Category: Fiction

A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

A Sea of Troubles is Donna Leon’s 10th Commissario Guido Brunetti novel. I’ve been reading them out of order of publication on and off for several years now and this book is the earliest one in the series that I’ve read. Her books are crime fiction, but also discuss various social and cultural issues and A Sea of Troubles is no exception. 

Brunetti is one of my favourite detectives. He is happily married with two children. He doesn’t smoke or drink to excess and often goes home for lunch to his beautiful wife Paola, who is a wonderful cook – in this book she treats him to a delicious apple cake made with lemon and apple juice and ‘enough Grand Marnier to permeate the whole thing and linger on the tongue for ever.’ (page 238)

I read it eagerly, keen to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the deaths of two clam fishermen, father and son, off the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, when their boat suddenly exploded. As well as the mystery the issues Leon highlights in this book are concerning pollution and the overfishing of clams that is destroying the clam beds.

I was fascinated by the island, never having heard of it before. It’s a long and narrow island (11 km long, and 25 to 210 metres wide) that separates the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Fishing is the primary source of income and alongside the inner side of the thin peninsular are scores of vongolari, the clam fishing boats.

Pellestrina is a closely knit community, the islanders bound together by a code of loyalty and a suspicion of outsiders. Brunetti is finding it difficult to penetrate their silence, as even though he is a Venetian, he is regarded by the islanders as an outsider, a foreigner. So when his boss’s secretary, the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, volunteers to visit her cousin who lives in the village there to see what she can find out, he lets her go. And then is most concerned when she falls for a young man on the island. And Paola begins to question why he is so interested in Elettra, having noticed that he had thought about little else than her for over a week. He then realises his feelings for Elletra are not so straightforward after all.

However, the crime still needs resolving and Brunetti finds himself in a web of political intrigue, corruption and secrets. From a slow start the ending is dramatic and action packed with Brunetti and Elletra in danger of their lives.

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arrow; 1st edition (26 Feb. 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • Source: I bought it
  • My rating: 5*

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where 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.

I’m featuring Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter, one of the Inspector Morse novels. I’ve read this recently for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge.

Book Beginning:

From the Prolegomenon

‘What time do you call this, Lewis?’.

‘The missus’s fault. Not like her to be late with the breakfast.’

Chapter 1

It is perhaps unusual to begin a tale of murder with a reminder to the reader of the rules governing conditional sentences in a language that is incontrovertibly dead. In the present case, however, such a course appears not wholly inappropriate.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where 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:

In his earlier years Geoffrey Owens had been an owl, preferring to pursue whatever tasks lay before him into the late hours of the night, often through into the still, small hours. But now, in his mid-forties, he had metamorphosed into a lark, his brain seeming perceptibly clearer and fresher in the morning.

Description from Goodreads:

As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun.
‘You haven’t told me what you think about this fellow Owens – the dead woman’s next-door neighbour.’
‘Death is always the next-door neighbour,’ said Morse sombrely.

The murder of a young woman . . . A cryptic ‘seventeenth-century’ love poem . . . And a photograph of a mystery grey-haired man . . .

More than enough to set Chief Inspector E. Morse on the trail of a killer.

And it’s a trail that leads him to Lonsdale College, where the contest between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the coveted position of Master is hotting up.

