A good reading week, an even better book buying week.and some exciting books awaiting me over the Easter Weekend.

So, here’s what I’ve read and bought this week and what’s up next.

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This week, I returned to two genre favourites of mine, Science Fiction and Golden Age Mysteries and added a contemporary mystery to add some variety. I was reading ‘firsts’ in both genres. The first Lord Peter Wimsey novel (which was also Dorothy Sayers’ debut novel), the first book in a seven-book sequence of Science Fiction novels by Elizabeth Moon, the first book in the ECHO Science Fiction novels by Kent Wayne, the first book in a mystery series about a vigilante and a very early short story by Agatha Christie.

It was the body of a tall stout man. On his dead face, a handsome pair of gold pince-nez mocked death with grotesque elegance. The body wore nothing else. 

Lord Peter Wimsey knew immediately what the corpse was supposed to be. His problem was to find out whose body had found its way into Mr Alfred Thipps’ Battersea bathroom.

What a difference a narrator makes. I first tried to read ‘Whose Body?’ (1923) back in 2017, but the audiobook was so chaotic that I abandoned it. This time I was listening to the newest audiobook (recorded 100 years after the book was published) narrated by Robert Bathurst, who did a splendid job. He seems to be working his way through Sayers’ novels. I look forward to hearing more from him.

At the start, ‘Whose Body’ felt like Bertie Wooster and Jeeves Do Crime. Sayers was obviously having fun, and so was Wimsey, despite being confronted with a naked body of a stranger in a bath. The book and Wimsey became more serious as what at first seemed like a jolly interesting puzzle was overtaken by the realities of investigating a gruesome murder. 

It was clear that Wimsey wears his dizzy Wooster-like persona as a form of camouflage so that people underestimate him. He also uses it to keep some distance from a case to protect his sometimes fragile mental health. 

I enjoyed the relationship between Wimsey and his valet, Bunter, who was also his batman during World War I. I liked Wimsey’s friendship with Inspector Charles Parker. It was good to see an intelligent, thoughtful policeman in a book about an amateur sleuth. 

The plot was a little elaborate, partly because of a last-minute improvisation by the murderer, but it held together. I thought the murderer was a chilling creation. 

All in all, this was an impressive start to the series and a remarkable debut novel. 

In one of Agatha Christie’s earliest short stories, a plucky young actress must rely on her wits to thwart the machinations of a dark-hearted blackmailer…

‘The Actress’ (1923) was a sliver of a story built around a novel way of frustrating a would-be blackmailer. It was a functional, plot-driven snippet, well-suited to fill a short story slot in a magazine, but its only enduring interest is as an example of Agatha Christie’s early work. 

Ky Vatta is a highly promising military cadet with a great future ahead of her, until an insignificant act of kindness makes her the focus of the Academy’s wrath. She is forced to resign, her dreams shattered.

For the child of a rich trading family, this should mean disgrace on a grand scale. And yet, to her surprise, Ky is offered the captaincy of a ship headed for scrap with its final cargo.

Her orders are absolutely clear, but Ky quickly sees potential profit in altering the journey. Because, whatever the risks, it’s in her blood to trade – even if the currency is extreme danger.

‘Trading in Danger’ (2003) wasn’t on my reading list for this week. I’d meant to sample it so that I could decide whether I wanted to buy it. It got its hooks into me at once, and not only did I read the whole thing, but I bought the rest of the series. This is a fun overcoming-the-odds adventure that twists the Military Sci Fi trope in interesting ways and has an engaging young woman as the lead character. Fast-paced and exciting, with skilful world-building and reasonably well-rounded characters, it kept me turning the pages and left me eager for more. 

In the late 21st century, humanity left Earth due to multiple resource shortcomings aggravated by an acceleration in climate change. They settled Echo, a planet that was nearly a carbon copy of Earth except for being devoid of all but the most basic life forms. 

Fast forward 1200 years later. Echo has endured over a thousand years of dark age. Corporations and government merged early on, becoming the oppressive authority known as the Regime. Military and police merged into the Department of Enforcement, their only mission to crush the huge network of rebels known as the Dissidents. Over half the planet is covered by decaying cityscapes and the elite live high above, removed and remote from the greater populace on the moon-city of Ascension. 

Hope lies in one man, a former Enforcer named Atriya. But before he can break the cycle of darkness and ignorance on Echo, he has to do it within himself.

‘Echo Volume 1: Approaching Shatter’ (2015) was an original take on Dystopian Military Science Fiction. The main character is an unusual mix of focused, practised brutality, strong personal discipline, and a deeply introspective turn of mind. As a professional soldier, he has an almost obsessive interest in weaponry but only as a tool to achieve his goals, not as a fetish object or an extension of his personality. He’s the embodiment of a Be All That You Can Be attitude. His strong desire to excel, to push himself hard enough to reach the next level, sits uncomfortably with his increasing doubt about whether the current path is the right one and his anxiety about his plateauing ability. His admiration for military discipline is combined with a disdain for those who abuse power. Beneath all of that, he has an awareness of your own lethality and slowly emerging questions about what that means about his identity. It seemed to me that he leant toward Amor Fata, embracing his fate, but first he had to work out what his fate is. He has begun to understand that he has been honed into a weapon by a regime he no longer believes in.

Although this was published in 2015, it seemed to me that it perfectly captured the rancid culture of a military led by someone like Pete Hegseth. His rabid rantings would fit right into this story. Even his twisting of Christian doctrine to have a vengeful god on his side fits in the clique of officers in the book who worship a version of a deity called The Judge.

