July's reads

 

Alis Hawkins, A Bitter Remedy: I’ve always been fascinated by Welsh as a language, and had a nice little chat on linguistics with this author when I met her at Shetland Noir, so I was intrigued to read this book about a forceful Welsh woman in (but not quite at) Oxford in the late 19^th century. She has befriended a number of academics, including Charles Dodgson and the more fictional Basil Rice, but is hampered by her chaperone, a kinswoman called Lily, and her own attitude. Nevertheless she is determined to help when a student at the college she is most familiar with dies in mysterious circumstances. I love the portrayal of Rice’s general awkwardness and Tarley Askew’s quiet courtship of Non, who still talks to her long-dead twin sister.

Sue Tort, Witness a Killing: while this is in need of some apostrophe therapy, and a heavy dose of comma medicine, it’s off to a good start with an ex-copper, wanting to turn tennis coach, finding a body and being asked to investigate. Of course the locals resist and encourage in equal measure. I wouldn’t call this a cosy, as such, but his dog does get involved and his next door neighbour has quite a personable cat. The story has a good atmosphere and entertaining characters but it really does need someone who knows about punctuation to give it a look-over! And the word is narcissistic.

Louise Mangos, Confessions of a Crime Writer: This is horribly amusing, written from the perspective of Nigel Inchcock, a pathetic man convinced he’s irresistibly attractive and also moments away from being discovered as a brilliant crime writer. Though horribly impoverished, through his own determination to write for a living, he manages to get to Iceland Noir and Harrogate, thoroughly embarrassing himself on the way, before he meets an actual dead body and everything starts to go very wrong. An excruciating and very funny read, with a cleverly constructed plot.

F.M.H. Macdonald, Lewis Amnesia: I picked this up as a local book to read on holiday, but I think I might go back for the others in the series. The narrator is Helen, and she’s the kind of person that makes you feel you might be managing better than you think you are. She’s a locum doctor back on Lewis trying to deal with an alcohol and tobacco problem, a difficulty finding the right man, and a dreadfully disorganised life – and all that is before the murders start. It’s a good yarn set in the 1970s, and the pace is excellent. The story behind the crimes, though, is much more shocking than I had expected from the tone up to that point. The cover is sweet!

Colin Green, Trust: I succumbed to this because of the rugby/police crossover, but actually there does not seem to be that much rugby in it. There is a great deal of police procedure in it – maybe a touch too much for fiction, and also a lot of conversation that is reported rather than written, taking away from the immediacy and leaving it a little slow, but still quite interesting.

Vaseem Khan, Quantum of Menace: All right, I’m a Bond fan, and indeed a Q fan, and I was itching to read this as soon as I heard about it, being also a Vaseem Khan fan. And it did indeed live up to expectations – a satisfying murder mystery, developing Q as a character, with some nice little references to his work with the Double Os, his friend James Bond, and his relationship with Moneypenny (very nice!). Combining Albanian crime gangs with the cosy end of the spectrum this is still well handled and I look forward to the next one.

A.K. Nairn, The Trail of Blood: This one grabbed me straightaway, for some reason. It’s the same kind of setting as Patricia Chisholm’s books, the debatable lands (well, the eastern version of them) between England and Scotland in the 16^th century. This time it’s told from the Scottish side but with a main character who is French. It is resonant with the priorities of the period and the plot weaves all kinds of possible motives together: it moves along smartly and though it lacks the humour of some other books with this setting, it’s still intriguing and appealing.

There, that didn't take too long, did it?

As for where I am at the moment, well, I'm 3/10 through The Raven in Silver, so I really must order the cover soon! It's not going too badly so far, though I need to do more plot work. I was briefly distracted by an airfield last week which gave me some more information I needed for the book I was writing in the spring, and I've had some thoughts about the next book in that series, but I'm firmly focussed on my Vikings for now!