Today is Mother’s Day and I’ll be spending some time reading my present from my son – Amos, Amas, Amat … And All That by Harry Mount. It’s been on my wishlist for some time now! And a nice change it will make from all the crime fiction I’ve been reading recently. From the back cover:

 In this delightful guided tour of Latin, which features everything from a Monty Python grammar lesson to David Beckham’s tattoos and all the best snippets of prose and poetry from 2000 years of literary history, Harry Mount wipes the dust off those boring primers and breathes life back into the greatest language of them all …

Not that the crime fiction I’ve been reading is boring – far from it. My reading has been a real treat and is way ahead of my reviews of these books:

I finished reading A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine at the end of last week and was so pleased after not liking her book The Birthday Present to find that this book about the discovery of the bones of a young woman and a baby in an animal burial ground was very different. There is a real air of mystery surrounding the several unlikeable characters – anyone of whom could be the guilty party.

 The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith was a complete surprise to me as I had no idea when I borrowed it from the library just how much I was going to enjoy it. From a somewhat slow start I soon got used to the rhythm of his writing and was greatly intrigued by the character of Isabel Dalhousie.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie is a light-hearted mystery featuring Bobby Jones and Frankie (Lady FrancesDerwent) as they investigate a murder. This is a highly fantastical tale which I read at break-neck speed and thoroughly enjoyed.

Dead in the Morning by Margaret Yorke is the first book in her Patrick Grant series, first published in 1970. Set in an English village this is about an English family upset by the death of their housekeeper. All sorts of family secrets are revealed with plenty of red herrings along the way but the ending is predictable.

I’ll be writing in more detail about each one soon.

Next week my choice of reading is between these books, which I have on the go:

• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson which I started a few weeks ago and put to one side.
• Being Shelley by Ann Wroe – ongoing reading
• Stratton’s War by Lorna Wilson. I’m not sure if I’ll finish this as I feel little inclination to pick it up at the moment.

I’m tempted to start a new one. Maybe another Agatha Christie or Ian Rankin, or The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, which I’ve read is very good, or Maggie’s Tree by Julie Walters – her first novel, described as “dark and very funny”, which I found at the library.