Random Jottings

Sunday Ramblings - Driving, Cricket and Lee Childs

Sunday so a rambly post (nothing new there I hear you cry at the back? Be quiet...)

Warning - boring paragraph about driving coming up.

Up to London last Wednesday to look after Florence. Sailed along, no probs then reach Stratford, log jam of traffic, all of us squeezing past to let through a procession of police cars, motorcycles and an ambulance.  Engine off, book out and settled down. I was parked right under the Olympic Veladrome so had a good view of it but got bored with it after five minutes. No bikes. Traffic starts edging forward and off we go (had been sitting for over an hour by now) and though it was slow we were actually moving when lo and behold the gargantuan lorry in front of me came to a grinding halt, driver leaps out, puts on flashing lights and bits of smoke start appearing from under his hood. More squeezing to one side to let an AA van in - traffic ahead still moving and in order to join it I had to pull out into right hand lane - huge lorry slightly behind me on the right, moved back as much as he could, ie three feet and I looked at the gap, looked at my Nissan, said come on babe you can do it and inched my way through and made it.   OK two hours down now and I can see the A12 in sight only to find when I get there that it is blocked off by a police car. No go. So now four lanes of traffic are being guided into one lane signed Hackney. Go round the roundabout as I know I can turn left and get back on the A12 further on. No go. Blocked by police cars.  So then, dear readers, my journey into the unknown begins.   I have no idea where I am going, know I need to throw a left at some stage but can I do it? No. Everywhere I went I was hemmed in by traffic, more road works, in fact there were road works everywhere, and I was relentlessly pushed through the E9 postal district and soon found myself in N16 - I was going north and nothing I could do about it. No point in trying to make a guess at the way to my final destination, I have very little sense of direction and at least if you stay on a main road you will hit a sign soon so you can find out where you are. So on I plodded.

To cut a very long and dreary story short I came across a sign to The City - but one thing I learned pretty quickly that morning was that because the sign is on one corner it does not mean you go down that road, oh dear me no, it is usually three more turnings up.  In the end I was trolling along a packed busy street and suddenly realised I was going past the Design Centre. Geronimo was my cry, I am at the Angel if I turn left at the traffic lights I can head for Liverpool Street.  So I did and made my way to Bishopsgate, down to Aldgate, along the Mile End Road and finally pulled up outside James and Helen's house. Door flew open and Helen came rushing out expecting to find a nervous wreck, but I am made of sterner stuff now and though shattered was also exhilarated that I had managed to drive through horrendously busy traffic, find my way, keep my cool and get to my destination.   I was very pleased however to hear her say 'Mum, it's not fair to hand Florence straight over to you now. We're going to lunch'

And we did.

Cricket - Second Test proving just as fascinating as the first.   England put on the rack by the Indian bowlers on a pitch that made the ball swing, turn and hop and if it had not been for Stuart Broad and Graham Swann, both tailenders, batting out of their skins, we would have been in deep doo-doo.  India went in to bat and started building a pretty big score and matters were getting a tad hairy when suddenly in comes Stuart Broad (yes him again) and knocks off a hat trick. I quote that well known phrase 'the crowd went wild' and so did I leaping to my feet at home and screaming and also bashing my knee, very painfully, against the coffee table.  The guys on Test Match Special were having a collective fit of hysteria and it was all Too Much to Bear.   I LOVE CRICKET.

In between all this I am reading the books of Lee Childs which I was introduced to by my sister. I am reading them wildly out of order but that doesn't really matter as Jack Reacher does the same thing in practially every book as far as I can see (I have read five so far), ie - he strolls into town in his best Clint Eastwood style, sorts out a problem and then disappears into the sunset.  On the way he has usually solved a murder, killed a few bad guys, met and bedded a lovely woman, and all without flinching. I simply love them.  Written in a tight punchy style with lots of cool backchat and they are totally unputdownable.  I said in a recent post that reading all of them would probably keep me busy for a month. I am now downgrading that to two weeks.

One thing I am puzzled about and hope somebody can answer my question.  My first Lee Childs was listed as being No 8 in the series and yet it has a character in it who, when I read No1, turns up as a dead body.   Que?

I gather that there are millions of Jack Reacher addicts around the world and though I have only just come to the party I am rather falling in love with him too.  He is 6' 5", with a 50" chest and weighing in at around 220-250 lbs.  He has blonde hair and icy blue eyes (this description from official website)

So I can understand the reaction to the casting of Jack in a purported movie soon to be in production. 

