Random Jottings

Coming up - Books on my list

I am currently taking a look at upcoming publications and have seen some titles that have sparked my interest. As you know, prior to and after my operation, my reading spark seemed to have taken a nap and it is only just now coming back to life. So here are some authors and titles that have been ordered, bought or just thinking about.

Richard Armitage - Geneva.  I know nothing about this book but it has had good reviews and a good “buzz” in the book world.  Of course a lot of this has to do with the fact that Richard Armitage is a well known actor, appearing in the film of The Hobbit, the BBC series Spooks and others.  My introduction to him was the BBC dramatisation of Mrs Gaskell’s North and South in which he played a dark and brooding mill owner, John Thornton.  Oh be still my beating heart.  The final scene in that particular adaptation has reduced many of us to a quivering wreck.

Note: my copy has arrived. It is written in the present tense.............

I mistrust “slebs” who write books as I often wonder if they actually wrote them and also feel they have a distinct advantation when it comes to publicity, but I suppose if you have got it then use it. (I note Shirley Ballas the Head Judge on Strictly Come Dancing has just had a thriller published. She admits she did not write it but had “the idea”)……

Val McDermid - Karen Pirie Past Lying.   I have read all of Val’s books and have enjoyed them all but the Karen Pirie series are my favourite.  There was a tv adaptation of the first book shown last year which was very well done and dramatic though there were a few changes, in my view unnecessary, in order to tick a few diversity boxes.  However, they did not alter the thrust and pace of the story and I found it gripping. I gather a second book is being filmed as it was such a success so I will be keeping an eye out for that.

Note: I see it has Now a Major TV Series on the cover.  Why is it never a Minor TV series?

Rick Stein - Simple Suppers.  I do not buy Celebrity Chef cook books as most of them contain recipes out of reach of most of us from the point of view of time and ingredients. However, I have read excerpts from Simple Suppers and as far as I can see they appear straightforward and easy to do so I have ordered a copy and see how I get on.  I gather Mr Stein has had health problems which has made him evaluate his cooking and this book is the result. I have noticed this in several Sleb books that such a scare has made them re-evaluate their thoughts on food.   Makes you wonder why they did not do this in the first place. Ah, well.

Jane Marguerite Tippett - Once a King.  When researching another matter this author stumbled upon private notes and memorandum written by the Duke of Windsor during the ghost written memoirs The Heart has its Reasons.  The book was very sanitised and of its time, unlike recent Royal publications.  Charles Murphy, the ghost writer, was not overly enamoured of either the Duke or the Duchess and there were many arguments and delays, many of them due to the laziness of the Duke to actually do any work.   Now, it seems these unpublished papers have been found.  It is sub titled the Lost Memoir when, as far as I can see, it is his notes. According to an article I read about this just a few days ago the author feels that this will show that the Duke was a really hard working royal with modern ideas to update the monarchy and was a man ahead of his time.

The article also said that the publication of these papers would be a best seller and cause a sensation and propel Ms Tippett to the forefront of historical biographers.  I have ordered a copy as I have the dubious distinction of having read every book on the Abdication that I could lay my hands on.  It will take a great deal to make me change my mind about the character of the former Edward VIII.   When asked about the Duke's sympathetic leanings towards Hitler and the Nazis the response from the author was that he was 'unwise'.

We shall see.

Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage that shook Europe - John Guy and Julia Fox

I wonder why this eternal fascination with Henry VIII and his wives? OK having a lot might have something to do with it but each Queen was so different and though one would like to think that love had something to do with it (in the case of Boleyn certainly), there were political reasons also in play.   I have not read any Tudor history for a while and this recently published title has garnered good reviews.   I have it on my list.

Michael Connelly - Resurrection Walk.   I love the Connelly books and have read the lot. The  Harry Bosch books are well worth reading and if you have not yet done so, you have a treat in store. Set in Los Angeles the books chart the career of Bosch so do read them in order.  He also has a series of books about The Lincoln Lawyer, Mick Haller, which I also enjoy mainly for the cut and thrust of the court room scenes. I have read all of those too and this new title is due in November. I have pre-ordered.

