Random Jottings

Recent and Current reading

Catch up time again. So many books to write about so here we go:

A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup. The Poisons of Agatha Christie. Dame Agatha has used poison as a means of murder in fourteen of her novels and here we are taken through the methodology and uses which were deployed to off the victim. Christie worked as a dispenser during both World Wars and so knew what she was talking about and this book is really interesting as each chapter takes a different novel and investigates the poison used.  The author is a chemist and a freelance science communicator and has an engaging style.  I found parts of this book most enjoyable but not having a scientific turn of mind at all, found the lengthy explanations of how and why the poison worked way over my head and I skimmed those bits. A fun book though.

George and Martha Washington - Flora Fraser. This author has a very good pedigree being the daughter of the historian Antonia Fraser and the granddaughter of Lord and Lady Longford and already has several successful biographies to her name. I am one third through this and already can see that this is a fine work and very well written. What I know about American History and, in particular, their Presidents has mostly been gleaned from TV and movies (not the most reliable sources let's face it) and my actual knowledge could be written on the back of a ten cent stamp, so am hoping that by the end of this particular book, I will know a little more. 

OK and now crime novels of which of course I am a lover. I recently finished The Crossing by Michael Connelly. Harry Bosch is no longer with the LAPD and, despite his reservations, he takes on a job as investigator for his half brother Micky Haller (he of the Lincoln  Detective) thus crossing over from chasing the bad guys to defending them. This does not go down well with his ex-colleagues or his daughter, but as Harry is convinced that the accused is innocent he carries on. As with all Connelly's books, the writing is sharp and excellent, witty and pointed and the whole story rattles along and I loved it.

I am a fan of the tv series Castle featuring the unlikely pairing of a crime writer and a female NYPD detective. It is great fun and daft and funny and Richard Castle, the crime writer of the title, is friends with James Patterson and Michael Connelly who appear as themselves in the series. I have never read any James Patterson and I am running out of crime writers who have a long backlist and who write regularly and frequently and so, when I saw a Patterson book in the library, thought I would give it a go. Astonished at the amount he churns out I then realised that they are all co-written. He is quite open about this saying that he comes up with the plots, the ideas and the settings and characterizations but somebody else does the actual writing. He admits that he is not a stylist and his writing is not brilliant but he has the most fertile imagination if the books I have already read are anything to go by.

I have now read several of the Alex Cross series and find out of those that I have read so far that they are a bit violent and gory and sentimental all at the same time if that is possible. Not madly keen on the co-author on these. There appear to be about 18 or so of them.  Then I read another series NYPD Red of which there are four, two still to go, and these are much better and tighter as the co-author is obviously a better writer than those of the Cross books. Then there are the stand alone books and books about a private detective and it all gets a bit much. I read four in one day the other day and found, though I enjoyed them, that I felt as if I had binged on too much chocolate with the resultant nausea following. Giving them a rest for a week as I have now already read about 15 assorted Pattersons. They are proper pulp fiction in its worst sense but very addictive. I have to say that I cannot remember the plots of half of them already. Some of them are extremely ingenious with a twist at the end though in the last Alex Cross I finished I said  That's the murderer in chapter three and I was right.

What are your thoughts, O Gentle Readers, on all this co-authoring? I am in two minds about it I must admit.

Dungeon House - Martin Edwards. The latest in the Lake District Mystery series by this author who as well as writing these detective novels, recently had a highly successful book The Golden Age of Murder, reviewed by Yours Truly here, and is the editor of the Classic Crime series published by the British Library.

Twenty years ago, a local and wealthy businessman shot his unfaithful wife, his teenage daughter and then committed suicide. Ah but did he? Obviously he didn't else this book would not have a plot. Back to the present day, and Hannah Scarlett's cold case team are looking into the three-year-old mystery of the disappearance of Lily Elstone, whose father was Malcolm Whiteley's accountant. Their investigation coincides with the disappearance of another teenage girl, Shona Whiteley, daughter of Malcolm's nephew Nigel. Nigel now lives in the Dungeon House, despite its tragic history and it is clear that their fates are all intertwined and all is not as it seems.