Who have they picked?

Tom Cruise that's who.

Don't think I need to make any further comment................

The Silent Girl - Tess Gerritsen

Before I start writing about the latest Tess Gerritsesn Rizzoli and Isles title, I must point you in the direction of Savidge Reads.  Simon also loves Tess Gerritsen and some time ago she appeared on of his 'Savidge Grills' answering questions about her life and her writing.  Here is the link below.

http://savidgereads.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/savidge-reads-grills-tess-gerritsen/

And I see, with a huge amount of envy, that he has recently met here as well as you can see from the photo on his blog.  Do check that out as well.

http://savidgereads.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/savidge-reads-gets-criminally-star-struck/

Now back to the book which arrived last week and I took it up to London with me as I was babysitting lovely Florence.  Once she was safely tucked up in her pink and blue pyjamas and sleeping like a little angel and after I had stopped drooling over her, I came downstairs and started reading.  Helen and James had gone to the Globe to see Much Ado About Nothing and by the time they returned I had finished The Silent Girl totally unable to put it down (in between my quarter hour checks upstairs to make sure Florence was OK and had not stopped breathing, you know the usual grandmother things....).

I am so pleased that Tess Gerritsen seems to be a quick writer and produces her books quickly (seems no time at all since I reviewed the last one The Killing Place) as I am in a permanent state of anticipation waiting to see what happens next to Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli.  Both the characters are moving on in their lives, Jane is now married and a mother and Maura has ended a destructive relationship with her lover.  

A hand is found in a Chinatown alley in Boston and when Rizzoli climbs to the roof top she finds its owner - a woman with a throat slashed so deeply her head is nearly severed.  Two strands of silver hair cling to her body and Rizzoli is in for a shock when they are analysed and find that they are not human.

"....considering what kind of monkey this is.  In India, these are known as the Hamnuman Langur.  Hanuman is the Hindu god known as the Monkey Warrior".    The same chill.....whispered like an icy breath up Jane's neck. She thought of the creature in the alley. Remembered the gleam of its sword as it turned and slipped into the shadows"

There is a reason for a Warrior seeking vengeance.  Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead.  It seemed an open and shut case but was the real murderer ever found?    Tragedy seems to have stalked the families of those involved, both losing a daughter who had gone missing.  Coincidence or not?

One woman connected to the massacre is still alive - a mysterious and beautiful martial arts master who knows a secret connected to this crime and is determined that those involved will never forget it.

Difficult to continue reviewing this terrific book without giving away any of its secrets so I am going to stop right here.  Suffice it to say, this is totally gripping and unputdownable and also quite creepy with this mysterious seemingly ghostly figure who keeps appearing at the dead of night.  I found The Killing Place had a spooky feel about it as well and a sense of mysterious forces at hand and The Silent Girl has the same brooding atmoshpere.

I have read all of Tess Gerritsen's books, her earlier ones are well written, competent thrillers with a bit of love interest thrown in and most enjoyable, but she has really hit her stride with the Rizzoli and Isles series and long may they last.

I gather a TV series has been made but only available in the US at the time of writing. Having checked the cast and pictures I see that Detective Rizzoli and Dr Maura Isles are both extremely glamorous and nothing like their descriptions in the books.  Oh dear....

HP, LC, MP and TMS

Blogging may be a bit patchy this week as I am up in London a couple of times with darling Florence but it is Monday morning and time for a catch up before I embark on a busy few days.

HP - well it can be nothing else but Harry Potter. I hied me off to a mid-day showing yesterday of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, working on the assumption that it might be half empty bearing in mind it was a Sunday and perhaps everyone was at lunch (mark you does anyone have a Sunday lunch nowadays?) and there might be the minimum of screaming children.  I know one should expect children at a HP movie and I have no problem with that, but what I do have a problem with is their dire behaviour which is totally ignored by parents who are usually too busy chomping their way through an industrial size pack of popcorn swilled down by a gallon of Pepsi.   However, only a third full and all the children there well behaved and totally engrossed in the film which was a stonker.  The last in the series and with the final fight to the death between Harry and Voldemort it was obviously not going to be fun filled, though there were some marvellous moments, one being Maggie SMith as Professor McGonagal mischievously smiling and saying 'I always wanted to do that spell' when bringing the stone soldiers to life to safeguard Hogwarts.   The special effects were breathtaking, the battle at the end riveting and had me on the edge of my seat and in the quieter poignant moments (and no background music as well - wonderful) the audience was totally silent. Alan Rickman marvellous as always and quite heartbreaking too.

