| Book | Review |
|---|---|
|
|
Crocodile Tears, Alan Carter30/11/2021 - 4:19pmCROCODILE TEARS takes Philip 'Cato' Kwong a long way away from his origins in the Stock Squad in the middle of nowhere. Instead, in this final novel in the series, we start out with Kwong investigating the death of a retiree found hacked to pieces in suburban Perth, ending up in Timor-Leste and deep in the world of spies, dodgy business dealings, more death, torture, attacks and extreme violence. Plus he's a father to a "terrible two" now, and his wife, Sharon, has career aspirations of her own. Flawed, fallible and endearingly human, Kwong has always been an engaging ... Read Review |
 |
The Beautiful Dead, Kim Hunt29/11/2021 - 11:01pmAnother book from the Ngaio Marsh list of 2021 that feels like the start of a series. This one is set north-west of Sydney, Australia, featuring park ranger Cal Nyx, who finds a badly decomposed body in the bush. Identification shows the body to be that of somebody she once knew, and Cal becomes a suspect in the death as a result. The whole thing gets even more complicated when it turns out the victim was wanted for murder in their own right. Nyx is living with plenty of family complications and skeletons in closets, which takes a probe of her personal life as part of the ... Read Review |
 |
Windswept & Interesting, Billy Connolly29/11/2021 - 3:12pmBeen a committed, somewhat besotted fan of Billy Connolly's forever - not just for his humour, but for his observations about life, aging, and all the saggy bits. I've quoted "no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes", since I heard him say it. Regarded his assertion that you should never pass an opportune toilet by after the age of 60 as one of the sagest bits of advice ever (along with never trust a fart), and then there's his general humour under great adversity. Which I've not managed, but as things start to fail in the body department, I'm starting to understand. We' ... Read Review |
 |
Dark Empire, John Horrocks26/11/2021 - 4:30pmDARK EMPIRE is an historical mystery novel, with at it's core, characters created by Katherine Mansfield: "Katherine Mansfield created some of literature’s most chilling characters, not least Harry Kember and his wife. They seemed out of place among the families enjoying summer holidays at Wellington’s Days Bay. Some of the women at the Bay thought that one day Harry would commit a murder." I have to confess I had to look up Katherine Mansfield's character Harry Kember, and found amongst other entries THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES, which I'd totally and ... Read Review |
 |
Beyond the Tree House, Gudrun Frerichs26/11/2021 - 4:09pmThe second book in the Women of Our Time series, and follow up to the outstanding GIRL FROM THE TREE HOUSE, BEYOND THE TREE HOUSE again features Elizabeth and a number of her multiple personalities. Elizabeth has DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and for more on how she survives with that condition it would be well worth reading the first book. The first book was outstanding - at the time that I read it I was absolutely gobsmacked at just how good it was - informative, thoughtful, sensitive, it showed the complications of a life lived, and the resilience of this woman ... Read Review |
 |
Deadhead, Glenn Wood26/11/2021 - 3:05pmAimed at getting younger generations to read books (and I'd guess particularly boys), DEADHEAD is a very funny romp, populated by wonderful characters, incorporating messaging about power balances and friendship that's subtle, and cleverly executed. Combining text and cartoon / graphic replays of previous events, this story starts out with the death of Constable Garrett, and continues with his resurrection as a conscious cyborg initially controlled by 13 year old inventor, entrepreneur and car thief Spencer Langley. Right here I guess some parents are wondering about ... Read Review |
 |
Pietr the Latvian, Georges Simenon25/11/2021 - 3:57pmPIETR THE LATVIAN commences the latest entire series audio quest, having now finished the much loved Discworld novels. I'm also aware I've got a few other series underway in this quest - mostly they've lapsed because I'm easily distracted, or because they've failed to hold interest. This first Maigret outing definitely held interest, not always in the way I was expecting though. Maybe it's just me, but the anti-semitism and the casual racism in this audio really jarred, so much so that there was a point when I thought I'm going to have to abandon this quest at the opening ... Read Review |
 |
One Little Lie, Carne Maxwell25/11/2021 - 1:56pmONE LITTLE LIE is targeted at the upper age limit of YA readers, a suspense novel, that sees four friends, Melissa, Katrina, Belinda and Alison working the Christmas Holidays on Melissa's uncle's tomato farm on Waiheke Island, New Zealand. The girls are hoping for a classic university summer holiday break - working and having some fun at the same time, although there's tension right at the outset between Melissa and her cousins Seth and Tyler, who she hasn't seen for eight years now. Told in multiple viewpoints, the young women's voices here are particularly successful, ... Read Review |
 |
The Stone Wētā, Octavia Cade24/11/2021 - 4:24pmStarted reading this novella (133 pages or thereabouts) and really did, for the shortest time, wonder what on earth I'd started. THE STONE WĒTĀ isn't your normal enviro-thriller, oh boy is it not your normal enviro-thriller. "With governments denying climate science, scientists from affected countries and organisations are forced to traffic data to ensure the preservation of research that could in turn preserve the world". From Antartica to the Chihuahuan Desert, to the International Space Station, a fragile network forms. A web of knowledge. Secret. But not secret enough ... Read Review |
 |
Dance Prone, David Coventry24/11/2021 - 1:51pmThe blurb puts it best - "DANCE PRONE is a novel of music, ritual and love. It is live, tense and corporeal." For many who were around in the mid 1980's, immersed in the counter culture of hard-core post-punk, indie rock with its wildness and weirdness, there are going to be bells ringing, and maybe some uncomfortable recognition. It's ultimately a novel about trauma, delivered in a series of brutal, almost dance like moves, with events blurring, just as they would have for central character Conrad - who spends a lot of time drunk, drugged, struggling. With half the story ... Read Review |
