I’ve been distracted this week. I’m going to blame disrupted sleep caused by high humidity but I think there’s also an underlying restlessness that I’m going to have to deal with.

This was a week with more book buying than book reading, and more books started than finished. The reading I managed to do was very rewarding but I just don’t seem to have the focus to read (or write) as much as I’d like to

Anyway, here’s what’s been happening this week and what’s up next.

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This week, I’ve read two startlingly good books, both thrillers, both original, compelling and well-written. One has just been published, the other was published in 1967. The third book was a sort of palette cleanser, two short stories from a fantasy world that I always enjoy visiting. 

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.
Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. She’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.
Until, on the night of Halloween, Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.
She suffers a catastrophic brain injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, she’ll suffer a deadly aneurysm.
Jet never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her ex-best friend turned sister-in-law, her former boyfriend.
She only has seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:
Jet is going to solve her own murder.

I hadn’t expected ‘Not Quite Dead Yet’ (2025) to be such a powerfully emotional book. I’d thought that it would be plot/puzzle focused with a gimmick of ‘see how clever I was to solve my own murder?’ At first, that’s what it seemed to be, but that was mostly a story the Jet was telling herself to keep her imminent death from feeling real. 

There is a clever plot, with lots of secrets to uncover and suspects to investigate, but, for me, the most remarkable part of the book was watching Jet come to understand all that she was going to lose when she died. In the few intense days she spends investigating her murder, she finally starts to embrace her life. 

What prevented this from being saccharine was that Jet wasn’t a particularly nice person. She was clever, was often funny was loved by some of the people around her. She was also unconscious of her own privilege, careless of the emotions of others and driven so much by a concept of what she thought her life ought to be that she paid little attention to what it actually was. 

This is a deeply sad book, filled with tragedy, waste, guilt, selfishness and anger. It’s not a story you can hold at arm’s length. 

‘Hazards Of The Establishment’ (2025) contains two short stories that Kim Watt gave away free to her readers. Both stories are set in The Blighted Basilisk, the pub in the Folk version of York, that I read about in the latest DI Adams book, ‘A Right Shambles In York‘ (2025). I had fun with both stories, partly for their content and partly because they felt like a Backstage Pass to Kim Watt’s imagination. It seemed to me that these are the sort of pieces a writer writes when they want to imagine their world and their characters in more depth, free from the burden of a novel-length plot. If you’re a fan, like me, these stories are a delight. 

Gipsy’s Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea – and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy. There, amongst the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a girl and live happily ever after. Yet, as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land. For this was the place where accidents happened. Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals’ warnings: ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre.’ Michael Rogers is a man who is about to learn the true meaning of the old saying ‘In my end is my beginning.’

GoodReads provided these snippets of information about ‘Endless Night‘
The title Endless Night was taken from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence and describes Christie’s favourite theme in the novel: a “twisted” character, who always chooses evil over good.
Christie finished Endless Night in six weeks, as opposed to the three-four months that most of her other novels took. Despite being in her seventies while writing it, she told an interviewer that being Michael, the twenty-something narrator, “wasn’t difficult. After all, you hear people like him talking all the time.”
The book is dedicated to Christie’s relative “Nora Prichard from whom I first heard the legend of Gipsy’s Acre.” Gipsy’s Acre was a field on the Welsh moors.

I’m still thinking about how to review ‘Endless Night‘ without including spoilers. For now, I’ll just say that I think it’s one of Christie’s best books. It was original, modern and surprising. In a blind test, I wouldn’t have guessed this was Christie’s work (except for how twisty the plot is). It felt more like something written by Patricia Highsmith. It was a really good read. That Christie could, in her seventies, write such a compelling story entirely as a first-person account by a twenty-something Englishman is a mark of her skill.

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This week, I bought six books, twice as many as I read. I started to rationalise this by reminding myself that I got four of the books in Audible’s ‘two books for one credit’ sales. Then I decided I didn’t need to rationalise anything. I bought the books because they appealed to me and I’m looking forward to reading them one day. In the meantime, I’m just glad they’re there. They’re a mixed bag of books in terms of genre. Five of the six authors are new to me. Two of them are humorous. One is historical fiction, with claims to being Literature. One is an End Of The World As We Know It piece of speculative fiction. One is a Canadian crime novel  and one is a just published horror novel. I’ve tagged the last three as books I might read for Halloween Bingo.

London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis – a curious, obsessive boy – she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge.
On arrival, rumours reach them that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for superstition, is enthralled, convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a yet-undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter’s vicar, who is also deeply suspicious of the rumours, but thinks they are a distraction from true faith.
As he tries to calm his parishioners, Will and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves at once drawn together and torn apart, affecting each other in ways that surprise them both.

