Educated, by Tara Westover. London: Windmill, 2018.
Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days. She didn't have a birth certificate, had never seen a doctor and was "homeschooled" in a rudimentary sort of way by her herbalist/doula mother. As she grew older, and events such as Ruby Ridge impinged on her father's paranoia and suspicion of all authority, she realised she needed to get out, and that education was the both the way to do it and the way she would lose her family. It's a heartbreaking book, but absolutely compelling. I read it in one sitting.
Darkness and light, by John Harvey. London: Heinemann, 2006.
Picked this up at the Hove Cubs' book stall at the station; it had been a while since I'd read anything by John Harvey, and I'd forgotten quite how good he is. DI Frank Elder's first murder on the job was a women laid out meticulously on her bed; it remained unsolved, and a weight on his mind, ever since. Years later, Elder's estranged wife gets in touch with him - her friend's sister Claire has disappeared. Several days later, Claire turns up back at home - but dead, and laid out very like the other victim. Elder has become a recluse in Cornwall but returns to Nottingham to look into the case, and soon realises he's dealing with a very disturbed mind.
The silver pigs, by Lindsey Davis [audiobook]. Read by Christian Rodska. Audible edition.
Marcus Didius Falco is ex-army, scraping a living as a private informer and living well on the wrong side of the tracks in first-century Rome, when a pretty young woman literally falls into his arms. Falco becomes embroiled in family and political secrets, travels to England (which he hates) and meets another very interesting young woman. I've read this, and listened to it, several times; and it's still wonderful. Parts of it which moved me the first time round still make me cry; I think I may be picking all of these up on Audible gradually; if I can find the right reader. Christian Rodska can read the phone-book to me and I'd listen, but he does a wonderful job on these skilfully written Roman-era mysteries.
Penshaw, by LJ Ross. Kindle edition.
Another instalment in the DCI Ryan mysteries - this time, Ryan is investigating the death in a fire of a man who was heavily involved in the Miners' Strike of the early to mid 80s, and wondering whether there's a connection. Meanwhile, he has trouble nearer home with the knowledge that there's a mole in his department working with organised criminals. As ever, this is unspectacularly written, but the plot is great; and if you grew up seeing Penshaw Monument every day on your way to and from school and were a teenager during the Strike, the local colour is also excellent.
The stranger diaries, by Elly Griffiths. Kindle edition.
Clare Cassidy teaches in a secondary school, once a house owned by the Gothic writer RM Holland; Holland's study is still there, and Clare specialises in Gothic literature. However, when a fellow English teacher is murdered and a quote from Holland's most famous novella is found beside her, elements of the Gothic start crowding into Clare's, and her family's, life and make an eerie parallel with the novella. The story is told from three narrative viewpoints - Clare's, her daughter Georgie's, and DS Harbinder Kaur's; and this adds complexity because none of them really like each other all that much at the beginning of the story. It's very creepy, and also unputdownable.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Friday, August 09, 2019
2019 books, #46-50
Ruxton: the first modern murder, by Tom Wood. Kindle edition.
I think I originally heard this recommended by Val McDermid. Tom Wood is a former police detective who was fascinated by this trial. It's pretty well-known as the first "forensic" murder case because the scene was so well preserved by the first police on the scene, and the anatomists doing the post-mortem reconstruction were so dedicated. So I was wondering what might be new in this book. I think Wood adds the element of wonder at quite how good the investigation was; but he is also more nuanced about racial and class prejudice in the story - Ruxton was Indian, and also a very well-respected doctor in Lancaster in the 1930s... He is also rightly outraged at how class prejudice affected the charges at trial, and how that had an impact on the respective families.
Death notice, by Zhou Haohui. Kindle edition.
Sergeant Zheng, who's been investigating a cold case from 20 years before, is found murdered; Captain Pei, the person who reports the body, is senior police officer in another area of China who also turns out to be extremely involved in the earlier case. This is labyrinthine, and intriguing; nothing is as it seems and no facts can be trusted. It's workmanlike in style, and to be honest didn't give me a lot of sense of China, the reason why my book group chose it. The main kicker, though, is that you get to the end, find it's part of a trilogy and also discover that the second and third books haven't been translated yet - and might not be, due to poor sales...
My world, by Peter Sagan with John Deering. London: Yellow Jersey, 2018.
Peter Sagan is the only triple World Champion at road race cycling so far. He's also a force of nature. And those of us who don't speak Slovakian, and haven't heard him speak Italian, know very little about him because English is about his fifth language. Even so, he's funny and quirky in interviews. This year, he became the first person ever to wear the Tour de France green jersey 7 times. The green jersey, these days, signifies absolute consistency; being good at just about everything. This book starts off feeling very ghostwritten by Deering; but it's engaging, and amusing, and very honest - he has some lovely things to say about Slovakia. We still share a lot with the Czechs. After all, they make the beer, so there's absolutely nothing to be gained in falling out with them. Oh, and we're in the EU, too. I'm looking forward to one of my British friends explaining to me why leaving it is such a good idea. I've been waiting a little while now... It's not so much that I'm super famous or anything like that, but more to do with us not having too many famous people, if you see what I mean. It's a quick read, there are some good photos - and there's several pages of analysis of That Incident with Mark Cavendish at the 2017 tour, too. It's an awful lot better than I was expecting, and I think does make me understand that what you see is what you get, but there's an awful lot below the surface too.
