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.