Daniel Kind, Hannah's boyfriend, seems a figure very much on the periphery of this story which is a shame as I rather like him. We are more involved with Hannah's emotions in this particular title than those of Daniel which were more to the fore in previous novels. However, despite this I sat and read the Dungeon House in one sitting on a wet rainy afternoon and looking forward to the next one.

Charlotte Bronte - Clare Harman. Do we need another book on this subject? That was what I thought when I received it but I have now changed my mind as I am over half way through and have already learned more about the family (and I thought I knew it all....) and find the author's opinions on the character of the three sisters chimes with mine which makes me feel a bit smug. Loving every minute of it and will be reviewing in full at a later date.

Phew. That is all for the moment folks. Back with more in a day or two, in other words after the Test Match has finished.....

Serial Detectives

I do love discovering new detectives, well new to me at any rate, particularly when there is a whole series to keep me going. Over the lifetime of this blog I have indulged in quite a few and thought it would be fun to see how many I have read.

Donna Leon - Brunetti series.   These are set in Venice and when I discovered them I was hooked. First one I read was Death at la Fenice which had the glorious combination of murder and opera, irresistible. I then plunged into an orgy of Venetian mysteries and polished off the lot in a month and then had to wait each year patiently for the next one to be published.    I have found that the last two or three have lacked a certain something, not quite sure what, but I feel that the author may have begun to tire of Brunetti and Paola his intellectual wife who manages to knock up stunning lunches each day and reads Henry James for fun. I, too, have begun to tire of her and now find her perfection irritating but Brunetti continues to fascinate.

Andrea Camilleri - Inspector Montalbano.   Ah these I will never tire of. I have just read and reviewed the   fourteenth in the series over on Shiny New Books here so do have a read.  The characters in these books are so endearing and funny and full of human frailty and the gem in the middle is Catarella, the intellectually challenged policeman who would lay down his life for the Inspector. There have been times reading these books when I have wept with laughter.  

Martin O'Brien - Daniel Jacquot. These books are set in Marseilles and simply reek of fish and Galouise and are totally atmospheric.  The hero, Daniel, is an ex-rugby player who wears his hair in a ponytail. Yes, I know but he is gorgeous and sexy. The stories are exceptionally well plotted and written and I simply love them.

Back in the UK I have enjoyed the Roy Grace books by Peter James. These are set in Brighton and part of their charm for me is knowing the streets and areas in which the stories are located. A long running series, I feel they need to be read in order so that you can follow the development of his character and the story of his personal life, which is tangled to say the least.   Nothing new there.....

P D James - Inspector Dalgliesh.  No need for recommendations from me for these simply wonderful books. Superbly written with a clarity of style which I find so satisfying to read. Dalgliesh is a fascinating character and I do wish a TV series could be made that did him justice. The originals were made back in the seventies and are a tad old hat now and the most recent with Martin Shaw, totally wooden and uncharismatic, were boring. Well I thought so, please feel free to disagree.

Susan Hill - Simon Serrailer.   The charismatic Simon lives in Lafferton and heads up the specialist crime division.  Devoted to his sister and her family he avoids commitment himself and when he finally falls in love, it is with somebody out of his reach.   HIs family life runs alongside the current investigation and it is best to read these in order so that the reader can see the time line.  Very well written and unputdownable.

And now the USA

Michael Connelly - Harry Bosch is his detective in the LAPD.  Goes without saying that he is divorced and estranged from his daughter for several of the books.   Gritty and realistic they are compulsively readable and as the author kindly writes at least one a year, all to a high standard, I don't have to wait too long for the next fix. He also writes books starring another character, Micky Haller, a downtown lawer who operates just on the right side of the law.    Both series are excellent.   A film was made of a Haller book, The Lincoln Lawyer, which follows the storyline exactly and is very good indeed.

Lee Childs - Jack Reacher.   I have recently mentioned the Jack Reacher books and nothing more to add other than they are all exactly the same, same super cool dialogue, same hero, same actions, all good fun and instantly forgettable. No need to bother reading them in order as it makes no difference at all. Fun.

