Random Jottings

Crimefic Round up

Angelica's Smile - Andrea Camilleri.   If you are a lover of these books then you do not need me to urge you to get hold of this one, you will already have it on your radar or may have already read it.   I am totally in love with the inhabitants of the police station at Vigata and love Montalbano, with all his failings and yet knowledge of himself.   This latest concerns a series of burglaries for which there seems no reason and it takes Salvo sometime to realise they are a blind, a cover up for something more personal.   He has been distracted by the arrival of the beautiful Angelica with whom he is in thrall though he knows it is wrong and he is a fool.

Though these books are detective stories, the real interest for all of us who adore these books is the characters, Salvo, Augello, Fazio and the wonderful Catarella. I am so fond of them all that the story almost seems of secondary importance. At times I have felt that the author feels this way too but then I will come across a complicated or fiendish plot twist and realise that I am mistaken.

A joy as ever.

Top Secret Twenty-One - Janet Evanovich.   As with the Camilleri books, these stories are character driven and the plot, or what passes for one, is immaterial. We all know Stephanie Plum by now, her side kick and ex-ho Lula with her outrageous clothes, Joe Morelli her policeman boyfriend and the one she secretly yearns for, Ranger, who I certainly would not kick out of bed in the mornings.

In this story Stephanie is chasing down Jimmy Poletti who has skipped bail and is leaving a trail of bodies behind him.   She always arrives too late, her car gets blown up (again), her flat is torched (again) and somewhere along the line you know there will always be donuts, mayonnaise, cup cakes and fried chicken.

Total hoot. Loved it. Where is twenty-two?

Close Call - Stella Rimington. Another thriller featuring the head of MI5, Liz Carlyle.  Have read all of these now and now enjoy them though I admit to being indifferent at first. We all know the author was the head of MI5 so can be sure that the spy craft and the details of how it conducts is business are authentic, though I do wonder at her being allowed to write these books I must say.

This latest is concerned with the task of watching the international arms trade and when MI5 learn that the source of a series of arms deals is located in Western Europe, off they go to investigate. Along the way Liz meets up with an ex lover from her past and it all starts to get a tad complicated.

As I have said of the two titles above, despite the plot and the car chases etc etc it is the characters within MI5 and the relationships between them, either personal or political, that are of interest. When you write a book and you are interested in the characters then you are home or dry. If you don't give a damn about what happens to them, then you are doomed.

A lot of fairly easy reading over the last few weeks as I find that I cannot concentrate on anything substantial or heavy when the sun is shining and the nights are lighter. Happens every year and the books I should be reading pile up and have to wait until the temperatures drop and the nights draw in. 

I am also spending an awful lot of time at the moment watching cricket and tennis and as they were playing at Wimbers till nearly ten last night, you will understand that I have serious calls on my time......

 

Reading catch up - Janet Evanovich and books to come

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

Reading Round Up

It is that time of year when time is in short supply and I am falling behind with reviews so am doing a Reading Round Up today so that my conscience feels a little clearer.

A Death in Siberia - Alex Dryden. Fourth book in the series featuring former KGB agent Anna Resnikov and this is the bleakest yet.  Sent to Russia to confirm or deny the truth about a ground breaking nuclear discovery by Professor Kryuchkov who is being held prisoner at a nuclear facility above the Arctic Circle, this is also bleak in the sense that the novel is set in the coldest most unforgiving landscape.  All is grey and white, stormy and chilling.  The physicist has taken action and smuggled his formula out and passed to an intermediary who is found murdered and his clothes slit and searched.  Alexei Petrov, one of a rare breed in that he is an honest policeman, finds the papers and is desperate to decipher their meaning.

There then follows a chase across the unforgiving icy wastes with Anna one step ahead of her pursuers and on a collision course with Alexei who may, or may not, be a friend.

Gripping read. I have enjoyed the previous books in this series and this is the best yet. My thanks to Headline once more for sending me yet another pin me to the sofa thriller.

Explosive Eighteen - Janet Evanovich.  The latest Stephanie Plum and nothing to say about this save that within five minutes of opening this book I was weeping tears of laughter.  As I was in bed reading and it was midnight, heaven knows what my neighbours must have thought of the cackling going on.  The story is totally immaterial, but it appears that after getting off a plane from Hawaii to Newark, following a disastrous holiday when the Ranger and Morelli came to blows over her (oh how I wish...) Stephanie finds that somebody has hidden a photo in her bag by the passenger sitting next to her. He is later found dead and then it seems everyone is after her to track this down even though she has chucked it in a bin. She goes into police headquarters to do a photo fit:

"He pulled the sketch out of afolder and handed it to me 'Is this the guy in the photograph?'

