I’ve spent the week walking and reading in Madeira so I’ve chosen an image of a forest walks along a lavada (irrigation channel) for this week’s header image. The weather has been too good and there have been too many things for me to see to do as much reading as i’d expected but here’s what this week’s been like and what’s planned for next week when I return to England’s wet, cold winter.
It’s been a mixed reading week. The two books from crime series that I’m following were both good reads. The two speculative fiction books that I tried both ended up being set aside.
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‘Hannah Green And Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence‘ (2017) is a book that sets out to be odd. It relishes its own flamboyant eccentricity and at first, so did I but, just over a third of the way through the book, I decided to set it aside.
I continued to like Hannah’s precocious perspicacity and her dauntless desire to see the truth of things. I quite liked her grandad, strange though he was. It was the devil I had no sympathy for and as the whole story is about Hannah trying to help him, I started to lose interest in the plot. Once that happened, I stopped seeing the storytelling style as boldy different and just found it too irritating to live with.
My review is HERE
‘Until Thy Wrath Be Past‘ (2008) is the fourth Rebecka Martinsson book. There are only six of them, so I’ve been rationing myself to one a month to avoid binge reading them.
This was the best book yet. The storytelling wasaccomplished. The mystery was engaging, The development of the core cast of characters was convincing.
The most remarkable thing was Larsson’s ability to generate empathy at a deep level: for the person killed, for the investigators and, most surprisingly, for the killer.
The story blended memory and action seamlessly. It added spirituality which seemed natural and human.
It was a book I was sad to finish.
‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side‘ (1962) was the eigth Miss Marple mystery. What I enjoyed the most were the descriptions of Jane Marple coping with being old and being perceived as frail. I liked her reflections on how her village has changed and how resenting some of that change is a sign of being so old and having lived so long in one place.
The mystery was a solid one although I felt that I was dragged down one false trail too many before Jane figured it out. The explanation was a bit of a stretch but I was fascinated by Jane Marple’s reaction to what she discovered. It’s a good job that she’s more interested in solving murders than committing them. She has the mind and the nerve to kill with impunity.
I was hoping that ‘A Usual Suspect‘ (2024) was going to pull me into a new fantasy series. At the start of the book, my head was full of more questions than answers but they were interesting questions. The collective noun for non-humans was Veondkin. My search engine said Veond was a version of Feend in Middle English – an enemy and or a devil. Humans were referred to as Karlen which may be from Old German meaning Freeman. I was intrigued. The plot had a noirish feel and a lot of early action.
Then things started to drag and at 56% I reluctantly set the book aside. I’m sure that there was an interesting story in there somewhere but it wasn’t holding my attention. The prose was too clunky, the worldbuilding was too slow and I was tired of our heroine being kidnapped to move the plot forward.
I hadn’t intended to buy any books this week but Amazon wrecked that plan by making a 70% reduction in the price of two books that have been sitting on my wishlist for a while.
In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims’ families, but its impact travels even further: into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.
From the killer’s childhood town to Texas, Rome and beyond, from the mid-twentieth century to the near-future, Highway Thirteen asks how do communities make sense of such atrocities? How does the mourning of families sit alongside the public fascination with terrible crimes? And can we tell true crime stories without centring the killers? .
It sometimes takes me a long time to get around to reading an author. I’ve had Fiona McFarlane on my ‘Australian Authors I Need To Try’ list since her short story collection ‘The High Places‘ won the 2017 International Dylan Thomas Prize Her lastest book ‘Highway Thirteen‘ caught my attention when it came out last year because it asks some interesting questions about the impact of violent crime and the wide-spread fascination with true crime podcasts.
Refugee, criminal and linguist Sean Wren is made an offer he knows he can’t refuse: life in prison, “voluntary” military service – or salvaging data in a long-dead language from an abandoned ship filled with traps and monsters, just days before it’s destroyed in a supernova. Data connected to the Philosopher’s Stone experiments, into unlocking the secrets of immortality.