I am in the throes of a re-read of the books of Anne Zouroudi. Her detective, or investigator really, is the Fat Man as he is described - his name is Hermes Diaktoris and he laughs that his father gave him this name meaning the Winged Messenger. The stories are set in the Greek islands and the atmosphere, heat, smell and feeling of the sun scorched lands is on every page.  Hermes rights wrongs and dispenses his own brand of justice, helping those in pain and sorrow and punishing those who have committed a crime. When asked where he comes from and who he is, his reply is that he is from Athens and is not with the police but with a 'higher authority'.   I leave it to the reader to come to their own conclusion.   They are excellent and I urge you to try them.

One of the charms of detective stories set abroad is the attention paid to food.  Here is a link to a post of a few years ago now which illustrates the importance of food in the Italian stories I have mentioned above:

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2009/01/montalbano-and-brunetti.html

The Zouroudi books are the same. No fish and chips in the police canteen here.

I love crime fiction, have done all my life and am amazed at the ingenuity and creativity of their authors. I have not mentioned Sayers or Christie, two of my most favourite authors, saving that for another day as pretty sure once I get started on them the post will go on for reams and reams. And then there is Patricia Wentworth, Georgette Heyer, Peter Robinson Inspector Banks series, and we had better not get started on Nordic crime, that too will wait for another day

I understand that Penguin are planning on republishing Simenon's Maigret books. I am ashamed to say I have read none of them so will look forward to seeing how I get on with this author. He wrote over 100 so I am hoping that I love them on first sight as they will keep me going for some time........

Random Crime Reading around the World

Now that the hassle of new laptop and setting it up etc is behind me (well almost, scanner on printer not working yet but I am ignoring it for the moment), I am finally getting down to posting about books.   I mentioned in one of my summing up posts of 2012 that I was seriously wondering whether to rename this blog to Random Crime as I seem to read such a lot of crime fiction. This genre has always fascinated me since my discovery of Dame Agatha Christie at the age of eleven when I was given a very old battered Pan edition of what we now call Ten Little Indians and spent a morning ignoring all school work but totally engrossed in wondering How on Earth this was going to end.   After that I was up and running.  

I love 1930's crimfic and Ngaio Marsh is another of my favourites. Gorgeous detective, Roderick Alleyn and I re-read all of these every year or so.   Dorothy L Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey, well what can one say? Love love love them and only read them for the first time about ten years ago, a treat worth waiting for.

Now I read anything I can get my hands on. Enjoy most crime writers, but there have been failures.  Patricia Cornwall is far to gory for me, she goes into the forensics and anatomical detail with almost too much lip smacking enjoyment and after reading four or five, gave up.   Lisa Jackson, OK, but over written and with lots of inner musings along the line of Come on Get a Grip written in italics and all gets a bit wearying. Have tried Dean Koontz but not for me and have yet to enjoy a Sarah Paretsky book, so my hit rate is not 100%.   BUT I still have discovered a wealth of stonking good reads over the last few years and here are a few of them.

Michael Connelly - the Harry Bosch books.   I read them all out of order and we all know he is that well know character the Maverick Cop which can become tiresome after a while, but great fun and tightly plotted. Set in Los Angeles.   His other hero, Mickey Haller an LA lawyer, I find more enjoyable and the court room scenes are totally gripping and fascinating.

Linda Castillo - all her books have an Amish setting and while I am starting to doubt whether this body count can really be kept up (getting as bad as Midsomer Murders) her main protagonist, Kate Burkholder who is the chief of police in a small town, is immensely likeable. Flawed of course, that goes without saying, but immensely readable.

Tess Gerritsen - wrote a slew of romantic/crime books before she started on her Rizzoli and Isles series set in Boston.   These are much better and very well written.   TV series which I can now see on Sky, dire.

These are just a few of the US writers I have discovered recently.

So we turn to Scandinavian detective fiction which has increased enormously in popularity, mainly due to the Wallender series on BBC4.   Ignore the Ken Branagh version which, though watchable is a bit off the wall, the Swedish version so much better.  I read all the books by Mankel but sadly he has now finished with this detective and there will be no more.  The final one in the series was rather melancholy and sad.    I now realise when writing this that I have an inflated idea of just how much ScandiCrime I have read as all my other expertise in this area comes from watching The Killing Series 1-3 on TV. There has been a 'novelisation' of the first series which I found rather unreadable and hope they do not attempt the others.   Other watching was The Bridge which was pretty stunning.