‘The Essex Serpent‘ (2016) made a huge splash when it was published. Initially a word-of-mouth hit, it went on to win the British Book Awards for 2016 Book of the Year and Waterstones Book of the Year 2016. I had it on my radar for a while, but never got around to it. I picked it up as part of an Audible 2-for-1 sale.

Historical fiction is very hit or miss for me. This one seems to have retained a fan base. It has sold over 350,000 copies, and a TV adaptation starring  Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston appears to be in production. 

The sea never forgets. The sea never forgives…
Scuttler’s Cove is a working village, nestling in dramatic coastal scenery in Cornwall, where life has gone on uninterrupted for centuries… until this seaside idyll was discovered by the rich.
Now the quaint harbour-front cottages have been snapped up by second-homers and rental companies, and the locals can barely afford to live in their own town.
It is a very different place for Merrin Moon, who left for university at the age of eighteen and never looked back. Now in her thirties, she returns to the Cove for the first time since, after the death of her mother.
She soon discovers that there are forces at play in the village that she could never have imagined. Is someone trying to drive out the second homers? And has their arrival started a chain of events none of them will be able to stop?
For something old and terrible is awakening beneath the town’s hallowed ground. And with it comes a horror that the residents have fought for generations to keep a secret.

Nat Cassidy is a new author for me. I’ve being seeing good reviews of his horror novels for some time now. I decided to order his latest novel ‘When The Wolf Comes Home‘ (2025) because the premise sounds original and the cover is simply gorgeous. I’m stowing this away to be one of my Halloween Bingo books.

Lai Zhen is about to die. As an Internet-famous survivalist, she’s spent her life prepping for the end of the world. But now, desperate and cornered in a mall in Singapore, she’s mad she might go out not knowing what the hell is going on. If she makes it out alive, what kind of a future will be waiting for her?
Across the world, Martha Einkorn works the room at a gathering of mega-rich companies hell-bent securing a future just for them. Covert weapons, private weather, technological prophecy, when Martha fled her father’s compound she may have left the cult behind, but if the apocalyptic warnings of his fox and rabbit sermon are starting to come true, how much future is actually left?Martha and Zhen’s worlds are about to collide. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha’s relentless drive and Zhen’s insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful … or the cataclysmic end of civilization.

A single line from the publisher sold ‘The Future’ (2023) to me:

*…a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.”

I so wish someone would do that before these narricisitc megalomaniacs succeed in destroying democracy everywhere.

Very pregnant and not quite married, Jenny Harris doesn’t mind that she and her live-in fiancé, Dean, accidentally started their family a little earlier than planned. But Dean is acting distant, and the night he runs out for cigarettes and doesn’t come back, he demotes himself from future husband to sperm donor. And the very next day, Jenny goes into labor.
In the months that follow, Jenny plunges into a life she never anticipated: single motherhood. At least with the sleep deprivation, sore boobs, and fits of crying (both hers and the baby’s), there’s not much time to dwell on her broken heart. Then things start looking up: Jenny learns how to do everything one-handed, makes friends in a mommy group, and even gets to know a handsome, helpful neighbor. But Dean is never far from Jenny’s thoughts or, it turns out, her doorstep, and in the end she must choose between the old life she thought she wanted and the new life she’s been lucky to find.

This was in a sale. I liked the title and the cover, so it seemed worth rolling the dice and trying a new author.

In the Barrens, a vast wilderness in northern Canada bordering the Arctic Circle, night consumes every hour of the winter. Humans are scarce; ferocious predators roam freely. Locals say spirits do, too.
Rookie cop Tana Larsson doesn’t mind the dark and quiet. Five months pregnant and hoping to escape the mistakes of her past, she takes a post in Twin Rivers, population 320. Maybe here she can find peace and community for her child.
But with her superior out of commission, Tana becomes the sole police officer in 17,500 square miles. One bitter night, she gets a call about the fatal wolf mauling of two students, and the only way to reach the remote scene is to enlist the help of the arrogant, irritatingly handsome Cameron “Crash” O’Halloran, a local bush pilot with a shady reputation for smuggling and a past cloaked in shadow.
When the macabre scene they uncover suggests violence much more sinister than animal, Tana must trust Crash if she wants to protect the town—and herself—from the evil that lurks in the frozen dark.

