Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’ by @mc_beaton #cosycrime

When a newly-retired PR executive arrives in the Cotswolds expecting a quiet retirement, she finds real life in Carsley is not as she expected. First of all, no-one likes her. Second, no-one seems to give a fig about who she is. Third, she is bored. And so begins Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, first in this addictive series by MC Beaton. Desperate to make friends, she enters a village baking competition. Except Agatha can’t bake. So she buys a quiche and enters it as her own. So what, you may think. Lots of people probably do that. But when the competition judge dies of poisoning, Agatha is the key suspect. Desperate to clear her name, she turns detective.
And so a new crime series is born, featuring an overweight, pompous and self-important woman who always thinks she knows best. Why is this series so good? Because Agatha always gets her come-uppance and the story is very funny. A circle of village characters – her cleaner Doris, the vicar’s wife Mrs Bloxley, the deliciously disgusting elderly couple the Boggles, the real policeman Bill Wong – and London PR friend Roy, all contribute warning voices when Agatha gets carried away with her theories. And, there are lots of references to Agatha Christie. A policeman warns her: “You really must leave investigations to the police. Everyone has something to hide, and if you are going to go around shoving your nose into affairs which do not concern you, you are going to be hurt.” In true Agatha fashion, she ignores him.
This is a long series, lots more to read.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in the Agatha Raisin series:-
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE VICIOUS VET #2AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE POTTED GARDENER #3AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE WALKERS OF DEMBLEY #4AGATHARAISIN
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE MURDEROUS MARRIAGE #5AGATHARAISIN

If you like this, try:-
‘ELIZABETH IS MISSING’ by Emma Healey
‘THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY’ by Rachel Joyce
‘THE HUMANS’ by Matt Haig

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AGATHA RAISIN AND THE QUICHE OF DEATH by @mc_beaton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1IY via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell #genealogy #crime #mystery

5 Replies

I raced through The Blood Detective, a hybrid mixture of crime and genealogy mystery. Author Dan Waddell is also a journalist and genealogist, having written The Genealogy Handbook to accompany the Who Do You Think You Are? television series. So, he knows his stuff and it shows. Usually a crime novel features a lead detective and team, here we have two lead characters: Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster, and genealogist Nigel Barnes.
Waddell’s plotting is ingenious. The past really does come back to haunt the present. There is a serial killer in West London who leaves a clue carved into the skin of his victims. This clue prompts DCI Foster to call on the specialist help of researcher Barnes. The murder hunt takes parallel paths: Foster chases living suspects, Barnes searches the archives for the true 1879 story of a serial killer, his victims and their descendants. What is the link? The final chapters are a thrilling race against time.
I really enjoyed this. The linking of historical and present-day crime was clever, and the characterization was convincing and not of the stereotypical detective form. An enjoyable mixture of fast-moving crime novel with genealogical research and historical gems about this particular part of London, its transformation from Victorian times to the 21^st century, and its dark history of crime.

Here’s my review of the second book in this series by Dan Waddell:-
BLOOD ATONEMENT #2BLOODDETECTIVE

If you like this, try:-
‘In the Blood’ by Steve Robinson
‘Innocent Blood’ by PD James
‘The Irish Inheritance’ by MJ Lee #1JayneSinclair

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BLOOD DETECTIVE by Dan Waddell via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Tp

#BookReview ‘The Lighthouse’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

Over the years, the character of Commander Adam Dalgliesh has become a real person. Helped by the TV series of PD James detective novels, whenever I read a Dalgliesh book I see the face of actor Roy Marsden. The Lighthouse, the 13th in the series of 14, is perhaps her best. There is no doubt that as the series progressed, the writing acquired depths earning it the label ‘literary fiction’. A lot of the action is in the mind, intellectual detection. The Lighthouse is a long way from Cover Her Face. This is another closed room mystery. The room is an island off the North Cornish coast, a secure, secluded get-away-from-it-all holiday destination for politicians, celebrities and entrepreneurs. Dalgliesh, with his team Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith, become residents on the island with its small number of suspects. Dead, is a famous writer, Nathan Oliver, found hanging by a rope from the railings of the lighthouse. Nothing, from this point, is as it seems. All the island’s guests, residents and staff could have a motive. Oliver was not generally liked. But you can rely on James to unwind a story which brings unexpected depths, difficulties and an unpredictable motive for murder. Many of the suspects are unlikeable, but unpleasant people are not necessarily capable of killing someone. Set against the island location, its isolation, mists, tides and birds, are the peculiarities of the residents and their reason for being on the island. Is that where the answer lies?
Quarantined on the island because of infectious illness, a second murder ups the stakes. Tangled throughout the detection are the relationships between Kate and Benton, Dalgliesh and girlfriend Emma, and the detail and politics of policing.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell
‘Jellyfish’ by Lev D Lewis
‘The Silent Twin’ by Caroline Mitchell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE LIGHTHOUSE by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1VN

