Crime Fiction Alphabet – Letter N

Published on by Margaret

This week we’ve reached the letter N in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet. My choice is a medley of ‘N‘s.

  • I had thought I would review Peter James’s Not Dead Enough, and I started it a while back but put it down to read other books. Not because I didn’t like it, but it’s a very long book – 610 pages of very small font, which is difficult for me to read, especially late at night when my eyes get tired quickly. From the back cover:

On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least that’s the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who is called to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop.

  • Another choice for the letter N that I considered is A Necessary End, an Inspector Banks mystery by Peter Robinson but I haven’t finished that book either. From the back cover:

In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An anti-nuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent ‘Dirty Dick’ Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of ‘Maggie’s Farm’, an isolated house high on the daleside.

  • My third choice is Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookmyre. I started reading this after enjoying Quite Ugly One Morning. The bookmark shows I’m up to page 30. I think I didn’t finish this book because I was expecting it to be set in Scotland like Quite Ugly One Morning and was put off by it being in Los Angeles – silly I know!

 

  • Then there is Agatha Christie’s Nemesis, which is the last Miss Marple mystery. I only bought it recently and I’m itching to read it soon. Mr Rafiel, an old acquaintance (see A Caribbean Mystery), has died and left Miss Marple instructions for her to investigate a crime after his death.

 

  • And finally the book I’m currently reading is Janet Neel’s Ticket to Ride, which so far is making very interesting reading. But I don’t want to write much about it before I’ve finished it. Ticket to Ride features Jules Carlisle a newly qualified solicitor. She takes on the case of Mirko Dragunoviç, an illegal immigrant who claims that one of the eight dead bodies, found on the beach west of King’s Lynn, is that of his brother.

Janet Neel is the nom de plume of Baroness Cohen of Pimlico who sits as a Labour peer in the House of Lords. She started out as a solicitor, then went to the Board of Trade and then to Charterhouse Bank. She has written several crime fiction novels. The first, Death’s Bright Angel won the John Creasey Prize and both Death of a Partner and Death Among the Dons were shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger.

9 thoughts on “Crime Fiction Alphabet – Letter N”

  2. I admire you for talking about books started but not finished. I find it difficult to return to a book if it sits on the desk for any length of time.

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  4. I don’t know how you can read several books at once, especially if they are all mysteries. I would get so mixed up that I wouldn’t enjoy any of them because I’d have to keep looking back to get characters and plot straight. I can’t multitask at anything else these days either like I used to do when I was young. Now I have to concentrate on just one thing, but I do get more out of each job or experience or book that way. Maybe it another age thing. lol

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    1. Barbara, I’m only actively reading Ticket to Ride & The Long Song. I haven’t started Nemesis at all and I’ve only read about 30 or so pages of the others. I’ll have to start at the beginning when I do get going on them again, because I won’t be able to sort them out otherwise. I’ve tried reading one book at a time but I like the variety of reading at least two and I choose different genres – often non-fiction alongside fiction – which helps to keep them separate in my mind.

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  5. Margaret – Thanks for this innovative idea for the letter “N.” I am particularly interested in what you’ll think of A Necessary End and of course, Nemesis. As a matter of fact, I almost chose Nemesis, myself. I’m really eager to find out what your reaction to it will be.

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  6. It’s good to know that I’m not the only person test giving more than one book per letter. Nemesis was the first Christie I read, not long after I graduated from the junior to the adult library, and I was very taken with it. One to reread before too long I think.

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  7. Thanks for the reminder that I have a couple fo these N books lurking around too Margaret – the Peter James, and the Peter Robinson ones. Janet Neel sounds an interesting one to follow up – as if I needed more books! Thanks for participating this week

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