But then Morse faces a greater, far more personal crisis . . .

~~~

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the penultimate book in the series and hope to write more about it in a separate post. Morse is nearing retirement and he is not a well man – his drinking is now causing him problems, enough to make him go to the doctor, who diagnoses diabetes. But does Morse follow his doctor’s advice?

This is the novel in which Morse’s first name is revealed – these days it’s not the revelation for the current readers as it was for its first readers.

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Brighton, 1965

When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone.

Frustrated by the police response to Bert’s death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert’s son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn’t telling them the whole story.

Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They’re sure the answers must lie in Bert’s dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in…

The Midnight Hour is the sixth book in the DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto series. Known as the ‘Magic Men’ they had been part of a top-secret espionage unit during the War. These books are historical crime fiction, beginning with The Zig Zag Girl set in 1950. Now, with The Midnight Hour, fifteen years have gone by and DI Stephens’ wife, Emma formerly a policewoman is now a private detective working with Sam (Samantha) Collins, formerly an investigative reporter.

There’s a lot going on as both Edgar’s team and Emma and Sam investigate Bert’s death, at first in competition and then they combine forces. Bert’s son Aaron thinks his mother, Verity, killed Bert, who has a very shady past, with plenty of affairs with other women. And there are other suspects with a motive to want him dead.

It provides an insight into what life was like in the mid 1960s, particularly for women. There was plenty of sexism, with, for example, married women being forced to retire from the police force. Married women were not allowed to drive panda cars, and were largely employed to make tea and do the paperwork. Women were expected to stay at home looking after the home and their children.

I enjoy the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, with the forensic archaeological details, despite wishing they weren’t written in the present tense. I also find the theatrical elements of this series fascinating and much prefer the fact that they are written in the past tense. I really liked the glimpses of Max and Seth Bellington, Bert’s son, filming a remake of Dracula in Whitby.

You can read this as a standalone as there is a guide to the main characters and their back stories at the end of the book, but it helps if you read at least some of the earlier books to have a sense of who everyone is and the character progression.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Go-Between by L P Hartley

Published on by Margaret17 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where 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.

I’m featuring The Go-Between by L P Hartley, one of the latest books I’ve bought. It’s a book I’ve wanted to read for ages.

Book Beginning:

From the Prologue

The past is a different country: they do things differently there.

Chapter 1

The eighth of July was a Sunday and on the following Monday I left West Hatch, the village where we lived near Salisbury, for Brandham Hall. My mother arranged that my Aunt Charlotte, a Londoner, should take me across London. Between bouts of stomach-turning trepidation I looked forward wildly to the visit.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where 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:

This morning, my first Sunday at Brandham Hall, Marcus did not come down with me. He said he didn’t feel well.

Description from Goodreads:

When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy’s awakening into the secrets of the adult world, The Go-Between is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society. It was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Recent Additions from Barter Books

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

We went to Barter Books in Alnwick yesterday, for the first time since last October. It was absolutely packed as it was a Bank Holiday and the school holidays. There was a long queue for the Station Buffet and then a 30 minute wait after we’d ordered our food.

Despite the crowds of people I found these books and left a lot behind. :)

From the bottom to the top they are:

Execution by S J Parris, Book 6 in the Giordano Bruno series of historical thrillers.  I’ve read the second book, Prophecy which I really enjoyed. This one is set in 1586 about the Babington plot to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I and replace her with her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. I vaguely remember the Babington plot from history lessons at school. I just hope I’m not going to find it’s too long

The Fallen Angel by Tracy Borman, the final book in the Frances Gorges Historical Trilogy. I have the first one, The King’s Witch, but I haven’t read it yet. On the back cover it says this can be read entirely on its own. It covers the final years of James I’s reign when his new favourite was George Villiers, later the Duke of Buckingham

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. Charmaine sees an advertisement for a project called Positron that promises you a job, a place to live, a bed to sleep in – imagine how appealing that would be if you were working in a dive bar and living in your car. She and her husband, Stan, apply at once. The only catch is that once you’re in there, you can’t get out.

The Golden One by Elizabeth Peters, the 17th Amelia Peabody Egypt murder mystery featuring Amelia Peabody. I haven’t read any of the other books and there are 20 in total. Amelia and her family arrive at their home in Luxor to learn of a new royal tomb ransacked by thieves. Soon an even more disturbing outrage concerns the intrepid clan of archaeologists: the freshly and savagely slain corpse of a thief defiling the ancient burial site.

Trace Elements by Donna Leon, the 29th in her Commissario Brunetti Mysteries series. ‘They killed him. It was bad money.‘ A dying hospice patient gasps these cryptic words about her recently-deceased husband, who lost his life in a motorcycle accident. But what appears to be a private family tragedy turns into a bigger enigma when Brunetti discovers the victim’s ties to Venice’s water supply. With the help of Questura secretary, Elettra Sorzi, Brunetti will unveil the secret that lies behind the dying woman’s accusation – one that threatens the health of the entire region.

If you’ve read any of these books I’d love to know what you think of them.

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Cut by Christopher Brookmyre

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where 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.

I’m featuring The Cut by Christopher Brookmyre, a book I’ve read recently and have yet to review.

Book Beginning – from the Prologue:

Jerry crouched alongside Millicent’s bed and checked again for a pulse. There was nothing.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where 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:

He kept his head down as the others filed past. He clocked a few eyes on his T-shirt, a Machine Head one today. Metal tees worked like an invisibility cloak: people had a cursory glance and then knew not to pay you any further attention. Phillipa seemed to hover longer than anyone else, but he kept his eyes to the carpet.

Description from Goodreads:

Millie Spark can kill anyone.

A special effects make-up artist, her talent is to create realistic scenes of bloody violence.

Then, one day, she wakes to find her lover dead in her bed.

Twenty-five years later, her sentence for murder served, Millicent is ready to give up on her broken life – until she meets troubled film student and reluctant petty thief Jerry.

Together, they begin to discover that all was not what it seemed on that fateful night . . . and someone doesn’t want them to find out why.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?