#BookReview ‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse #historical

9 Replies

I will say up front that the taxidermy sections in The Taxidermist’s Daughter were too much for me, too much gory detail. That aside, this is a mystery set in the South Coast marshes of Fishbourne in 1912. In fact it seemed timeless, difficult to place the action only two years prior to the outbreak of the Great War. The weather is ever-present to set the tone of the story: wind, rain and storms and Fishbourne is a real place. Author Kate Mosse, a Chichester resident, uses her local knowledge to good effect. But, I struggled to connect with the story and cannot put my finger on why. The storyline focuses on 22-year old Connie Gifford and her father, the taxidermist and his daughter, who live in an isolated house on the marshes at Fishbourne. In the Prologue, the village gathers in the churchyard to celebrate the Eve of St Mark. At the end of the evening, a woman is dead. So, already there is one dead woman and some secrets. Connie, it turns out, had an accident 10 years earlier and she has no memory either of what happened that day or of her life prior to the accident… more secrets. Are the two events, 10 years apart, connected? Are the same people involved? And if Connie’s memory returns, will she have the answer to the odd goings-on?
I admit to losing track of some of the peripheral characters who, unlike the atmospheric setting, are not fully-rounded. It is a strange book, taxidermy is a rather odd subject [and risky in that it will deter some readers from even picking up the book] although it adds to the theme of reality versus false reality. There are lies between family and friends, lies between rich and poor; it is not only the guilty who lie, there are also secrets meant to protect the innocent. Amnesia is a difficult plot technique to use, too often it leaves the reader feeling cheated. I found the story rather drawn-out, the longer it went on the less mysterious it got. A note about front cover design. My hardback copy [above] has a beautiful design of feathers and a solitary bird skull, but perhaps the bird skull was decided to be too gory. The paperback edition [top] is more in keeping with the atmospheric seaside setting. Interesting also that the cover line ‘In death there can be beauty’ is missing from the paperback, to me the line felt incongruous given that the novel deals with murder, assault and torture.

And here are my reviews of other novels by Kate Mosse:-
CITADEL #3LANGUEDOC
THE BURNING CHAMBERS #1JOUBERT
THE CITY OF TEARS #2JOUBERT

If you like this, try:-
‘The Threshold’ by Anita Kovacevic
‘The House on Cold Hill’ by Peter James
‘The Little Red Chairs’ by Edna O’Brien

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE TAXIDERMIST’S DAUGHTER by Kate Mosse via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Rx

#BookReview ‘The Noise of Time’ by Julian Barnes #music

7 Replies

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes is about big subjects: creativity and power, moral courage and cowardice, love and fear, autocratic government and political manipulation of the arts. Oh, and music. But I couldn’t work it out. Something didn’t work for me but I struggle to explain why. I started it, got bored, put it aside, picked it up and got through to the end. The subject matter is interesting – Soviet attitudes to art, creativity and music – the writing is eloquent, weighty and thoughtful, this is Julian Barnes after all. There is some drama as the book opens, a man, the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich, spends another night by the lift in his apartment building, waiting to be arrested. He is afraid for his life, but that fear seemed flat on the page. Like the reader, Shostakovich is left not knowing what is happening. At times it felt like reading an essay rather than fiction, albeit a fictionalised biography. Perhaps it is this fuzzy genre which is at the root of my inertia.
I read on because it is Barnes and because the exploration of music interested me. But I did not care about him. Is this because he was a real person and Barnes is effectively writing a historical novel? I know nothing about Shostakovich and cannot make judgement about the veracity of the portrayal here, but this is not a problem for me when reading a Philippa Gregory novel about a Tudor queen. I trust both authors to get it right but it feels as if Barnes wrote the character of Dimitri with the volume turned down.

