Been a week of recovery after the Malta holiday experience and my back was giving me so much trouble so I went and had a massage and lots of swimming and it seems to have sorted itself out, but I have finally had to face up to the fact that I am always going to have these aches and problems now. Comes with the aging process and I am pretty fit on the whole, fingers crossed, so no moaning Elaine.
So I have been lolling around a bit and reading and here is a quick round up of the books I have perused over the last few days.
I did mention that I was working my way through the Alphabet books by Sue Grafton, all about her detective Kinsey Millhone and I am getting up to the S and T so will soon have read them all. I will not go into the details of the plots of each one as it all gets a bit muddled after a while but they are well written, pacey and slick and I do like the character of Kinsey a lot. I wonder what the author will do when they are finished. She is up to X I gather so three more to go.
The Twenty Three by Linwood Barclay is the final in the trilogy set in a town with the evocative name of Promise Falls. Of course, lots of murder and mayhem and mysterious goings on and corrupt officials and police, you know the usual small town mix (I am being ironic here I assure you), and by the time I got to this third book I will admit to being a bit confused and getting the characters muddled up. Took me a while to get into the flow again. Detective Duckworth, an overweight man heading for a heart attack, is investigating two murders and an explosion at the drive in. These events were in the previous books Broken Promise and Far from True. An epidemic spreads through the town, mass food poisoning, a virus? It all seems to be connected to the dreadful happenings that have dogged Promise Falls for the last year.
I like Linwood Barclay, like his writing, and have enjoyed his stand alone books as well as these. I was looking forward to this one, but have to report that I was slightly disappointed in the solution and the identity of the murderer which was far fetched and came out of nowhere. I got the impression that he suddenly thought Oh I know I will make it that person. So not sure about it all but overall, the three books are well worth reading. But in order is best.
Deep Water - Christine Poulson. The author sent me this book and I am most grateful to her for her kindness. You know here on Random that I will only review books I really enjoy, and will not give a good review just because I have a free copy. That is something I have always made clear and stood by so when I say that I liked this story very much, then you know I did.
Daniel Marchmont is a patent lawyer and is asked to take over a case for Calliope Biotech after his ex-wife, the previous lawyer, was killed in a car accident. A vital lab book is missing and there are hints that there might have been falsified tests in order to make a successful product. A young researcher, Katie Flanagan, is worried that there is somebody sabotaging the work in the lab, experiments mysteriously fail, there is an explosion and a fire and her life could be in danger.
This is a tricky plot and requires careful reading as there is a lot of detail in the research regarding the hunt for a cure for a genetic disease which the daughter of Daniel and his wife Rachel suffers from. This causes Daniel a huge moral dilemma that could wreck his marriage.
Tightly written, tight narrative, good story-line. I read it through in one sitting. A very good read. I am now going to check out the other books written by this author.
Cold Earth - Anne Cleeves. The latest by this author who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite detective writers. This is the series set in the Shetlands and oh how I want to visit now after reading these. I think I prefer them to the Vera Stanhope stories, excellent though they are and will admit to being a little bit smitten with DI Jimmy Perez, he of the dark melting eyes and olive complexion. The TV series cast Doug Henshall in this role and he was really good, but he has blue eyes and blonde hair. So why I ask myself? Why not go with an actor who looks something like the description given by the author? I think of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. Reacher is 6' 5" and fair haired and blue eyed and weighs over 200 lbs. So they cast mini-Tom Cruise who is unbelievable in the part and I mean unbelievable in the sense that he is unbelievably awful.
Sorry I digress.
Jimmy is attending a funeral on a dark wet stormy day when torrential rain triggers a landslide which sweeps down the hillside over running the graves and making sure that the mourners have to get out of the way pretty quick. A croft is wrecked and in the ruins of the house, there is the body of a dark haired attractive woman wearing a red silk dress. Who is she? Why is she there?
Read and find out. Loved this story and read it through in one sitting.
And back to Jack Reacher. Feeling so tired last week and under the weather I re-read several of the books by Lee Child which were on my Kindle. Usual story, Reacher rolls into town gets involved with a murder/fraud whatever, usually finds a woman willing to have sex with him, saves the day and then gets the next bus out. I re-read them as I had forgotten most of the plot-lines, such as they were, and was able to just go with the flow. In about a year, when I have forgotten them again, then I can go back and read them again. The gift that keeps on giving....
Lots on my TBR pile and will get round to them as soon as I can.
Au Reservoir.
