Sunday, May 27, 2007

Books

well I flew out of bed, grabbed my bins and went to do some birding. Yeah right, it was chucking it down so I lent over and picked up Simon Scarrow's "The Eagle in the Sand" the latest in the Macro and Cato series about a pair of Roman Soldiers. As ever reliable entertaining stuff.

I read quite a bit of crime fiction on holiday.

John Harvey's "Darkness & Light" is the third novel to feature retired DI Frank Elder. Harvey is one of the top crime writers and this was at his normal high standards. Peter Robinson is continuing his series about DCI Alan Banks. Like Harvey Robinson is an entertaining writer. "Piece of my Heart" is a good read if not one of the stronger entries in the series.

Not quite in the same class as Robinson and Harvey is Stephen Booth. That said Dancing with the Virgins the second in his Peak District series featuring DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry clips along at fair old rate. I enjoyed it enough to pick up 3 and 4.

Val McDermid is undoubtedly one of the top Crime Writers in the country. The Grave Tattoo was different from her normal stuff and felt more like a Robert Goddard novel.
Unfortunately as much as I enjoyed it I couldn't help but think it could be better. There seemed to be two many characters vying for attention and some of the side characters were more interesting than the leads.

Lyndsy Davis' Falco series, set in Ancient Rome, has been onging for years. Its like an old pair of slippers, reliable and comfortable but I don't feel as compelled to buy the latest novel as i used. See Delphi and Die was in paperback last year.

4 comments:

Dorothea said...

Falco was good on the radio4.

Hillerman's "a Thief of Time" was fun too, set in Hopi/Navajo jurisdiction lands - apparently it's been made into a film now.

Philip Marlowe's the bees knees though. Can the moderns beat that?

The Quacks of Life said...

never got on with Chandler

The Quacks of Life said...

may have to give him another go. enjoy the Bogey films though

oldcrow61 said...

Thanks for the info. Will check out these authors.

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