“… thriller first published in 1991, featuring Wyatt, a stylish bank robber whose inscrutable methods ensure he never gets caught – until he meets Anna Reid. This is the perfect introduction to an exquisite series: hard-boiled Melbourne in the time of video rentals and answering machines, paper money, Datsuns and Customlines. It’s as sinewy and efficient as Wyatt himself, superbly crafted and relentlessly tense.“
Australian crime-noir. Sparse prose, good plot with a nice and steady build-up of tension. I could have done without the casual and unsubtle racism. Unexpected twist at the end that I did not see coming. Well done!
I did run out of steam towards the end though. Not sure if it was me or if it just took too long for the final part to come to a conclusion. Decent read, if you are in the mood for this type of crime noir. I decided to remove book #2 of this series from my TBR pile though.
A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.
Think Crime Noir à la Dashiell Hammett and add some demons, angels and a sapphic romance. Throw in a murder in a dark alley and a disgraced private eye with shady connections. Stir and voilà! One queer Gumshoe with a dash of magic coming right up.
I picked this up, because I read Witchmark (my review here) by Polk and liked it. Not enough to continue with the sequel—the setting didn‘t interest me—but enough to pick up this short Crime Noir offering.
Took me a while to unterstand the meaning of the title. Pretty obvious, once the coin drops. Potential for a sequel and a spin-off! I would read them…
Good audiobook narration by January LaVoy.
I received an advanced audiobook copy of this book from the publisher or author through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review. Thank you!
“It’s a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town. But Marv doesn’t care. There’s an angel in the room. She says her name is Goldie. A few hours later, Goldie’s dead without a mark on her perfect body, and the cops are coming before anyone but Marv could know she’s been killed. Somebody paid good money for this frame…“
This was my third attempt at reading this and I got a third through it. I don’t care. There might be a good story in there somewhere, but I doubt it. I can‘t get past disliking the art. Blocky, black-and-white, flat. Add to that an unlikeable main character, objectified women, pointless violence. Nope. To be honest, after having seen the movie (and disliking Mickey Rourke, as usual), I more or less expected all of that to some extend. I get that this is considered a classic… by men, presumably. I really tried, but I find the whole thing too offensive to finish it.
Some of these stories are more obscure or I have actually never read them. The stories span a good amount of years, including some in which Watson lives away from Holmes, happily married to Mary and running a doctor‘s practice. He very much leads a life of his own, but frequently accompanies his friend Holmes on his cases.
This Holmes, the real one, is never as aloof or downright dismissive of others as he has become on the screen. There are many visuals know from the many screen adaptations though and sentences and remarks that have made their way into the shared consciousness of Holmes‘s fans.
Contains: A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes & Watson meet The Woman / The Adventure of the Red-Headed League / The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle / The Adventure of the Speckled Band / various other stories
– Severance by Ling Ma ★★★½☆ audio, a millennial‘s coming of age, literary fiction with a touch of zombies.
– Black Tide ★★★★¼ audiobook, horror. End of the world, alien invasion meets creature feature. I had fun, couldn‘t put it down. Looking forward to everybody else‘s comments.
– The Empress of Salt and Fortune ★★★☆☆ ebook, novella, magical China, the life of an empress in very broad strokes, didn‘t do much for me.
– The Iron Duke ★★★★★ paper, StoryGraph #1 August, officially marketed as PNR, but much more steampunk-pirates-zombie-swashbuckling fun.
#2) The Sign of Four, Watson meets Mary. And we take a trip to the Andaman Islands. ★★★★☆
#3) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes & Watson meet The Woman / The Adventure of the Re-Headed League / A Case of Identity / The Boscombe Valley Mystery / The Five Orange Pips / The Man with the Twisted Lip / The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle / The Adventure of the Speckled Band ★★★★☆
– INVISIBLE PEOPLE by Nancy Kress — parents find out that their adopted daughter has been genetically altered as an embryo. Besides the ethical questions this throws up, it‘s a well-written thriller. Great character development for a short story, I was with them every step of the way. ★★★★★
– Dune, new movie ★★★★★ re-watch. Part II end of 2023, why???
– Obi-Wan Kenobi, S1, Ep 6, season completed ★★★★☆ hard to come to a satisfying ending, when you know that they all live to fight another day.
– Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ★★★★☆ Entertaining, a little silly, a little absurd. I think I like my entertainment to be a little less wacky. Pretty forgettable, actually.
– A Discovery of Witches, S1 completed ★★★½☆ Meh. Read the blurb of books 2 + 3, most likely a pass.
– Resident Evil, S1 completed, Netflix series ★★★★☆
(- Night Sky, S1, Eps 3… not sure if I am all that interested in continuing….
– For All Mankind, S3, Eps. 1-3 ★★★★★ OMG, I wish this was real. So cool.
And last, but not least — I finally finished my Lego tree house…
Some statistics:
Just noticed—the format page only seems to be counting the finished books. Oh well…
I struggled at first with audiobooks, because I kept nodding off, when sitting still and listening to them. I have to do something else, that doesn‘t engage my mind, while I listen.
I still do more eye-reading, my average for audiobooks is one per month. I always listen to a sample first, it is very important for me that I like the narrator. I even have some favourites and I sometimes even pick a book purely based on who narrates it. Case in point: I am a Sherlock Holmes fan, but the deciding factor for picking up my current audio, Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Audio Collection: it is narrated by Stephen Fry.
I read faster than a narrator usually reads out the books, so I tend to listen to audios at a speed of 1.5.
