Saturday, March 25, 2017

2017 books, #11-15

Cast iron, by Peter May. London: riverrun, 2017.

The sixth, and presumably last, of the Enzo books - although Enzo's wager with Roger Raffin covers seven historic cases, all the loose ends are tied up in this book and it seems very final.  Which is a shame, as this is an immensely entertaining cast of characters.  In this book, though, Enzo is looking for the killer of Lucie Martin, a 20-year-old girl found in a dry lake bed years after her disappearance. The killing has always been blamed on Régis Blanc, a serial strangler who was known to Lucie, but Enzo isn't so sure, and Blanc has always denied the killing.  Meanwhile, Enzo's investigation is putting his daughter and her fiancé in danger.  Excellent plotting, the sort of book you devour in a couple of sittings.  I'm going to miss this series.

Ashes of London, by Andrew Taylor [audiobook]. Read by Leighton Pugh. Rearsby, Leics.: WF Howes/Harper Audio, 2016.

In the aftermath of the Great Fire of London, a body is found in a tomb which ought to be empty; James Marwood is asked by the government to investigate. Marwood has no choice - he's the son of a printer who was disgraced for Republicanism and who is now deeply affected by dementia - but the investigation takes him deeper into political intrigue and danger.  I sort of enjoyed this - but I found it really difficult to remain concentrated on it, despite the reader being a good one.

Medium raw: a bloody Valentine to the world of food and the people who cook, by Anthony Bourdain. London: Bloomsbury, 2010.

This has all the hallmarks of classic Bourdain - hundred-miles-an-hour, no-holds-barred, full-frontal writing; but from ten years after Kitchen confidential opened up many doors to the restaurant world, and after Cook's tour gave Bourdain the opportunity to travel all over the world in the search for exotic food.  Starting, shockingly, with the consumption of ortolans, Bourdain writes about the world of cooks and restaurants and food producers, and also about the difference in himself between the angry, burned-out man who wrote Kitchen confidential and the husband and father he is by 2010. Excellent book.

Long time dead, by Tony Black [audiobook]. Read by Darth Cruickshank. Oxford: Isis, 2010.

This is the fourth one in a series, which may be why I felt as if I was slightly missing information all the way through.  Anyway; Gus Dury is taken to hospital after a hit-and-run, but his alcoholism is causing worse problems.  His best friend Hod asks him to investigate the on-campus hanging of an Edinburgh University student with a rich, high-profile mother who has promised a large reward. Gus needs the money, and gets a janitor's job at the university so he can take a look into the case; he uncovers a similar hanging which happened in the 1970s, and realises his life is in danger.  I enjoyed this; but I'm not convinced I'll be looking for others in the series.

I hear the sirens in the street, by Adrian McKinty. London: Serpent's Tail, 2014.

Sean Duffy, back at work after the events of The cold cold ground, is given the case of a torso found in a suitcase.  When he tracks the suitcase back to its previous owner, he finds another murder, that of a UVF soldier; everything becomes more complicated, step by step.  And then there's the Troubles to deal with... Another excellent, gripping read with the background of the Falklands War...

Sunday, March 12, 2017

2017 books, #6-10

The hanging tree, by Ben Aaronovitch.  London: Gollancz, 2016.

The sixth of the Peter Grant series, and another really enjoyable read.  A young girl is found dead at a party of Bright (and Drugged-up) Young Things, and Lady Ty's daughter is present.  Peter is called in because he owes Lady Ty a favour, and because it's probably not politic to have the daughters of river gods involved in this sort of thing.  So we have a combination of Peter, the super-rich, magic and the river gods. What could possibly go wrong?  If you haven't picked up this series before, do. But start at the beginning or parts of this will make no sense whatsoever.  Only regret is that I raced through it way too fast...

Cold earth, by Ann Cleeves [audiobook]. Read by Kenny Blyth. Oxford: Isis, 2016.

During the funeral of Magnus Tait, a landslide crashes through what should have been an abandoned croft, and the body of a beautiful woman in a red dress is found in the wreckage.  Jimmy Perez has no idea who she is, and starts to investigate; then he finds the woman was already dead when the landslide hit.  As he tracks the woman back through her stay on the island, he begins to realise that he is stirring up a number of vested interests including the oil companies which give Shetland their prosperity.  I don't know why I really didn't quite get into this book; the reader is good; the plot is well-done. Maybe I was just distracted by other things.  I may go back and read/listen to this one again before the next one comes out...

Fear of 13. Netflix.

A bit unusual, as this isn't a book or an audiobook, but it might as well have been the latter; you could listen to it without the visuals, as the majority of the visual content is watching one man sitting on a chair telling his story of wrongful conviction.  It's quite disorienting, because you find out a lot about Nick Yarris's life inside prison, and his state of mind, before you ever find out how and why he ended up on Death Row for 21 years.  It's two hours of intense, very moving narrative delivered like a one-man show - it's no wonder that Yarris now makes part of his living in public speaking.

A very English scandal: sex, lies and a murder plot at the heart of the establishment, by John Preston. London: Penguin Viking, 2016.

This is a story I vaguely remember from childhood, but didn't understand properly at the time; it's Jeremy Thorpe, and the attempted murder of his lover Norman Scott.  As the child of card-carrying Liberals, I remember the shock when he resigned, and the scandal of the trial, but not much else.  This book gives short biographies of everyone involved, who might have known what and when, and how much coverup there actually was (spoiler: a lot).  And it's all very readable.

Trieste and the meaning of nowhere, by Jan Morris. London: Faber, 2002.

Trieste is literally neither here nor there, a place which no country has really seemed to want over the centuries and which has ended up as the tag-end of Italy, nearer former Yugoslavia than anywhere else, and without its original purpose as a trading port for the whole Mediterranean.  Morris writes lovingly about it - the first visit, as a young soldier during World War II, and the subsequent ones - but also slightly wonderingly, not really being able to pin down its charm.  It's a memoir of the city, and also of Morris herself.  Not a lot happens, but I have a strong desire to visit it and just be a flâneuse in this city.