Camilla Lackberg -  brilliant. Here is the link to a review of one of her books and one of Linda Castillo in the same post

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2009/09/icy-murder.html

I am mentioning also Jo Nesbo though I have found his most recent titles rather gory and upsetting. First one of his I read, the Snowman, gave me nightmares for weeks.   I have his latest on the shelf, but finding it difficult to get into so leaving it for a bit.

Quentin Bates has written thrillers set in Iceland which I have read and enjoyed.

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2011/02/frozen-out-quentin-bates.html

Now we come to Italy and oh how I love the Montalbano books by Camilleri.  They are set in Sicily and are witty and funny and have reduced me to tears of helpless laughter; they have also reduced me to tears for quite another reason.   Montalbano is a wonderful character, a man of feeling and love and I wish the author a long and happy life so he can continue producing these wonderful books,

I have waiting for me two books by Marco Vichi which are set in Florence. I read and loved the first one, which I reviewed here, and I know this may sound daft, but I am just enjoying having these on my shelves knowing they are there waiting for me.  I am saving them up as a treat, and a treat they will be that I guarantee. Set in Florence in the sixties, before computers and mobile phones, they are engagingly old fashioned in procedure and I found that charming.

Commisioner Alec Blume - set in Rome. Author is Conor Fitzgerald. May not grab you at first but persevere, they are worth reading.

Brunetti books set in Venice and written by Donna Leon. Loved them all, even if Brunetti's smart arse wife who seems to be able to discourse intelligently on Henry James while knocking up spahgetti vongole at the same time, is beginning to get really really boring. But the last one, Beastly Things, was poor and I get the feeling she is tiring of her hero.   A non Brunetti book, published just before Christmas, also pretty poor. Sad.

Then the wonderfully named, Giancarlo Carofiglio.   Superbly written and credit must go to the translater who has done a marvellous job.      Set in Puglia and Involuntary Witness one of the best thrillers I have read in ages and the court room scene totally pinned me to my seat.

Back home and in the last couple of years I have discovered the Roy Grace books of Peter James, set in Brighton, a place I know well, and they are real page turners with a running personal story line in each book which is working up to a climax. Cannot wait for next one in the series.

DCI Banks books by Peter Robinson. Another discovery by me over the last year and gosh they are good. Am now catching up on the TV series which I missed first time around; good as well and sticks to the story lines pretty closely though not sure about the characterisation of Banks.

My latest discovery is Martin O'Brien. I have not reviewed all of his books but click on his name to see a review of my first of his which sent me off in chase of all the others.   They are set in Marseilles and feature a rather gorgeous Daniel Jacquot and they are excellent and totally unputdownable.

There are so many others I have discovered over the last few years, but no room or time to mention them all otherwise I will be hear all night, but as I find new ones (and have just enjoyed a debut thriller set in Maine this week) I will be posting about them. I also realise I have not mentioned PD James, Ruth Rendell and many others but you will have to take it as read that I devoured the lot and loved them.

As a final note, I picked up a battered old Penguin edition of a Simenon Maigret book recently. I have never read any of them and as there seem to be about a hundred or so, I really feel I ought to give them a whirl.  Can I ask any of you out there if you have read them, what you think of them and recommend any titles please?

Merci beaucoup.

 

Reading Roundup

Falling behind with reviews - daughter arriving from Australia on Saturday and I am running around like a headless chicken planning menus, shopping, filling in schedule of who is going where and seeing whom while she is here, so I am doing a quick round up of my reading over the last week in one post.  None of it has been particularly serious but it has nearly all been entertaining and enjoyable and whether the rain is raining or the sun is shining, and we have had both extremes this week,  have managed to get through a few.

