Tag: Crime Fiction

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Winter 2025-2026 to-Read List

Published on by Margaret15 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.

The topic today is Books On My Winter 2025-2026 to-Read List. The first three are books on my NetGalley shelf and will be published early in the New Year. The rest are books from my TBR lists. I do enjoy making lists and sometimes I stick to them!

  1. The Fox of Kensal Green by Richard Tyrrell – a quiet neighbourhood of London is about to be shattered.
  2. The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson – a haunting murder mystery, set in a rural Swedish town, where one community’s secrets will be laid bare over the next twenty years
  3. Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra – a thriller set in the Colorado mountains during a ski-weekend.
  4. The Vanishing of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander – a mystery that takes readers into a fascinating past, and introduces an unforgettable literary heroine.
  5.  Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton – the classic story of a quiet, unassuming man and the many lives he touches.
  6. Exiles by Jane Harper – Investigator Aaron Falk finds himself drawn into a complex web of tightly held secrets in South Australia’s wine country.
  7. The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson – a Christmas murder mystery featuring the real-life couple who invented Cluedo.
  8. Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz – Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder.
  9. Miss Willmott’s Ghosts: the extraordinary life and gardens of a forgotten genius: by Sandra Lawrence – a biography.
  10. Tyrant: The Ruthless Rise of Roman Emperor Nero by Conn Iggulden – the second book in the Nero Trilogy. I’ve read the first book, which I thought was excellent.

WWW Wednesday: 19 June 2024

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

The books in this post are all from my 20 Books of Summer list.

Currently I’m reading The Children’s Book by A S Byatt. I’ve started this book a few time before but now I am at last settled into reading it.

Description from Amazon UK:

‘Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world – but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets. 

They grow up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, but as the sons rebel against their parents and the girls dream of independent futures, they are unaware that in the darkness ahead they will be betrayed unintentionally by the adults who love them. This is the children’s book.’

The last book I read was The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffeoner. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s about a group of people on the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston. It’s a story of s routine journey that takes a terrifying turn.

Next, I’m thinking of reading Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Synopsis from Amazon:

The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. 
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.
As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.

WWW Wednesday: 12 June 2024

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

The books in this post are all from my 20 Books of Summer list.

Currently I’m reading The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffe. This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, so I am really pleased that at long last I am reading it. I’m up to page 147 out of 263, so I’m making good progress. It’s set on the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London, Euston. Some of the passengers are on their way to work, some going on holiday, one family off to a wedding and some hoping to escape from the demands of their family, wanting a new start and one person is desperate to get back home to her little girl. It’s a tense journey full of daily life – until it moves into tragedy.

Another book I’m reading is Where Water Lies by Hilary Tailor. I’ve only read the opening chapter so far, so there’s a long way to go yet. But I reckon I can start another novel at the moment. (see below)

The last book I read was The Innocent by Matthew Hall, a prequel to his series of books about Jenny Cooper, a coroner. I read the first one several years ago and just came across this novella (226 pages). Before Jenny was a coroner, she was a lawyer and in this book Hall writes about why she became a coroner. I really enjoyed it.

Next, I’m planning to read The Silence of the Girls. It is the first book in Pat Barker’s Troy series, historical fiction retelling the story of the Trojan war from the point of view of the women. I put this on my 20 Books of Summer list because it’s a book I’ve been thinking of reading for years – and I reckon the time has come.Pat

Synopsis from Amazon:

There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan War whose voice has been silent – until now. Discover the greatest Greek myth of all – retold by the witness that history forgot . .

Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is a slave to the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story?

Although this is a weekly meme I’m only taking part occasionally.