'Yes it looks familiar'.   Lulu swung out of the office and looked over my shoulder. 'I know this guy - it's Tom Cruise'.

I looked back at the photograph. Lulu was right. It was Tom Cruise. No wonder it looked familiar......"

Great stuff.

Happily ever After - Harriet Evans.  On first sight this book looks like your normal run-of-the-mill chicklit and pretty sure I have said this already about this author but will say again, they are better than the cover might make you think.   Eleonor Bee sets off to London. She is 22 and wants to be a literary superstar. She doesn't believe in Happy Ever After having seen what her parent's divorce did to the family and is determined to avoid falling in love and/or getting married.  Of course, we know that in the end she will do both those things, but along the way she steadily rises in her profession until she becomes a respected editor working in New York.   Along the way she has been involved with various men, some good, some bad and one a total rotter (the most charming naturally), and feels she is pretty male proof. Well, we the reader know better but this is a really well written, funny, witty and amusing book and, as with all the others by the author, I loved it.

Gamble - Felix Francis.  The front of this book has A Dick Francis Novel by Felix Francis. Yes well, it raises the question once again Just Who Wrote all the Dick Francis books? After his wife died, who was largely thought to be the writer behind the throne, there was a hiatus and no books appeared at all which may have given credence to this theory.  Then Dick Francis came back with a stand alone book and then with Felix under the title.   Now Dick Francis is dead and Felix has taken over the writing baton.  I enjoyed this book but it is EXACTLY like a Dick Francis.  Hero, a sea green incorruptible, noble and gallant, full of derring do, in touch with his feelings and yet brave and clever. I mean, John Buchan and Richard Hannay come to mind.   Don't get me wrong, I loved every word of it, huge fun but am I alone in finding this kind of marketing a bit distasteful?

Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George.  The latest Inspector Lynley and I fully admit to having a love/hate relationship with these books.   I found the last one pretty obnoxious with its usage of the James Bulger murder and decided I wouldn't bother with any more of them.  Trouble is there is an onging story line running throughout these books and the reader wants to know how these are carried forward.  I love Barbara Havers and the relationship with her neighbour and his little girl, her relationship with Lynley and this book ends with another open end to make sure you get the next one. And so it goes on.

Very grateful to Hodder for sending me a copy as it is a hefty tome and a hardback priced at £18.99 is a bit hairy, but in time for the Christmas market.   So I sat and read it and, once again, found myself becoming increasingly irritated by Lynley who seems to rely on Havers to do most of the detecting for him, which she does and his relationship with his boss Isabelle Ardery (a divorcee with drink issues 'sigh').   We all know that he is still grieving for his murdered wife Helen (I personally was glad to see the back of this tiresome moany creature) and it therefore beggers belief that in setting off to the Lake district to investigate a suspicious death where he needs cover, he takes along with him his friend Simon st James and his wife Deborah.  Now Deb is even more needy, moany and whiny than Helen was and, true to form, she interferes, gets everything wrong, won't do as she is told by either her husband or Lynley, causes havoc throughout the investigation and brings about a tragic ending.

' Deborah thought....'this is not who I want to be my love'

'Then be someone else'

'Where on earth do I begin with that project?'

How about Getting a Grip dear?

I know I will continue reading these but oh how I wish I could stop!

Death Comes to Pemberly - P D James.   So looking forward to this and then so disappointed. Not going to say much about it as I love PDJ but feel this was a mistake.  Falls between two stools and is successful only in the court room scene where Wickham is on trial for the murder of his friend, Denny. Convoluted and fairly unbelievable ending.  Just wish that the Baroness had not bothered with this and given us another Dalgliesh instead.

OK one pile down - two more to go.

Tuesday Roundup

Back from a sweltering London and very glad to be home in the cool.  Mother of all thunderstorms this afternoon with lightning and torrential rain but now we have that lovely fresh smell from the earth and the leaves. Bliss.

So my round up of books read in the last week.

Seven Days one Summer - Kate Morris.

