Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘In the Blood’ by @SteveRobinson01 #genealogy #mystery

Steve Robinson is a new author for me and In the Blood is the first in his series of novels about American genealogist Jefferson Tayte. I warmed to JT quickly, he’s not a typical hero and seems very real. His assignment – to uncover the truth of what happened to a family who set sail from Boston to England in August 1783 – takes him across the Atlantic to Cornwall. There are two parallel timelines, the ship voyage in 1783 and JT’s trip to England set in the present day. The story weaves back and forth between the two, in fact I enjoyed reading the eighteenth century strand and would have liked more of the Fairbornes’ story. JT’s search, initially for documents, suddenly becomes dangerous when local woman Amy discovers a wooden box. Now Amy’s life is in danger too. But who stands to gain from a mystery 200 years old, and which Cornish locals can JT trust?
At times I wished there was a cast list at the front of the book as I got a little confused between the family connections, but as that is what JT was researching I guess it was inevitable.
If you like reading mysteries, try this. It’s an intriguing mixture of history, mystery, genealogy, set in Cornwall which is a beautiful backdrop. There’s lots about the countryside, Cornish history, wreckers and smugglers.

If you like this, try:-
‘The America Ground’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #4MortonFarrier
‘Tainted Tree’ by Jacquelynn Luben
‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival #1 Esme Quentin

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview IN THE BLOOD by @SteveRobinson01 http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1PM via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Devices and Desires’ by PD James #crime

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Perhaps of all the Adam Dalgliesh books so far, and Devices and Desires is the eighth in the series by PD James, this is the one with the strongest sense of place. The East Anglian coast: a bare, windswept, desolate landscape, its coastline dominated by Larksoken nuclear power station, it is a tight-knit community where there are few secrets and no hiding places. The power station’s staff, its purpose and existence are at the centre of this murder mystery. Dalgiesh’s Aunt Jane has died and he visits her house, which he has inherited, both as a break after the Berowne murder [featured in the previous book, A Taste for Death] and as an opportunity to consider the house and decide whether to sell it or keep it. Meanwhile, the community on the remote coastal headline is being terrorized by a serial killer, The Whistler. And, of course, a few pages into the book, The Whistler kills. Or does he?
This is a magnificent mystery, I challenge anyone to work out the plot twists and turns. But it is not just James’ talent at plotting which sets this book aside from its predecessors. It is thoughtful, considered, and very moving: about death, love, and all the big human emotions.
I wonder how far ahead James planned her books. Reading A Taste for Death, I noticed that Book Four [of seven] is called ‘Devices and Desires’. Evidently James liked the title and used it for this eighth, and she repeats the phrase several times throughout the book: “Here the past and present fused and her own life, with its trivial devices and desires, seemed only an insignificant moment in the long history of the headland.”
I read this book many years ago and still have my original copy [below], I think I prefer this cover design. Read my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAMDALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14 ADAMDALGLIESH

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:-
‘Or The Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster #1MAXCAMARA
‘The Accident’ by CL Taylor
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder

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

#BookReview ‘The House on Cold Hill’ by @PeterJamesUK #ghost

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Is it a crime story, is it a ghost story, is it a thriller? I don’t care, The House on Cold Hill is great. This is the first Peter James book I have read, and I loved it. It is a mystery about a family moving to a new house in the country, then everything starts to go wrong. Have they just bought the wrong house? Bad luck? Co-incidences? Or is someone attacking them, and why? As the oddities become more frequent, Ollie becomes more frantic as the house crumbles, his new business clients are sabotaged, and he fears for his wife and daughter. The tension is handled brilliantly, the first quarter of the book is a slow build as we get to know the family and the house, after that the screw is turned relentlessly. James is a skilled storyteller.
After finishing reading this novel, I discovered that Peter James used his own experience of living in a haunted house. This shows on every page, the things that happen in the house, Ollie’s reactions, the understandable belief that ‘this is not real.’
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

And here’s my review of DEAD SIMPLE, the first in the Roy Grace crime series by Peter James.

