Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is Titles or Covers That Made Want to Read/Buy the Book. I’ve tweaked the topic because neither the title nor the cover alone makes me want to read a book. It’s the content and/or the author.
So, my topic this week is Titles that are Taken from Song Titles/Lines. These are all from books I’ve read/want to read. They are all crime fiction.
The first six are InspectorRebus books by Ian Rankin:
Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin – Rolling Stones – the 7th book in the series
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin – Rolling Stones – the 8th book
Exit Music by Ian Rankin – Radiohead – Rebus’s last case before he retired
Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian ~Rankin – Jackie Leven, a Scottish songwriter and folk musician – Rebus is back on the force
Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin – Scottish group, The Associates – Rebus is on his second retirement, and then DI Siobhan Clarke asks for his help on a case as a consultant.
The Beat Goes On by Ian Rankin – Sonny & Cher. The Complete Rebus Short Stories.
All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards – Harry Devlin is a Liverpool solicitor. This is the first book in the series set in Liverpool. From the Beatles Eleanor Rigby.
Yesterday’s Papers by Martin Edwards – Rolling Stones – the 4th Harry Devlin book.
And finally two Agatha Christie titles taken from nursery rhymes:
A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie – from Sing a Song of Sixpence – Miss Marple investigates a case of crime of by rhyme…
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie – Poirot investigates the apparent suicide of Mr Morley, Poirot’s Harley Street dentist, who was found dead in his surgery, shot through the head and with a pistol in his hand.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is Books I’d Want With Me While Stranded On a Deserted Island. There are so many books I’d love to have with me that I’d really, really want to have my Kindle and an endless battery that never needs recharging, but failing that I’d want these ten books, mostly long ones that I’ve read and would love to re-read:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – I’ve read this many times, but each time I still think it’s wonderful. It’s a novel based on character, plot and is a study of society in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, but above all it is a love story.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens – I first read this years ago after being captivated by Charles Dance as Mr Tulkinghorn, Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock and Dennis Lawson as John Jarndyce in a BBC TV production and have been wanting to re-read it. It’s about the obscure case in the Court of Chancery of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
Pompeiiby Richard Harris. The story of the eruption of Vesuvius, destroying the town of Pompeii and killing its inhabitants as they tried to flee the pumice, ash and searing heat and flames. Harris gives vivid descriptions of the luxury of the town – its villas and baths – the corruption of its leaders, the poor living conditions of the general population and the savage cruelty shown to the slaves.
Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill, the 11th book in his Dalziel and Pascoe series. When Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel witnesses a bizarre murder across the street from his own back garden, he is quite sure who the culprit is. But is he right?
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman – one of the best historical novels that I’ve read. It’s about Richard III from his childhood to his death at Bosworth Field in 1485. And it’s a long book, nearly 900 pages that took me a while to read it, but never once did I think it was too long, or needed editing.
The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel – I suppose I’m cheating here but these three books Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light belong together as they trace the life and death of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son who climbed to the heights of power in Henry VIII’s Tudor England.
Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin. I think this is one of his best – a realistic and completely baffling mystery, a complex, multi-layered case, linking back to one of Rebus’s early cases on the force as a young Detective Constable.
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson – a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. I first read this years ago whilst I was recovering from a bad case of flu.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – I forgot that I don’t like reading about battles and war when I read this book, a vast epic centred on Napoleon’s war with Russia. Like all the other books on this list I loved it.
Charles Dickens: a Lifeby Claire Tomalin – an immensely detailed biography, that brings Dickens, his books, his work for the poor, downtrodden and ill-treated, and his world to life. It’s a ‘warts and all’ biography; nothing is left out.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is Book titles that are questions.
These are all books that I own. I’ve read the first six:
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie, a standalone mystery about a dying man found at the bottom of a cliff whose last words were Why didn’t they ask Evans?
N or M? (Tommy and Tuppence 3) following the publication of N or M? Agatha Christie was investigated by MI5 because she had named one of the characters ‘Major Bletchley’ and MI5 suspected she had a spy in Britain’s undercover code breaking centre, Bletchley Park.
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, this is a case of bad news all round, beginning when six year old Joanna witnesses the murder of her mother, older sister and baby brother. It goes from bad to worse.