Note: there is a movie The Lincoln Lawyer which is excellent and Netflix have recently produced two series based on the books.  Both the movie and the series use a mixture of the stories but they are done very well indeed.

I hope some of these might interest you as well.  Looking forward to exploring some of these and it is good to have my reading mojo back.

Recent reading

I have had problems with the blog the last week or so as my host, Typepad, who I have been with for years, had a new update etc etc and like all updates it caused mayhem and the blog was unavailable. An irritant for me, but checking on Twitter I could see how upset so many users were who were running businesses and were losing customers and orders.

Well they finally got it sorted and my post on Magpie Murders finally was able to be logged on.  SInce posting I have finished Moonlight Murders, a follow up to Magpie, and enjoyed its complexity and fun very much.  I am not sure if there will be another in this series, I do hope so.

I have also re-read the Karen Pirie books by Val Macdermid. I have read all her output and this particular series is my favourite.  I revisited them as I knew there was a tv adaptation coming up of A Distant Echo and I wanted to refresh my memory.  The TV dramatisation was a huge hit with large ratings and I gather another is in the pipeline.  I did not care for the actress who played the title role very much and I thought she was totally unlike the Karen of the books, but I put that to one side a she was very good indeed.   There were minor irritants with the characters, gender changed for one main protagonist for no reasont that I could understand, and the ethnicity of others was changed, presumably to tick diversity boxes as it made no difference to the story at all. I do find this virtue signalling that casting directors go in for rather boring and wish they would not do it but hey ho.   By the last episode it did not really matter as the tension was racheted up and it really had me gripped.   Do catch it if you can. Also if you read the books then please do read them in order.

I then turned to Marple: twelve new stories featuring the famous Christie creation. Twelve writers producing "new" Miss Marple tales.  This really irritates me as it is totally unneccessary and the main reason for this exercise is Money using the Christie name. 

I found most of them heavy going and nearly all lacking the  gentle wit and Marple touch. Oddly enough the only one which rang true in any way was the story penned by Val Macdermid. She got it right. The rest did not.  But it is out in time for Christmas and that is the obvious reason.

I have already written about the Alan Rickman diaries which I found disappointing and revealed a tormented, self absorbed persona in one of my favourite actors. Why they were ever published is beyond me. They were clearly personal and not written with publication in mind. I presume the reason is, once again, money.

As an antidote to this I turned to Patricia Wentworth. I have read all the Miss Silver cases and loved them but the author wrote many other crime stories and Dean Street Press (one of my very favourite publishers) have reprinted many more of these. I read three in one day (well it was raining and my arthritis was playing up so it was a day on the bed with hot water bottles) and they were huge fun. Madly dramatic and a bit over the top but thoroughly enjoyable. I read The Amazing Chance, Dead or Alive and the Red Lacquer Case and gave myself over to sheer in fun.

Left you Dead by Peter James.  I read this mainly because I have waded through all the Inspector Grace books but they really had become rather tedious and on at least a couple of occasions when it seems to me he had no idea what to do with a character he just killed them off. He did it again in this book.  I really enjoyed them when I started and I do wonder why authors carry on when they are clearly tired of churning them out. There was an interview with Lee Child in the paper today and he said that is why he stopped writing the Reacher books. 

Sadly though there will be no more Grace books because when I was writing this post I discovered that the author had died.  He was hugely successful and enjoyed by many including me though, as I said, I had rather lost interest in them.

Another of my favourite authors, Andrea Camilleri, died last year and he left several books behind for publication after his death. He was in his late eighties when he passed and the last few books showed a lack of focus which is understandable.   The final Montalbano book, Riccardino, was, I am sorry to say, really poor.   I have loved the Montalbano books with Catarella and Fabrizio and they have given me hours of enjoyment and many laugh out moments.

I mentioned in an earlier post the novels of Susan Scarlett AKA Noel Streatfield which I simply wallowed in, no other word, and they come once more from the Wonderful Dean Street Press. Well I read a couple more and have one left and am saving it up for a treat. Does that make sense?   Do check them out.