I’m picking up Canadian Crime novels by following a blogger who’s summer reading challenge is ‘Murders Across Canada’. For some reason that makes sense only to publishers’ legal teams, it’s not always easy to get digital versions of Canadian books in the UK, but Loreth Anne White’s books are available. She’s originally from South Africa but has lived in Canada for many years. I’m hoping this standalone novel will give me that cold north feel as well as a good thriller. 

When psychic travel agent Leda Foley is approached by a man searching for his sister, she quickly agrees to help. The missing woman disappeared with a vintage orange car, a fat sack of her employer’s cash, and a grudge against her philandering husband—a man who never even reported her missing.
Meanwhile, Seattle PD detective Grady Merritt has temporarily misplaced his dog. While he’s passing out bright pink “Lost” flyers at the Mount Rainier visitor’s center, the wayward pooch appears—with a human leg in his mouth.
Thanks to DNA matching, Grady learns that the leg has something to do with Leda’s new client, and soon the two cases are tangled.
Theories abound, but law enforcement is low on leads. Lucky for Grady, Leda has a few ideas that might just be crazy enough to work. They’ll need one yellow dog, a fair share of teamwork, and perhaps a bit of Klairvoyant Karaoke to piece the clues together in this “undeniable treat” (Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author) of a mystery.

I read ‘Grave Reservations’ (2021) a few years ago. It was a fun read but didn’t leave with a strong desire to read the rest of the series. Still, when I saw ‘Flight Risk‘ (2022) was on sale, I thought I’d give the series another try.

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Next week, I’m reading a light-hearted book that I added last week and two thrillers that I came across in my local library.

When a young woman makes a distressing middle-of-the-night call to 911, apparently running for her life in a quiet, exclusive beachside neighbourhood, miles from her home, everything suggests a domestic incident.
Except no one has seen her since, and something doesn’t sit right with the officers at Hampstead County PD. With multiple suspects and witnesses throwing up startling inconsistencies, and interference from the top threatening the integrity of the investigation, lead detective Casey Wray is thrust into an increasingly puzzling case that looks like it’s going to have only one ending…
And then the first body appears…

Rod Reynolds is a new author to me. I found his books in my local Public Library and thought I’d give them a try. I love the cover. I hope the prose matches up. He’s a Brit author who sets his crime stories in the US. ‘Black Reed Bay‘ (2021) is the first book in his latest series.

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Suspicious deaths on the Skipton city council don’t sound as though they should have anything at all to do with the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute, and DI Adams would rather like to keep it that way. But when the councillor for Toot Hansell becomes the latest victim, Alice Martin, chair of the W.I. and RAF Wing Commander (ret.), steps straight in to take his place.
Before DI Adams can so much as say lemon drizzle cake the ladies of the Women’s Institute are lurking around farmyards in the company of dragons, farmers are vanishing, the invisible dog’s developed a caffeine dependence, and Alice is already in as deep as she can get. In deep, and facing a killer that seems to know far too much about her. Enough, perhaps, to turn the tables….

I’m a fan of Kim Watt’s books, especially the DI Adams series. I originally encountered her in ‘Baking Bad‘ (2018), the first Beaufort Scales book. I was a little disappointed in the third Beaufort Scales book, ‘Manor Of Life & Death’, 2020, so I diverted my attention to DI Adams novels that weren’t focused around the Toot Hansel WI or the Cloverly Dragons. I think I’m ready to go back to Toot Hansel now (at least until the next DI Adams book comes out), and ‘Game Of Scones‘ (2020) is next. 

An old woman in a nursing home speaks of a child buried behind the fireplace…
When Tommy and Tuppence visited an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they thought nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada was a very difficult old lady.
But when Mrs Lockett mentioned a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs Lancaster talked about ‘something behind the fireplace’, Tommy and Tuppence found themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure involving possible black magic…

I read my first Tommy and Tuppence thriller. ‘The Secret Adversary‘ in 2020. Published in 1922, it was Christie’s second novel and I was pleased to find it was a thriller with a young couple who put an advert in the paper saying:

“Two young adventurers for hire. Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer refused.“

And found themselves hired by the British Secret Service to commit acts of derring-do to bring down the bad guys. 

I’ve watched Tommy and Tuppence grow up, get married and have children as Christie revisited them. The short stories in ‘Partners In Crime’ (1929) showed me Tommy and Tuppence, six years into their married life, working seamlessly as a team.  ‘N or M‘ (1940) showed me the couple working against suspected Nazi fifth columnists in wartime England while their grown-up children served in the armed forces.

I’m looking forward to visiting them again in ‘By The Pricking Of My Thumbs’ (1968). They’re now forty-six years older than when I first met them, but Tuppence’s need to find out what’s going on and stop bad guys from triumphing seems undiminished. I think this will be a fun read.