And he’s not the only one looking for the derelict ship. The Ministers, mysterious undying aliens that have ruled over humanity for centuries, want the data – as does The Republic, humanity’s last free government. And time is running out.
In the bowels of the derelict ship, surrounded by horrors and dead men, Sean slowly uncovers the truth of what happened on the ship, in its final days… and the terrible secret it’s hiding.
I’m always on the look out for new voices in Science Fiction. American writer, Taran Hunt, debuted with her 600 page space opera ‘The Immortality Thief‘ in 2022. It got great reviews and its linguistics theme tugged at my imagination, so it went on my wishlist – and stayed there. Her sequel ‘The Unkillable Princess‘ goes to press in a few days (11th February) so, when Amazon reduced the price of ‘The Immortality Thief‘ by 70%, it jumped from my wishlist to my TBR pile.
I’m returning to the UK winter after a couple of weeks of sunshine so I know I’m going to need books that help me to escape reality. I’ve picked two book about female assassins in series that I’ve already started (one is meant to be funny, the other more than a little scary) and the first book in what I hope will be a new Urban Fantasy series for me to follow.
No one in Sinful liked Pansy Arceneaux, but who hated her enough to kill her?
When aspiring actress Pansy Arceneaux returns to Sinful, Louisiana to head up the beauty pageant portion of the Summer Festival, CIA assassin Fortune Redding knows she’s in for trouble. Her undercover identity as a former beauty queen makes Fortune the perfect choice to chair the event with Pansy, but Pansy’s abrasive personality makes it impossible to get through a single rehearsal without a fight.
When Pansy turns up dead, Fortune is the prime suspect.
‘Lethal Bayou Beauty‘ (2013) is the second novel about ex-CIA assassin Fortune Redding hiding out under an assumed identity in the small town of Sinful Louisiana. I enjoyed her anarchic adventures in ‘Louisiana Longshot‘ and I’m hoping for more same. This is action-packed escapism with a snarky sense of humour.
Uncompromising. Tenacious. Fiercely intelligent. Ava Lee will follow the money . . . wherever it takes her.
Hired by Tommy Ordonez, the richest man in the Philippines, to recover $50 million in a land swindle, Ava has her work cut out. Tommy’s brother has messed up and the Filipino billionaire’s reputation is on the line.
Tracking the money, Ava uncovers an illegal online gambling ring, and follows the trail to Las Vegas. Once there, she turns her gaze to David Douglas, one of the greatest poker players in the world – and someone who knows more about the missing money than he’s letting on.
Meanwhile, Jackie Leung, an old target of Ava’s, has made it rich. He wants revenge, and he’s going after Ava.
‘The Disciple Of Las Vegas‘ (2011) is the second book about Chinese Forensic Accounant Ava Lee who recovers money from bad people on behalf of other bad people. I first met her nine months ago when I read ‘The Water Rat Of Wanchai‘. I’m looking forward to seeing Ava muscle her way through another challenge.
Life as Aileen knew it ended when she woke up in a morgue sporting a new set of fangs after a wild night out. Now as a courier for the supernatural world, she balances figuring out this whole vampire thing with making enough to support her ice cream habit.
When a job goes disastrously awry and ends with a body on the ground, Aileen finds herself in over her head as she draws the attention of a powerful creature intent on her death.
Aileen will need to separate her allies from her enemies before it’s too late. To survive, she’ll work with a being she swore to avoid at all costs—a powerful vampire who may hold the key to her survival. Or the flame from which her world burns.
‘Shadow’s Messenger‘ (2016) is the first book in the seven-book Aileen Travers Urban Fantasy series. This one is a roll of the dice as I’ve never read T. A. White before. I’m hoping that Aileen Travers will rank alongside Kate Daniels, Mercy Thompson and Jane Yellowrock. Is that too much to ask?
Mike Finn's Fiction 