The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …
which for me is The Complete Parker Pyne Private Eye by Agatha Christie, a collection of all 14 Parker Pyne short stories. The challenge is to read and review it by 29th March, 2026.
A brand new omnibus that features the complete adventures of Agatha Christie’s loveable ‘heart specialist’ Mr Parker Pyne. ‘Are you happy? If not, consult Mr Parker Pyne, 17 Richmond Street. ‘ The above advert has appeared on countless occasions in the the personal column of The Times, courtesy of the hero of Agatha Christie’s numerous, romantically-inclined mysteries. Plump and bald, Christopher Pyne (although he is always referred to as J Parker Pyne) is a retired civil servant. Having worked as a government employee for 35 years, during which time he tirelessly compiled statistics, Pyne decides to set himself up as a ‘heart specialist’. Renting a London office and hiring the ferociously efficient Miss Felicity Lemon (who would go on to work for Mr Hercule Poirot!), Pyne sets about solving marital and romantic problems with the help of some extraordinary role-playing…
Penguin| 8 January 2026| 428 pages| e-book| Review copy| 4*
Description
On a cold, snowy winter’s night in 1999, Sander and Killian leave a house party together, in a small town in rural Sweden. The very best of friends, they imagine they will remain so forever.
The next morning, each is a key suspect in a murder. Each has something they want to conceal from the police. And from the other.
The hunt for Mikael Söderström’s killer will take over twenty years. It will see a detective leave the force forever. And it won’t end until a second body is found, and the tight-knit community’s secrets are finally brought to light . . .
My thoughts
The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson, is translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson Broyles.
This has a slow start. It has a tense atmosphere and a great sense of place, set in Skavböke, a small town in rural Sweden. .There are many characters and it took me quite some time to sort them out – who were related, who were friends and who were police, although the list of characters at the beginning of the book does help. The narrative is told from the different characters’ perspectives, which was also confusing until I had them sorted in my mind and I had to re-read several passages for a while. It’s not a book to read quickly!
By the time I got to the second half of the book and the action picked up pace it was much more satisfying to read. It kept me guessing what was going on and who the culprit was all the way through. I enjoyed all the twists and turns, which took me by surprise. It’s a dark, bleak thriller with plenty of suspense as secret relationships, rumours and rivalries abound in the small town. I particularly enjoyed Carlsson’s description of the Swedish landscape and characterisation.
I didn’t know until after I’d read this book that it is the third book in Carlsson’s Hallandssviten Series. I’ll certainly be looking out for more of his books.
Christoffer Carlsson was born in 1986 on the west coast of Sweden. He holds a PhD in criminology from the University of Stockholm and is one of Sweden’s leading crime experts. Carlsson is the youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, voted by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy, and has won the prestigious Glass Key award for The Living and the Dead, given to the best Scandinavian crime novel of the year. He’s also won the Best Swedish Crime Novel twice.
My thanks to the publishers, Penguin and NetGalley for a review copy.
What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?
Currently I’m reading The Inheritance of loss by Kiran Desai, the winner of several prizes including the 2006 Booker Prize. It’s a book I bought in 2007 and meant to read long before now. I’m reading this slowly and so far it’s looking good.
This is set in the Himalayas where a judge and his granddaughter live in a dilapidated mansion. The judge, broken by a world too messy for justice, is haunted by his past. His orphan granddaughter has fallen in love with her handsome tutor, despite their different backgrounds and ideals. The cook’s heart is with his son, who is working in a New York restaurant, mingling with an underclass from all over the globe as he seeks somewhere to call home.
I’m also reading The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch, another book I’ve had and left on the shelves for far too long. I’ve read just a few opening chapters and think I’m going to enjoy this book. It’s set in Ireland, where a young woman goes to work as a governess in the remote Gaze Castle only to find there are no children. She is confronted with a number of weird mysteries and involved in a drama she only partly understands.
The last book I readQuite Ugly One Evening by Chris Bookmyre which will be published in May, so I’ll write about it later. It’s crime fiction set on the Atlantic.