Who Killed Ruby? by Camilla Way, Ruby was murdered 32 years ago, but her killer was never found. This is a tense and emotional mystery that kept me guessing to the very end.
Did You See Melody? by Sophie Hannah, Melody was seven when she disappeared and although her body had not been discovered her parents were tried and found guilty of murdering her. But is Melody dead or not?
Is Anybody Up There? by Paul Arnott. This is easy reading, with information about a number of religious beliefs, but it’s not very enlightening. It’s more a biography or memoir than an exploration of why Paul Arnott calls himself a devout sceptic.
These four books are TBRs, most of them books I’d forgotten I’d bought, and found buried deep within my Kindle:
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers – the first of her Lord Peter Wimsey books, first published in 1923. Wimsey investigates the mystery of the corpse in the bath.
Can You See Me? by Lynne Lee, her first psychological thriller. Julia, a doctor grieving the death of her husband, worries about her daughter’s reaction.
Who Pays the Piper? by Patricia Wentworth, an Inspector Ernest Lamb murder mystery in a quiet English village, first published in 1940.
You Talkin’ to Me: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama? by Sam Leith in which he defines rhetoric and looks its history. Along the way, he tells the stories of its heroes and villains, from Cicero and Erasmus, to Hitler, Obama – and Gyles Brandreth.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is Most Anticipated Books of the Second Half of 2021. I’ve chosen these 10 books because I’ve read other books by these authors and enjoyed them in the past. I’m expecting these to be just as good.
I’ve listed them in release date order:
8 July That Night by Gillian McAllister. During a family holiday in Italy, you get an urgent call from your sister. There’s been an accident: she hit a man with her car and he’s dead. She’s overcome with terror – fearing years in a foreign jail away from her child. She asks for your help. It wasn’t her fault, not really. She’d cover for you, so will you do the same for her? But when the police come calling, the lies start. And you each begin to doubt your trust in one another.
22 July The Crooked Shore by Martin Edwards – Lake District Cold-Case Mysteries Book 8. Hannah Scarlett is investigating the disappearance of a young woman from Bowness more than twenty years ago.
4 August A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris – an explosive psychological thriller about one woman who, having carved out her own path to power, is now intent on tearing apart the elite world that tried to hold her back . . . piece by piece.
19 August 1979 by Val McDermid, the first book in the Allie Burns series. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom and she needs something explosive for the boys’ club to take her seriously.
19 August Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney. Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
2 September The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin. When McIlvanney died in 2015, he left half a handwritten manuscript of DC Laidlaw’s first case, a prequel to his Jack Laidlaw trilogy. Now, Ian Rankin has finished what McIlvanney started.
30 September The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths, the sixth book in the BrightonMysteries series, set in 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.
1 October The Unheard by Nicci French. Tess’s number one priority has always been her three-year-old daughter Poppy. But splitting up with Poppy’s father Jason means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe.
7 October April in Spain by John Banville – the eighth book in the Quirke series. When Dublin pathologist Quirke glimpses a familiar face while on holiday with his wife, it’s hard, at first, to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him. Could she really be who he thinks she is, and have a connection with a crime that nearly brought ruin to an Irish political dynasty?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is Books On My Summer 2021 To Read List.
Some of these books are ones that have been on my shelves for ages and some are more recent additions from NetGalley.
TheMouse Trap and Selected Plays by Agatha Christie – the world’s longest running play, plus three other thrillers adapted from the novels (which I have read) – And Then There Were None, The Hollow and Appointment with Death. I haven’t seen The Mouse Trap, and doubt I ever will, so the next best thing is to read it.
Set in an manor house a number of people are isolated from the outside world by a blizzard and faced with the reality that one of them is a killer.
The Enchanter’s Forest by Alys Clare – historical fiction set in Midsummer 1195. A ruthlessly ambitious man has fallen deeply into debt, his desperate situation made even more difficult by the contribution he has had to pay towards King Richard’s ransom. To make matters worse the beautiful wife he tricked into marriage has tired of him and her mother hates his guts.
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles set in Paris in 1939. Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and her new job at the American Library in Paris is a dream come true. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes.
