RANDOM JOTTINGS

Well another rather fraught few weeks which, hopefully, is now at an end. Firstly, my daughter in Australia had to go back to have another procedure as after her first operation a few more cells were discovered. The surgeon said that she was pretty certain they were benign but she wanted them out and, of course, that was sensible but it meant another op and recovery time. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it has been done and all is well with the second recovery.

On top of all this I have had electrical problems which I will not bore you with but meant I did not have a working cooker for a few weeks and this all added to my stress.

So, not much reading done. But I have read some.

I mentioned the new Ann Cleves book and that has been read and, as always, excellent.

Then a new book by one of my favourite crime writers, an American author, Michael Connelly. He has created a detective Harry Bosch and many novels featuring this character and all are excellent. I have read the lot over the last seven or eight years and always look forward to the next. He has allowed Harry, unlike Hercule Poirot, to age and he retires towards the later books but due to the outcry from fans, Connelly then teamed him up with a female detective, Renee Ballard and works cold cases with her. 

But much though I love the Bosch books, I think I veer slightly towards the series The Lincoln Lawyer as just pulling ahead in the favourite stakes.  Michael Haller is Bosch’s half brother though they don’t find this out until they are grown men and bump into each other and so we have a cross over when each of them pop up in the other series. That sounds convoluted but it makes sense believe me.

The first book in the Haller series is the Lincoln Lawyer. A movie was made with Matthew McConaughey as Haller and very good it was too. Over the last few years Netflix has made a series which is excellent. Connelly is executive producer on these and I think because of that they stick closely to the main story line. The latest one The Proving Ground kept me pinned to the sofa. A case against an A1 company, very topical, whose Bot urged a murder. Obviously been well researched and really really quite scary at the thought of what A1 can do.

So if you wish to give these a try, please do but do read them in order if you can.

I am also reading the latest in a series of books by an author T A Williams who I initially discovered a couple of years ago when offered one of his titles for 99p on Amazon. They were romances and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Slightly discombobulated to discover the author was not a pseudonym but was indeed a man but he seemed to be able to enter the mind and thoughts of his female protagonists very well.

He then turned to crime and has written a series of books set in Italy, which he clearly loves as they feature in nearly all of his writing, featuring a retired DCI from Scotland yard who now lives in Italy and has a dog called Oscar.  I am reading the latest, Murder in Venice, and really liking it. I feel they can be classified as Cosy Mysteries which is a genre which true crime writers rather despise but there is nothing cosy about them. Well plotted and yes, amusing in places, but they are worth reading.

T A Williams loves Italian food as well and the descriptions, mmm…….

Then the latest in the Karen Pirie series by Val McDermid which I am finding increasingly irritating. A shame as she is such a good writer and I have read and enjoyed all her books to date.  The reason for my feelings is that she lets her politics come into play and cannot resist taking pot shots throughout the narrative.

Her last book was set during the lockdown and she was quite obsessive about Covid and keeping to the rules etc. Admirable but we did not need to be told every chapter

• She is a supporter of Nicola Sturgeon, former first Minister of Scotland now retired in disgrace. In this book many comments about the police wasting her time “with stupid questions”.  (She had to resign over corruption charges)
• She doesn’t like Trump. Fair enough but leave him out of a Scottish crime novel
• She doesn’t like Nigel Farage. Again fair enough but leave him out of a Scottish crime novel
• Kemi Badenoch, the current leader of the Tory party is called “homophobic”

I used to read a series of novels about DCI Banks by Peter Robinson. They were good. OK the author used to bang on about old rock music but I used to just ignore that. Then came Brexit to which he took exception and the next books published had diatribes about it all. So I packed those in.

I rather object to having politics thrust down my throat when I am reading a story. It is a form of conceit to feel that your readers want to know what you think. I don’t. Same with “Celebrities” banging on about politics. Just because you have an Oscar or a Bafta does not make you qualified to lecture the proles.

OK stopping now because this is one of my things but you get my drift.

So after all this crime I decided I wanted some reality so I decided to re-read a biography of L M Montgomery, she of Anne of Green Gables fame, which I read several years ago.  She had a troubled life so hardly surprising she wrote these wonderful novels for us all. Will report back.

Signing off now.