 |
Toto Amongst the Murderers, Sally J Morgan24/11/2021 - 1:46pm1973, from art school to shared housing in run-down Leeds, and Jude (aka Toto) is a chaotic, wild child, living a reckless, slightly crazy life, thoroughly enjoying her youth, blissfully unconnected with the news of random attacks on woman that keep showing up on the news. What a wild ride TOTO AMONG THE MURDERERS was - it could leave the reader with a decided longing for the good old mad, bad, crazy days of teenage-hood, when you could get away with hitchhiking, moving from share house to share house, wandering about with little idea of where you were going or what you'd ... Read Review |
 |
Caught Between, Jeannie McLean23/11/2021 - 4:05pmBook 1 in a new series featuring Māori / Chinese character Tova Tan, the title of the novel - CAUGHT BETWEEN - is particularly apt. Tan's life is littered with dilemmas, from the dangerous lifestyle of her half-brother, and her desire to stay in touch, maybe help him; to wanting the truth behind her mother's supposed suicide but needing to not rock the boat; and of most immediate threat, returning home to find that she lives downstairs from a mother and daughter, found murdered, and she's the prime suspect. From an opening that's very attention grabbing, through to ... Read Review |
 |
Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett19/11/2021 - 5:30pm"To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear." Layers upon layers, comedy with a dark edge, observational commentary, society skewering, these are all the things I take with me from every Discworld novel, and in this second to last ever outing, it's ... Read Review |
 |
The Shepherd's Crown, Terry Pratchett19/11/2021 - 4:55pmStarting out with a challenge to myself to listen to the entire Discworld series as audio books has been quite a ride. I had expected to be hugely entertained, to laugh a lot, and feel a bit sad in places. I hadn't quite expected to be as thought-provoked as I turned out to be, with the range of issues that Pratchett cast light on, granted in a funny way mostly, being as wide-ranging and pertinent as they all turned out to be. I had expected characters that I would grow to really like, but nowhere near as much as I grew to love Tiffany, Granny, Nanny, Sam, Sybill, young Sam, Carrot, ... Read Review |
 |
Snuff, Terry Pratchett18/11/2021 - 5:01pmDiscworld Number 39, Ankh-Morpork City Watch Number 8 and Sam Vimes goes on a holiday. As unlikely a scenario as you could possibly expect, especially when the holiday is in the country - balls, teas, nights that are quiet, except for the birds screaming. None of which is particularly conducive to relaxation for a man who regards relaxation as somewhat akin to death. Luckily he manages to find a body, a case, anything to distract him from Lady Sybill's imposed ban on bacon sandwiches. And that birdsong. We head into some very dark subject matter with SNUFF - racism and ... Read Review |
 |
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett18/11/2021 - 4:48pmThe fourth in the Tiffany Aching subseries of the Discworld novels, finds Tiffany on her own as the Witch of the chalk, dealing with the lunacy of rumours, and somebody, somewhere who is igniting fear, whipping up dark thoughts, setting people against witches, who, after all, are mostly like Tiffany - doing the mucky, tricky, icky bits in life, caring for the needy, helping the elderly, burying the dead, and birthing the tricky arrivals, looking after the downtrodden. Bit of a metaphor for life in Victoria right now with the lunatic fringe whipping up hysteria and ... Read Review |
 |
Fromage, Sally Scott18/11/2021 - 4:31pmI have no idea how this happens, but here I was, reading FROMAGE by Sally Scott, and I suddenly realised... shoes again. Another heroine on the "slightly ditzy side" that's obsessed with shoes. It's so not my comfort zone, although I was looking for something on the lighter, silly side, and, well mission accomplished, aside from the multiple deaths and the constant threat from lurking blokes. As the blurb puts it, Alex Grant is enjoying the last eating / lying on the beach / doing nothing days of her Croatian summer holiday when she runs into old school friend Marie ... Read Review |
 |
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett17/11/2021 - 5:16pmOriginally posted: Thursday, February 25, 2010 - listened to this in audio format in early 2021 === Less of a fully fledged review, more of a musing on the latest Discworld Novel from Terry Pratchett UNSEEN ACADEMICALS. The quote on the back sort of says it all "The thing about football - the IMPORTANT thing about football - is that it is not just about football". Now I will admit I'm not a football (in any incarnation) fan. Can't stand the hype. Can't stand the carry-on. Can't stand the games themselves. So I was a little intrigued by this ... Read Review |
 |
Retribution, Christina O'Reilly17/11/2021 - 2:01pmFollowing on from INTO THE VOID, RETRIBUTION continues to feature DSS Archie Baldrick and DC Ben Travers - in this outing, investigating the death of a very mysterious woman indeed. After Lucy is found dead on the beach, finding out who she is, or anything about her is the most tricky part of the investigation, she's obviously been hiding something but whether or not that has any part of why she's been murdered is very difficult to ascertain. She seems to have no family or friends, no obvious past, and no easily identified motivations for wanting her dead. Both of the ... Read Review |
  |
Making Money, Terry Pratchett15/11/2021 - 4:49pmOnly in Ankh-Morpork would Lord Vetinari solve the problem of his conman of choice's boredom at the Post Office by putting him in charge of the Royal Bank and Mint. I mean why not a self-declared, out and out conman, known to his boss Vetinari for exactly what he is, in charge of the central banking system. Why not indeed. After all Moist von Lipwig somehow managed to turn the Post Office into a thriving business, no longer in need of his guidance, even the Clacks are continuing apace, despite being the Post Office's main competition. von Lipwig as a banker, and chief walker of the ... Read Review |