Work for Idle Hands: Books in May

Thursday May 31, 2018

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
I'd been looking forward to reading the next "installment", but as I started the book I began to think my increasingly poor memory had let me down about which books I have actually read. However all was well - memory still poor but I'd just read the first few chapters as a taster in the previous book (it seems so long ago...).
Anyway - still on top form Michael, and all the characters, old and new, as fresh as ever. The usual excellent plot with a new and an old case where the "two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire".

Love Like Blood by Mark Billingham
Pleased to have a Tom Thorne storyline with Nicola Tanner in a central role. It is interesting that Connelly and Billingham are moving on to key female detective protagonists. Both have had books centred on female characters previously so not really new I guess but they seem to be .. grooming them... if that's not too creepy.
I read a review saying that Tanner was "unappealing" - and I would not disagree entirely; however, MB has clearly tried to make her a very different character from ones we have seen before - maybe one he does not completely understand himself yet. Helen, for example, was a very appealing character with whom no doubt we could all empathise - but there is only so far you can go with such a character, and now she is (firmly I hope) embedded in Thorne's personal life. So I am looking forward to Tanner being fleshed out even more in further books; maybe, meanwhile, it's right for her to be mingled with characters we already know and love. She held her own well enough in Die of Shame but it was her interactions with other people that I felt made her more 3 dimensional (ie other characters found her less than appealing too!).

Dandy Gilver and A Most Misleading Habit by Catriona McPherson
So here the third book this month from one of my favourite authors, although to be fair it's Dandy that's my favourite in truth, rather than the author. I say "to be fair" because what I mean is I have not read any other of CM's novels - and feel I should, as I find her writing wonderful - the way she evokes the era and language in these books is quite brilliant.
In this one we see Dandy condemned to spend some time in a convent with its obviously limited facilities in the way of luxury; Alec appears somewhat luckier in all but home cooking, in which skill the convent excels.
The fundamental causes of the unravelled mystery turn out to be, as usual, wonderfully of their time.

Calling Out for You and Black Seconds by Karin Fossum [read by David Rintoul]
I finally felt brave enough to go back to Karin Fossum, and was very pleased to find audio versions read by David Rintoul who is just perfect for these books. Interestingly, although these are police procedurals in essence, with Inspector Sejer in the driving seat, they are very much more than that. To me they have a slight Ruth Rendell feel to them as more psychological thrillers. These two alone serve as good examples as to how she manages to create plots and writing structures totally different from one another. The only thing they all have in common is how poignantly sad they are - reminding myself yet again that all murder stories are in fact going to be tragic.
I would also say that I am bound to agree with other reviewers that Calling Out For You is really very chilling as you are left at the end thinking that the horrible crime may be unsolved.

Fallout by Sara Paretsky [read by Liza Ross] and Hard Time [read by Jean Smart]
Fallout is the latest VI novel (18th), and is excellent. I loved the plot and the descriptions of the detection methods. I also loved that it was wrapped up with chemistry/physics/biology (which we may call "science" - but it was specifically those - o and government conspiracies to boot). I do agree with one reviewers comments that VI's niece is a total pain and I find it hard to believe that the VI character would put up with her for one second without being driven to commit murder herself. However, I can see that the author needs all that as a plot device - VI herself is pretty sensible and effective as a PI so everything would run far too smoothly without such irritations.
Hard Time is a fairly old novel (9th) and I was less keen on it. One reason was that the audio book I had downloaded was somehow scrambled and not only played some chapters out of sequence but also had some chapters entirely missing. [I was driven to read several chapters of the actual book to catch up with what was going on]. Very frustrating - but still not my favourite story - whereas Fallout does rank among my favourites.

The Dead Sea Cipher by Elizabeth Peters [read by Grace Conlin]
And so last - and probably actually least.
I always spell it cypher but although it seems this is a "chiefly British" spelling, it seems in "modern usage" it should be cipher - and having got that out of the way - on to the book:
This has shades of Dan Brown, and James Bond, but mostly Mills and Boon (not intended as an insult). The heroine has an improbable occupation (opera singer) and is embroiled in a mystery while on a tour of the Middle East; she is pursued by two men - one is an irritation and the other handsome and charming. Guess which one is the baddie. The End.
Amusing enough to listen to as an accompaniment to crafting.

Posted by Christina at 8:48 AM. Category: Books of the Month