Click the title below to read my review of another book by Julian Barnes:-
THE ONLY STORY

If you like this, try:-
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker
‘A History of Loneliness’ by John Boyne
‘The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly’ by Sun-Mi Hwang

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE NOISE OF TIME by Julian Barnes via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Zw

#BookReview ‘Pretty Is’ by Maggie Mitchell #mystery #suspense

2 Replies

This is not your ordinary abduction tale. The truth mingles with re-invention and obfuscation. Pretty Is is a promising debut by Maggie Mitchell, a study in memory, an examination of our ability to move on from difficult experiences, and how today’s celebrity culture makes it impossible to avoid the past. Two 12-year old girls – Louis and Carly May – go missing in separate incidents, they are assumed dead. This is the story of their abduction, their life with their abductor Zed, and more importantly their life afterwards. But is what we are reading the true story, a lie, an embroidered version of what happened, or total fiction?
The story of the girls is told in tandem with what is happening to the adult women today. Both girls tried to move on but inevitably they felt cut off from everyone else so, as adults, they re-invented their pasts, their names, their identities. And so, page by page, the true story of what happened to Lois and Carly May is told. Or is it? Which of the girls is the most reliable story-teller?
Carly May becomes actress Chloe Savage, Lois is a university lecturer but also writes novels under a pseudonym. Both are hiding from the cult of celebrity enabled by the internet’s ability to archive old news, true news, mis-reported news.
Things hot-up when Lois writes a thinly-veiled fictionalised account of their abduction. The novel is made into a film, inevitably Carly May is cast as a detective. The film brings the two women together for the first time andmystery, as well as facing the after effects of their abduction, they must deal with a stalker, Sean, a student too interested in Lois’s background.
Some questions are left unanswered. The motivations of Zed in particular are sketchy. And although there is no doubting the connection forged between the two 12-year old girls, they do seem to accept their abduction rather apathetically.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘Reservoir 13’ by Jon McGregor
‘The Good Girl’ by Mary Kubica
‘Stolen Child’ by Laura Elliot

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview PRETTY IS by Maggie Mitchell http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1U8 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Language of Others’ by Clare Morrall #contemporary

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A young girl who prefers to be alone, who lacks the social skills to have friends, who marries young and rapidly becomes a mother. The Language of Others by Clare Morrall is the intense story of Jessica Fontaine who longs for the air in her house to be hers alone, who manages a difficult marriage and worries about how she is raising her son. This is a story of a lifetime of self-discover and self-acceptance. This description may make the book sound as if nothing happens but it does and, as in any Clare Morrall, subtlety is layered on subtlety. Jessica grows up at Audlands, a country house which is decaying around the family. Her father was a successful chocolate manufacturer and the house a symbol of his success. As he grows older and the company fails, so does the house. Jessica and her sister Harriet grow up side-by-side, loving the house, the dirt and cobwebs, but not really knowing or understanding each other. Only when Jessica discovers the piano does she find freedom.
This is a novel about Asperger’s and the autism spectrum and one woman’s acceptance of her own emotional issues and how they impact and intertwine with the emotional issues of her unpredictable husband Andrew and quiet solitary child Joel. As she grows older, through music and with a supportive friend, Jessica learns the tools to make life easier. ‘Pretence gives you room to get around obstacles without touching them, the space to observe that there are other sides to people, not just the abrasive, challenging attitude that you can’t cope with. You have to view people from new angles, see where the light falls, discover which edges have been worn down and softened with time. Otherwise you get so caught up in the negatives you can’t see anything else.’
There is a lot of wisdom in this book, insights in how to behave – and not behave – within relationships, and how to be forgiving of others.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by Clare Morrall:-
AFTER THE BOMBING
NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
THE LAST OF THE GREENWOODS
THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
THE ROUNDABOUT MAN

Read the first paragraph of ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR here.

