Six Degrees of Separation from The Tipping Point to Five Red Herrings

Published on by Margaret

I love doing Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month the chain begins with The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell, a book I haven’t read. The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. 

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

My chain is made up of a mixture of books that I’ve read or are on my TBR shelves and they are all crime fiction.

The Secret Place: Dublin Murder Squad: 5 (Dublin Murder Squad series) by [French, Tana]A Lesson in Secrets (Maisie Dobbs Mysteries Series Book 8) by [Winspear, Jacqueline]Dead Scared: Lacey Flint Series, Book 2 by [Bolton, Sharon]Time is a Killer: From the bestselling author of After the Crash by [Bussi, Michel]Five Red Herrings: Lord Peter Wimsey Book 7 (Lord Peter Wimsey Series) by [Sayers, Dorothy L.]

My first link in the chain is to the word ‘point’ in the book title – The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah, also a book I haven’t read. It’s a psychological thriller in which Sally Thorning has a secret affair.

The Secret Place by Tana French is another book about secrets that bind  a group of adolescent girls together in a girls’ boarding school when they become involved in a murder investigation. It’s the 5th book in the Dublin Murder Squad Series. Another book I haven’t read yet.

A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear – historical crime fiction set in 1932. Maisie Dobbs directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service goes undercover as a lecturer at Cambridge University to monitor any activities ‘not in the interests of the Crown.’ Yet another TBR book.

Another crime fiction book set in Cambridge University is Sharon Bolton’s Dead Scared in which DC Lacey Flint is posted at the University, after  a spate of student suicides, with a brief to work undercover, posing as a vulnerable, depression-prone student.

Sticking with the theme of crime fiction takes me to my next link – Time is a Killer by Michel Bussi, a murder mystery set in Corsica. Clotilde is determined to find out what  happened in a car crash that killed her parents and brother 27 years earlier. There is a plan showing the Revellata Peninsula, a wild and beautiful coastline, where Clotilde’s grandparents lived, and all the key locations.

I think maps and plans are really useful in crime fiction. Another book that has a map is Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers. Lord Peter is on holiday in Scotland, in a fishing and painting community when Campbell, a local landscape painter and fisherman is found dead in a burn. The map at the beginning of the book helped me follow the action – I needed the map!

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My chain this month is linked by: crime fiction, books about secrets, books set in Cambridge and books with helpful maps. And in a way the books all link back to The Tipping Point as they all demonstrate how the little, minute things in the details of each case add up to help solve the crimes.

Next month (July 7, 2018), we’ll begin with Tales of the City, the first in the much-loved series by Armistead Maupin – yet another book I haven’t read or even heard of before!

15 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation from The Tipping Point to Five Red Herrings”

  1. I like your overall link at the end a lot. I read the first Tana French book recently and loved it – so I must read more (one day).

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  2. Very clever links, Margaret! And I like the way you put these together. Good to see a Tana French and a Dorothy L. Sayers in here, too. Oh, and a Bolton! Nicely done.

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  3. Very nice chain, Margaret! Of course, it has ‘all the crime novels’ – lovely! I’ve read the Tana French book (loved it) and I’ve read the Sharon Bolton (loved it). I recently got Time is a Killer based on your review and I probably have that Sophie Hannah book, but I think it might have another name. Hers seem to be like that between my area and yours.

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    1. I hope you enjoy Bussi’s book. I think the Hannah book was published in the US as The Wrong Mother – annoying and confusing how they change the titles like that!

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  5. Great chain – I like your final link using maps. Dead Scared is the only one of your books I’ve read this month. I wonder if Sharon Bolton will go back to the Lacey Flint series one day.

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  6. I too love the linking by maps. I love maps in books, especially mysteries. I have only read two of the Tana French series (the first two) but hope to read the third one before the end of 2018. Have read Winspear but stopped after a few books. Have read Five Red Herrings but have not reread it yet. Every time I read about Sharon Bolton’s books, they sound like they may be too tense and scary for me.

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  7. Oooh, I didn’t realise Five Red Herrings was set in Scotland, it sounds good. I also like the sound of The Secret Place, I’ve only read the first book of that series, In the Woods. I’m also attracted by Time is the Killer. Some good recs there so thanks, Margaret.

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  8. Not being a crime reader I haven’t read any of yours Margaret, but you demonstrated perfectly how easy it is to get started on this meme by just taking a word in the title, for example – and then seeing where it took you. I loved the link through maps and plans! Who doesn’t love a good map?

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