I love the HP books and the HP films and have them all and I feel so sad they have now come to an end. I may have reservations about JK Rowling's writing in places, see my earlier post here, but anybody who can turn a whole generation of non-reading children and adults into bookaholics has my vote.

LC - on holiday my sister was reading a book by Lee Childs in which she was totally engrossed so of course I had to try one as well.  Downloaded one on my Kindle - Amazon are very clever, they always have one book by a prolific author in the Kindle store at a cheapo price to get you hooked - and could not put it down.  Have now fulfilled the Amazon prophecy and downloaded another two (more expensive naturally but still cheaper than a purchase of the paperback) and am gripped by the punchy writing, not usually a lover of short sentences but they are used by the author to great effect, and his hero Reacher who has immediately morphed in my mind into Daniel Craig who seems to fit the descriptive bill beautifully.   On my second one now, hugely exciting and tense and as there are about sixteen of them to come, that will keep me going for about...oooh, a month?   Will pop into my library I think if I am going on a Reacher binge and borrow them - much cheaper.

MP - well this is my MP, Bob Russell who I went to see this morning to ask for his assistance in my ongoing battle with the Inland Revenue.   My last five page diatribe was sent to the IR office, special delivery and though that was over a month ago I have had no response whatsoever and this dilatoriness makes me furious.  They are pretty quick off the mark to write when they want money out of you but not so keen otherwise.   Bob is a LibDem and I always vote for him because he is a rock solid hard working constituency MP (not because I care for his party).  He attends the House of Commons a lot and I mean a lot, and as most MPs don't seem to bother but happy to take the money (and expenses) and run, I appreciate this very much.  I have a positive attitude to politics and those who are involved in it (I am positive they are all shits and on the make), but I do know Bob is one of the good guys.   Last year when his ghastly leader Nick Clegg was whoring his votes around with Gordon Brown and the possibility of a LibLab pact loomed its head I had a very heated exchange with Bob Russell via email and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his leader.  I also said watch the Libs nationwide vote plummet now and of course it has.  However, I hope that Bob retains his seat and I think he will because the people of Colchester do appreciate him.   He is going to send a letter off to the IR on House of Commons paper re my case and that does seem to do the trick.

At the end of our discussion when I said that I was never going to work again because I could not stand the thought of any more dealings with the IR, he suggested I might try the Citizen's Advice Bureau as I had a 'lively mind' and he thought they could use me.   I thought this was a lovely compliment and may give it some thought....

And finally, TMS which is for those in the know - Test Match Special.  This is on the radio and as I don't have Sky I listen to the Test Match commentary during the day as well as checking it on line in the Telegraph's live SMS updates.   I have listened to TMS for years in the days when Brian Johnston was the main commentator who used to get the most dreadful giggles and make gaffes on air and was simply wonderful as he knew his cricket inside out.  Sometimes the whole thing was better when there  was a break for bad light or rain as it was just so entertaining to listen to the chat.   There have been some immortal moments the main one I remember being when Jonathan Agnew commented, after Botham had tried to avoid a ball which was hitting his thigh knocked against the stumps and was given out and Aggers said 'oh dear Botham didn't quite get his leg over'.  Brian Johnson took over as Aggers succumbed to hysteria and as Brian J read out the score card he gradually became overcome with giggles himself and all you could hear was stifled hoots of mirth coming out of the radio. It is impossible to listen to this without laughing and this gem was played at Johnson's memorial service where the entire congregation was reduced to helpless laughter once more.  Marvellous and here it is on You Tube - do have a listen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k0qZDdfvZk

And also have a listen to Jonathan Agnew, yes the same Aggers, in his discussion on how to put a new rubber on the bat handle.  Not sure if he knew what he was saying or not.  I heard this live and do not know how Michael Vaughan who was in the commentary box with him did not corpse completely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiYayt6IgtM

Now I know some people find this juvenile but I listen to this every day and getting to know the different styles and voices of the commentators is a joy, and it is clear that they just love cricket and are happy to sit and chat and reminisce as well as keeping an eye on what is going on and reporting every ball played.  I simply love it and am attaching a link to the Wikepedia entry about TMS - do scroll down to the heading Light Hearted Style as it gives more info about the presenters and their chat which is an enduring feature of this wonderfully old fashioned bit of broadcasting. 

