Granite Noir Day Three

 

A late start on Sunday and I popped into an event with Candice Gaines and Isla Traquair, talking to Theresa Talbot about their rather different true crime podcasts. I hadn’t originally intended to go to this as I’m not so interested in true crime, but I was intrigued by their different approaches to what they do and the reasons they do it. Having been tangentially involved in a project a few years ago highlighting the many missing First Nation women in Canada and the unidentified, unclaimed murder victims from the First Nation peoples, I was interested in Candice Gaines’ efforts to bring similar cases to light in the U.S. concerning people of colour, using a podcast – she is approached by family or friends of a victim, rather than going out looking for cases. Isla Traquair on the other hand goes back to older cases and subjects them to a very detailed ongoing investigation – not necessarily unsolved crimes, but ones where perhaps our perspectives and attitudes might have changed since. They covered how they deal with the traumatic things they read and the possible dangers of what they do, and how they seek some kind of resolution for all those concerned.

Then it was time for a panel on revenge, with Alex Clark interviewing Lesley Kara, Stina Jackson and Eva Bjorn Aegisdottir about their most recent books. A good discussion on the instinct for revenge, the best revenge plots, the harm revenge can cause even to the avenger, and the distinction between revenge and vigilantism. So nice to see Stina’s cat!

Next Peter May. This is an author I haven’t read much of – only his Lewis trilogy – but I think it might have been my favourite event. Bryan Burnett is excellent at ‘just chatting’, even though I know he’s done his research. I loved how May spoke about ‘writing for’ his characters, as if he were helping them out, and I loved how he valued the depths of his own research. The account of how he had written his most recent book was fascinating, and he was amusing (if clearly still a little irritated) at the antics of his own publishers over the years. As someone who has also always known that they wanted to write I enjoyed his account of that, too. A session where you really felt you learned something.

That was my last session – I might listen to Baldacci later, maybe not.

My verdict this year? It was easy to become distracted, particularly after a few sessions, and check what was going on elsewhere on the web while continuing to listen (and call it multi-tasking). I couldn’t help wondering what it was like, too, for the authors, doing this in their studies / sitting rooms / kitchens, conscious of other members of the household listening in, perhaps, and very conscious of not knowing how the audience was reacting. And no off to the bar afterwards to chat, no flopping for a post mortem in the green room. Yet I felt the organisers came up with a great programme and created the atmosphere of the real-life festival as well as they could, and the additional pleasure of watching it remotely with friends and relations who can’t normally be here for it was welcome. The interviewers were stoical in dealing with the quirks of online conversations and kept everything flowing remarkably well. But I hope we’re back in the Lemon Tree, the Library and everywhere else next year!

Granite Noir Day Two

 

Granite Noir day two:

Never have I had time to bake eighty-nine ginger biscuits (they keep for ages and it’s between two households, anyway, honest) on the morning of Granite Noir. Yet this year I could have my laptop chattering to me as I finished off the last few batches, then set the yogurt going and retire to knit another sock while listening to Theresa Talbot interview three newcomers, Femi Kayode, Saima Mir and Susie Yang. All three books sound pretty interesting – if I were there I suppose I might have splashed out on the paperbacks and had them signed (well, not Saima’s as it’s not out yet), but instead I looked on Amazon and thought one was a bit pricey but ordered the other. Not so good for book selling. I’m feeling a bit mean. But on the other hand I often don’t have time to queue to have books signed, and I’m not a great collector of signed books, so I might not have bought them anyway. I thought Theresa did a good job of balancing the three authors and coping with the occasional glitch.

Right, midday and I’ve realised I should have read more small print – I wanted to go to a workshop on developing characters over a series but it was limited numbers. There’s always something I forget to book! Shame, as the chap leading it is also a historical crime fiction writer, D.V. Bishop. I don’t know about him, but I need mutual support!

A terrific session at 2pm with S.J. Watson, Catherine Ryan Howard and Will Dean, chaired by Bryan Burnett whom I met last year. I remember seeing Will Dean’s first ever event at Granite Noir a few years ago and he’s gained assurance since then – all three of them were amusing and informative. I liked Will saying that the most valuable thing he ever wrote was his first novel, which he worked on and worked on and sent to agents and it never went anywhere – he’ll never publish it, he says, but it was his writing school.

