Hippolyta VII - A Day for Death

 I know, I know, I should be blogging about what I read in May! Later.

But today A Day for Death is available for preorder! Paperback to follow shortly.

Lady Northland is setting up a charitable clothing society, but charity is far from the thoughts of some of her neighbours. By the time someone dies, it’s hard to tell who the murderer is or whom they might have intended to kill – but when another body is found Hippolyta Napier cannot resist trying to help, and in the process try to solve her own problems.

A Day for Death

April's books - a lighter month

 Not sure why I haven't read quite so many books in April, but here they are: 

V.E.H. Masters, The Castilians: I read The Conversos, second in the series, first, so to an extent I knew the plot of this one. It’s extremely well-written, told from the point of view mostly of Bethia, daughter of a merchant in St. Andrews in anxious political times, sixteenth century Scotland. Her brother Will has been instrumental in the assassination of Cardinal Beaton at the Castle. The historical detail is handled very adeptly as in The Conversos, and the action is varied and well-paced. The covers are really lovely!

Lynda Wilcox, A Burglary in Belgravia: I haven’t read one of these for a while but settled in with great pleasure to refamiliarise myself with Lady Eleanor Bakewell and her intelligent maid. Jewels have been stolen in Belgravia, and then a rich man is shot in the theatre, and we’re off on another well-envisaged adventure in 1920s London. The tone is light but the setting is very realistic, with touches of humour – most enjoyable.

John Holland, The Light at the Bottom of the Garden: This is a strange little novella, written in a slightly naive style, part police investigation, part romance, part paranormal mystery set in rural Australia.

Ambrose Parry, A Corruption of Blood: This is a good series, though often the writers stray into anachronistic language. This particular book gathers in a number of real life events and people with some considerable skill, and Victorian Edinburgh is quite well portrayed. Delighted to see a reference to the sadly messed-up Jessie King, putative baby-farmer and actually pathetic creature, about whom I wrote an article some time ago (and even appeared on Women’s Hour!).

A.S. Byatt, Possession: My first book by this author. I picked this one up because I needed a ‘romance’ for a book challenge, and this caught my eye as potentially intelligent and mysterious. The work involved in this is impressive – Byatt has invented a whole poet and his circle, along with some of their work, for a modern group of academics to investigate and research. The characters are wonderfully and sometimes awfully drawn (one of the main characters has a radically self-destructive girlfriend who seems doomed from the start, and another is a painful Victorian poetess), and the locations are equally richly described, from the damp basement flat to the mostly disused manor house in winter. The plot is intriguing, too. There is, however, a whole exchange of awful letters between two Victorian poets that could be cut to ribbons, as far as I’m concerned – I’m obviously a lost soul in this. They were so dreadful that in the end I couldn’t stand it any more and did what I rarely (almost never) do in a book, and skipped past them. Skilfully written pastiche, but oh, so dreadful and so apparently pointless! There were also a few points where, let’s say, I would have edited differently. I’ve recently watched Three Thousand Years of Longing, also apparently based on an A.S. Byatt short story, and I think perhaps that she and I are not on the same wavelength. However, if she has brought revenge on the hideous, mad, Cropper by the end of the book I shall be content.

  

David Gatward, Shooting Season: Lovely instalment in this series set in the Yorkshire Dales - a good juicy plot and more team development, and a love for the local landscape shining through.

Angela Thirkell, Northbridge Rectory: Another gentle and sometimes rather biting read set during the Second World War in Barsetshire. I wouldn't want too many of these in a row but they're great to turn to when you're in the mood for a little sarcastic pleasure.

So there we are. And where am I? I am sitting with my back to the printed-out draft of Hippolyta Seven, dreading looking at it. But it needs to be edited. Definitely. Maybe tomorrow.

 New book out today! Whew!

Reading in March

 Here we are - March's books.

Reyna Favis, Soul Scent: A return to this intriguing supernatural series, with Fia and Zackie trying to help souls to a peaceful afterlife, and encountering murders on the way, some more recent than others. The final scenes are weird but wonderful. Favis has created a whole logical world of the hereafter and how we might deal with it.