Jen and Marcus receive an invitation to spend a week in Italy in a friend's villa. Sounds good but owner of the villa, Sam, happens to be an old flame of Jen and, as Marcus spends most of his time travelling and their seven year old son, a rather spoiled Alfie, is still sleeping in their marital bed, the joys of motherhood and marriage are a tad worn. A temptation for Jen but nothing can go wrong if she accepts - can it?

There are assorted other guests as well and a slightly odd housekeeper, who seems more than usually curious in Sam and his doings, a TV star separated from his wife who comes along with his two children, Dave and Tara, a couple with whom Jen and Marcus are friends and debating whter they should have a child or not and, in short, a good cast of characters to sling into the mix, sit back and see what happens.

An enjoyable read, nothing stunning but well written though I felt it fell off a bit at the end and if I say this is a perfect Beach Read, I am not being patronising. Lie on the sun bed, factor 30 on, cool drink to hand, this book and chill.

Note: cover features a headless woman.  Think this idea may have been done to death by now somehow.

What Women Want - Fanny Blake

OK you look at the cover and you think of Another Chick Lit and yes that is what it looks like, but in this case, the women protagonists are not young skinny things only interested in sex and shopping, these are women of a certain age - I prefer to say mature - with worries and insecurities.   Wisdom is not necessarily acquired with age, having one's heart broken can happen no matter how old or young you are.

This is the story of three friends; Bea who is a publisher in a company recently taken over, with a demanding new boss and a rival editor who is clearly after her job.  She has a monosyllabic son and is now back on the dating scene after a nasty divorce and is finding it all a bit sticky.   Kate seems to have a happy marriage with a charismatic and interesting husband, but who is finding it difficult to cope with empty nest syndrome now that their last child has left.  Her husband seems to be more and more remote - is he having an affair? What can she do?   Then Ellen, a widow, rather mumsy and not exactly a stunner, who has devoted herself to her children and suddenly finds herself in the middle of an raging affair with the handsome Oliver several years younger than herself.

As well as being a story about the loves and lives of Bea, Kate and Ellen it is also a story of friendship and how tensions and betrayal can stretch it to the limit.  If you know something about your friend's partner to their discredit do you keep quiet or do you risk your friendship by speaking out?  This is a dilemma I have faced in the past and it is a tricky one I can tell you.

Female friendship is a wonderful thing. I have many friends and acquaintances and a wonderful family, but I have three close friends without whom I could not have managed in the last ten years or so when I have gone through a marriage failure, divorce and having to start a new life all over again.   To have good friends you have to be a friend in return and support each other through problems and upsets and then enjoy the happy times.   I found myself becoming very fond of Bea, Kate and Ellen and the sometime insecurities and jealousies that can happen in close relationships like this.  In the end of course, they stick by each other and the friendship is not broken though it is tested.

And What do Women Want?  I think we want to be happy, as simple as that, but it is learning to recognise when you are content and not to keep yearning for the unobtainable. Sometimes what you least expect to bring you joy, does.  I have certainly found that to be so.

I met Fanny  Blake last week at the Oxo Tower and she was lovely and such fun and interesting to talk to.  She has been in publishing for years so I rather think that Bea's experiences might just be based on real life....

Lovely book. Recommended.

Smokin' Seventeen - Janet Evanovich

What can one say about the Stephanie Plum series?  Not a lot really, save that this one dropped through my letterbox on Saturday morning, was seized upon by me and read straight through. Within ten minutes I was helpless with laughter at the antics of Stephanie and Lula and the inevitable chasing after a defaulter on a bail bond and the inevitable antics that occur which always, but always, include a food throwing incident.   In this book they are on the trail of a defaulter who is convinced he is a vampire, will not come out during the day and sleeps in a coffin. Every time they try to arrest him he tries to sink his 'fangs' into Lula's neck.   This guy is 72. 'Nuff said.

No character development at all. Nothing has changed with Stephanie, her life in the Burg and her difficulty in choosing between her boyfriend Morelli, the Italian Stallion and the mysterious and unutterably sexy Ranger.

Loved every single page of it.  If you are feeling fed up or miserable, read a Stephanie Plum. Guaranteed to set you straight. I read these last year just after my lovely mum died and my lovely daughter offed to Australia and left me bereft.   Sat on the sofa in a wobbly state for about a fortnight and worked my way through the entire oeuvre and impossible to feel miserable or sorry for yourself when reading this wonderful series by Janet Evanovich.

OK that was my week. Reviews to come, two titles by Anthony Trollope and a debut novel about a serial killer. Yes another one. I am beginning to worry about this......