 Straight on from that was Val McDermid talking with Andy Miller and John Mitchinson about Josephine Tey, chiefly about her book Miss Pym Disposes, which was one I’d never read (loved Brat Farrar, The Singing Sands and Daughter of Time, but I can’t remember The Franchise Affair so I’ll go back to that, too). A strange woman, Tey, leading a double life of domesticity in Inverness and theatrical weekends in London, different friends, different clothes, everything.

Then at 6, when I’d sorted out a new batch of knitting (taking a pause from socks) I watched Camilla Lackberg interviewed by Alex Clark. Entertaining, though she looked very monochrome in her black and white room! She’s a productive author with, she says, a strong work ethic, and she seems to be into everything – a film company here, an investment company there, five children, two series and standalones. I’m feeling like an under achiever …

Lastly, while we ate pizza, we had Jo Nesbo, interviewed by Jackie Collins (Dr. Noir) who had some technical problems to start with and had to recover from a flustery beginning. Some good questions came up about language, translations, and different perceptions of words in different countries. I wish my Norwegian was as good as his English – and I also rather wish he had taken his cap off. It was a bit distracting.

Zoom headache – enough for one day.

Granite Noir Day One

 Traditionally I write something for Granite Noir - traditionally, however, it isn't on line and I'm running back and forth to the Lemon Tree or the Music Hall or the Central Library or wherever and grabbing a cafe coffee in between. 

This evening, however, I'm in my armchair with a hot toddy, watching on my laptop. The cat is occasionally watching over my shoulder, there's no one coming in late to squirm into an empty seat beside me, and there's no to and fro between speakers and audience, sadly. But here we go:

Not the typical Granite Noir and Day One is really Friday evening, not Thursday evening. Being able to go and top up my hot toddy between sessions, but having to involve No.3 Cat in the entertainment, is definitely odd. The first session was Stuart MacBride and Ian Rankin, chaired by Fiona Stalker – Stuart against a strange greenscreen of a sideways cat. I felt Stuart didn’t come across as humorously as he usually does – Zoom makes us all more sententious – and it took a while for these two prominent authors and broadcaster to relax and settle into the whole business of being away and present at once, and to work round the ‘here we are in a pandemic’ subject to things we’re actually interested in.

Next session – Alex Clark interviewing Attica Locke. I’m not saying I want politics to swamp Granite Noir, but this was a good session, looking, with remarkable balance, at Trump, modern America and black lives mattering, but not without reference to writing and reading and crime fiction. Lots covered here! And I think I want to sit down and have a coffee, or glass of wine, with Attica Locke. She just seems like great company.

And now I don't even have to walk home!

January's reading

 I might have missed a few here moving between laptops, but they can always be tagged on to February!

Wilding, Isabella Tree: I made the mistake of reading the introduction, which I think is usually to be avoided. But moving past that this is a tremendously readable account, if alarming in the details about current farming practices. There is more in the way of statistics than of poetry, but that is not what this book is about: it is more about a possible way forward, particularly in the aftermath of Brexit, in making farming and conservation work together for the benefit of both, in terms of biodiversity, water management, soil enhancement, and food improvement. I hope those with power in the right places pay a bit of attention.

Suddenly He Thinks He’s aSunbeam, Adey Grummet: An Australian singer finds herself married to a man with a vocation – an actual vocation to become ordained as a priest at the higher end of the Anglican church. This is a very amusing as well as moving account of coming to terms with the effects her husband’s change of life will have on her own career, behaviour and circumstances – just watch out for some slightly dated attitudes to certain parts of society, and believe they are in the end well-intentioned.

Places in the Darkness, Chris Brookmyre: This is very sci-fi. I mean, I know, the setting is a space station, and I was up for quite a bit of technological scene-setting, and I certainly had it. But then the characters kick in and it’s a crime fiction book, so if space stations are not your thing, then just have patience. I thought it lacked some of the humour of his other books, but the plot is beautifully complex and leads you into thoughts about artificial intelligence, the vulnerability of memories and the ultimate ethics of police work in a corrupt society.

The Curator, M. W. Craven: The relationship between Poe and Tilly is the main reason for reading these books – it is at once hilarious and touching. But there is much more besides: the plot is well woven, the secondary characters lifelike, even the animals real people.

Forensics: The Anatomy ofCrime, Val McDermid: An approachable treatment of the subject for an intelligent beginner. The book is divided into chapters on facets of forensics – fingerprints, blood patterns, forensic anthropology, etc., and the history of the facet is covered before going on to what is happening in the field today. If you’ve already read Sue Black’s All That Remains some parts will be very familiar, but there was plenty still to bookmark and come back to. There is also a good index and bibliography.

