This week has been full of unexpected demands on my time, with necessary but tiresome appointments falling into my diary almost daily. I felt like I should be wearing a t-shirt saying, ‘I’d rather be reading‘ except everyone was actually being helpful. It’s just that real life can be such a distraction. I finished fewer books than I’d planned and different books that I’d planned and escaped into more book buying than was probably sensible.
Anyway, here’s what’s been happening this week and what’s up next.
The week started well with an entertaining spy novel and then fell prey to limited time and a low tolerance for serious topics. I ran out of patience with a book I’d spent a few weeks trying to read. I added a lightweight Science Fiction novella only to be surprised by how unrelentingly gory it was.
Sigh!
Next week will be better. Right?
‘The Searcher‘ (2020) is the first book in Tana French’s new series about Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago PD Detective who has left his old life, his ex-wife and his daughter behind to make a new start in rural Ireland where he speaks peace by renovating a dilapidated cottage. Cal, slowly – very slowly – moving as cautiously as you might when you don’t want to spook a wild animal, strikes up a relationship with a teenage boy who clearly wants something but Cal doesn’t know what. Eventually (after hours spent describing carpentry and small talk and visits to the local convenience store and some evenings in the local pub) the boy tells Cal that his brother is missing and he’d like Cal to look for him.
It took me nearly four hours to get to this point in the audiobook. Half an hour later, Cal is still thinking about whether this is something he wants to do.
This is a well-written novel with many strengths but the pace was too glacial for me. I reluctantly gave up at 30%.
My review is HERE.
‘The Spy Coast‘ (2023) surprised me. I knew it was about retired spies so, I’d expected something borderline cosy witholder folks showing that they still have enough tricks up their sleeves to deal with problems. What I got was a proper spy thriller spanning decades and continents with nothing particularly cosy about it. There were execution-style killings, betrayals, kidnapping, a significant body count and a rising sense of threat.
The story starts with Maggie Bird in her guise as a retiree turned chicken farmer in rural Maine and then cuts back decades to when she was working as a CIA operative. As the plot moves between the two timelines, it reveals how Maggie came to be in Maine, the price she paid for her former career and why someone now seems determined to kill her.
It was a solid, character-driven spy thriller with some touches of humour, mostly generated by how Maggie and her friends (who are also ex-CIA) run rings around the earnest and resourceful local sheriff.
I already have the sequel, ‘The Summer Guests‘ (2025) on my shelves and I hope to get to it soon.
I picked up ‘Killing Gravity‘ (2017) as an ‘included in your membership‘ free read from Audible. It’s a Science Fiction novella that kicks off the Voidwitch trilogy. It’s a space opera novella about a woman who, as a child, was turned into a weapon. She’s been altered to harness and amplify her latent talent for telekinesis so that she can manipulate gravity.
It was an entertaining read but a gorily violent one with gravity being used to squelch large numbers of people. They were all bad guys and many of them were tring to capture or kill our void witch but that didn’t make the result any less messy. It worked as a fast-paced, action-packed adventure but I thought the bad guys were corporate villain / mad scientist clichés and the void witches ever expanding abilities lessened some of the tension while increasing the blood splatter.
I’ve been comfort buying books this week. I think they’re all good books. Two continue crime series that I’m already reading. Three are new releases that caught my eye. The remainder are bundles of Science Fiction novels by an author who I last read more than fifty years ago.
A grand old London hotel.
A series of alarming coincidences.
Danger lurking down every corridor.
Impeccable service. Luxurious rooms. Eccentric guests. There are worse places for Canon Pennyfather to find himself stranded than Bertram’s Hotel.
But when he gets his dates in a muddle and attempts to travel to Lucerne a day too late, he unwittingly sets off a violent chain of events.
And Miss Marple is convinced there is more going on than meets the eye.
‘At Bertram’s Hotel’ (1965) is the novel my Agatha Christie group will be reading in May. It’s a Jane Marple mystery that I’ve been looking forward to ever since we started to read through Christie’s novels in their order of publication. I haven’t read it before. I saw the television adaptation, starring Joan Hickson in 1987 and it made a big impression on me. I loved seeing Jane Marple remembering her youth. Most Jane Marple audiobooks are narrated by Emila Fox. This is narrated by Stephanie Cole. I looking forward to hearing how she approaches it.
Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living.
As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live.
As soon as I read the blurb for ‘I See You’ve Called In Dead‘ (2025) I knew I’d stumbeld on to something good. I pressed the buy button immediately after I listened to the audiobook sample. This is my kind of humour. And it’s about death. What’s not to laugh about?
Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1983.
Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Her mother likes to bring conversation back to the War, although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter. At the end of a visit, she reports ‘the usual desire to kill’.
‘The Usual Desire To Kill‘ (2025) is another humorous new releae. This time it’s a very English story with humour based on the realities of being married for a very long time. AND it’s read by Harriet Walter, who I think is the perfect choice.
Abigail uprooted her life to move to Soap Lake, Washington. A once-popular tourist destination, the town is now home to a dwindling population and the menacing shadow of an urban legend.
With her husband away on a work trip, Abigail is alone when a young boy emerges from the desert scrub, catatonic and covered in blood. His mother, Esme, lies stabbed to death in a nearby car.
When Abigail discovers Esme was a local woman who moved away after a series of tragedies, she is compelled to find answers. Esme’s is not the only mysterious death this town has witnessed.
But her search attracts unwanted and dangerous attention. Drawn into a complex web of conspiracies and violence, Abigail will learn that the smallest towns can hide the biggest secrets.
When I reviewed Matthew Sullivan’s debut novel, ‘Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore‘ (2017), I wrote that I was looking forward to his next book. Well, here it is. It’s been a long time coming but I have high hopes of it.
When Sheriff Bree Taggert discovers the body of a young woman floating near the bank of the Scarlet River, a note in her abandoned car suggests suicide. The autopsy reveals a different story. Holly Thorpe was dead long before she dropped off the bridge and hit the water.
As Bree and her investigator Matt Flynn delve into the case, secrets in Holly’s personal life complicate their efforts to solve the murder. Holly left behind a volatile marriage, an equally divisive relationship with her sister, and an employer whose intimate involvement with Holly was no secret. Each one has a motive for murder.
When Holly’s sister is terrorized by a stalker’s sick prank, and the prime suspect turns up dead, everything Bree was sure of is upended and her case goes off the rails. When the killer strikes close to home, Bree and Matt must race to solve the murders before one of their own becomes the next victim.
‘Drown Her Sorrows’ (2025) is the third Bree Taggart book. I’m planning on reading it in May. I’ve added it now because Amazon were selling the ebook for £0.99.
Impoverished and without hope, Naill Renfro sells himself into indentured servitude, and is transported across the galaxy to the far-off jungle world of Janus. Naill hopes to work off his debt and begin his life again. But the harsh masters of Janus are destroying the priceless treasures of the planet’s ancient culture—and when Naill, entranced by the beauty of an alien artifact, is caught trying to hide it, he is exiled and left to die in the jungle.
But Naill inexplicably begins to remember another life, in another time—a time when he was not human, but something else-, a native of this world, in the days before its civilization fell. And he is not the only one. . . . Embarking on a quest to find his alien heritage, Naill will discover the mysterious source of his strange new memory, and the fate of the others of his kind. And when he does, he will defend his newfound people against the human and alien invaders despoiling their world!
Collected here in one amazing omnibus edition are twelve complete novels and two bonus short stories. Included are:
‘Plague Ship,’
‘Voodoo Planet,’
‘The Gifts of Asti,’
‘The People of the Crater,’
‘Ralestone Luck,’
‘The Time Traders,’
‘The Defiant Agents,’
‘Key Out of Time,’
‘Ride Proud, Rebel!,’
‘Rebel Spurs,’
‘Storm Over Warlock,’
‘Star Hunter,’
‘Star Born,’
‘All Cats are Gray.’
It may look like I’ve bought two books by Andre Norton but their both bundles so I’ve actually fourteen novels by Andre Norton. Why would I do that? A mixture of nostalgia and curiosity. It srated when I saw this post on the Dragon Rambles book blog
I couldn’t believe that Andre Norton has already been dead for twenty years. Perhaps it should have made me feel old but instead it reminded me of how I would lose myself completely in her books when I was in my early teens way back in the 1970s. So I went looking for her books, wanting to see whether I could recapture the magic. It’s not my fault that it was cheaper to buy fourteen books in two bundles than it was to buy three standalone novels.