The wicked boy: the mystery of a Victorian child murderer, by Kate Summerscale [audiobook]. Read by Jot Davies. Audible edition.
Kate Summerscale started off with the fact that a 13-year-old boy killed his mother in 1895, ostensibly to protect his younger brother. As you'd expect from the author of The suspicions of Mr Whitcher, she investigates the court proceedings and family background thoroughly. For me, though, the last quarter of the book is the most fascinating. What happens when someone spends years in Broadmoor and is then released, in 1912? How is a life to be lived? And what is an author to do, when she finds out? I found this bit of the book pretty much unbearably moving.
A second chance [Chronicles of St Mary's book 3], by Jodi Taylor. London: Accent Press, 2015.
Max is back, and she should probably know things aren't going to go well when she takes a to-be-Emeritus professor off on a harmless retirement jaunt for a handshake with Isaac Newton and they end up in a brawl in Green Street... And they haven't even hit Troy yet... It's another combination of heartbreaking seriousness with the joys of time travel (sorry Historical-research-in-actual-time). Not one to read as a standalone - another series you really need to read in order.
I think I originally heard this recommended by Val McDermid. Tom Wood is a former police detective who was fascinated by this trial. It's pretty well-known as the first "forensic" murder case because the scene was so well preserved by the first police on the scene, and the anatomists doing the post-mortem reconstruction were so dedicated. So I was wondering what might be new in this book. I think Wood adds the element of wonder at quite how good the investigation was; but he is also more nuanced about racial and class prejudice in the story - Ruxton was Indian, and also a very well-respected doctor in Lancaster in the 1930s... He is also rightly outraged at how class prejudice affected the charges at trial, and how that had an impact on the respective families.
Death notice, by Zhou Haohui. Kindle edition.
Sergeant Zheng, who's been investigating a cold case from 20 years before, is found murdered; Captain Pei, the person who reports the body, is senior police officer in another area of China who also turns out to be extremely involved in the earlier case. This is labyrinthine, and intriguing; nothing is as it seems and no facts can be trusted. It's workmanlike in style, and to be honest didn't give me a lot of sense of China, the reason why my book group chose it. The main kicker, though, is that you get to the end, find it's part of a trilogy and also discover that the second and third books haven't been translated yet - and might not be, due to poor sales...
My world, by Peter Sagan with John Deering. London: Yellow Jersey, 2018.
Peter Sagan is the only triple World Champion at road race cycling so far. He's also a force of nature. And those of us who don't speak Slovakian, and haven't heard him speak Italian, know very little about him because English is about his fifth language. Even so, he's funny and quirky in interviews. This year, he became the first person ever to wear the Tour de France green jersey 7 times. The green jersey, these days, signifies absolute consistency; being good at just about everything. This book starts off feeling very ghostwritten by Deering; but it's engaging, and amusing, and very honest - he has some lovely things to say about Slovakia. We still share a lot with the Czechs. After all, they make the beer, so there's absolutely nothing to be gained in falling out with them. Oh, and we're in the EU, too. I'm looking forward to one of my British friends explaining to me why leaving it is such a good idea. I've been waiting a little while now... It's not so much that I'm super famous or anything like that, but more to do with us not having too many famous people, if you see what I mean. It's a quick read, there are some good photos - and there's several pages of analysis of That Incident with Mark Cavendish at the 2017 tour, too. It's an awful lot better than I was expecting, and I think does make me understand that what you see is what you get, but there's an awful lot below the surface too.
The wicked boy: the mystery of a Victorian child murderer, by Kate Summerscale [audiobook]. Read by Jot Davies. Audible edition.
Kate Summerscale started off with the fact that a 13-year-old boy killed his mother in 1895, ostensibly to protect his younger brother. As you'd expect from the author of The suspicions of Mr Whitcher, she investigates the court proceedings and family background thoroughly. For me, though, the last quarter of the book is the most fascinating. What happens when someone spends years in Broadmoor and is then released, in 1912? How is a life to be lived? And what is an author to do, when she finds out? I found this bit of the book pretty much unbearably moving.
A second chance [Chronicles of St Mary's book 3], by Jodi Taylor. London: Accent Press, 2015.
Max is back, and she should probably know things aren't going to go well when she takes a to-be-Emeritus professor off on a harmless retirement jaunt for a handshake with Isaac Newton and they end up in a brawl in Green Street... And they haven't even hit Troy yet... It's another combination of heartbreaking seriousness with the joys of time travel (sorry Historical-research-in-actual-time). Not one to read as a standalone - another series you really need to read in order.
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