Surface Tension, Christine Kling: I read this because it was free, and set in Florida, which I needed for a reading challenge. I sort of didn’t expect to enjoy it, but I did. It’s based near Fort Lauderdale, and it is action-packed from the start. If, like me, you have little idea of which end of a boat is which, you can just run with the high-tech description for a bit and be reassured when the body is found. But there’s a real sense of the author’s deep familiarity with the whole coastal scene in Florida, historically as well as contemporary. In some ways it bears comparison with Marsali Taylor’s excellent crime novels set on and off Shetland: the heroine is just as scarred by her past, if not more so, but she really knows her boat-based community. The book is much darker, though, and with more in the way of shorts, sex, and mangrove swamps.

Other editions

Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen: Having heard a good deal about the series on television, I felt well-disposed to this lady and her family, and was not disappointed. Apparently this isn’t the first book, but it was very enjoyable: you could be there with the family in their disappointments, sorrows and laughter. I might even look out some more in the series!

See Them Run, Marian Todd: Well, this one feels as if it’s set in St. Andrews, which is a good start. I liked the main character, who is in Fife to escape something awful that’s happened in Glasgow (and why not?), though it’s likely to follow her. Not quite sure about the senior officer who comes tramping in to take charge, or the general dynamics in the police station, but I think they’re likely to develop over future books. For once, the non-police characters are more rounded and interesting, particularly the victims and their families.

The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern: A young man finds an uncatalogued book in his university library and in it reads a story about himself. This drags him into a mysterious world of books, of painted doors and hidden doors and lost doors, of underground rooms and bees and swords and keys. The occasional flash of dry humour is very welcome. There is a magical style to this book, a love of stories and intertwined stories, that fills your head with half-caught ideas for stories of your own, and in the end the plot actually works.

The Limpopo Academy of PrivateDetection, Alexander McCall Smith: I’ve lost track of this series a bit, but enjoyed this one. It’s the mixture as before, with Mma Makutsi endlessly ambitious, Mma Potokwani concerned for her orphanage, the unexpected arrival of the famous Clovis Andersen, and Mma Ramotswe and her lovely, patient husband Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni behaving with reason and kindness to everyone.

Jordanna Max Brodsky, The Wolfin the Whale: There’s a bit of confusing use of capital letters around the beginning of this, but it settles down into a story with a mythical feel to it, full of legends and rituals in a tiny Inuit community that has lost a large proportion of its young men in one bad accident and is no longer viable. The survival of the rest, the desperate longing to meet another community, and the coming to adulthood of Omat, the main character. Some of the description is beautiful, magical and mystical, and some is harsh as befits the hard landscape. When rescue seems to appear it is not the bright future they hoped, and Omat is left alone to try to save the community in the face of more than one enemy. Encounters with Vikings and native Americans lead to confusion and danger, and long journeys across ice, tundra and forest. Some elements of the fantasy side seem to become lost and the whole thing ends rather suddenly, but it was an interesting read.

Well, as I said, more to come next month! Meanwhile I'm nearly a third of the way through Hippolyta VI, The Corrupted Blood, and excitingly an audiobook of Tomb for an Eagle is in production as we speak. It's all go here!

Book tour: Surge on like a River!

 Today I'm delighted to be helping out with the blog tour for Surge on like a River, by Bharathy Bhaskar, translated by V. Shyamala.

Surge On Like a River is the English translation of the Tamil book titled ‘Nee Nadhi Pola Odikondiru’, originally written by Bharathy Bhaskar, a Chemical Engineer and an MBA, who is a banker by profession. She is also a popular columnist and speaker, and a household name in Tamil homes, thanks to the debates and shows she has spoken in. The essays are written in a simple, engaging style, and filled with profound insights. These nuggets of wisdom primarily draw from the author’s life experiences and her empathetic observations of the people and situations around her. This English translation by V. Shyamala captures the lively nature of the original, bringing it to a wider audience with the idea that the readers who do not know Tamil should not miss out on the wonderful collection.

Bharathi Baskar is a Tamil Orator who is popular for her humorous debate talk shows called Pattimandram.com, telecasted on Sun TV. She is also an anchor for the daily talk show called Vaanga Peasalam at 7.15 a.m from Monday to Wednesday on Sun TV. Bharathi Baskar is also a Senior Vice President at Citi Bank, Chenna.