If you like this, try:-
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein
‘The Cheesemaker’s House’ by Jane Cable
‘The Quarry’ by Iain Banks

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL by @PeterJamesUK via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1P8

#BookReview ‘Please Release Me’ by @RhodaBaxter #romance

4 Replies

Please Release Me by Rhoda Baxter really grew on me. It was a trifle slow to start with lots of everyday detail, and I wondered where the story was going. And then there is a huge jump and the story flies. I finished reading it on a plane, exactly the right sort of book for my location as I was completely unaware of the time. This is a romantic comedy about tragedy, grief, death and… no, I won’t give away the clever twist. It also questions how well we actually know the person we are closest to. The endpoint of a lot of romantic comedies is a wedding. This book starts with one, and a car accident. We meet Sally, who is marrying Peter. Sally is bright, bubbly, seems manipulative, and has a gambling problem. I can’t say I took to Sally, who is the first character we meet. On the surface this seems a light and fluffy read but there is much more going on. After the accident, Peter recovers but Sally is in a coma. After months of no response from Sally, Peter meets Grace, another hospice visitor. Their relationship triggers all sorts of issues for the three main characters. I think there is more we could know about Peter, IT specialist, and Grace, scientist, and how their jobs shape their personalities and their attitudes to the situation in which they find themselves. I was three-quarters through the book and realized I didn’t know what Grace’s job was, and had to flick back to check.
This is the first of Rhoda Baxter’s books that I’ve read, but will certainly read more.

Here’s my review of another novel by Rhoda Baxter:-
GIRL IN TROUBLE #3SMARTGIRLS

If you like this, try:-
‘Kings and Queens’ by Terry Tyler
‘If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful I Never Would Have Let You Go’ by Judy Chicurel
‘The Other Eden’ by Sarah Bryant

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview PLEASE RELEASE ME by @RhodaBaxter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Np

#BookReview ‘The Ends of the Earth’ by Robert Goddard #WW2 #thriller

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Don’t do what I did, and read the first two books in this series by Robert Goddard and then leave 12 months before reading The Ends of the Earth, the third. Ideally this trilogy should be read back to back, in full sun when sitting on a sunlounger. The story runs along at a cracking pace, with dense plotting, loads of characters, politics, spies and locations from Europe to Japan. The pace of this, the third book, is constant, hardly time to draw a breath. Questions that I had forgotten about from the first book are revisited, challenged and solved. Japan is the scene for the climax of this tale of James Maxted, ‘Max’, and his hunt for the truth about his father’s death. But this is so much more than a single case of murder, on it hangs the future of post-Great War Europe and the twentieth-century relationship of Japan and America. At times things happen which seem a little convenient, a person turns out to have a skill or history of which we knew nothing before, but I forgave Goddard for this. He is a prime storyteller. It is clear he knows his settings – Paris, Marseilles, Switzerland, Japan – and this adds to the verisimilitude.
In this rollicking spy story, Goddard examines the nature of courage. Max finds himself drawing on the type of bravery he needed to survive in the Royal Flying Corps. “He was not surprised by how calm he felt, how undismayed by what lay before him. He had discovered his aptitude for taking risks early in the war. ‘You should be more careful, sir,’ Sam had said to him more than once. And Max had always given the same reply. ‘Being careful is what gets a chap killed.’ Eventually, he had come to believe that. And it was a belief that had served him well. So far.”

Read my reviews of Goddard’s other books:-
THE WAYS OF THE WORLD #1WIDEWORLD
THE CORNERS OF THE GLOBE #2WIDEWORLD
PANIC ROOM
THE FINE ART OF INVISIBLE DETECTION #1UMIKOWADA
THIS IS THE NIGHT THEY COME FOR YOU #1SUPERINTENDENTTALEB

If you like this, try:-
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst
‘Stay Where You Are and Then Leave’ by John Boyne
‘Slow Horses’ by Mick Herron #1SLOUGHHOUSE

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE ENDS OF THE EARTH by Robert Goddard http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1O8 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Stormy Summer’ by @suzy_turner #romance #chicklit

