Ramblings of a Bookworm
Posted in Crime Fiction, Ian Rankin, Short Stories on Mar 12th, 2010
A new Rebus short story by Ian Rankin, The Very Last Drop was published in The Scotsman today. I couldn’t find it online but it is in a four page pull-out in the paper, complete with illustrations and a photo of Ian Rankin reading his story at the Royal Blind School fundraising event that took place [...]
Posted in Crime Fiction, Short Stories, Teaser Tuesdays on Mar 9th, 2010
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser [...]
Posted in Books, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Fiction on Mar 8th, 2010
This week’s letter in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet series is ‘U’.
I’ve chosen Umberto Eco, an Italian writer of post-modern fiction, full of allusions and references, using puzzles, playing with language, words and symbols.
I’ve read The Name of the Rose twice, some years ago now.It is a fantastic historical crime mystery novel set in a Franciscan monastery in 14th [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Fiction, Historical Fiction on Mar 5th, 2010
Recently, I wanted to read something other than crime fiction, but chose The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine, which just happens to include a couple of rapes, kidnappings and a murder. However, it’s really a time-slip book, switching between the present day and the first century AD in Rome and Britannia, a mix of historical fiction, fantasy and [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Fiction on Mar 3rd, 2010
I’ve read two books by Jospehine Tey – The Daughter of Time and now The Franchise Affair. Josephine Tey was a pseudonym for Elizabeth Mackintosh(1896 – 1952). She was a Scottish author who wrote mainly mystery novels.
I read The Daughter of Time a few years ago and thought it was an excellent book, a mix of [...]
Posted in Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction Alphabet on Feb 22nd, 2010
For this week’s letter, S my contribution to Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet series is Sansom and Shardlake, more specifically C J Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake historical crime fiction series.
Chris J Sansom trained and worked as a solicitor before he wrote the Tudor murder mystery series featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake. There are currently four books:
Dissolution – set in 1537 – [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Short Stories on Feb 20th, 2010
Not Safe After Dark and Other Works is a collection of twenty short stories by Peter Robinson. There are three Inspector Banks stories, one of which Going Back is a novella that had not been published before. The other stories are varied in length, technique and style.
Of them all I prefer the Inspector Banks stories, [...]
Posted in Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction on Feb 16th, 2010
The Hollow by Agatha Christie is a country house mystery in which Hercule Poirot comes across what he decribes as “A set scene. A stage scene”; a murder scene specifically staged, he thinks at first, to deceive him.
Gerda and her husband John Christow, a Harley Street doctor were visiting Sir Henry and Lucy, Lady Angkatell at their house, The [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Fiction, Ian Rankin on Feb 15th, 2010
This week the letter in the Crime Fiction Alphabet Community Meme is R, so of course it just had to be Ian Rankin, who is fast becoming my favourite crime writer.
I’ve previously written a bit about Ian Rankin after I went to a talk he gave in January – see here.
R is also for Rebus. There [...]
Posted in Book Reviews, Children's Fiction, Fiction on Feb 11th, 2010
Some of January’s books – two quick reviews:
Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan is a beautifully written and moving book about David, a parish priest in a small Scottish parish and as I read it I gradually became aware of just how naive he is. The prologue foreshadows the problems he encounters when his mother [...]
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Ramblings of a Bookworm
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