V. Shyamala is a cost accountant, a homemaker, and a writer. She loves to weave stories and

is on a continuous quest to seek new and creative ways to teach children. When not writing, reading, or thinking up stories, Shyamala mentors CIMA students, strives to workout, loves tweaking South Indian heritage recipes and translates Tamil words to English. She is also a member of AWIC (Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children) and volunteers at a local library twice a week.

My review:

This collection of essays is strongly indicative of the problems faced by women in India today, notably as mothers, daughters, and daughters-in-law. There is good advice here for mothers of rebellious daughters, and for the clearing out of unwanted clutter from fridges, handbags and minds. Apparently universal are the problems caused by advertising cliches, the perfect housewife and mother, the perfect body, the perfect face. More localised are problems arising from strictly segregating boys and girls during education, or from encouraging women to have no say in or knowledge of the household finances. Generally sensible, basic advice is given in elegant Indian English, with occasional short poems and anecdotes. It is an easy, gentle read except when she is dealing with the incidences of sexual assault and unwanted sexual advances so prevalent in Indian society at present. One thought-provoking chapter deals with female friendship, its closeness and the threats to it, another with motherhood. An interesting read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surge-Like-River-Bharathy-Bhaskar-ebook/dp/B08R3W1BCJ

The New Murray, and What I Read in November and December

 Okay, a bit of a busy posting! 

First, The Status of Murder, a Murray novella, is out - if you're on the mailing list you may already have had this.

Second, The Dead Chase, Murray 12, is now on pre-order. This takes Murray to London and Sussex in pursuit of Blair and Isobel.

Third, the newsletter is out so if you were expecting it and didn't get it, let us know!

 Now, what have I  been reading?                                                               

Criminal Shorts, ed. Kath Middleton and Will Templeton: Yes, I have a story in this, but there are twenty-one more and they’re pretty good! It’s difficult to pick out favourites – all of them have charm of one kind or another – so I’m not going to, but I will say that I enjoyed the authors I’d read before and found a few new ones to follow up. Lots of variety – you never know what you’re going to find next!

I Will Miss You Tomorrow, Heine Bakkeid: Signed copy by the author, who very kindly wrote ‘En kjempestor klem fra Thorkild og meg’ – but I’m not sure I really want a great big hug from Thorkild, the tortured, damaged ex-policeman who is thrown into investigating the disappearance of a young man from an old lighthouse in northern Norway. This is a disturbing, haunting story, very well written and paced, but I think in the end it’s Thorkild that needs that hug, and more besides! Well worth a read.

Street Cat Blues, Alison O’Leary: ‘In his experience, the world was divided into those that told other people when to move, those that moved when they were told, and cats.’ Aubrey was a street cat though he now has a good home – and before that, his previous owner was murdered. Now there have been other murders – not all of them to Aubrey’s disadvantage – and his new owners are growing anxious. Not exactly a cosy, despite the cats, this is an engaging and exciting book and I’m looking forward to another in the series.

Ed James, The Hope that Kills: This is much darker and less amusing than the Scott Cullen series – it’s good, but I’m not sure that I like it as much. The seamier side of east London (and so much of it is indeed seamy) is very well portrayed, but I just didn’t like the characters so much and found the police team much more superficially connected with each other than the Edinburgh team in the Cullen series. That said, Fenchurch’s father is a treasure.

Tony Forder, The Reach ofShadows: These really do improve as they go on. This is a tangled tale involving a charismatic environmental group and threats from Bliss’s past. The two cases don’t come together in some improbable ballet but are kept separate and intertwining, with a satisfactory resolution to one and a fairly reasonable solution to the other. Space, then, for moving on to the next book, and the next stage in the Bliss/Chandler relationship.

Other editions

Constable by the Stream, Nicholas Rhea: I’ve read a more mainstream crime novel by Nicholas Rhea before but this is the reminiscences, very entertainingly told, of a country bobby in the mid 20^th century. Some of the situations are rather over-explained and repetitious, but the overall effect is charming. – I gather since that this is the series that Heartbeat was based on.

Other editions

Falling Fast, by Neil Broadfoot: Interesting but noir start, centring around a nasty individual who doesn’t kill but likes to see things suffer, including people. The main character is a journalist for whom the story is all, but he’s a likeable person and he’s friends (perhaps this might end up going further?) with a senior police officer. The Edinburgh setting feels real and the plot is pleasantly complex (bereaved politician not as upset as he should be, and various people undergoing violence for different, connected reasons).

