2015 books, #1-5

Cop town, by Karin Slaughter [audiobook]. Read by Lorelei King. Oxford: Isis, 2014.

Kate Murphy, a Vietnam War widow, decides she can't just sit around waiting for her Country Club parents to pick up her bills, and joins the police in Atlanta in 1974.  She pairs up with Maggie Lawson, who has a brother and an uncle in the police service, and becomes embroiled in a situation which involves Ken Lawson's partner and his family... Good reading, as ever, by Lorelei King; slightly overwrought writing, as ever, by Karin Slaugher; entertaining, and well-plotted.  The sexual and racial politics of 1970s policing in the US South are particularly interesting points...

A restless evil, by Ann Granger [audiobook]. Read by Judith Boyd. [Rearsby, Leics.]: WF Howes, 2002.

A Mitchell and Markby book. While looking for a house as a pre-condition to marriage, Meredith stumbles across a corpse in the local church. And as it turns out, the house was also involved in a disappearance and murder in the past. A nicely judged book with a twist in the tail...


Blessed are those who thirst, by Anne Holt. London: Corvus, 2013.

Hanne Wilhelmsen is sent out, repeatedly, to Saturday night massacres; vast quantities of blood, with a mystery number at the centre. Meanwhile, she's investigating a particularly nasty rape. As Hanne gradually becomes aware that the cases are connected, more random facts threaten to throw her off track; and the victims are also taking action. This is more of a novella at just over 200 pages, but holds the attention...

Foxglove summer, by Ben Aaronovitch. London: Gollancz, 2014.

Fifth in the Peter Grant series. Grant's sent well out of his comfort zone into the Cotswolds to investigate the disappearance of two children. He's brought his wellies.  This is an excellent follow-up to the other books in this series; particularly liked the lack of country stereotyping. Not sure it drives what seems to be the main plot arc all that far, but it's very good reading for all that.

The good, the bad and the furry: life with the world's most melancholy cat and other whiskery friends, by Tom Cox. London: Sphere, 2014.

The next in the series of these entertaining, hilarious books.  If you've ever been under the delusion you've owned a cat, or recognised that a cat owns you, it's a lovely, quick, diverting book, with a cast of characters including Tom's Dad, who speaks entirely in capitals and advises everyone to look out for FOOKWITS AND LOONIES; and, of course, The Bear, a 19-year-old philosopher and mystic disguised as a small black cat.