Read: West by Carys Davies ★★★★★ 📚
There is something endlessly pleasant about the quick flurries of bats in the trees at this time of day, and the soft crepitation of insects all around: a steady in-out susurration as if the earth itself is breathing.
Lovely book so brief & clear. A handful of characters, simply drawn. Cy, obsessed by possible monsters heads west into wild lands leaving his daughter in an awful situation.
Read: Skippy Dies by Paul Murray ★★★★☆ 📚
Irish private boy’s school. Some laugh out loud teenage dialogue, some horrible teenage drama. Multiple voices & pov weave towards a messy ending that didn’t quite pay off for me, although that might be the point. Still kept me reading for nearly 700 pages.
Read: The Last Voice You Hear by Mick Heron ★★★ 📚
Effective Detective as you would expect. Maybe a bit too much physical action for me. Nice twist to end setting up further stories.
Read: The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore ★★★★☆ 📚
Short but engaging fiction based on a real life memoir. Settlers & Sioux clash in 1855. The narrator, Sarah, has no self pity despite a troubled life. Felt like a realistic picture of the times both filthy & surprising. Characters are complex.
Read: Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin ★★★☆☆ 📚
I am reading more Rankin, not necessarily in the right order. This early Rebus is a wee bit different than the later versions. A nicely tangled plot woven across Edinburgh society from junkies to the higher reaches. Corruption all the way.
Read: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ★★★☆☆ 📚
Dystopia, prisoners fight to the death. Illuminating prisons & racism. Parallels with sport, advertising & reality TV. Quite a page turner, too much on weapons, technical details etc. great footnotes mix fact & fiction.
Read: The Secret Hours by Mick Herron ★★★★☆ 📚
I actually think I enjoyed this more than the Slow Horses books. There was some amusing civil service & government committee scenes, less over the top characters. Nice unobtrusive links to Slow Horses too.
Read: The Sun Walks Down by Fiona Mcfarlane ★★★★★ 📚
A lost boy in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century. The many searchers & their tangled involvement with each other, the land & the landscape weave in & out of the story. Great detail about each without losing momentum.
This was the time of day when the sun touched the red hill and the gods came creeping out of it—out of the sun. They parted the branches of the cypress tree and stepped with care over the rocks at the top of the hill. They ran like water down the hill, and their footsteps were like water around the corners of the house.
Read: Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen ★★★★☆ 📚
Majella is autistic but might not know it. Her mum is a hopeless alcoholic, her dad one of Northern Ireland’s disappeared. Her uncle had blown himself up & her grannie has just been murdered. Her house mostly filthy, her town pretty horrible too. This account of her likes & dislikes over a few days felt quite unpleasant to start with but grew on me. Not a lot of plot, but Majella is a fascinating & engaging character.
Read: Long Island by Colm Tóibín ★★★★★ 📚
Quiet, subtle and thrilling. Characters fail to communicate, wait too long for the right moment and miss and hit opportunities.
