THE LAST TRAIN RIDE

This is mine. A horror story that is actually scary and all about a family frightened away from their holiday by bears but now facing a bigger and deadlier threat. Available from Smashwords.com for a pittance.

POP GOES THE WEASEL - M.J.ARLIDGE

This author is new to me. Based on this story I'd have trouble reading another one. Her language is often stilted and she dips into her thesaurus too much. On top of that she has, like Shakespeare, invented a word. That word is ok. I presume it is pronounced och but I could be wrong. She uses it in the context of  'are you ok?' Hang on, it might be that she couldn't be bothered using the perfectly good word 'okay', or even 'O.K.'   I'm sorry, M.J. but ok is not a word. Looking at your CV and the work you have lined up, you need to avoid English colloquialisms and have your stuff edited by someone better than you use now.

STEVE BERRY - THE PATRIOT THREAT

Standard Cotton Malone fare here. Action, action, action.

Berry creates adventures which are, generally believable, not requiring much suspension of credibility at all. What I like particularly are the well-researched details which form the background to each story. I've learnt a huge amount about various organisations including the Mormons and religious sects and history from parts of Europe. It's hard to beat a well-written quest story and these are often quest stories. Note that I pub-quiz each week and Steve has provided answers to some tricky questions.

Yes, I'd recommend Steve Berry's stories. Also, he does personally guided tours of the locations in the books. Check his website for information.

TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION - P.D.JAMES

 

Spookily enough I got this book out of the library about an hour before I heard she had died. If this is your genre it's a great read. She concentrates mainly on the Golden Age where writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh were hitting their stride. She talks about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson as well as the need for a Watson type character as narrator to move stories along and shoot the breeze about clues. She hardly mentions her own work although she would have been justified.

Read it to: help organise your thoughts.

THE GOLDFINCH

 

The book opens with a fair number of quotes from famous authors and reviewers that add veracity to the notion that this is a great novel. I can see it being set as required reading for classes from now until eternity as the need to dissect, analyse and expound upon sets in. I've been Tartt fan since The Secret History and this, for me, is undoubtedly the best of her three offerings. Detailed but not overwhelming. The hero, Theo Decker, is traumatised early on in the story and spends the rest of the novel trying to find a place in the world where he can fit in where his morals are not compromised.

I love Tartt's writing style and language. The conversations sound exactly right. They remind me of the joy I got when I read Martin Amis, another writer whose language is exquisite.         

THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE KING OF SWEDEN

If you read and liked the One-Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared you'll enjoy Jonas Jonasson's new one, a suitably laugh-out-loud follow-up in the same style. The story has it's fair share of preposterous situations with equally preposterous solutions and the elephant has been replaced by an atom bomb. Highly recommended.

CHEKHOV AND MANNERS

These comments resound loud and clear. In the absence of the highly overrated and appallingly overused mobile phone selfie I suppose many sycophants would have hired portrait painters to paint their encounters with Anton.

 
Go Anton!!