William McIlvanney, Laidlaw: I’ve come to McIlvanney very late, I know, and I think it’s because I saw it as the darker side of Taggart, which I still think it is. Laidlaw is a remarkably depressing and depressive character, but redeemed by his desire to do things right and make the world a better place in the face of what he sees as ruin and corruption. The prose is almost overwritten for a police procedural of this time, but beautifully done. It’s just a bit unrelenting. What’s extraordinary is that writing of this quality is seen as the father of all Tartan Noir – not all of its children are of anywhere near this quality. Just occasionally it tips into being overdone, but mostly it’s a delight, despite the dark setting and tragic events.

Wendy H. Jones, Killer’s Cross: A breezy, pacy police procedural without too much of the technological detail and a good deal of banter. Strong-willed Shona is battling multiple murder once again as someone leaves bodies dressed in clerical gear arranged around Dundee. Full of energy and action!

Jodi Taylor, White Silence (Elizabeth Cage series): I had to stop reading this several times just to go away and recover. Exciting, traumatic, funny, alarming, full of suspense and ‘whom can she trust now?’ thrill. I went off to the next one as soon as I could deal with my seesawing emotions! I’ve devoured three of these in a row, and am delighted to hear that a fourth one is on its way. They are thrillers and mysteries, and if they sometimes seem episodic it all has a purpose – hang on in there! And the relationship between Jones and Cage is wonderfully drawn. Read everything Taylor has written, but definitely read these.

J.D. Kirk, One for the Ages: We’ve a new and dreadful character here, Tammi-Jo, who would be almost unbearable if it were not for the compassion with which she’s drawn. She and Tyler together would drive anyone to drink. But this book as usual manages a happy marriage between the excruciatingly funny and the tremendously touching, via all kinds of action, violence and upset. I hope we haven’t seen the last of the team.

Laura Lippman, Baltimore Blues: This is a good read: the heroine is an out of work journalist, pretending to herself that she’s getting on with her life, when her friend and fellow rower is accused of murdering someone who was apparently having an affair with his girlfriend. I wouldn't sympathise with all the main character does, and you couldn’t call this a love song to Baltimore, but the setting works well and the plot skips along with some interesting characters along the way – almost nothing is as it seems. 

Douglas Skelton, An Honourable Thief: I’d been looking forward to this as I like the author’s contemporary work, but I wondered if this was a bit of jumping on the historical crime bandwagon. I found this a bit overdone at the start, though there was plenty of excitement and suspense to draw the reader in and maybe no need for the ‘I’ve done all this research and you’re darn well going to see it even if you don’t make it beyond the second chapter’ feel. Quite a generous and bloody body count by ten percent in, too. Slightly surprised that Flynt is such a successful card player when everyone seems to read his slightest expression. Wonderful portrayal of the Edinburgh mob and how they might come about. Some rather anachronistic expressions, particularly when Flynt’s father comes over all supportive, or the City Guard sergeant tells his men they have ‘something of a situation’. I had to struggle to read to the end, but maybe it was me: I just couldn’t find any of the characters that engaging. It won't stop me going back to his contemporary fiction, though.

Femi Kayode, Lightseekers: I saw this author speak at Granite Noir in, I think, 2021, bought the book, then for some reason the cover put me off. I finally started it and was drawn straight in – my only qualm was the present tense and, occasionally, how events in the past were handled grammatically. Picky picky! The setting is fascinating – the huge country of Nigeria, and a necklace killing in a university town where students and locals have been on edgy terms for several generations. Reading this alongside Skelton’s An Honourable Thief provides a bit of insight into crowd violence, as well as some contemporary thoughts as to whether or not, or up to what point, a university has a duty of care to its legally adult students. Going to have to go and read more about the Biafran War now, though. A complex plot, with some very odd characters – and a potential set-up for a sequel. Interesting read.

Angela Thirkell, Cheerfulness Breaks In: A book with its humour so tongue in cheek it’s a wonder the words come out at all. Wonderfully long meandering sentences accompany the account of the wedding of Rose, spoilt rotten and quite horrible though beautiful, with Lieutenant Fairweather, who seems the only person likely to be able to deal with her. It’s hard to tell what the actual plot is for we wander from character to character, but there is always someone to like and the style is so pleasantly gossipy that we don’t mind that we can’t remember the significance of someone’s brother-in-law being married to the Dean’s second daughter. I don’t think it really matters. But it’s very funny and of its time, the outbreak of the Second World War. The ending is abrupt, and has sent me scurrying for a sequel, though I think I would have read more anyway.