You will see from this pic that the named Aggers is seen here chatting to Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy who thankfully did not use any magic at the Test ground that day....

This current Test Match is proving engrossing and quite quite marvellous to listen to and watch and I am loving every minute.   As I have had another back spasm over the weekend and spent a lot of it lying in bed or on the floor, TMS was my companion throughout it all.  Thanks guys.

Final thought of the day - when in Leicetershire with my sis and bro in law last week, the UK Open golf championship was on. My knowledge of golf is practically nil, all that I know garnered from the movie Tin Cup which I only watched 'cos it had Kevin Costner in it, so I made sure I had a book to read while Jude and Wes watched the TV.  Well, within ten minutes I was watching and having everything explained to me by Wes and finally realising what par, Eagle, Birdie and Albatross means certainly made watching a whole new experience.   Also understanding what the rough was, why players were allowed a 'drop' when their ball had gone out of bounds, etc etc was fascinating and, to sum up, yes you have guessed it, I think I have found a new addiction to add to Test Matches, Wimbledon, Strictly Come Dancing et al.

'sigh'

Ira Levin

A few weeks ago I received these books from Constable & Robinson.  Delighted to see that these titles are being reissued and when I saw them I was taken back to the 1960s and my days of mini-skirtdom and knee high boots and I so remember reading these books and how they chilled me to the marrow.

Rosemary's Baby is just so chilling and I remember the awful feeling creeping up on me after Rosemary became pregnant and her eccentric neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavel started taking a special interest in her welfare and I knew that something horrid was going to happen.  It is the fear and isolation felt by Rosemary that is so scary as we gradually realise that her husband is involved in these ghastly plans.  I remember well my reaction when I finished the book and how I shivered and how it preyed on my mind for some time after.

The Stepford Wives - another chilling story about all the beautiful people living in idyllic Stepford full of successful satisfied husbands and their vapid wives. Joanna Eberhart arrives with her husband and two children and cannot quite believe what she is seeing, it seems all too  good to be true from the Sweet Welcome Wagon lady to all the friendly faces in the supermarket checkout desks (that is enough to make anyone realise that something is not right).  Of course we know something nasty is lurking in the woodshed and when I found out what it was, oooh once again that chill crept over me.  

The Boys from Brazil - in this book Dr Josef Mengele is alive and well and living in South America and with a group of former colleagues is plotting to create the Fourth Reich.  Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann finds out about the plot but before he can find out more his source is murdered.   When this title was originally published it was only thirty years after the Second World War and so much closer in time than I realised when I first read it. At seventeen or eighteen one thinks thirty years is a long time ago but looking at the time it was written, I now realise how close it still was, all those memories of the terrible things that had happened and I shiver again.  It was only some eleven years earlier that the trial of Adolf Eichmann had taken place....

A Kiss Before Dying - this is the title out of the four that I remember the most.  Gripping from the first page with no let up and leading the reader up and down a garden path, shock after shock, I still think this is one of the best thrillers and portrait of a psychotic personality I have ever read, and get this, Ira Levin wrote this when he was 23 - yes 23. Blimey.

The 'hero' is a killer and we know this as soon as we start reading. Handsome, the all American boy with a terrible flaw in his personality.   HIs girl friend gets pregnant - she is the daughter of a rich man who he wants to impress and knows that this ain't gonna help when he turns up with his despoiled virgin daughter.  So what does he do?  He decides to murder her.   Later when her sister, suspicious of her sister's 'suicide' decides to do a bit of investigating on her own, she soon finds herself in the killer's orbit. But is she?  Is the golden haired blue eyed boy the real killer or is he just what he says he is?   Ira Levin dazzles us with sleight of hand until we don't know who to trust. Brilliant.

All of these titles have been made into movies and I remember watching all of them on the TV.  If you see them listed do watch them. They are all excellent though not sure I could watch Rosemary's Baby again as it scared me witless.  

Four classics now available again and I urge you to read them - they are still as good and as scary as they were the day they were written.

