43) The Secret Place by Tana French Tana French is widely feted in the crime-writing world, but I didn't really get on that well with the previous book I read by her (Broken Harbour) and have subsequently avoided her, despite myriad positive reviews from all directions. So finally I succumbed to The Secret Place and, whaddyaknow, it… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 43: The Secret Place
Category: Year 4
Year 4 / Book 42: Black Widow
42) Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre Some slightly delayed book reviews forthcoming, which also usually means some slightly delayed recall on what I've actually read. This twisty, relevant thriller by Chris Brookmyre is highly memorable, though. It tells the tale of Diana Jager, a female surgeon who may (or may not, naturally) have killed her new-ish husband… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 42: Black Widow
Year 4 / Book 41: Corrupt Bodies
41) Corrupt Bodies by Peter Everett The subtitle of this (non-fiction) book is 'Death and Dirty Dealing in a London Morgue' which gives you some sense of what to expect from the contents. It's also co-written by my friend Kris Hollington, who kindly sent me a copy to read, and I think he's done a… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 41: Corrupt Bodies
Year 4 / Book 40: A Darker Domain
40) A Darker Domain by Val McDermid Val McDermid is probably best known for her Tony Hill & Carol Jordan books, but I think I prefer Karen Pirie, the independent, funny female detective who features again here in A Darker Domain. It is her character and believability which drives forward this complex and at times… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 40: A Darker Domain
Year 4 / Book 39: The Patient Assassin
39) The Patient Assassin by Anita Anand This non-fiction book tells a fairly extraordinary tale of a strange figure, woven up into the colonial history of the British in India. The central story is that a man called Udham Singh was present at the Amritsar Massacre (more accurately the Jallianwala Bagh massacre) and that he was… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 39: The Patient Assassin
Year 4 / Book 38: The Spy and the Traitor
38) The Spy and The Traitor by Ben MacIntyre This was recommended to me while we were on holiday by our friends Claire and Matt, who said it was "as good as a thriller, except it's real". And how right they were. It's an amazing tale of the most famous Russian mole who spied for… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 38: The Spy and the Traitor
Year 4 / Book 37: Tell Me How It Ends
37) Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli This is a short but extremely powerful book, which details Valeria Luiselli's work as an interpreter for child migrants crossing the Mexico-US border. The 40 questions which provide the structure are those which form the questionnaire that Luiselli is meant to… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 37: Tell Me How It Ends
Year 4 / Book 36: Why We Get The Wrong Politicians
36) Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman Purely coincidental timing of course, no reason why I should be thinking about the country having the wrong politicians at the moment. But, for whatever reason, I did find myself opening this book by Isabel Hardman, a political journalist at the Spectator, whose writing and… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 36: Why We Get The Wrong Politicians
Year 4 / Book 35: The Liar
35) The Liar by Steve Cavanagh I’ve read a couple of books by Steve Cavanagh (The Defence and Thirteen) and I like the cut of his authorial jib. The main hero of his legal thrillers, Eddie Flynn, is a likeable ruffian with a Perry Mason-esque ability to make things happen in the courtroom, whilst having… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 35: The Liar
Year 4 / Book 34: Moonstone
34) Moonstone by Sjon Sjon is an Icelandic novelist, and this short and powerful novel is set in Reykjavik towards the end of the world war in 2018. Máni is a young free-spirited teenager with an intense love of cinema, and a penchant for flights of fancy (primarily about the mystical Sóla G, his sort-of… Continue reading Year 4 / Book 34: Moonstone
Dog-eared Man: a book a week 