And finally, after a rather disappointing run, I turned to Agatha Christie.  I have recently rewatched the superb Miss Marple series on the TV and I re-read Murder at the Vicarage, Moving Finger, a Pocketful of Rye and A Murder is Announced and loved them all over again. I think Christie was a superb writer with a deftness of touch as well as steel and also she was funny,

There is one line in the TV version of A Murder is Announced which is pure Christie but I cannot find it in the book, so assume the script writer came up with this gem.  Miss Marple is having tea with Dora, and they are discussing a young man on the list of suspects.

"you know he is a communist don't you Miss Marple?"

"Oh dear, he must be very lonely in Chipping Cleghorn"

Priceless.

Recently read and awaiting my attention

My sister came round for tea yesterday and pointed out to me that I had not posted for a week and when was I going to write again.  The usual excuse at the moment, total sloth and generally feeling fed up with life and the world. 

Apropos of nothing I sat and watched Andy Murray come back from two sets and a match point down in the first round of the US Open and win a stunning five setter, the first he has played for two years.  An incentive to beat sloth if ever I saw one.

So thanks to Andy here I am.

Still Life - Val McDermid.  I discovered this author about eighteen months ago and wondered why I had not done so before. I hoovered them all up, all the different series and have enjoyed them all in various degrees of pleasure. The Carol/Tony series now seems to have come to a halt and I feel this is probably a good thing as the pair of them were becoming increasingly irritating (to me anyway). My favourite is the Karen Pirie books.

Karen is a feisty Scot in charge of the cold case department who has suffered personal loss and tragedy and has had to come to terms with it.  This title starts with a dead man fished from the sea who was a prim suspect in a ten year old investigation into the disappearance of a civil servant. It was a Pirie case so she is asked to revisit it.  But she is also involved in another when a skeleton is discovered in an old campervan and it is clear the killer is still out there.

Both stories told beautifullly. I love the relationship between Karen and her sidekick, The Mint, so called because like the Murray Mint he cannot be hurried, who is loyal and faithful and a great guy.

Thoroughly enjoyed this but by the end of it I was aware, if I was not already from reading her tweets, that the author does not like the Tories, thinks Boris is useless, the First Minister is wonderful and she supports Scottish Independence.

I have no problems with anybody holding their political views but I do with they were not shoe horned into fiction. The last two DCI Banks books by Peter Robinson were blatantly anti Brexit and it all gets a tad tedious after a while.

Checkmate to Murder - E C R Lorac.  One of my favourite of all the discoveries of the British Library classic crime series.  Last one I read was Crossed Skis a few months ago and now this one dropped through my letterbox.

A foggy night in Hampstead, Lonndon during the blackout. A party is taking place in an artist’s studio, a civil servant, a government scientist playing chess while Bruce Manaton , the artist, paints a portrait. In the kitchen Rosanne, the artist’s sister preparing tea.   The studio is rented from a miser who lives alone in the hosue next door.

The sitting is interrupted by an officious Special Constable how has arrested a young soldier running from the house where the dead body of Mr Foliner, the aforementioned miser, has been discovered.

Ins and outs and the setting of fog bound London in the blackout beautifully portrayed. The BritLib and publish all of this writer’s book as far as I am concerned - and there are a lot....

The Outsider - Linda Castillo. The latest in the Kate Burkholder series set in Amish country. I do like these book.   The Outsider is a police detective fleeing a corrupt regime and she is running for her life.   It turns out that the fugitive, Gina Colorosa, is an old friend of Kate but she fell out with her years ago over her bending of the rules and is not sure she can be trusted.

Well written as always but I did find this particular title not quite up to the standard of the others in this genre. I think that the author thought it might be a good idea to change up the storyline from the usual internal Amish series of murders. After all, if they keep on killing  each other at the rate they are written the entire populace would be wiped out (as Anne Cleves has given as the reason for not writing any more Shetland novels) but I felt it did not quite work.

Last year I read a terrific debut novel by Harriet Tyce, Blood Orange. Her second book is now out, The Lies you Told and it is just as good, if not better than the first one.  I will be reviewing this more fully for Shiny New Books and will link to it when it is up.

Lots of good reads then and awaiting my attention the latest Strictly Foxed editions of two Rosemary Sutcliff titles of which more later, and a book which is sounding promising after the first chapter Queen Victoria and the Romanovs with the subtitle Sixty years of Mutual Distrust....