The Unburied Dead, Douglas Lindsay: One of those present tense jobs that needs to earn its keep. This one sort of does, in that it’s a first person running commentary on a cop’s life and quite entertaining in a blackish way. There are unexpected elegances of language, as if the cop is trying hard to crush his own educational background in order to get through the day. The body count is high!

OTony Forder, The Death ofJustice: I liked ‘her mind was flypaper to his words’ of a young officer taking orders, and the analysis of how finding a headless corpse can affect someone. This is a bit of a ‘take Murder on the Orient Express and think what might happen afterwards’ kind of plot, a feature I enjoyed. There were a few Americanisms I liked less, like measuring someone in pounds rather than stone, and the endless parking up – why not just park? I still find Bliss rather ponderous and wordy, and not half as impressive as his underlings seem to think he is, but he’s evidently well-meaning – just a bit pi, to use an old expression.

Lethal Secret, Sally Rigby: This is a bit clunky and shallow but still very readable, with pleasant lead characters looking into apparent suicides linked with a wellness centre with cultish features. The friendship between the somewhat awkward forensic psychiatrist and the police officer is realistic. I also liked the uncommunicative pathologist – definitely not one who’s going to involve herself in the investigation. I was a bit worried, though, that the police officer felt she needed her friend’s input to decide whether or not a witness was lying – what do other police officers do?

The Great St. Mary’s Day Out, Jodi Taylor : I’m constantly in awe of this writer’s ability to switch effortlessly between historical periods and give each of them a distinctive, authentic flavour – never mind the complex plots and laugh-out-loud humour. I’ve read several St. Mary’s shorts recently and found them all atmospheric, enthralling, and very good value for a short story!

OtheThe Christmas Mystery, Jostein Gaarder; Lovely, atmospheric, intriguing, charming – Joachim goes shopping with his father for an Advent calendar and comes home with an old unused one they find in a bookshop – one without chocolates, just the pictures. But when Joachim opens the first door he finds the picture and a little piece of paper, the first in twenty-four episodes in the story of Elisabet, a little girl who runs out of a busy department store after a come-to-life toy lamb, heading back through time to Bethlehem. This is a beautiful, layered book with reflections on European history and geography, Biblical references, humour, mystery and delight.

Other editions

Flotsam and Jetsam, Keith Moray: Couldn’t resist this as an antidote to some intense reading, and it did not fail. They are very entertaining, and not too demanding.

Other editions

The Big Man Upstairs, J.D. Kirk: Logan is back, but he needs to make up with the people he abandoned before he can really settle in. Another entertaining mystery, up to the usual high standard.

Other editions

The Haunting of Bregoli Estate, Alexandria Clarke: An odd book, set on an island at a writers’ retreat. The place seems to be enormous, and it’s haunted, not only by a cat and by its recently late owner, but also by more malevolent spirits. Daisy has unexpectedly inherited the place, just as the retreat is about to start, and though I should probably feel more sympathetic I find her attitude and those of her allegedly more experienced writer friends very immature, and the hostile board of directors a tableful of two-dimensional threats. However, I did keep reading partly because the sense of place is very strong and fairly charming. And the main character did improve – though I found her leaps in confidence a bit sudden. There are some true-to-life reflections on the publishing industry and the choices authors have to make these days. The real threat, though, aside from the board of directors, are the hostile spirits.

Pete Brassett, Penitent: I’ve seen these advertised a lot, and something always put me off – probably the ‘twist you never saw coming’ type of subtitles. This is No.9 in a series, but I plunged in anyway, and I think even if I had read the first eight before it I might have found it a bit confusing, random characters and timelines. Nevertheless I liked the tone which is reminiscent of Keith Moray’s books, and I rather liked the baffling phrase, ‘Carrying himself with the unflappable demeanour of a comatose koala’. Some of the sentences are the length of Cicero’s – a few full stops wouldn’t go amiss if you were looking for a suitable Christmas present – and the whole thing is brimming with similes. Still, it’s amusing, and rattles along at a fair pace – lots of fun.