 

Flowers on Hols

 

I am back now and sorting out my photos.  The countryside around Tintern was simply beautiful and everywhere I went there were flowers, in troughs, boxes and pots but mostly in garden borders, in fields and in the wild.  I took so many pictures I decided to make a collage and put it up on Random.

Hay on Wye

It was Hay on Wye day today and my sister who is a whiz with maps and is a human Sat Nav (Sis Nav?) had plotted a route along quiet roads away from the motorways,   Off we went and all was well until we got to Monmouth and could we find this B road we were looking for?  No we couldn't but luckily Judith found a kindred spirit in the Waitrose car park with a large map and soon spotted it. Unfortunately, the roundabout was a bit muddly and we shot off up a very narrow road with high hedges on each side. After wending, and I mean wending, along for some time we arrived at a village we had never heard of and realised we were lost. We turned round and wended again, back to where we had started from this time and finally found ourselves on the right road. Later on we got lost again mainly because the sign posts, apart from being in Welsh, give the names of the villages but fail to tell you which road you were on. Well we got there in the end and as the country side was so lovely it really didn't matter that we took twice as long to get there as we should have done.

Having blitzed Hay on my last visit and returned home with 29 books I was decidedly restrained this time and came home with only four. Yes, ONLY four I hear you cry and I hate to say this and know that booksellers will be tearing their hair out, but several books I spotted that I would normally have bought (ie some EF Benson out of print titles) I have been able to download onto my Kindle for free. I really don't want to bring about the death of the second hand book trade, mark you seeing the visitors in Hay I think this is highly unlikely, but I have saved myself a couple of hundred pounds since buying this wonderful device. I was pleased with the books I bought which were:

• P G Wodehouse by Frances Donaldson
• The Rector's Daughter by F M Mayor
• The Carlingford Chronicles by Mrs Oliphant
• No More Meadows by Monica Dickens

Not sure that I will visit Hay again, or not for some while anyway - I enjoy visiting some of the book shops including the one above but many of them stock masses of paperback fodder that you can buy anywhere. I will be writing about another gorgeous bookshop I visited in Tintern, but that is for another day.

At the moment I am sitting watching the sun go down on Tintern Abbey. Quite quite beautiful.

On Hols

Always think On Hols is such an Enid Blyton expression don't you?  Visions of sandwiches on the beach and lashings of ginger beer come to mind...

I am currently sitting on my bed looking out the window at Tintern Abbey which is just across the road from where I am staying.  It is really quite gloriously beautiful and noble and as the night is setting in the lights are switched on and making the walls glow.

My sister and I drove up to Leicestershire on Friday and Judith took me a route I had not used before, away from the A14 and M1, both ghastly roads whose only plus is that it gets you from A to B quickly.  The scenic route we took was, in fact, not so much longer and much more pleasant.  We took a detour to visit the station of Downham Market which had been featured in the Railway Journey programme on the BBC. I usually avoid this as it is hosted by Michael Portillo an ex-Tory MP who has forged a career as a TV presenter since retiring from politics.  Now that he is not telling me what I should or should not do I find him less objectionable and throw into the mix that he is a Wagner fiend (have bumped into him at Covent Garden at various Ring cycles) so have decided that he is now a Good Egg who appreciates the finer things of life.....

This little station is delightful and beautifully looked after.  Pure 1950 decor inside and the smallest bar in the world also tucked into a corner. But best of all, look at the waiting room! That is my idea of what a waiting room should be and people come here to have a cup of tea and just to sit - they are not necessarily getting on a train, they just like being there and who can blame them.   Jude and I had a cup of tea and a great bacon sarnie and I bought two books (money goes into the honesty box) and had a good rummage and then on with the journey.

My sister and her husband are great golf fans - I will be honest and say that I have never taken a huge interest in the game but the UK Open was on and so I sat down to watch it with them, book to hand in case I got bored.  Well, much to my surprise I found it fascinating and being with aficionados who could tell me what a Par, Birdie and Eagle were and explained the finer points and the rules made it even more interesting. Found I spend the entire day glues to the TV and thoroughly enjoying myself.  I suppose if youare happy to sit and watch cricket for hours which needs concentration, golf is similar.  Ok I now expect comments telling me that they are nothing of the sort.....