This week, I’m going to doing a couple of long train journeys so I’m hoping to read four books rather than three. I’ve picked light reads as I know I’ll need the smiles.
Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan.
But when Alfie Risby, Dylan’s bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence has to get her act together, find the missing boy and clear her son’s name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn’t have any detective skills, she’s not exactly popular at the school gates and she’s just found Alfie’s backpack hidden under Dylan’s bed…
‘All The Other Mother’s Hate Me‘ (2025) is a newly released debut novel AND it’s a dark comedy, so this is definitely a risk BUT the premise and the title have me hooked so I have to give it a try.
A big-city journalist joins the staff of a small-town paper in cottage country and finds a community full of secrets . . . and murder.
Cat Conway has recently returned to Port Ellis to work as a reporter at the Quill & Packet. She’s fled the tattered remains of her high-profile career and bad divorce for the holiday town of her childhood, famous for its butter tarts, theater, and a century-old feud.
One of Cat’s first assignments is to interview legendary actor Eliot Fraser, the lead in the theater’s season opener of Inherit the Wind. When Eliot ends up dead onstage on opening night, the curtain rises on the sleepy town’s secrets. The suspects include the actor whose career Eliot ruined, the ex-wife he betrayed, the women he abused, and even the baker he wronged. With the attention of the world on Port Ellis, this story could be Cat’s chance to restore her reputation. But the police think she’s a suspect, and the murderer wants to kill the story-and her too. Can Cat solve the mystery before she loses her job or becomes the next victim of a killer with a theatrical bent for vengeance?
Canadian small town amateur sleuth AND a theatre setting. How could I resist, especially when it was recommended by a reviewer I trust? I’m hoping this will be the start of a set of comfort read cosy mysteries.
New sheriff Bree Taggert is called to a shooting in a campground shuttered for the winter. But she arrives to find a perplexing crime. There is no shooter, no victim, and no blood. No one but Bree believes the sole witness, Alyssa, a homeless teenager who insists she saw her friend shot.
Bree calls in former deputy Matt Flynn and his K-9 to track the killer and search for Alyssa’s friend. They discover the battered corpse of a missing university student under the ice in Grey Lake—but it’s not the victim they were looking for.
When two more students go missing and additional bodies turn up, Bree must find the link between the victims. She knows only one thing for certain: the murders are fueled by rage. When Alyssa disappears, Bree must race against time to find her before her witness becomes another victim
‘‘See Her Die‘ (2020) is the second Bree Taggert book. The first one worked well as a standalone and as a set up for a series so I’m hoping I’ll be reading one of these a month until I run out.
“He thinks he’s a wizard,” they said.
For five grand a month and a million-dollar chaser, Roger Mulligan didn’t care how crazy the old geezer was. All he had to do was keep Joseph Perry Shackleford alive and keep him from squandering the estate for a year.
But they didn’t tell him about the pixies.
I picked up ‘The Wizard’s Butler’ (2021) as the second book in an audible.com two-for-one sale. I thought of it as a freebie that I could take a risk with. I like the title and the quiet humour in the sample. It seems to be a slice-of-life book with the focus on a character who would normally be mostly behind the scenes in a fantasy novel – I’m thinking a Batman story with Alfred as the main character. Tom Taylorson won the2021 Voice Arts Award, Audiobook Narration — Fantasy. for his narration, so I’m hoping this will be an engaging audiobook. It’s listed as Book 1 but there’s no sign of a sequel yet.
Mike Finn's Fiction 
I’m kinda proud that my post caused you to buy 14 books 🙂.
I haven’t read any of the books in your bundles yet, though I have about half of the ones in the second bundle. I don’t have any Janus books yet, but that premise sounds interesting so I’ll start my hunt for them. Andre Norton books are so hard to find here. I know I can resort to ebooks if I have to, but I’ve managed to collect quite a few in paper form, so will keep going.
I’ll look forward to seeing if you enjoy the ones you picked up, and find that magic again.
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