If you like this, try:-
THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY by Sebastian Barry
THE LAST RUNAWAY by Tracy Chevalier
GIRL RUNNER by Carrie Snyder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Clare Morrall’s THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS #bookreview via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Pc

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Dead’ by Billy Collins #poetry

#BookReview ‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #familyhistory #crime #genealogy

8 Replies

An unusual hybrid of genealogy and record checking plus amateur detective stuff makes Hiding the Past by Nathan Dylan Goodwin a worthy page turner for a holiday week. Anyone who loves family tree research, and a good crime novel, will like this with its narrative stretching from World War Two to present-day politicians. Within days of taking on a new client, genealogist Morton Farrier knows this case is different: one, his client pays a fee of £50,000 straight into his bank account; two, the client shoots himself in the head. Or does he? Helped by his girlfriend Police Community Support Officer Juliette, Farrier studies the background of his, now dead, client, Peter Coldrick, a study which leads him to two key years: 1944 and 1987. Official records for Coldrick’s descendants have mysteriously disappeared, Morton is being followed by a glossy black 4×4, and it may be his imagination but a usually helpful archives officer is proving difficult to pin down.
Morton is an interesting character, adopted, rubbing along awkwardly with his widowed adoptive father and soldier brother, quick with a sharp word whilst knowing he should be kinder and hating himself for it. I also liked the clear drawing of his setting around the Kent & Sussex towns and villages of Sedelscombe, Rye, Tenterden and Lewes, an area I lived in and loved, Goodwin makes them feel real on the page. This is the first of, at the time of writing, four Morton Farrier novels, so expect to read more about Morton’s own adoption story in future books.

Read my reviews of the next books in the Morton Farrier series:-
THE LOST ANCESTOR #2MORTONFARRIER
THE ORANGE LILIES #3MORTONFARRIER
THE AMERICA GROUND #4MORTONFARRIER

If you like this, try:-
‘In the Blood’ by Steve Robinson
‘Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase’ by Louise Walters
‘The Knife with the Ivory Handle’ by Cynthia Bruchman

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview HIDING THE PAST by Nathan Dylan Goodwin http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1U3 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Murder Room’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

Written in 2003 The Murder Room, the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh crime fiction series by PD James, is preceded by an excerpt from TS Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’:
‘Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.’ Time is a theme layered throughout this book. Its setting is the Dupayne Museum on Hampstead Heath, so historical time is represented by the exhibits at the museum. Time, recently passed, is examined and re-examined as part of the murder investigation. Time future, is represented by the theme of Adam Dalgliesh’s love for Emma and his courtship of her, a path not easy or untroubled.
Like all Dalgliesh novels, murder happens within a tight community. The Dupayne Museum has a small community of owners, staff and visitors. At first glance the victims are not clearly attached to the museum, but this is a James novel: of course they are, we just don’t know how yet.
The murder doesn’t happen for quite a while as James takes her time introducing us to the circle of potential victims and criminals, their connection to the museum and their life outside it. There is an air of the past about it, as if it was written in the thirties, an antidote to modern fast-paced modern crime novels so in itself representing a portrait of changing crime fiction. Time is given to characterization, setting, motivation, and not to dramatic action scenes: more Christie and Sayers than James or Rankin.
In the course of reading The Murder Room, I considered why I enjoy reading detective novels and what I take from them. I like the mystery, the tension of the chase, the fitting together of disparate elements. I do not like violence, graphic sex or language. But most of all, I like the examination of human nature, the contradictions, the surprises, the privacy of the mind laid bare. PD James excels at all of this; she remains my favourite author of crime fiction, and Adam Dalgliesh my favourite detective.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to sample the first paragraph of THE MURDER ROOM.

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And two other books by PD James:-
INNOCENT BLOOD
TIME TO BE IN EARNEST

If you like this, try:-
‘The Shadows in the Street’ by Susan Hill
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison
‘The Truth Will Out’ by Jane Isaac

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MURDER ROOM by PD James via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QP

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Category Archives: book reviews

#BookReview ‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’ by @mc_beaton #cosycrime

#BookReview ‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell #genealogy #crime #mystery

#BookReview ‘The Lighthouse’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’ by Kate Mosse #historical

#BookReview ‘The Noise of Time’ by Julian Barnes #music

#BookReview ‘Pretty Is’ by Maggie Mitchell #mystery #suspense

#BookReview ‘The Language of Others’ by Clare Morrall #contemporary

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Dead’ by Billy Collins #poetry

#BookReview ‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #familyhistory #crime #genealogy

#BookReview ‘The Murder Room’ by PD James #crime

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