Deadly Engagement, Lucinda Brant: An early Georgian setting for this book which starts abruptly enough with an unexpected and to the hero unwelcome engagement. There was a bit too much switching of point of view, and some anachronisms (I don’t think cheroots were around in this period, for example, nor tea trolleys, nor describing someone as ‘certifiable’. But I may be wrong). One murder leads to another at a grand country house near London, and the hero, irresistible to women and skilled in every direction but detested by his brother, must sort things out as only he can. It’s a bit dark and gloomy, but it gets there in the end and despite a rather unhealthy body count comes good.

The Lost Children, Theresa Talbot: I went back to this eventually and began to find some interest in it. I still couldn’t like the main character, which is a problem for me in a book, but I could see that she was trying to be likeable, to relate to people, and actually finding it very hard.

September's reading - or what I managed to fit in in the corners of everything else ...

Well, as it turns out we have October's reading in here, too - not quite sure where the time went, there!  

Tony Forder, If Fear Wins: Nice start (well, if you can cope with necklacing, which is a bit horrible) but portraying co-operation between the armed forces and the civil police is a refreshing change. I didn’t like the way a female witness was referred to just by her surname – found it a bit confusing and off-putting. Bliss finds himself helping an old girlfriend and mixing with the security services in a subplot that turns out to be part of the main plot. The relationship between Bliss and Chandler is a well-written one, and the ending was very satisfying.

David Pearson, Murder on thePeninsula: Too many names to start with, but we soon focus on a body in a half-submerged car and the plot is under way. The setting is coastal Galway and a rural police force who know the people of the area well. The situation is quickly intriguing, though I struggled a bit to remember who was who. But once the story established itself it was an entertaining read, with plenty of action, a little quiet Irish understatement and some characters I’d like to spend more time with.

Rewilding, Catherine Czerkawska: A disturbing novella set in the Scottish Highlands, the account of a short solo walk for purposes not quite made clear. As can happen on solo walks, there is much reflection on the narrator’s past, her bolting mother and dead father and abandoned relationship. And then she meets a mysterious handsome stranger …

Other editions

The Lantern Men, Elly Griffiths: The latest in the Ruth Galloway books and I loved it just as much as I loved the others. 

Unsafe Distances, Cecilia Peartree: The first book I've read set in the recent lockdown, and Pitkirthly's inhabitants treat it in just the ways you would expect, backing off from a corpse because of social distancing, pondering all the implications of closed cafes, tea gardens at the pub, and visiting the elderly. Hilarious as ever.

Val McDermid, The Skeleton Road: I’m always delighted at the quality of McDermid’s language. Here the plot involves the Balkans and a skeleton found in Edinburgh, and though we can leap to some conclusions fairly early on there is plenty to tantalise us and lead us into reading further. Some of the Balkan history is pretty nasty, as is entirely appropriate for that conflict. This is my first Karen Pirie book and I liked her very much, and the other characters were very human and not at all cardboardy. If I solved the mystery about halfway through, it didn’t spoil my enjoyment.

OVal McDermid, Broken Ground: Might as well go on with the next Karen Pirie from the TBR pile - same high standard! I love the Mint, her unpromising but occasionally useful sidekick. This one winds together three genuinely unconnected cases into one satisfying plot, and if there's a touch of First Minister hero-worship going on at the end then the First Minister's enthusiasm for crime fiction may be enough to excuse it.

The Fenman, Elspeth Speirs: This needs a bit of tidying up – not so many capitalised words, and generally numbers under 100 should be represented as words, not figures. Twenty past ten should definitely be that, not 20 past 10. There’s also a bit of an issue with formatting, lines wandering off into the next line – easily sorted out. A bit too much mundane description of the police station, though the bit about the pigeons was nice. Quite a bit of the description could be cut in general, in fact, or at least distributed rather than landing in economy-sized bags. It gives the book a pedestrian quality which, while possibly typical of a police investigation, does not make for gripping reading. A good editor might help to find the book in here.

The Penitent Priest, J.R. Mathis: I hadn’t realised this was an American book till I started it. Tom is a widower, a latecomer to the priesthood, standing in for the mysteriously absent Father Anthony in the town in which Tom lived with his late wife – in which his wife was murdered. It’s amusing at first, with Tom gently fighting Glenda the parish gatekeeper to include more families in his services, but it’s clear there’s a great deal of unspoken trauma going on behind the scenes. There is also a great deal of new (to Tom) information about his wife and her death that I would have thought would have come out at the time, or would at least have been asked about. And Father Tom has secrets too about the death of his wife – I’m a bit surprised that all this had not been covered when he was undergoing his selection for the priesthood, for there are clearly many unresolved issues, not to mention anger, that one should probably not carry into ordination. However, despite a few misgivings I found this a very readable yarn.