For me, part of the power of the novel came from how clearly it painted the battle-hardened Atriya’s contempt for and puzzlement at that kind of toxic leadership.

This was more a Pilot Episode for a series than a complete novel but it succeeded in getting me to sign-up for the rest of the series

My review is HERE

One of Joy Humbolt’s dog walking clients turns up dead and she begins to look into the crime, first out of curiosity and then out of anger. As she digs deep into the secrets of Manhattan’s elite, Joy gets too close to the killer with disastrous consequences.

‘Unleashed’ (2011) is the origin story of Sydney Rye, private detective/secret vigilante. It starts when she was Joy Humbolt, a twenty-something woman living in Manhattan, who, while trying to reshape her life after breaking up with her long-time lover and being fired from her job as a barrister. takes a job as a dog walker and gets embroiled in a murder investigation after one of her dogs finds a corpse. I liked the start of the book. The middle sagged, and I thought about setting the book aside.. I’m glad I didn’t because the book hit its stride in the final 30%, and the series shows promise.

My review is HERE

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I bought elevn books this week. I know, it’s a lot. Who buys more than one book a day? Well, me when I find some series that I like and when the books are on sale. I’m going to use seven of these books to fuel a Science Fiction Summer reading challenge to read twenty Science Fiction books between now and the end of August.

Anyway, here’s what I bought:

• ‘Karen Russell’s The Antidote’ (2025), an historical fiction novel with a dash of magical realism set in the Depression-ear Nebraska;
• ’A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage’ (2025), a Women Who Kill novel that I’m hoping will be darkly amusing;
• ’A Red Death’ (1991), the second Easy Rawlins novel. I enjoyed the first one ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ in 2023 and )’ve been meaning to get back to the series ever since;
• ’Sleep Road’(2026), the latest novel by Sarah J Naughton who wrote the ‘Becoming Sherlock’ trilogy;
• All the books in Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War and Vatta’s Peace’ series (most of them where on sale, honest);
• ‘Wool’ (2011) and ‘Shift’ (2013) the first two books in Hugh Howey’s Silo trilogy, the basis for Apple TV’s Silot series.

Yes, I bought seven Elizabeth Moon novels this week. I can explain. I’ve been on the look out for Elizabeth Moon novels since I read ‘Remnant Population’ (1996) last summer so, when I saw ‘Cold Welcome’ (2017), the first book in a series called ‘Vatta’s Peace’, on sale at £0.99 I took a look. It sounded like my kind of thing but I found that the main character been the lead in ‘Vatta’s War’, a five-book series that Elizabeth Moon published between 2003 and 2008. I began the first book ‘Trading in Danger’ and knew that it was the sort of book that I’d stay up deep into the night to read. So, I bought the rest of the Vatta’s War and the Vatta’s Peace books. I’m hoping to read them at the rate of one a week during April and May.

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This week, I’m reading a portal fantasy novel, a novel about Canadian sports journalis who is the son of a professional hockey player and a military Sci Fi novel. For me, the strangest of those is the hockey novel.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren. It’s a city she knows intimately from the pages of a famously unfinished dark fantasy series – one she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading, while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic and mayhem? Her encyclopaedic knowledge of the plot, the setting and the characters’ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love.

Maggie joins a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to return home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes – and attentions – of duelling princes, dukes and villains. This all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the ending she’s seen on the page: a cataclysmic war

I’ve been waiting for this novel to be released as an audiobook. It’s the first book in a new series from Ilona Andrews and I’m very excited about it. its an unusual take on a portal fantasy. It was published on Thursday and I dived straight in. I’m already 18% in.The start was slow, careful and cliché-free. The chapter I’ve just finished was spectacular and exciting. Maggie is going to be a great character to follow. Kristen Sieh’s narration is wonderful, which is good news because the audiobook is more than twenty-two hourse long. 

Adam Macallister’s sportswriting career is about to end before it begins, but he’s got one last shot: a Sports Illustrated profile about hockey’s most notorious goon, the reclusive Terry Punchout-who also happens to be Adam’s estranged father. Adam returns to Pennington, Nova Scotia, where Terry now lives in the local rink and drives the Zamboni.

Going home means drinking with old friends, revisiting neglected relationships, and dealing with lingering feelings about his father and dead mother-and discovering that his friends and family are kinder and more complicated than he ever gave them credit for. 

Searching for Terry Punchouti s a charming and funny tale of hockey, small-town Maritime life, and how, despite our best efforts, we just can’t avoid turning into our parents.

‘Searching for Terry Punchout’ (2018) is the second of three books from the Canada Reads 2026 shortlist that I’m reading. I’ve just started it and I can already see that it’s going to be more about small-town life in Canada than about hockey, although it seems the two are closely related to one another. So far, it’s accessible and engaging. I looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Ky Vatta was a military cadet destined for great things, until an act of kindness incurred her Academy’s wrath and ended her career.

Instead of the expected disgrace, her rich trader family gave her captaincy of a small ship, to sell for scrap. In flagrant disregard of orders, she saw the opportunity to make a profit and save the ship.

Several upgrades later, Ky is determined to retain the ship and her independence in the cut-throat world of interplanetary trading. But a threat emerges that challenges even her sharp wits and, if she survives, could leave the military forever in her debt . . .

‘Moving Target’ (2004) is the second book in the Vatta’ War series. It follows straight on from the events of ‘Trading in Danger’. I’m eighteen per cent in and it’s already great fun. The action is faster and on a larger scale than in the first book. I’m looking forward to seeing how Ky steps up to the challenge.