Bookshelf Travelling: 26 June 2020

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

Judith at Reader in the Wilderness hosts Bookshelf Travelling for Insane Times. I’ve got several bookcases of unread novels and most of them are double shelved. This is another shelf of mixed genre fiction, beginning with three of Reginald Hill’s books. It’s a double stacked shelf, so my other Reginald Hill books are sitting behind these.

This shelf is a mixture of crime fiction, spy fiction, general fiction and one book of short stories.

Child’s Play by Reginald Hill is the next Dalziel and Pascoe novel I’m going to read. It’s the 9th book in the series. I’ve been reading them in sequence and each one has been better than the ones before. From the description on the back cover this looks to be a complicated murder mystery with plenty of suspects.

Another murder mystery is Murder in the Glen: a Tale of Death and Rescue on the Scottish Mountains by Hamish MacInnes, a book I bought whilst on holiday in Glencoe a few years ago. It’s set in the 1970s and although fiction it gives a ‘true portrayal of Highland life by a world authority on mountain rescue as well as the the Scottish Highlands.’ On his website the novel is described: ‘A Highland Laird is killed by a high velocity bullet. The action doesn’t stop there, but escalates in a series of deaths and incidents which appear to hinge round a mountain rescue team. There is no cheating on the part of the author; the plot is logical but few who-did-it guru’s have managed to point a finger at the murderer until the second last chapter.’

I first read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré many years ago (1979), when I watched the BBC series with Alec Guiness as George Smiley. I bought this copy after watching the more recent series (2016) of The Night Manager (I have that on my Kindle) and fancied re-reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I started reading it – my bookmark is between pages 88 and 89 – I’ll have to go back to the beginning again to refresh my memory before I can finish it.

My final choice from this shelf for today is Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy, containing, all three books, The Great Fortune, The Spoilt City and Friends and Heroes. I read the first two books years and and still have the third to read! The trilogy is a semi autobiographical account of a British couple, Harriet and Guy Pringle living in the Balkans during World War Two.

This shelf is in one of the bookshelves that greet you as you walk in our front door.

My Friday Post: Missing Joseph by Elizabeth George

Published on by Margaret12 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, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

My choice this week is a book that I hope to read soon – Missing Joseph by Elizabeth George, one of my TBRs and an Inspector Lynley novel.

It begins:

November: The Rain

Cappuccino. That New Age answer to driving one’s blues momentarily away. A few tablespoons of espresso, a froth of steamed milk, an accompanying and generally tasteless dash of powdered chocolate and suddenly life was supposed to be all in order again. What drivel.

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

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These are the rules:

  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

She sighed. She wanted to explain that he couldn’t simply take a walk with her in the dark. People would see them. They’d misunderstand.

Blurb:

When Deborah St James hears of the unexpected death of Reverend Sage, her sadness has a very personal tinge. For their paths had crossed some months earlier at a particularly vulnerable time for Deborah, and she had found herself confessing her intimate anguish to this sympathetic stranger. When she realizes that his death is far from accidental, Deborah, with her husband, Simon, enlists the help of Inspector Lynley, and the trio embarks upon an investigation that hinges upon the overriding – and ultimately destructive – power of parental love.

~~~

This is the 6th Inspector Lynley novel, so I’m hoping it will work well as a standalone, without knowing the backstory.

Yesterday’s Papers by Martin Edwards

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Yesterday’s Papers is the 4th book in Martin Edwards’ Harry Devlin book in his Liverpool series, first published in 1991 and it’s the first one I’ve read. There are eight books in the series. My copy is a paperback edition, published in 2013 and it is one of my TBRs.

About the book

On Leap Year Day in 1964, an attractive teenager called Carole Jeffries was strangled in a Liverpool park. The killing caused a sensation: Carole came from a prominent political family and her pop musician boyfriend was a leading exponent of the Mersey Sound. When a neighbour confessed to the crime, the case was closed. Now, more than thirty years later, Ernest Miller, an amateur criminologist, seeks to persuade lawyer Harry Devlin that the true culprit escaped scot free. Although he suspects Miller’s motives, Harry has a thirst for justice and begins to delve into the past. But when another death occurs, it becomes clear that someone wants old secrets to remain buried – at any price…

My thoughts

I’ve enjoyed Martin Edwards’ Lake District mysteries, so I was expecting to enjoy his Liverpool novels, featuring solicitor Harry Devlin, and I’m glad to say that I did enjoy this one. The titles of the books are all taken from songs – Yesterday’s Papers is a song by the Rolling Stones from their 1967 album, Breaking the Buttons. In this book Harry is investigating a crime dating back thirty years to the 1960s, the period of Beatlemania, with the focus on the sixties music scene. It has a great sense of place – Martin Edwards obviously knows Liverpool very well.

Although I wanted to know more about Harry Devlin, this does work well as a standalone as there is enough information to get some idea about his character and personal life – his wife, Liz, died – murdered – ten years earlier; he has no family and lives alone. (I must read the first book, All the Lonely People to find out what happened to Liz. ) He is in partnership with Jim Crusoe. Thirty years ago when Edwin Smith was charged with murdering Carole Jeffries Tweats had been his solicitor, so when Crusoe and Devlin had taken over Tweats’ practice the case files, including that of her murder, were handed over to them. Harry is intrigued when Ernest Miller is convinced that Smith was innocent and when Smith is found dead, possibly murdered too, he decides to look into the case.

I like Harry. He is thorough and is not easily deterred, even though it’s difficult to get to the truth after the passage of thirty years, especially when Carole’s father had died and her mother is extremely reluctant to talk to Harry. Needless to say, this proves to be a complicated case and I had little idea what the outcome would be. I had my suspicions, but was wrong and only worked it out just before the end of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed Yesterday’s Papers and am keen to read more about Harry Devlin!

The Liverpool series:

  • All the Lonely People (1991)
  • Suspicious Minds (1992)
  • I Remember You (1993)
  • Yesterday’s Papers (1994)
  • Eve of Destruction (1996)
  • The Devil in Disguise (1998)
  • First Cut is the Deepest (1999)
  • Waterloo Sunset (2008)

Top Ten Tuesday is Ten Years Old!

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

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. For this week’s topic there are a number of options and as I only posted my first TTT in December 2018, I decided to pick a past TTT topic from March 2018.

It’s Books that Take Place in Another Country, because although travel is restricted right now, I can virtually go anywhere in place and time through books.

These are all books I own but haven’t read – yet.

Greece in Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop – ‘a tantalising glimpse of a country far removed from the usual tourist resorts and beaches.’

Australia in The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville – based on real events, this tells the unforgettable story of Lt Rooke’s connection to an Aboriginal child – a remarkable friendship that resonates across the oceans and the centuries.

France in Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi – crime fiction – where a man has been found dead in the stream running through Monet’s garden of Giverney. Bussi explains the descriptions of Giverney, Monet’s house, the water lily pond – all the locations are as exact as possible and the information about Monet’s life and works are authentic.

Iceland in Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson in an isolated fishing town, Siglufjordur, in Northern Iceland, only accessible via a small mountain tunnel. Crime fiction where a killer is on the loose as an avalanche closes the mountain pass.

America in Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck – In 1960, John Steinbeck set out in his pick-up truck with his dog Charley to rediscover and chronicle his native USA, from Maine to California.

Italy in Italian Neighbours an Englishman in Verona by Tim Parks – this book is the story of Tim Parks’ love affair with life in Verona. Gradually he comes to accept what the locals take for granted. Infused with an objective passion, he unpicks the idiosyncrasies and nuances of Italian culture with wit and affection.