Lesley Kelly, The Art of NotBeing Dead: A novella in the series about the Health Enforcement Team, and just as you would like it, with some quirky humour and a clear idea of this post-apocalyptic (well, post-virus) Edinburgh. She manages to weave two plots into a short space and still make both funny and satisfying – an excellent taster if you haven’t read any of her series.

Claire McLeary, Burnout: Maggie and Wilma are in action again, bringing all their baggage with them. This time they’re trying to help a woman who believes, against all evidence, that her husband is trying to kill her, while a young woman of Maggie’s acquaintance is struggling to escape a manipulative husband. Some of the university terms are a bit out of date or at least don’t fit Aberdeen – there’s no Senior Common Room and a lecturer is not a junior lecturer’s boss – but the rest of the setting rings very true, and the book is full of great humour as well as some very moving moments.

Alex R. Carver, Where there’sa Will: The cover is more disturbing than the book. There are really two unconnected plots, and it takes a while to get to the kidnapping of a schoolgirl, daughter of a wealthy videogames developer. I wasn’t much impressed by ‘It became clear as he spoke that he only lapsed into Scots’ dialect when agitated, for as he calmed, his words became more English and less distorted by his accent.’. However, the detectives were interesting enough. The book could do with a bit of an edit: one outstanding sentence read: ‘Grey got a shock when the door to the house the car used in the hit-and-run, and most likely the festival robbery as well, was registered to opened.’ It took me three goes to work out what that one meant! There are plenty of other places which could do with a tidy-up, and I didn’t find the main characters very distinctive. The ending, though, was quite exciting and pacey.

Other editions

Wendy M. Wilson, Not theFaintest Trace: I was drawn to this as I hadn’t really read any New Zealand historicals before – the best I’d managed was Ngaio Marsh and those were contemporary to her, therefore not historicals. This is set in the 1870s in a New Zealand unfamiliar to me, with some Maori supporting the British and some not, and plenty of northern Europeans, Scandinavians and Germans, brought in to manage the forests. The start is pretty brutal, but we’re soon into establishing the fascinating setting and getting the back story of our main character, tasked with finding two young Danish boys who may have drowned. The domestic detail of the Scandinavian community is interesting and the whole book is an enjoyable and informative read.

Blood on the Island, Stewart Giles: Set on Guernsey, this begins with the arrival of a thoroughly obnoxious and apparently stupid new police officer who turns out very quickly to have a link with Northern Irish terrorism. The plot is fair even if they’re a bit slow to look into various leads, and I found the hostility between the lead character and one of his colleagues overdone. It had a satisfactory ending, though.

Peter Rowlands, Now or Not atAll: A crime novel featuring a body that probably isn’t the one they think it is, and a main character who is a freelance logistics journalist. No, don’t switch off now – this is a good book, and as with Dick Francis’ books you learn a bit from it, unless you’re already a freelance logistics journalist. I’m willing to bet not many of you are. I hadn’t realised this was the fifth in the series but it’s perfectly readable as a standalone, intriguing and exciting – and actually, the comparisons with Dick Francis stand up well. I’ll go back and read the earlier ones.

Poisoned Palette, Jill Paterson: a novella and apparently the sixth in this series, set in what sounds like the rather lovely Blue Mountains near Sydney. I couldn’t quite believe that the hero, Fitzjohn, was a police officer at all – he seemed elderly, wistful, dreamy and not quite of this world. I wanted to tell him to be more assertive, if not over his job then at least over his house. Nevertheless I liked him and his kindness. There were a few odd typos, and I wasn’t quite sure about the behaviour of some of the suspects – I couldn’t work out the comparative ages of the main characters, which confused me.

Death on Lindisfarne, Fay Sampson: There's a lovely sense of place in this well-written, quiet book. I enjoyed the characters and the interplay. It was perhaps not the most original crime novel I've ever read, but it had charm and was an appealing read.

Well, there we are, I think - I had to switch laptops this month and reload Kindle on to the 'new' one, so I may have mislaid a book or two on the way. As for writing, well, I'm just past halfway on the new Murray, The Dead Chase - no idea when it will be remotely anything like finished! But I can live in hope.