Since reading At Sea by Laurie Graham which I reviewed here just recently, I have picked up a few more from the library shelves and have enjoyed them in varying degrees. Some of them are obviously reissues of earlier books written back in the 90s and it is easy to see how her style of writing has become so much more assured since then.  Perfect Meringues a story about a single mum with a sulky teenage daughter; mum appears in the cookery slot on a breakfast show; she has problems finding a new man and it is all rather light and frothy and charming.    But then I struck gold with Mr Starlight, the story of a pair of brothers from the North of England who go into show business, starting in small clubs, playing on cruise ships and gradually working their way up to success.  It is Selwyn the singer who is the one everyone wants to see and he makes it big in the US with his own show on TV, women swooning over him in his gold suits and glitter while his faithful brother works in the shadows.  It was not until half way through that I realised that this is the story of Liberace, that totally camp and outrageous entertainer in a time when camp and outrageous and being gay was not so straightforward as it is today.  I remember watching Liberace on TV introducing his mother onto the stage and talking about 'my wonderful brother George'.   I went and sat in the garden this afternoon and did not come in until I had finished reading this witty, delightfully funny and wise book with a sad but optimistic ending.    On a Laurie Graham roll I have also borrowed Gone with the Windsors which I read some time ago but now want to read again.  This is an epistolary novel written from the view point of an American friend of Wallis Simpson and I am going to enjoy revisiting it.

A few months ago I discovered the Daniel Jacquot detective books of Martin O'Brien, my first read of which I reviewed here.   Since then I have been hunting them down and in the last ten days have read two of them.  First up Jacquot and the Fifteen.  Daniel used to play rugby for France before an injury cut short his career and he is invited to a reunion of the Fifteen by their old Captain now an immensely wealthy business man married to a glamorous actress and who has kept in touch with all the team over the years, helping them out, investing in their businesses and generally behaving like a father figure to them all.  It is is clear, however, that somebody resents and hates his team mates as a series of 'accidents' occur and the Fifteen start dying off.   There is a suicide during the reunion but with Jacquot around he soon spots that this is not so and that it is murder.  The local police chief is not interested in pursuing the investigation any further and so Daniel takes it upon himself to find out what is happening. 

The second which I read straight after finishing the above title, is Blood Counts.   The book starts with the death of two gangsters whose bodies have been sent back to Sicily where two sister do their macabre dressing and preparation of the bodies with hatred in their hearts.   Back to Marseilles where Daniel attends a wedding of a young detective to a lovely country girl.   He wakes up in the middle of their first night together to find his wife lying dead beside him shot through the head.   A week or so later the well loved wife of a veteran policeman is smothered as she takes an afternoon nap.   A young carpenter is murdered in a most gruesome manner - he has a policeman brother and Daniel soon realises that the loved ones of those police involved in a high profile case are being targeted, the murderers out for vengeance 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'.

Both books totally gripping and exciting and will keep you on the edge of your seat.  I have another three to read and then am up to date and will have to await the next one in the series.   I am reading them out of order, as I usually do, but though Daniel's personal life and relationships run through each book, they can be read as stand alone.  I am simply loving them.

Then to round off the week, read a Michael Connelly, the Last Coyote in which Harry Bosch decides to finally open the unsolved case of the death of his mother and see if he can find the killer after a gap of some thirty years.   As always, with this author, unputdownable and I have now more or less read all of Connelly's output and I sit here and wait the next one.....

Picked up Dancing Backwards by Sally Vickers in the library as it was set on a cruise ship and after reading At Sea by Laurie Graham thought I would give this one a whirl.  Read it in about two hours and enjoyed it in a sort of 'well that passed the time' kind of way.  A recently widowed Violet, a poet, decides to go on a cruise to New York to meet up with an old friend from Cambridge days. Along the way she meets assorted guests and we are told her life story in flashbacks.   All rather Anita Brookenerish and by the time I came to the last page, I sat and wondered what the point of it all was.  Not saying I thought it was badly written or anything like that, au contraire, Sally Vickers writes beautifully, but I had no interest in anybody I came across in its pages so not for me I am sorry to say. Interesting to read the reviews on Amazon.