Germany in Death in Berlin by M M Kaye – this is set against a background of war-scarred Berlin in the early 1950s, when Miranda is on a holiday in Germany. When murder strikes on the night train to Berlin, she gets involved in a complex chain of events that will soon throw her own life into peril.

South Africa in Disgrace by J M Coetzee – set in post-apartheid South Africa, this book won the Booker Prize in 1999. Professor, David Lurie and his daughter, Lucy, moved to an isolated smallholding in the bush, after he had an affair with a student. The balance of power in the country is shifting and they are savagely attacked. A multilayered story about what it means to be human.

Europe in Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor – continuing his journey on foot across Europe in 1933, begun in A Time of Gifts (a book I have read). This book begins on the bridge over the Danube in Esztergom in Hungary as he continues his journey to Constantinople, following ancient ways that were later destroyed during the Second World War.

Europe in New Europe by Michael Palin, continuing on from Between the Woods and Water, I think it’s interesting to see how this area has changed since 1933. New Europe does just that, beginning in the mountains of Slovenia, he travels down through the area in Between the Woods, on his way to Estonia.

The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Nordic noir, as bleak, cold, snowy and empty as Iceland.

Penguin UK – Michael Joseph/ 30 April 2020/ 320 pages/ review copy/ 4*

About the book

1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland.

The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn’t.

The couple should never have let him in. But they did.

An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda will be haunted forever.

My thoughts

The Mist is the third novel in Ragnar Jonasson’s Hidden Iceland series, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. The trilogy began with The Darkness in which Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir was on the verge of retirement. The second book, The Island goes backwards in time with an investigation in 1997. The Mist featuring Hulda goes back yet again to 1987 as Hulda is worrying about her daughter, Dimma and her relationship with her husband, Jon. Alongside the story of what is happening in her personal life, she is also investigating the disappearance of a young woman and a suspected murder case, a particularly horrific one in an isolated farmhouse in the east.

I thought the first part of this book, about Erla and her husband, Einar, who live in the furthest reaches of eastern Iceland was completely gripping, especially with the arrival of a stranger lost in a snowstorm. Erla invites him in and the nightmare begins. This is one of those books where to know too much about the plot would really spoil it. All I’m going to say is that it starts slowly, and the tension and suspense gradually rise throughout, with an increasing sense of dread.

I loved the setting, Jonasson’s writing bringing the scenery and the weather to life – you can feel the isolation and experience what it is like to be lost in a howling snowstorm. The emotional tension is brilliantly done too, the sense of despair, confusion and dread is almost unbearable. My only criticism, a small one, is that when I reached a certain point in the novel, quite a bit before the end, it seemed obvious to me what the outcome would be. It didn’t spoil my enjoyment, but I would have preferred not to have known and is the reason I’ve given this 4 stars instead of 5.

My thanks to the publishers for my copy via Netgalley.

Bookshelf Travelling: 20 June 2020

Published on by Margaret20 Comments

Judith at Reader in the Wilderness hosts Bookshelf Travelling for Insane Times. I’ve got several bookcases of unread novels and most of them are in alphabetical author order and are double shelved. This is the shelf I looked at last week.

This week I’m focusing on four more books on this shelf, beginning with The Man of Property by John Galsworthy. I am so embarrassed that I haven’t read this as I’ve written so many times that I’m going to read it and it’s still sitting there on the shelves unread!

It’s the first installment of The Forsyte Saga, which I loved when it was serialised on the BBC in 1967 with Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene. It’s set in London in 1906 when the Forsyte family gather to celebrate the engagement of young June Forsyte to an architect, Philip Bosinney. Why haven’t I read it???

Next Bilgewater by Jane Gardam, another book I’ve said on this blog that I’m going to read – and haven’t. I’ve liked the other books of hers that I’ve read, so I’m expecting to like this one too. It’s described on the back cover as ‘One of the funniest, most entertaining, most unusual stories about young love’. ‘Bilgewater’ is the name Marigold Green calls herself – a corruption of ‘Bill’s daughter’.

Then, there is The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. This is historical fiction. I was going to read it until I saw the BBC dramatisation some years ago and it put me off! Set in 1464 it’s about the Wars of the Roses and Elizabeth Woodville the White Queen, married to Edward IV. If you have read this book, do let me know what you thought about it.

And finally, Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee. A novel about a painter and his family in the aftermath of the First World War. The back cover reveals that it is a ‘detailed portrayal of an era which refuses to become part of the past, even today.’ I bought this book because I’d read and enjoyed Sue Gee’s novel The Hours of the Night.

I’m enjoying looking at books I’d forgotten about, and although it’s good to know I’ll probably never run out of books to read, I hope that one day I’ll read all the books on my shelves and Kindle!

Have you read any of these?