2010 seems to be the year of Reading Dangerously in that I have consumed a vast amount of detective novels, thrillers and spy stories. This was not planned, but obviously publishers have taken note of my liking for this genre and more of them have been thudding onto my doormat than hitherto. Publishers of the all the Booker list seem to be notable by their absence. I wonder why.........
As I try not so go berserk any more and order swathes of books from Amazon when I discover a writer I enjoy (I have to keep reminding myself I am now a pensioner) I have been using my library more than I have done for years. Being retired means I can visit in the middle of the week when it is quieter and less noisy and a little while ago I was delighted to see that after years of having the children's library upstairs and in the same area as the adult library, commonsense has finally prevailed and it has now been moved downstairs on its own in a much larger area and they actually have children's librarians in situ. Before there were none and the children were left unsupervised and allowed to run riot by their parents as they chose their own books. Now it is much more civilised and a bit more as a library should be. Yes, I know....grumpy old woman coming out again but I am not apologising for it in this case.
Anyway, rant over and last week when I was wandering around the crime shelves and found no Mankell in that I had not read, no Janet Evanovitch as I had gulped the lot in one month, an old Agatha I wanted to re-read not on the shelves (The Pale Horse - wanted to refresh my memory after the perfectly ghastly Marple last week of the same name. Miss Marple never actually featured in this book), no Edmund Crispin, no Michael Innes and then a book called The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen caught my eye. Opened it up and ten minutes later was still standing their reading it so decided to grab the other two on the shelves and made my exit.
The Bone Garden - Julie Hamill, newly divorced has bought an old house and is digging in the garden when her spade hits a rock, only it isn't - it's a human skull. The body dates back to the early 1800s and forensic evidence shows she was murdered. The book then separates into the past and the present and
we go back to 1830 to the slums of Boston where Rose Connolly is sitting by the bedside of her dying sister who has just given birth to a baby girl. There is a mystery surrounding the parentage of this child and it is clear that somebody wants it to remain a secret and all those who were present at the birth are being murdered in a particularly horrid and ghastly way. Back in the present, Julie is researching the history of her house and Rose Connolly until she finds the answers.
Really well written and thoroughly enjoyable though I note from some of the reviews on Amazon that this one is slightly out of character of her main style and some recommend that you should not read this first. Well I did.
Keeping the dead - this has all the ingredients of a nail biting thriller. An old musty museum with a huge uncatalogued collection down in the murky basement. One day a mummy is found and amid great excitement it is taken to
be scanned to identify and to date it. Unfortunately, a bullet is found lodging in the body and it is clear that this is not as old as was first thought. Other finds come to light, shrunken heads to name but one and a young archaeologist at the Museum, Josephine, is targeted by a sinister stalker who dumps another mummy in the boot of her car. Seems there is a mystery going back many years and that Josephine has had many identities in a bid to escape a hidden evil.
Great stuff - mummys, Egypt, skeletons, dark basements. Perfect combination.
Keeper of the Bride - Nina is left standing at the altar when her fiance Robert, decides he can't go through with the ceremony and lets her know via a note send by the best man. The wedding is cancelled and after everyone
has left the church, a bomb explodes and the building is wrecked. A day later, Nina's car is forced off the road and it is clear that she and her fiance are the targets and somebody wants them dead. But who and why? Nina is a nurse and Robert a doctor and have no known enemies, but somewhere in their day to day life they have seen something, albeit unknowingly, the knowledge of which is dangerous and makes it imperative that they are killed.
This time this terrific story also has a romantic interest when the detective in charge of the case finds himself falling love with Nina when he has to guard her and make sure she stays alive.
Immensely readable, I got through these three in two days and am now on the hunt for more so back to the library tomorrow. Have checked and it seems there are 23 more to go so that should keep me happy for about a month. Several of them are stand alone but there six or seven titles sare et in Boston and feature the detectove Jane Rizzoli and forensic pathologist Maura Isles (Keeping the Dead was one such) and the relationship between these two and the dynamic is well set out and I know I am going to enjoy reading the rest of these.
So another author to add to my list. Going to the library is doing me good.