Description from Amazon:
An Atlantic voyage. A family at war. A secret worth killing over.
Reporter Jack Parlabane thrives on chasing stories in unlikely places, and where could be less likely than a fan convention on a cruise liner celebrating a contentious Sixties TV series? But unlike the media family exploiting their show’s renewed relevance, he’s not there to stoke controversy: he’s there to solve a murder.
Already in deep water with his employer, Jack desperately needs a win, and solving this decades-old mystery could be it. Problem is, he’s in the middle of the Atlantic, and someone onboard has already killed once to keep their secret.
And that’s not even the tricky part. No, the tricky part is definitely the dead body locked in a stateroom with him, covered in his blood. Now Jack has to solve two murders, otherwise the only way he’s getting off this ship is in handcuffs – or in a body bag.recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
What will I read next? It could be Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Like her previous novel The Luminaries, which I loved, this book is set in a fictionalised New Zealand, primarily in and around a national park in the South Canterbury region. The title is taken from a line in Macbeth. It follows members of a guerilla gardening collective, Birnam Wood as, with the help of a charismatic tech billionaire, they undertake a new project on abandoned farmland.
But when the time comes to start another book it could be something completely different.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.
The rules are simple:
Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to Jana in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.
The topic this week is Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025 (New-to-you authors you discovered, new genres you learned you like, new bookish resources you found, friends you made, local bookshops you found, a book club you joined, etc.)
I decided to list 10 of the 24 New-to me- authors I read last year. I’ll be looking out for more books by these authors.
Gordon Corera – The Spy in the Archive, nonfiction about Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. Mitrokhin, a quiet, introverted and determined man, was a reluctant defector, because whilst he loved Russia he came to hate the KGB and the Soviet system.
Sarah Freethy – The Seeker of Lost Paintings, historical fiction set in two timelines, one in the 1940s in Italy and the other in 1997 in London and Italy, about the mystery surrounding a lost painting by Carravagio.
William Horwood – The Boy With No Shoes: a Memoir, (the author of the Duncton Chronicles, which I haven’t read). This is a long and detailed book. It is beautifully written and as he tells the story of his very early life there are many times when it moved me to tears. His writing is so clear that the places and people he describes spring to life as you read. I loved it, one of the best books I read last year!
Alex Howard – The Ghost Cat, a novella and historical fantasy fiction about Grimalkin’s nine lives from 1887 to 2022. As well as the main story there are Grimalkin’s observations and notes explaining various events and technological changes that had taken place in each period.
Ruth Jones – By Your Side, an emotionally charged book as Linda Standish takes on her last case for the Council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit, tracking down Levi Norman’s next of kin.
Jess Kidd – Murder at Gull’s Nest, crime fiction set in the 1950s in a seaside town. At times it feels like a cosy crime mystery, but it’s also rather dark and foreboding, whereas at other times there’s some humour and also a hint of a romance.
Rhiannon Lewis – My Beautiful Imperial, historical fiction set in the 19th century in both Wales and Chile. It begins in Wales in March 1865 with Davy Davies, a young teenager who is at the age when he must decide whether to work at the mill or to be a sailor like father. It’s based on the actual events of the Civil War in Chile and the experiences of the author’s ancestor, Captain David Jefferson Davies.
Hannah Richell – One Dark Night, crime fiction, with a spooky, tense atmosphere about the police investigation into the body of a young woman is discovered in the woods the morning after Halloween. I loved it, one of the best books I read last year.
Lynda Rutledge – West With Giraffes, historical fiction with a colourful cast of characters, about the twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. It conjures up a vivid picture of America in 1938 during the Great Depression and the Great Hurricane of 1938, the most destructive storm to strike New England in recorded history until 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.
Owen Sheers – Resistance. I love historical fiction, but this is different – it is alternate history. Sheers speculates upon how the course of history might have been altered if Germany had won the Second World War and invaded and occupied Great Britain, an alarming prospect. The plot centres on the inhabitants of the isolated Olchon valley in the Black Mountains of south-east Wales close to Hereford and the border between Wales and England.
Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Readerwhere you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.
The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch is one of the books I’ll be reading soon. It’s one of my TBRs, a book I bought in a secondhand bookshop in Old Melrose in the Scottish Borders in 2014. It’s a book I’d nearly forgotten, double-shelved at the back of one of my bookcases.
The book begins with the strange conversation:
‘How far away is it?’
‘Fifteen miles’.
‘Is there a bus?’
‘There is not.’
‘Is there a taxi or a car I can hire in the village?’
‘There is not.’
‘Then how am I to get there?’
‘You might hire a horse hereabouts’, someone suggested after a silence.
‘I can’t ride a horse’, she said in exasperation, ‘and in any case there’s my luggage’.
They stared at her with quiet dreamy curiosity.
Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.
Page 56:
She had never felt quite like this before, alone in her own mind; and yet not quite alone, for somewhere in the big darkness something was haunting her.
Description from Amazon UK
When Marian Taylor takes the post of governess at Gaze castle, remote house on a beautiful but desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with many strange mysteries. What kind of crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house under a brooding spell? And is her employer Hannah an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a lunatic, or a witch?
Salt Publishing| 7 January 2026| 240 pages| e-book| Review copy| 4*
Description
A quiet neighbourhood of London is about to be shattered.
Normally little happens in these mixed streets of families, retirees, podcasters and gossips. A little group create a community garden. An ageing journalist writes nature columns. A left-wing Scotsman longs for the glory days when he interviewed Castro. A disabled professor plans a book clearance. Supine Mario takes far too many drugs. And Wilf Kelly decides to get a fox as a pet.
Can a fox be tamed? Wilf sets out to do it. We follow his journey of self-discovery as he patiently befriends the animal.
When Wilf is accused of an awful crime, he becomes the target of a police and media firestorm. It’s a drama that galvanises not just the community but people from all around London to pour to Kensal Green’s streets. But can anyone prove Wilf’s innocence?
A superbly written debut novel with a big heart, that will make you laugh, cry and remind you of the joy of community spirit.
My thoughts:
I thought I’d enjoy The Fox of Kensal Green by Richard Tyrrell, based on the description above, so I was delighted to find that I loved it. It is an in-depth study of Wilf Kelly, who at the beginning of the book is a young man living on his own after his mother died. He’s a neurodivergent loner, with his own comforting routines, one of which was walking in a wild old cemetery. He loved its memorials, trees and bushes, a place where birds nested and where the brambles had overgrown the graves. It was there he spotted a big red dog fox and decided to make him a pet. His mum used to chant ‘To get love, you give love’ and love meant gifts. So, he brought him gifts of meat hiding it in a thicket under a bush.
He found life confusing and clung to his routines. But he knew he had to change and wondered if he could overcome his fears of people by forcing himself to speak to more people. Could he build bonds with people at the same time as with his fox, and be socially acceptable. Another one of his routines was delivering the Metro newspaper to his neighbours through their letter boxes and he decided to extend his round and actually talk to people. They recognise him as an eccentric and try to support him in their different ways. But then a terrible crime occurs and Wilf becomes the centre of a police investigation, and is besieged by the media.
I was very impressed by this debut novel. I loved all the characters, each one coming across as a real person with their own individuality, and the setting in a quiet London neighbourhood is vividly depicted. I’ve never been to Kensal Green but I could easily visualise the locations, the Victorian terrace houses, the tree streets neighbourhood and the local cemetery, the Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. I found this website fascinating, giving the history of the cemetery. It opened in 1833, in 72 acres of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal, and home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife. Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins, are just two of very many famous people who are buried there.
I loved Wilf. He’s an eccentric character portrayed with empathy. And it is the local community, and in particular Felicia, his childhood friend, who quietly provide him with support, emotionally and practically with gifts, and they rally to defend him when he is suspected of a violent crime. To go into any more would only give away spoilers. This is an original novel that will linger in my mind for quite a while.
Thank you to the publishers, Salt for my review copy of this book via NetGalley.
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