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Tuesday January 31, 2017

Books in January

  • The China Thrillers by Peter May [read by Simon Vance]
    There was a change of narrator for the next (and final) three books.
    There are many comments on line from readers constantly asking Peter May to write more books about Margaret and Li Yan, and I can see why. Since he was not expecting to end the series after 6 books, the characters remain with a story still to be told.
    He writes about how the books came about here, and in the comments he points out that these books were written over 10 years ago and summarises the situation:
    All these years later I have no appetite for going back to China and updating myself on the changes that have taken place since the series concluded. I was witness to an intense period of change in which the old and new Chinas were still doing battle with each other. I think the new China has won that particular scrap, and much that made the old China fascinating has gone. Like the country itself, I have moved on.
    For all that, a short story The Ghost Marriage written for a French magazine has recently been published in English, and follows the characters later on in their history.

    BOM-Snakehead.jpg BOM-TheRunner.jpg BOM-ChineseWhispers.jpg



  • Dr Finlay's Casebook by A J Cronin BOM-DrFinlaysCasebook.jpg
    A collection of the famous stories set in and around the fictional Scottish town of Levenford and village of Tannochbrae during the inter-war years. The stories are heart-warming, funny and touching, albeit obviously rather dated and non-PC.
    Dr Finlay's Casebook is an omnibus including Adventures of a Black Bag and Dr Finlay of Tannochbrae.
    One thing that I did notice was that some of the stories did not seem to be self-consistent, especially with respect to Finlay's love life. That may just be as it is (like Sherlock Holmes stories) or it may be that being collections of short stories they are not presented in the right chronological order.

  • Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery by Francis Durbridge BOM-SulivanMystery.jpg
    A thrilling case that takes Paul and Steve to exotic Egypt,
    This is a "new" (2006) eight-part BBC recording of a lost archive Paul Temple mystery, starring Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson.

    They inhabit a sophisticated, well-dressed world of chilled cocktails and fast cars, where the women are chic and the men still wear cravats. And where Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard always needs Paul’s help with a tricky case. [By Timothy!].

Posted by Christina at 9:27 AM. Category: Books of the Month

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