My Kindle is with me and I thnk Judith is now a convert as she read the latest Peter James book (reviewed last week by me) on mine and as she and Wes are going to the US for a few eeks in September, is now going to get one.

Will be writing more tomorrow evening as we are going to Hay on Wye tomorrow - wonder what treasures I shall find?

Mini break

I am away for a few days and though I am taking my notebook  with me may not have too much time to post.  However, as I am visiting Hay-on-Wye and exploring the surrounding countryside I am sure that I will drop by to tell you of any book purchases I may make....

Au reservoir

Another two Goodies

Getting through a lot of books at the moment and as I am going to be away for a few days soon thought I had better get some reviews done.

First up Dead Man's Grip by Peter James.  This is the latest Detective Grace novels set in Brighton and I only discovered these by accident last year when I brought one home thinking it was a PD James that I had somehow missed reading.   Annoyed when I found out my mistake but my annoyance quickly vanished when I started reading Dead Tomorrow and found I was totally hooked.   As I know Brighton pretty well it really adds another layer of enjoyment to know exactly where the characters are and how they get there and when the Pier is described or the fact that the ambulance is by the Clock Tower, I can think oh yes,  Sorry that is a pretty ungrammatical sentence but sure you know what I mean.

At the start of Dead Man's Grip three people set out to their destinations early in the morning. Carly has said goodbye to her son and is driving to work; she has had a disastrous date the night before and is not feeling too good.   Stuart Ferguson, a long distance long haul lorry driver is delivering an order of smoked fish to Brighton, he has been driving for too many hours and is tired.  The third person is Tony Revere, a young American who has followed his girl friend to the UK, having given up his plans to study for a business degree at Harvard. He says goodbye to her and sets off on his bicycle.

So these three characters meet in disastrous circumstances and set in train a whole cycle of revenge killings, murder and mayhem.  I know this sounds very vague but don't want to give anything away at all and impossible not to if I go into any more detail.  Suffice it to say that this is one of the best of the Roy Grace novels, incredibly thrilling and full of tension and had me on the edge of my seat eager to found out what happens in the end.

Those of you who have read this series know that there is a story line of Roy Grace's missing wife running through each book.   Sandy upped and vanished some ten years ago and was never seen again. It has taken Roy a long time to decide to move on, now he has a new love and a new baby due soon and he decides the time is right to have Sandy declared legally dead.   Well, the reader knows she is alive and have a vague idea where she is even if Roy doesn't and she is gradually coming out of the shadows and by the end of this book we know that poor Detective Grace has shocks in store.  Beautifully done, tension mounting and I cannot wait to get my hands on the next novel.

Note:  a tweet from the author on Twitter the other day told us that the Roy Grace novels are featuring as a specialised subject on Mastermind on 22 July so keep an eye out for that.

Second goodie - Ghastly Business by Louise Levene.  It is 1929 and a girl is strangled in a London alley, the mangled corpse of a peeping Tom is found in a railway tunnel and juicy details of the latest trunk murder are appearing in the papers.

Into all this comes Dora Strang, a doctor's daughter with a passion for anatomy.  Denied her own medical career she finds a job as a filing clerk to a pathologist Alfred Kemble.  She is thrilled by the grisly post mortems (I wasn't...) and finds herself fascinated by the pathologist who fulfils all her girlish fantasies which she has gained from a secret collection of pornographic novels discovered in her father's surgery.

Dr Kemble strikes me as being seriously creepy and more interested in dead bodies than living ones but he and Dora embark on a furtive relationship and she gradually becomes more obsessed with his nasty world.    This part of the book can be a bit stomach churning and I will admit to skipping a few pages here and there and I am not totally sure I can say I enjoyed Ghastly Business but it certainly kept my attention.   There are very funny moments in it too, not least the description of Dora's lodgings and her ghastly landlady Mrs Frith whose meals are appallingly bad and who practices the meanest of economies.

"Mrs Frith's breakfasts had consisted of meat rissoles, atrocities devised with malice aforethought by the author of one of Mrs Frith's most trusted guides on catering matters; Cold Meat and how to Disguise it......their daily dinners were advertised in advance on a scrap of paper pinned up in the hall.....one of the more sick making suggestions was Curried Liver to be found in 'Dainty Dishes for Slender Incomes'.    Mr Haddon had, so far, consumed Mrs Frith's burnt offerings with the ravenous enthusiasm of an Alsatian at a kitten eating contest...."

