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Monday August 31, 2015
Books in August
- Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky
Once again - a very long time since I read this author - I was under the illusion that she had not written anything for a long time (like the gap in Amy Tan's work) but it's just my not keeping up. Based on the dates, it seems I have 4 to read since "Fire Sale" which I must have read in 2005.
So - back to this novel - I really liked the story. My memory of her previous novels is that they revolved around types of business fraud or insurance - possibly realistically what PIs get involved in - and then there's the twist which make a book into an adventure thriller. However this story had two themes of much more interest to me: one was historical (WWII) and the other was was Physics- its a novel about Science* ("...and then there's the twist which make it into an adventure thriller..." etc). I loved it.
I'm now all set for to read backwards through the ones I missed.
* I read that although the author is qualified in her own discipline of political science, her husband of 40 odd years is an academic professor of Physics. - Heartstone and Lamentation by C J Sansom
I found I had two books to read in the Shardlake series - and they were both great.
Heartstone was very interesting - and all about the Mary Rose, which of course I went to visit for my birthday this year - and Sansom seems to have been as much blown away by the experience as I was. As a historian it must be amazing to have such a spyglass into the life of folk from that period across all social strata. Plus - only a fraction of the artefacts have been fully examined currently, let alone put on display.
Lamentation, however, was my favourite of the two. I did guess the fundamental plot device in Heartstone, although not actually the "why". In Lamentation, I felt the plot was stronger. So now Henry's reign has ended but Shardlake carries on - given the fortunes of the main characters in this book, maybe Sansom is shaping up for a future generation of detective in a new era - who knows?
Posted by Christina at 8:59 AM. Category: Books of the Month
