2012 books, #66-70

Until it's over, by Nicci French [audiobook].  Read by Adjoa Andoh and Paul Tyreman.  Rearsby, Leics.: Clipper, 2008.

Astrid thinks her day's pretty ropy after she's been knocked off her bike by a careless neighbour's car door, but when the woman's body is found behind her bins, life's about to become a lot worse.  This is an intriguing structure - the first half is told from Astrid's point of view, and the second from the point of view of the killer, whose identity gradually becomes clear.  Both readers are excellent, too.

Ritual, by Mo Hayder.  London: Bantam, 2008.

The first of the Jack Caffery/Flea Marley books; and extremely gristly.  Not one I'd like to see as a film...  It's very well plotted though, and the relationship between Caffery and Marley is well-drawn.  I'll have to read the next one, Skin, as that's the one between the two I've read, and when one of the stranger events in the sequence seems to take place...

Lestrade and the Ripper, by M J Trow [audiobook]. Read by the author.  Whitley Bay: Soundings, 2010.

This is an excellent romp.  Unlike the Lestrade of Conan Doyle's books, Trow's Lestrade isn't stupid (although he is ridiculously clumsy).  An excellent plot - based on the Ripper murders but with a sub-plot - and the sort of horrendous puns we expect from Trow's Maxwell books.  (We have a character called Ovett who runs very fast, and there are two clerks in the hotel called Gable and Kent...)  Trow turns out to be an excellent reader of his own books; I hope there are more of these...

Calendar girl, by Stella Duffy. London: Serpent's Tail, 1999.

Quite a flimsy thing, this, and oddly styled.  Alternate chapters are narrated by Saz Martin, private investigator, and by an unknown woman whose circumstances become more and more sinister.  The connection between the two becomes extremely guessable quite early on, but it's a quick, interesting read regardless, with a quick twist in the tail for good measure.

Death wore white, by Jim Kelly [audiobook].  Read by Roger May. Oxford: Isis, 2009.

A queue of cars is trapped by a fallen tree and a snowstorm on an isolated part of the West Norfolk coast, out of mobile phone contact.  One man has a heart attack, and when the authorities arrive they also find that the driver of the leading vehicle is dead in his cab, with no trail of footsteps to or from the pickup...  Another excellent Kelly book.  Midway through listening to this, I went to King's Lynn for the day and walked past several of the settings for this book.  Having read the sequel out of sequence, I was spoiled for some of the cliffhangers, but the plot is a real locked-room puzzler and uncoils like a snake...