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Stormy Summer is not my usual sort of book. I guess I grew out of chick lit novels four decades ago. But this book made me laugh. So I’ll put a warning up front for the sensitive: the book starts with a sex scene. But don’t let that put you off. Yes, this is a fun read as author Suzy Turner takes her eponymous character Summer on a relationship road trip. For a year she has been manless and therefore sexless, and when she does meet a nice guy it goes wrong for an unexpected reason [I did see this coming, but it still made me smile]. So, Summer and her best friend Gwen fly off to the Algarve for two weeks of intended flirting, laughter and girly gossip. Of course when she isn’t looking for a nice man, she stumbles over one.
Turner is good at writing physical comedy scenes. Summer is a likeable klutz, we all have/had a friend like her at some point in our lives. She is prone to misunderstandings and is rather gullible, accepting the most obvious explanation of a situation rather than thinking ‘what if?’ This is a coming-of-age story, Summer learns to look beyond the surface and look for the less obvious answer.

If you like this, try:-
‘An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy’ by June Kearns
‘The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me’ by Lucy Robinson
‘The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green’ by Shelley Weiner

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview STORMY SUMMER by @suzy_turner via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Nt

#BookReview ‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #crime

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Two men found dead in a church: murder and suicide, or double murder? One a politician, the other a tramp. Because A Taste for Death is a PD James novel we know it is murder, but we don’t know why or who by. A Taste for Death differs from the preceding six in this series because of its length [656 pages], compared with its predecessor Death of an Expert Witness [400 pages]. For this we get extra plot twist and turns, more detail about the potential suspects, more internal monologues, and more of the literary depth which characterizes the later Dalgliesh novels. Some readers will appreciate the extra detail, others may prefer a quicker moving, shorter, crime novel.
The story is book-ended by the meeting and subsequent relationship between Miss Emily Wharton and 10-year old Darren Wilkes. They find the bodies and after that their very human story is lost in the swirl of police procedure and suspicion, accusations and alibis.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh heads up a new squad to solve serious crimes which need sensitive handling. This murder of Sir Paul Berowne, a government minister, is the squad’s first case. On Dalgliesh’s team is John Massingham, familiar from earlier novels, and newcomer Kate Miskin. Miskin’s storyline is a welcome female perspective in a male-dominated job [this book was first published in 1986].
This was the first novel I read, I still have the original paperback [below]. Certainly I have a clear memory of a man called Berowne murdered in a church. It was the beginning of a fondness for Adam Dalgliesh and I have read every one of his series since.

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 Killing Lessons by Saul Black
One False Move by Harlan Coben
No Other Darkness by Sarah Hilary

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

#BookReview ‘A Question of Identity’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

11 Replies

A Question of Identity by Susan Hill starts with a flashback to a trial: a man is found not guilty of three murders. Elderly, vulnerable women. Such is the public outcry that he is given a new identity. This is the seventh book in the successful Simon Serrailler detective series. Lafferton, ten years later. A woman is killed. Elderly, vulnerable, murdered the same way as those three women in 2002. But how can Simon Serrailler track down a villain who doesn’t exist: the man was given a new name, a new face, a new identity and was relocated. But we’re talking about murder, so surely one police department will help another?
This is an intriguing premise, all too believable. As ever with Hill’s novels, this is efficient and chilling. She introduces us to prospective villains, each seems a little questionable: but are we being unfair, reading something into signs that don’t exist, generalising, making assumptions? In parallel with the introduction of prospective villains, we are also shown prospective victims.
Whilst Simon Serrailler deals with this emotional case, his own heart is being pulled between love and guilt, and his sister Cat must manage two warring children.
An excellent tale which keeps the pages turning, an examination of the jury system. When ‘not guilty’ can be the wrong verdict, when ‘with reasonable doubt’ can condemn more vulnerable women. A disturbing take on the efficiency of our justice system.

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘No Time for Goodbye’ by Linwood Barclay
‘The Art of the Imperfect’ by Kate Evans #1SCARBOROUGHMYSTERIES
‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #7ADAMDALGLIESH

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A QUESTION OF IDENTITY by @susanhillwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1CR