Am now reading a Dick Francis, which of course isn't a Dick Francis as he has gone to the stable in the sky, but a Felix Francis but it is flogged under the old trade name which sells trillions and I am already thoroughly enjoying it.  Will probably finish it before I go to bed.

So that is a quick gallop through my latest reads and it is now 9.30pm and starting to get dark.  I have been sitting in the garden all evening and only came in an hour ago. All so peaceful and quiet with the heat of the day slowly subsiding and I never thought I would say that after the weather we have had in the last few weeks.

I gather that there were delays on the line I used to commute on when I worked in the City, with delays going through the Olympic Park - in some cases not stopping there at all - because it was 'too hot'.   I kid you not.   This is the kind of story you simply could not make up....

Michael Connelly

Last year I read all the Lee Childs books - thoroughly enjoyed them but cannot remember a single thing about most of them now.  Jack Reacher comes into town, rights a wrong, usually beds a beautiful woman on the way and the he hits the road.  Pure pulp fiction and they were great.

I then looked around for the next author I could binge out on and picked up a Michael Connelly - found one in a charity shop for £1 and it turned out to be one of the later titles, Nine Dragons.  I don't mind reading a series wildly out of order but found this time it was probably a mistake as I had no background on the main protagonist at this stage, one Harry Bosch.  So I liked it but in a so-so sort of way. However, I liked it enough to try some more and after reading two or three became hooked.

Though Harry Bosch features in many of Connelly's books, he also has other characters who pop up in other titles and sometimes one or two will overlap.  So as well as Harry we have Mick Haller, an attorney who I am beginning to prefer to Harry as I simply love a court room drama and witnessing the ins and out, the questioning of the witnesses, the tricks and ploys used to delay or simply obfuscate the processes of the law.  Not sure that a lot of it is strictly ethical and I have to keep reminding myself that the whole point of a trial is for the prosecutor to prove its case and for the defence to cast enough doubt on it so that is is thrown out.   Mick Haller does not want to know, or even seems to care, whether his client is guilty or not.  In the last Connelly I read, the Brass Verdict, a lawyer dies leaving Mickey his entire practice, including a high profile and potentially lucrative murder case. This one was particularly exciting with a last minute twist in the final few pages that I certainly didn't see coming.

Another character is McEvoy, a journalist who featured in one of the non-Harry, non-Mickey books, The Poet, featuring a serial killer who leaves a verse on the body of each of his victims. This was a real edge of the seat story with a rather ambiguous ending which I hoped would mean that there was more to come. Four or five books later, there was.

It goes without saying that both Mickey and Harry, who we discover after a while, are half-brothers, are both divorced, have dysfunctional private lives and their own inner demons.  I think all lovers of detective stories and thrillers now accept that this is the standard characterisation in all books of this genre.  I have queried before if there are any happily married detectives and was sent a few names (Brunetti, Alleyn, Wimsey and er um.....can't think of any more) but the vast majority are lone figures with a fractured family and personal life.

Normally I totally go to town when I discover a writer I like but I am learning my lesson and trying to rein in my tendency to binge and then be left waiting for the next book to be written, so with Connelly I am trying to ration myself to one a month.  Difficult mind you as I found three titles a week or two ago in a local charity shop and read them all one after the other (it is the same charity shop and they are always in hardback and in pristine condition so I am assuming that they are read once and discarded - I am not complaining). So I have now imposed a ban on reading another one until the end of this month.  Trouble is, with a Kindle, it is just soooo easy to click onto Amazon and download but am resisting temptation so far.

There is a really good crap TV programme on at the moment, Castle, all about a best selling crime novelist who links up with a detective in the NYPD to help solve crimes.  The detective is, naturally, an incredibly glamorous and leggy lady, and the entire premise is potty but enormous fun.  As soon as I started watching I though Castle was based on Connelly and was not surprised to see an episode a few weeks ago when the fictional Castle was playing poker with James Patterson and Michael Connelly himself.

I am lucky enough to be in receipt of lots of thrillers and detective novels sent to me recently by publishers, some of which I know, some I don't so I have enough to keep me going for some considerable time, but I am simply dying to read the rest of this author and not sure I will be able to resist a mad splurge....