On His Majesty’s Secret Service by Charlie Higson Although I’ve largely given up on reading the latest Ian-Fleming-estate-sanctioned James Bond novels, when I spotted that Charlie Higson had written a novella to celebrate the coronation of King Charles, I couldn’t resist, being a big fan of Higson’s own thrillers (the latest reviewed here), but also Read More
Kerching! It’s so 1980s – Money by Martin Amis
I originally reviewed this book back in 2015, but thought I’d republish a slightly tweaked review after hearing of Martin Amis’ death this weekend. It’s also spurred me to dig out my copy of London Fields to re-read as one of my 20 Books of Summer. Here’s my review: So, earlier in the summer we Read More
Another weirdly fabulous novel from Russell Hoban
Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban I’m gradually working my way through Hoban’s novels. I have quite a lot of them on my shelves, some in the old Bloomsbury editions, others in the more recent Penguin Modern Classic livery reprints. Last year I read his only full-on SF novel Fremder from the middle of his ouevre; this Read More
Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen
Translated by Megan E. Turney This debut novel is already a prize winner in Madsen’s home country of Denmark, and it’s easy to see why. At first we love to hate the protagonist, Hannah, an established writer of much praised and exquisitely crafted prose novellas, who has fallen into that mid-career slump; her backlist is Read More
A Game of Deceit by Tim Glister – Blog tour
Exotic locations are de rigueur for the period spy novel genre, but none are more suited for a bit of cold war paranoia and plenty of double-crossing than Hong Kong in the mid 1960s. That is the setting for half of Tim Glister’s third Richard Knox spy novel. I haven’t read the first two – Read More
The Cook, his Wife and the Waitress – Service by Sarah Gilmartin
I won’t be the first to write a tagline reminiscent of the ace 1989 Peter Greenaway film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, for this book. They have little in common other than a cook and a wife, but I couldn’t resist, sorry! A more apt comparison would be with Stephanie Danler’s Read More
Skin Deep by Antonia Lassa
Translated by Jacky Collins I’m delighted to be today’s stop on the blogtour for Corylus Books’ first publication translated from Spanish – and Skin Deep is an absolute winner! At just 114 pages, it may be brief, but as crime novels go it’s not a quick read, for it has real depth. There is so Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Hydra
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. This month Read More
Watchlist: mid-March to end-April 2023
Films on the small screen: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Prime) – after reading Baxter Dury’s memoir (reviewed here) I was recommended this biopic of his dad, Ian and loved it. Andy Sirkis’s singing is a little more raucous in comparison, but he was brilliant. Tetris (Apple+) – starring Taron Egerton. Who’d have Read More
The (Jazz) Baroness by Hannah Rothschild
A couple of weeks ago, I read a novel called Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar which, in its early 1960s timeline featured ‘Nica’, the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter – a daughter of the Rothschild family who abandoned her Baron diplomat husband for jazz, and specifically bebop pianist and composer Thelonius Monk. Best novel I’ve read Read More
Two Short Reviews – Lelic and Porter
The House by Simon Lelic I’ve read four of Lelic’s novels before and really enjoyed all of them, especially his debut, Rupture – which was a whydunnit, and his third, The Child Who, told from the PoV of a child murderer’s solicitor. After those three, he changed tack towards psychological thrillers, retaining his skill at Read More
Isaac and the egg by Bobby Palmer – blogtour
The paperback of this big bestseller was published last week. I had bought the hardback for myself when it was first published, so this blogtour provided the impetus to rescue it from being buried in my TBR piles. It begins with a harrowing scenario. Isaac Addy stands on a bridge, unsure whether to jump or Read More
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
Oh my, how I loved this novella (it just scrapes in under 200 pages). The story of Helen, ‘Hen’, as told my her youngest daughter Bridget, ‘Bridge’. It’s a toxic relationship for sure, but there is love there too – but it’s the way that Bridget tells it, with a strong streak of very dark Read More
Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar – Blogtour
This novel just drips atmosphere – of two specific types! First there is Harlem in the 1930s – A contained world within New York City that is as complete in itself as in Chester Himes’ wonderful novels from the late 1950s (which begin with A Rage in Harlem reviewed here). Secondly, there is the world Read More
The 1940 Club: Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