#Bookreview ‘Sweet Caress’ by William Boyd #historical #romance

13 Replies

Sweet Caress by William Boyd is a tour through history, via the life story of Amory Clay, photographer, born 1908. In 1977, from Barrandale in Scotland, she looks back at her life from schoolgirl to 1920s Berlin, 1930s New York, pre-war fascist riots in London, France in the Second World War, Vietnam in the Sixties and a hippie commune in California. Boyd uses the same technique that was so successful in Any Human Heart: slipping a fictional character into a grid of true events. It works, again, just. The lines between fact and fiction are satisfactorily blurred, when Amory meets someone new I found myself asking, ‘is this a real person or an invented one?’
I read this book quickly, the drive of historical events pulling me through. I didn’t quite connect with Amory, I’m not sure why. Possibly, because the only viewpoint we see is hers. I never really got why men were drawn to her so. She only sleeps with five men in her life, neatly there is one for each segment of her life. One scene I could have done without, a description of her first lover after sex made me cringe. Boyd is strongest when writing about the war reporting, clearly an interest of his own, and believable.
I am not a photographer so the technical details of cameras passed over my head [I was curious but unconvinced by the black and white photographs which punctuate the pages] but her role as first society photographer, fashion photographer and eventually war photographer does give her an entry into the most dramatic events of the 20^th century. The ending was clever.
A good read, but not his absolute best. I am still a big fan.

Read my reviews of these other William Boyd books:
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE
… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO

If you like this, try:-
‘The Signature of All Things’ by Elizabeth Gilbert
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall
‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SWEET CARESS by William Boyd‪ via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ny

#BookReview ‘Death of an Expert Witness’ by PD James #crime

19 Replies

What a great title. Ask most people to name a PD James novel, and this is probably it. Death of an Expert Witness has a gloriously convoluted plot surrounding a Fens village, a forensic science laboratory, and a tightly-knit community linked in ways the reader cannot forsee. The clues are there but each is so fleetingly mentioned, so parsimonious, and so intertwined, that you will forget each and discount its importance. When the senior biologist at Hoggatt’s Laboratory is found dead, New Scotland Yard is called in. Commander Adam Dalgliesh arrives with Detective Inspector John Massingham; it is not the easiest of working partnerships, another layer of grit added to the oyster.
PD James’ observations are at times heart-rending. Of a victim’s elderly father: “The old man sat there, staring straight ahead. His hands, with the long fingers like those of his son, but with their skin dry and stained as withered leavers, hung heavily between his knees, grotesquely large for the brittle wrists.”
The technical detail, at which James is always so reliable, is interleaved here with the writing style I associate with the later Dalgliesh books. On his way to interview a bereaved relative, Dalgliesh stands on high ground and looks towards Hoggatt’s Laboratory. “Under the turbulent painter’s sky, with its changing clusters of white, grey and purple cumulus clouds massing against the pale azure blue of the upper air, and the sunlight moving fitfully across the fields and flittering on roofs and windows, it looked like an isolated frontier outpost, but welcoming, prosperous and secure. Violent death might lurk eastwards in the dark fenlands, but surely not under these neat domestic roofs.” But regular crime readers know that is exactly where crime lurks.
Dalgliesh’s observations, about the process of life and death, the motivation of murder, the role of life of art, of religion, of poetry, are becoming denser in the transition which elevated PD James’ books from crime fiction to literary fiction. There is so much more in her books than murder. “Death, thought Dalgliesh, obliterates family resemblance as it does personality; there is no affinity between the living and the dead.”

Read my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAMDALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
DEVICES AND DESIRES #8ADAMDALGLIESH
ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH … read the first paragraph HERE
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH …read the first paragraph HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH

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 Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘The Guest List’ by Lucy Foley
‘The Mystery of Three Quarters’ by Sophie Hannah #3POIROT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ff via @SandraDanby

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

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

Tag Archives: book review

#BookReview ‘In the Blood’ by @SteveRobinson01 #genealogy #mystery

#BookReview ‘Devices and Desires’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘The House on Cold Hill’ by @PeterJamesUK #ghost

#BookReview ‘Please Release Me’ by @RhodaBaxter #romance

#BookReview ‘The Ends of the Earth’ by Robert Goddard #WW2 #thriller

#BookReview ‘Stormy Summer’ by @suzy_turner #romance #chicklit

#BookReview ‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #crime

#BookReview ‘A Question of Identity’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

#Bookreview ‘Sweet Caress’ by William Boyd #historical #romance

#BookReview ‘Death of an Expert Witness’ by PD James #crime

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