Still feeling wiped out so my post on Margaret Forster which requires some research for me will have to wait until next week. I have been lolling around in a heap with a box of tissues and vapour rub and sneezing like a maniac and it is driving me POTTY and any reading which requires concentration is out of the question.
So the latest Stephanie Plum book, Notorious Nineteen, was just the thing I needed and I greeted it with cries of joy when it was delivered by my lovely postman who just laughs at me now when I open the door and he hands over yet 'More parcels'.
Very soothing to read Janet Evanovich as you know exactly what you are going to get and there are no surprises. Stephanie and her side kick Lula are trying to track down Geoffrey Cubbin who is facing trial for embezzling millions from a posh living facility for senior citizens when he is rushed to hospital suffering from appendicitis. When the nurses go to check on him they find an empty room and no sign of their patient. As Vinnie has bonded him out Stephanie has to find him else the bond will be forfeit and everyone will be out of a job and on the streets.
Well the usual mayhem follows Stephanie around, exploding cars, shoot outs, rocket launchers through her apartment window, falling into a grave and, a new one this time, catching a 'skip' from a nudist beach in Atlantic City which means both she and Lula have to strip off. No place to hide a stun gun though Lula comes up with an ingenious solution which I will not go into....
As always Stephanie is torn between the two men in her life, Morelli and the Ranger. I have to say the Ranger does it for me every time and he would be the one I would choose, but the series has to have a sexual tension
and this dilemma provides it. So great fun, perhaps not quite up to the standard of earlier titles in this series but at Nineteen hardly suprising. Wonder how long she can keep it going?
Books on the way at the moment and which I am eagerly awaiting are the latest Montalbano book by Andrea Camilleri and the Isabel Dalhousie series by McCall Smith. After a shaky start with Camilleri when I was not overwhelmed by them, I have now become totally addicted to them and cannot wait for each one to arrive. I am getting slightly worried, from a purely selfish viewpoint, as the author is now getting on a bit and I wish him long life and health for obvious reasons. The TV series is also wonderful and I have recorded the last one just recently shown on BBC4 (good old BBC4 - a wonderful channel) and have a few saved up yet to watch. I shall allow myself one every now and then as a treat.
The Isabel Dalhousie books I have already written about on Random - I love the slow, leisurely reasoned way they unfold, no mad rush, just gentle and calming. I have given up on the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series now as I rather feel they are now just a formula which AMS trots out and feel there is very little thought to them. I am probably totally wrong. All the other series set in Scotland Road etc I have also given up on as there is a certain sameness about them after a while. I appreciate that the Dalhousie series is the same but there is something about these that appeals to me so will stick with them.
Have been sent a lot of catalogues recently from lovely publishers asking if I would like to receive any titles for review - is the Pope Catholic? I have to make a huge effort to restrain my greed and drooling which overcomes me when I search through all those wonderful titles. Coming up next year another in the Detective Grace series by Peter James, the fifth in the series set in Amish Country by Linda Castillo which I love, another Camilleri due in March and have also spotted, with some delight, that Macmillan are reissuing all the James Herriot books. I used to have all of these but my battered paperbacks vanished years ago and would love to read these again so a plea has gone in and we shall see if I am lucky.
Lots to read when my head clears a bit and I stop feeling as if I have gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. In the meantime I am turning to comfort reading so Gaudy Night or similar may have to come out again soon....
Au reservoir
