I started off with two very different dystopias. London In Black is a murder mystery coupled to a post plague setting, the plague having been introduced by terrorists via a nerve agent. I was irritated by the detective “tortured by her past”, and I thought the method of alleviating the nerve agent damage was unrealistic even as a near-future technology. Jelly is a climate- change dystopia, set in English coastal waters after a dramatic rise in sea-levels has occurred. This book concerns a group of people trapped on top of a giant jellyfish(!) and their efforts to escape. As a YA novel, it works quite well.
The Trees and Paper Hearts were part of my 6 books of SUMMER challenge ( E and R). I wrote about them in my last post, so I don’t need to discuss them here.
Spook Country is the second in Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy, and was a re-read. Gibson is very very good at taking a sidestep away from present day reality, and this book is a sort-of spy thriller woven around with money-laundering, virtual-reality art and Latinx-Russian gangs. I have a soft spot for Milgrim, the addict anti-hero. Gibson is one of my favourite authors, and I highly recommend this book, and the rest of the trilogy.
Black Summer is an early book in the Washington Poe series of crime novels. I am not reading these in any particular order, and although there is a long story arc in the series, I find I’m happy dipping in and out of it in the wrong order. Some readers might not be. In this book, a convicted murderer manages to get his conviction overturned and in the process frames Poe for the original murder. It is complicated but has a satisfying ending
I was drawn to Riceyman Steps because it is set quite close to where I lived as a young child, and although the time period covered in the book is well before I was born, some of the events happen in places that were still around in my childhood. Most of them are gone now, but the steps themselves still remain. The story is a sad one, covering just one year of the life of the characters, who are ordinary people living quite hard ordinary lives.
Finally, we come to The Phantom of the Opera and Maskerade. I admit to seeing the Lloyd Webber “Phantom” musical and being fairly unimpressed by it. I approached the Leroux novel with trepidation because I am not really a horror fan. Readers, this is not really a “horror” novel, but it is certainly a high gothic mystery. It left me wondering how this story had been turned into that musical, although the central love triangle was important in both. I was much more interested in the mechanics of the crimes than in the characters themselves and I found Christine to be particularly irritating. I wasn’t entirely shocked that someone quite innocent was killed by the falling chandelier. In the Pratchett version, Christine is relegated to the ranks of minor characters, after a mixup with rooms leads to someone else getting the Phantom’s tuition. There is no love story in this version, but some excellent descriptions of how the Opera machine works. This being Pratchett, there are witches and an ape librarian/organist and many many many many puns. Pratchett’s chandelier doesn’t fall.
Kin is a historical crime novel, set in a Viking homestead, where the “detective” is the adopted daughter of the household. It is a “closed” murder, where victim and perpetrator are members of the same family, and where inheritance plays an important part. I liked this a lot.
This book has a lot of mathematics in it, but it is also a story of Holocaust survival, albeit in a way that involves a little magical realism. There is a good recipe for cauliflower, too. It sounds weird, and it is, but it is a readable little novella, and a fitting one for Holocaust Memorial Day, which fell this week.
I have read several of Haddon’s books, and liked them, but The Porpoise is very different from any of them. It is sort-of the story of Apollonius, with a surrounding of a modern-day incest story and a sprinkling of Shakespeare’s Pericles for good measure. I didn’t know that the plot featured incest and child abuse so prominently, or I wouldn’t have chosen this book. It wasn’t what I would call an enjoyable read. But the time-jumping concept was clever, and the bad guys do get their comeuppance in various ways.
This was a sweet little standalone featuring a forensic archaeologist, although there isn’t much of either archaeology or forensics going on. It has whetted my appetite for the characters though, so expect to see more of Elly Griffiths in my future blogs.
Machines Like Me is quite a nasty tale about artificial intelligence and its interface with humans. The premise is old, but the treatment here is new and interesting. No spoilers, because this is a new book, but there are obviously robots involved, and there is also a slight divergence from real history into an alternate timeline. Enjoyable, even if you don’t like any of the characters.
I like a murder mystery. And I have a special soft spot for Russian policemen. I haven’t read any of Kaminsky’s other books (yet), but Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov has definitely found a place on my list of favourite cops. The story is a straightforward police procedural, but I don’t have a problem with that.
Five Little Pigs was one of my advent calendar books. The idea was that each day, I read the free sample of the suggested book (available on the kindle store), and if I liked it, I added the book to my wish list. In this case, I was able to download an audiobook from the library, so I enjoyed a bit of Agatha while wrapping Christmas presents.
Another advent calendar book. This one had already been on my list for a while. It isn’t great literature, but it is light and funny, and was made into a film a while ago.
Tenth Of December was my normal calendar book. This one is short stories, full of pretty unpleasant people, which could be called quirky, or even downright weird. There were no really satisfactory endings to the stories, but that seems to be Saunders’ style. A disturbing read, not for bedtime.
Another advent calendar book, and I did read it after the day 10 book. This one was strange, a ghost story and a murder mystery. It was quite clever, and the end is satisfying, but it flouts a lot of ghost story conventions in order to get there.
A divergence from my usual choices. I had never read any Dylan Thomas stories, despite having quite a liking for his poetry. This was lovely, and I was so pleased to hear all the Welsh voices reading it. Richard Burton as the narrator was the icing on the cake.
Finally, I have finished Moby Dick. This is an enormous achievement, and I pat myself on the back. But seriously, this is an excellent version, each chapter read by a different person, including the inspired choices of Rick Stein and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for the two “culinary” chapters. I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who hasn’t read the book. Find it here: 
Have I mentioned that I like a crime story? This little collection has three stories, all good ones, although only one is a “proper” Maigret story. A nice addition to my deep-midwinter bookshelf.
Neil Gaiman is a master at graphic novel writing, and this one piqued my interest. On the surface, it looks like a Sherlock Holmes mystery, but there are some BIG twists. No spoilers.
And to end my year’s reading, another Neil Gaiman graphic novel. This is a very adult retelling of Snow White. Definitely not for children.
musings 