We went to Barter Books in Alnwick yesterday and I came home with this pile. I didn’t realise until I took this photo that they’re all a variation on a black/white colour scheme! It wasn’t intentional.
I go armed with a notebook listing books and authors to look for and so I was delighted to find two books by Truman Capote as I enjoyed reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s recently and am keen to read more of his books – and two more of Reginald Hill’s books that are on my list of his books to find.
From the bottom up they are:
- The Collaborators by Reginald Hill, a standalone novel of wartime passion, loyalty – and betrayal. Set in Paris from 1940 to 1945, when Janine Simonian stands accused of passing secret information to the Nazis that led to the arrest and torture of several members of the French Resistance.
- A Pinch of Snuff by Reginald Hill – the 5th of his Dalziel and Pascoe novels, this was first published in 1978. When Peter Pascoe’s dentist suggests that one film in particular shown in the Calliope Club is more than just good clean dirty fun, the inspector begins to make a few discreet inquiries and ends up with a homicide to investigate.
- Beneath the Surface by Jo Spain, the second novel in the Inspector Tom Reynolds series. I’ve read three of her books and am always on the lookout for more of hers. Set in Dublin, DI Tom Reynolds and his team investigate the murder of Ryan Finnegan, a high-ranking government official in Leinster House, the seat of the Irish parliament.
- Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas. I’ve read two of her books previously and loved them. This one is about the disappearance of twenty-one year old Sophie Collier. Twenty years later a body has been found and her friend Francesca goes back to her home town to discover the truth about what had happened to Sophie.
- The Weight of Angels by Catriona McPherson. I’ve read several of her Dandy Gilver books and enjoyed them. This book is a standalone psychological thriller, in which Alison McGovern takes a job as a beautician in a private psychiatric facility near her rented cottage and the ruins of Dundrennan Abbey. A body is discovered in a shallow grave by the abbey on Ali’s first day at work.
- Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote, a collection of his writings, both fiction and nonfiction – a book of reminiscences, portraits and stories, including ‘A Beautiful Child’ an account of a day with Marilyn Monroe and ‘Handcarved Coffins: a Nonfiction Account of an American Crime’.
- In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences by Truman Capote, probably one of the best known ‘true crime’ books. Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers of four members of the Clutter family on November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas.
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So, seven more books added to my TBRs and I’d love to start reading them all – now!
Have you read any of these? Do they tempt you too?
BooksPlease 
Sounds like a very productive trip. How sensible of you to take that list – I always forget to do that kind of preparation and then end up just wandering aimlessly
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Ah well, I forgot to take my notebook last time I went and wandered around aimlessly, so this time I was determined to remember it.
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The Spain was the first of her books that I read. As you know, I am now addicted.
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I’m still trying to catch up on her earlier books as the first one of hers I read was the 4th book in the series!
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It’s my ambition to get to Barter Books at some stage. When I told my husband he gave me one of his looks…
An excellent haul… seems we’ve both been in a book-buying mood.
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Oh that would be good if you did visit Barter Books – I could meet you there! 🙂
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I hope you’ll enjoy the Capotes, Margaret. And I see you have some Catriona McPherson, too – I like her work very much. And as for Reginald Hill, well, hard to go very wrong there. Hope you’ll enjoy them all.
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Thanks, Margot – I hope so too!
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These do look good! What a productive trip, Margaret! I love wandering around used bookstores – list or no list – ha! Enjoy all of them!
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I had not heard of The Collaborators by Reginald Hill. I have a couple of spy novels by him (unread as yet). And I just read a mystery that centered around collaborators in France in WWII. I will look around for The Collaborators.
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A Pinch of Snuff is next up on my Reginald Hill re-read-in-order list. It’s a good one! And I read In Cold Blood only recently and thoroughly enjoyed it – I’m sure you will too. Happy reading!
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Thanks for this great list!. I am really happy I came across your blog. I am sure your TBR pile is never-ending but I thought I would share a psychological thriller that I absolutely loved called “All the Broken People” by Amy Rivers (you can read more on the author’s website – http://www.amyrivers.com/). This book is fascinating in that it really puts the reader inside the heads of characters that are faced with traumatic and sometimes impossible situations and you find yourself empathizing with both the good guys and the bad guys. I can’t say a book has done that for me before. The main character, Alice, has a pretty dark childhood that she is forever trying to escape only to find that her seemingly perfect husband has a past full of secrets too. She goes to Georgie to take care of her mother-in-law who had a bad accident and finds herself and her family in a life-threatening situation. I hate to say the cliché “I couldn’t put it down” But I really couldn’t. If you check it out please let me know what you think! Happy Reading!
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