When looking through my books to choose one to read for Simon and Kaggsy‘s 1940 Club reading week, I was surprised to find I’ve only read one (since I started keeping my spreadsheet) published in 1940 – that was the sublime Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker (reviewed here). However, I found two super classics from Read More
More. Numbers. Every. Day. by Micael Dahlen & Helge Thorbjørnsen – blog tour
Translated by Paul Norlen. Let’s face it, I was always going to find a popular science book written by a pair of Swedish behavioural economists about the psychology of numbers absolutely fascinating! Back in 2020 I read a book called Numbers Don’t Lie by Vaclav Smil which teased out all kinds of wonderful facts from Read More
NF catch-up
The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl Translated by F H Lyon This was our book group choice for this month, with a sea theme linking from last month’s read, The Old Man & the Sea – yes, we’re playing word association football with our titles at the moment. It was a hit with everyone. We Read More
The Translator by Harriet Crawley – blogtour
Anyone who visits my blog regularly will know that spies and secret agents populate my favourite thrillers, and there are plenty in Harriet Crawley’s splendid new novel The Translator. Crawley, fluent in Russian, lived and worked in Moscow for twenty years – but in the energy sector. Who knows if she knew anyone from Moscow Read More
The Acapulco by Simone Buchholz – Blogtour
Translated by Rachel Ward I joined Buchholz’s Chastity Riley series at #4 Hotel Cartagena, which was an amazing introduction to the fiesty, smoking, hard-drinking Hamburg State Prosecutor – she was caught in a hotel penthouse bar siege, with blood poisoning gradually affecting her which made for a truly different first person narrative. I followed her Read More
Two visits to the Oxford Literary Festival
I did have a ticket for a third visit, Eleanor Catton for her book Birnham Wood, but I wrote the time down wrong on my calendar and when it pinged, the talk was already halfway through. Oh well – silly me! But I did make it to the other two I’d booked – both highly Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. This month Read More
Beautiful Shining People by Michael Grothaus – blogtour
I must admit that reading the first few pages of this novel, by American author Grothaus, I thought 372 pages of this… will I make it to the end? Something I would do my best to do because I’d signed up for the blog tour. Well something clicked and I couldn’t put the book down. Read More
Reading Ireland Month – Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
My second book for Reading Ireland month hosted by Cathy, I’m really glad to have read this superb novel, which has recently been longlisted for the Women’s Prize. It is set in County Down at the time of the Troubles in the early 1970s, and tells the story of two star-crossed lovers – one Catholic, Read More
Reading the Decades #5: The 1950s
I haven’t done one of these posts for a while now. I am more often than not devoted to contemporary fiction, the shiny and the new. But I do read some older books too. The metrics in my annual reading stats include the number of books I’ve read published before I was born in 1960 Read More
Watchlist: Feb into March
Theatre: The Tempest – Shakespeare’s Globe I went with our Year 8s to a special Schools Production of The Tempest at the open air Globe in London. Cut down to ninety minutes. So we got Prospero and Ariel’s magic, Miranda and Ferdinand’s love story, the drunken antics of Trinculo, Stefano and Caliban (the latter in Read More
The Institution by Helen Fields
Last autumn I read a superb standalone thriller by Helen Fields – The Last Girl to Die – and loved it. Set on the Isle of Mull, it involved a missing girl, and lots of witchy lore and had a real sense of place and atmosphere. Having discovered this author, I couldn’t say no to Read More
Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley – blogtour
I’ve had problems before with Glasgow dialect in novels, spending so much time deciphering it that I lost the enjoyment of reading the text. I really crossed my fingers that Squeaky Clean would be readable, and my heart fell slightly when we met some of the characters that frequent the car wash that makes the Read More
Two shortish reviews: Dusapin and Clare
The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin Translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Dusapin is a Franco-Korean author who won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Lit for her first novel Winter in Sokcho, which followed the life of a young woman working at a hotel at the town near the Korean Read More
Two short books for the Japanese & Irish Reading challenges
While I hope to squeeze in more books for the Welsh, Irish and Japanese reading months that happen in March, here are two short reviews of two short novellas, one from Japan, one from Ireland… Star by Yukio Mishima Translated by Sam Bett This was my first experience of Mishima, one of those sightly intimidating Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Passages by Gail Sheehy
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. This month Read More