After the murderer for the trunk murder has been found guilty, largely due to Dr Kemble's evidence, and hung another murder takes place and it is clear that an innocent man has been sent to the gallows.  Folloiwng another case where his word has been challenged, Dr Kemble's aura of invincibility begins to falter with dire consequences.

Great style and great wit and panache and a real page turner, BUT as I said earlier, some of the content made me feel mildly nauseous and Alfred Kemble was such an obnoxious man I find it difficult to understand what Dora found so fascinating about him - still, a good read and recommended.

The Troubled Man - Henning Mankell

The Troubled Man is the last book by this author featuring Kurt Wallander.  Mankell decided enough was enough and there would be no more.  I was very saddened to hear of this as I have become very fond of the melancholic, diffident Swedish detective with his angst and worries.   I have had the book for some time but saved it up as I knew once read that would be that and I finally gave in and read on Sunday.

Wallander's daughter Linda tells him she is pregnant by her live in lover, financier Hans von Enke and, after the birth of his granddaughter, Kurt accepts an invitation to dinner to meet Hans von Enke's parents, Hakan and his wife Louise.  Haken was a former commander in the Swedish navy and had been in command of both submarines and surface vessels that specialised in hunting down submarines. Later he attends Hakan von Enke's 75th birthday party and it is at this celebration that he tells Kurt of an incident that happened some 25 years earlier when he was in charge of hunting down a Russian submarine that was spying in Swedish waters.  All was ready to force the submarine to the surface when orders on high called it off and the vessel was allowed to escape.   No explanation was ever given and Hakan has spent years trying to solve this mystery until he was warned off and his career came to a halt.   Wallander realises during this conversation that Haken is afraid of something or someone and remembers this when a few weeks later, Haken vanishes after taking his daily walk.   No trace of him is found and then when his wife Louise also disappears a few days later and is found dead with secret Russian papers on her, the question is asked if they were spies or had been killed because they knew too much.

All very intriguing and fascinating and as Wallander investigates, at the instigation of Linda, he feels he is being drawn down a labyrinth of confusion and obfuscation.   At the back of his mind is the feeling that something is wrong, something is eluding him but he cannot pin it down.   This feeling of puzzlement and bafflement is linked to the fact that Kurt is finding he is getting more and more forgetful and is experiencing periods when he does not know where he is or what he is doing.

"Wallander stared at his revolver. A shudder ran down his spine...he recalled having cleaned his gun the previous evening, but then what happened?  He groped around in his memory. the gun had migrated from his kitchen table to Martinnsson's desk. But how it had got there, what had happened in between, he had no idea. He had no explanations, no excuses"

On first starting this book and knowing that Haken von Enke was worried and fearful about something that happened in his past, the reader assumes The Troubled Man is he, but I think it is Wallander who becomes increasingly frightened of his health and what is going to happen to him now that he is near retirement.   This is a thread that runs through the entire book and when he unearths the truth and finds how he has been deceived and manipulated he knows that nothing will happen. He can submit his report but is aware that a higher authority needs to investiate further and he thinks that this is unlikely.  "Nothing, he thought is certain. Nor the way in which these events are interpreted, nor what the rest of my life will be like".

I find when reading Mankell's books that the narrative style and flow is very even and balanced, no sharp, short sentences or any breaks.   The reader is gently taken along and after a while it is almost a soothing experience to read this author and this ebb and flow reflects the character of Kurt Wallander himself, it is almost hypnotic.   I have so enjoyed reading these books and sad that there will be no more.   Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was so tired of Sherlock Holmes he tipped him and Moriarty over the Reichenback Falls thinking that was the end of him, but was forced to give him a miraculous escape so angry were the public at his demise.   Though Mankell does not kill his detective off or have a dramatic ending, he makes it impossible for there to be any more about Wallander and I will admit to having a lump in my throat when I read the last page.

"Linda stayed for several hours. they talked until Klara woke up and with a broad smile on her face she ran over to Wallander.  Wallander suddenly felt terrified. His memory had deserted him again. He didn't know who the girl running towards him was. He knew he'd seen her before, but what her name was or what she was doing in his house he had no idea.

It was af if everything had fallen silent. As if all colours had faded away, and he all he was left with was black and white"

I think the word elegiac is the only way to describe this book. A thoughtful quiet read and well worth it.