Just Like the Other Girlsby Claire Douglas – standalone psychological thriller. Una Richardson’s heart is broken after the death of her mother. Seeking a place to heal, she responds to an advertisement and steps into the rich, comforting world of Elspeth McKenzie. But Elspeth’s home is not as safe as it seems.
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald – In 1912, rational Fred Fairly, one of Cambridge’s best and brightest, crashes his bike and wakes up in bed with a stranger – fellow casualty Daisy Saunders, a charming, pretty, generous working-class nurse. So begins a series of complications – not only of the heart but also of the head – as Fred and Daisy take up each other’s education and turn each other’s philosophies upside down.
The House on Bellevue Gardens by Rachel Hore – Bellevue Gardens is a tranquil London square, tucked away behind a busy street. You might pass it without knowing it’s there. Here, through the imposing front door of Number 11, is a place of peace, of sanctuary and of secrets. It is home to Leonie; once a model in the sixties, she came to the house to escape a destructive marriage and now, out of gratitude, she opens her house to others in need.
After her father’s tragic suicide, Una is desperate to get away from Reykjavik. So when an advert appears for a teaching position in a remote, northern Icelandic village, she seizes her chance. But with unfriendly residents, bleak weather and a population of just ten, it is far from what Una knows. And then, just before midwinter, a young girl from the village is found dead. Now there are only nine villagers left. And Una fears that one of them has blood on their hands . . .
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce – 1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need. Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann. Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open and a past he will never leave behind …
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox – a standalone murder mystery told as a true crime story. In the early hours of Saturday 17 December 2011, Zoe Nolan, a nineteen-year-old Manchester University student, walked out of a party taking place in the shared accommodation where she had been living for three months.
She was never seen again. Seven years after her disappearance, struggling writer Evelyn Mitchell finds herself drawn into the mystery. Through interviews with Zoe’s closest friends and family, she begins piecing together what really happened in 2011. .
The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffe passengers boarding the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston are bound for work, reunions, holidays and new starts, with no idea that the journey is about to change their lives for ever, as one of the passengers, sitting in the middle of the carriage is Saheel, carrying a deadly rucksack . . .
In the aftermath, amidst the destruction and desolation, new bonds are formed, new friendships made… and we find hope in the most unlikely of places and among the most unlikely people.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog. The topic this week is a Freebie so my ten this week are Spy Thrillers. I’ve read all of these, except for An Officer and a Spy, which is one of my to-be-read books:
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré set in the 1960s. Alex Leamas, an aging British intelligence agent, who has been ‘outin the cold’ for years, spying in the shadow of the Berlin Wall for his British masters, is ordered to discredit an East German official.
They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie – set in 1950 this is a story about international espionage and conspiracy. No Miss Marple of Poirot, just Victoria Jones, a short-hand typist, a courageous girl with a tendency to tell lies. She gets involved in a plot to sabotage a secret summit of superpowers is to be held in Baghdad.
The Spy by Paul Coelho, a fictionalised biography of Mata Hari, who was an exotic dancer, executed as a spy during the First World War in October 1917.
Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh, set in May 1593, this a tense, dramatic story of the last days of Christopher Marlowe, playwright, poet and spy.
The English Spy by Donald Smith tells the story of how Daniel Defoe was sent to Scotland in 1707 under secret instructions from the English government to persuade the Scots to give up their independence.
The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan, a spy thriller, set in 1914 just before the outbreak of the First World War, in which Richard Hannay finds Scudder, a spy, murdered in his London flat. Fearing for his own life he goes on the run, chased by villains in a series of exciting episodes, culminating in the discovery of the location of the ‘thirty-nine steps’.
Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom -an action packed thrilling war/spy story and also a moving love story and historical drama all rolled into this tense and gripping novel. Harry Brett, traumatised by his injuries at Dunkirk is sent to Spain to spy for the British Secret Service.
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris, a fictionalised account of the Dreyfus affair. Dreyfus was a French military officer convicted of spying for the Germans in 1895. He is sentenced to a lifetime of solitary confinement on Devil’s Island.
Corpus by Rory Clements a spy thriller set in the 1936. I was immersed in the mysteries, with spies, communists and Nazis, Spanish Gold, Soviet conspirators, politicians and academics all intricately woven into the plot.
BooksPlease 