Hippolyta VII, A Day for Death, is about 4/5 drafted and is going horribly! However, A Vengeful Harvest, first in the Second World War Alec Cattanach series, is now out for preorder, which I hope is some consolation ...

A Vengeful Harvest - preorder now!

 Here we are!

Two serious road accidents, a fire in the wrong place, and a declaration of war on Germany: Alec Cattanach, of the Aberdeen City Police, has had better weeks. But it will only grow worse – a woman goes missing. The answers seem to be in her past – but who can tell him what that past was? Someone has lit a touchpaper, and now all Cattanach can do is wait for the explosion.

Preorder here!

Mailing list

 Oops, forgot to say that the newsletter came out on Friday (I was running to catch up!), so if you didn't get it and the accompanying short story, and were expecting to, let us know at contact@kellascatpress.co.uk!

Preorder link for the first Alec Cattanach book coming very soon!

February's books - not quite as late as usual!

Just the one month's reading this time, and as usual a bit of a hotchpotch - some of it stimulated by a reading challenge!

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Kath Middleton, Old Haunts: Another lovely read from Middleton – emotion, suspense, laughter, kindness, characters you want to spend time with and memories that haunt you. A delight.

Carl Ashmore, The Time Huntersand the Box of Eternity: This is a book for about twelve to fourteen year olds (very roughly) but it’s very entertaining for anyone to read. Becky and Joe have an uncle, Percy, who travels in time, along with a bunch of his cronies, and when the children go to stay with him they become involved in his adventures. The over-arching plot is that the villain has been instrumental, apparently, in 'losing’ their father somewhere in time, and uncle and his friends are trying to find him and rescue him. Pirates, parrots and zombie sharks, and a guest appearance by Al Capone – why not?

Quentin Bates, Cold Steal: This is the second I’ve read in this series, and they have a sort of sensible, unsensational tone as Gunna, the detective, just gets on with life and the random things it throws at her – like murders, office rivalries, and unplanned grandchildren. In crime fiction terms they’re what I would call trad, neither cosy nor noir. This maybe doesn’t sound like a great advert but there’s something very real and solid about them that I like a great deal.

Marco Vichi, Death in Florence (trans. Steven Sartarelli): Written in the 1960s this is quite dated in some ways (attitudes to forensics, women, smoking and litter, for example), and focuses on the violent death of a young boy, so there’ll be many who won’t want to read this anyway. The main character is constantly struck by memories of the war in which he served, and by waves of depression and loneliness, and this is the Florence of the locals, not the tourists. However, there is a great description of the great 1966 flood breaking the banks of the Arno and its aftermath, and like pretty much every crime novel I’ve read set in Italy there are reflections on the state of the nation and its addiction to corruption. The crime is a particularly nasty one. This seems to be the last in this short series – not sure if I would go back and read the others or not.

Rhys Dylan, The Engine House: I was disappointed to find that this was mostly in the present tense. However, the story starts well even if there’s that fairly common theme of ‘guess what’s wrong with the policeman’ that’s happening these days. Two bodies turn up on a Welsh coastal path, dragging a retired policeman back into a cold case that he always hoped he would solve. The plot is unexpected and very good, and I’ll probably read on in the series.

Denzil Meyrick, For Any Other Truth: I’d slightly lost track of this series, not sure why, but it was easy to slip back in with sarky Scott and ancient Hamish and the others in Kinloch. The boss’s past is trying to catch up on her again and a very odd aeronautical accident is keeping the police busy when someone they’re all very fond of disappears.

Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling: It’s hard, I think, to describe these books without making them sound cosy, but they’re really not. Yes, the setting is usually a beautiful, charming village called Three Pines, full of wonderful food, delightful scenery and barking eccentrics. Yes, the main detective is happily married. But there is an extraordinary depth to the stories and the characters, and you find yourself coming back to the series again and again to see another layer peeled gently away, to find another pain, another tragedy, another secret, and to learn from it and feel that you and the characters grow in strength and wisdom together. But Penny is not above humour, either – or indeed a nice Shakespearean allusion – a couple who moved to the village and had a son called Havoc. ‘And once there, they’d created Havoc. ‘Havoc!’ his mother cried, letting the dogs slip out as she called into the woods.’

I've  been very busy finishing A Vengeful Harvest, the first in the Alec Cattanach series set in Second World War Aberdeen, and getting back into Hippolyta VII, A Day for Death, which is now almost half-written. Cover reveals coming soon!