And where am I? Not Inverbeg, anyway - I've left Ballater for a week as I finally managed to finish the first draft of The Shadowed Blade! Now I'm taking a break before going back for the first big edit.
