RANDOM JOTTINGS

I am back with Brit tec as I am currently wallowing in murder and mayhem.   I am reading a lot of crime as well as other lighter reading as I simply cannot deal with deep thoughtful literature at the moment. It is too cold. What the weather has to do with it I really don'r know but that is how I feel right now as I write this wearing two jumpers.

OK I am reverting to my earlier post as I have just spent the last week reading another Brit tec series, this time by a writer called Rachel McLean featuring a DCI Zoe Finch.   And once again we have somebody who has had a bad relationship, single mum with her own alcoholic mother and my first thought was to say Oh Not Again and I nearly put the book (or rather the Kindle down) as I thought the first one was not particularly good and I was not sure of the writing. However, I persevered and glad I did because by book 2 the author was well in her stride and the characters and situations became interesting.

There are two sets of the books 1-3 and 4-6 on Kindle and worth trying.

I have thoroughly enjoyed them. I am just about to start on No 7 and hope there will be more to come.   If you do decide to read them please peruse them in order as there is a running story line regarding police corruption running from one book to another and it will be confusing if you start mid series.  

This author was recommended to me by Amazon based on my previous reads and I am always happy to check their recommendations out. That way I have discovered authors I would otherwise have never heard of.

Another such is a story flagged up for me, Murder In Tuscany, by T A Williams. I had never heard of him but he seems pretty prolific and seems to have a lot going on the Kindle store, many of them romances. He makes no secret of the fact that he loves to write entertaining light hearted stories which I find endearing. Anyway, Murder in Tuscany was the start of a new series and I really really loved it.

Retired DCI Dan Armstrong (another inspector with a broken marriage…) attends a creative writing course in Tuscany as he is a budding author. This was a farewell present from his colleagues and when it turns out it is an erotic writing course, he wonders if they did this on purpose.   Still he decided to make the most of it as it is in a glorious part of Italy and, naturally, in due course, there is a murder and we have the classic mystery situation where a body is found in a location where there are a limited number of suspects.

I throughly enjoyed reading this.  It is written with a great sense of style and is witty and humorous and I read it through in one sitting. I then checked the Kindle store (as Amazon knew I would do) and found a second one just published so nobbled that one as well, Murder in Chianti where we find that Dan is now settled in Italy and great friends with the local Chief Inspector who, of course, needs his help.

Oh I nearly forgot, there is a lovely dog, Oscar, featured.

Already looking forward to the next one.

So another couple of authors I hope you might try and enjoy…