I am reviewing this 72-hours monster in chunks, the first part you can read here. For this readathon I am currently making my way through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
I have listened to these stories today: A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes & Watson meet The Woman / The Adventure of the Red-Headed League / A Case of Identity / The Boscombe Valley Mystery / The Five Orange Pips / The Man with the Twisted Lip / The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle ★★★★☆
Some of these stories are more obscure or I have actually never read them. The stories span a good amount of years, in which Watson lives away from Holmes, happily married to Mary and running a doctor‘s practice. He very much leads a life of his own, but frequently accompanies his friend Holmes on his cases. This Holmes, the real one, is never as aloof, hurtful or downright dismissive of others.
There are many visuals know from the many screen adaptations though and sentences and remarks that have made their way into the shared consciousness of Holmes‘s fans.
More reviews to come, as I slowly progress through this audio.
A Study in Scarlet The very first Sherlock Holmes story. John Watson meets Sherlock Holmes. The mystery wasn‘t terribly exciting. Two Americans turn up dead. Obviously there is a back story. Utah, Mormons, romance… ★★★½☆
The Sign of the Four The sequel. Holmes & Watson meet Mary Morstan. And Toby, the dog with the supernose. The backstory takes us to the Andaman islands. I have read this one several times and so far it is my favourite.
I still astonishes me how (relatively) human and social Holmes comes across in the original. TV has a lot to be answered for.
This audiobook monster is narrated by the adorable Stephen Fry, who did his usual stellar job. Some interesting forewords are included.
More reviews to come, as I slowly progress through this audio.
The last time I read The Sign of the Fourwas in 2016. Here is what I had to say about it back then:
Re-reading a classic.
This is my favourite Holmes story. I was fascinated about the description of his drug use, when I read this first as a teenager.
With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks.
The plot is (mostly) fun. We meet Mary, Toby, Wiggins and get to read many immortal sentences from the Sherlock Holmes universe.
I know the plot so well that I find it hard to be critical about it. The only part I truly do not like, is Jonathan Small’s story. It drags and I find it a little boring. It’s too long and feels like an afterthought, that got stuck on to inflate the page count.
And from today’s point of view Doyle’s description of Tonga comes across as pretty offensive. But this was published in 1890, so I can acknowledge that and live with it.
And even back then they wrote bad insta-love! It also struck me as strange during this re-read, how jovial Holmes is and how often he laughs. Should I blame the BBC for that?
My first Gamache, but the 13th of the series, so I am most likely missing some context.
Gamache, the chief of police of the province of Quebec, is in the witness stand of a murder trial. The chief prosecutor is pretty hostile towards his main witness. Through the questioning we are told the story of the murder that happened in the village of Three Pines. So much for the beginning. There is more to it, with a pretty modern problem.
Slow. A lot of talking and reminiscing. Set-up for the community that lives in Three Pines and its guests. More talking. Little doing. The murder only happens a third into the book. And the accused sitting on that bench during the trial is never named, which in my opinion is a pretty lame gimmick to create suspense. Of which there was little to none. The last 30% are a bit more speedy, but the wrap-up is quite repetitive.
Some of the characters stay one-dimensional, I struggled to keep them apart until the end. The woman with the duck was just a silly caricature.
Many of my reading buddies love Gamache, but this was way too cozy for me. And the plot was a little silly. It is very unlikely that I will pick up another one of the series or by this author, unless I come by it very cheaply. Maybe #14…
2.5 pine cones, rounded up to 3 for the tears-inducing ending.
PS: – Initially bought for my mum, who did not finish it. I should have listened to her reasons. – I don‘t read many straight mysteries anymore and never in German, so this was a bit of an an uphill struggle. – Reading a novel in German again wasn‘t as much work as I had feared. – This is the first book of the series published in Germany and consequently released books do not seem to follow the original sequence either—I didn‘t check too deeply though. Very odd, why didn‘t the German publishers start with the first book? – The first book of the series, Still Life, was made into a movie and I would watch it. – The English original is called Glass Houses: A Novel, which is more meaningful for the book than the German title „Behind the Three Pines“.
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Thisweek‘s topic / December 28: Best Books I Read In 2021
These books haven‘t necessarily been released in 2021, that‘s just when I read them… I left out all of my re-reads of Dragonriders of Pern, The Expanse, The Imperial Radch, etc. etc.:
Rovers by Richard Lange — A horror book with a different take on vampires. Of Mice and Men with vampires and a biker gang.
Shards of Earth (The Final Architects Trilogy, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky — Space opera with a touch of The Expanse and Babylon 5, with a great ensemble cast on a scrappy scavenger ship, fighting against the odds and pretty much everything else. The proverbial underdogs against the universe.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — Mark Watney in space! And he sciences the sh*t out of his situation… so, yes, very much reminiscent of The Martian. And then some. I loved it and could barely put it down. So much fun!
The Prefect (Prefect Dreyfus Emergency, #1) by Alastair Reynolds — On the surface this comes along as a police procedural in a SF setting. Dreyfus is a cop with a strong moral code of right and wrong, committed to justice. My first association was Miller from The Expanse, with a bit of Blade Runner and minus any projectile weapons. Space opera, ultimately, with the many and very varied habitats of the Glitter Band, artificial intelligences, body modifications, uplifted mammals, many political systems, states of being and an elaborate polling system — fascinating!
David Mogo, Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa — Gods have rained down on Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We enter the story some time later, into the dystopian society that has developed here in the aftermath. David Mogo, our 1st person narrator, is a demi-god working as an illegal godhunter. An old wizard with dubious morals sends David Mogo off to catch two high gods, Taiwo and Kehinde. David is in need of money to fix his roof, so off he goes, despite his misgivings about this wizard. Obviously things don’t go as expected.
Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells — Muderbot is back in novella length. Snark and sarcasm abound. Just another crazy day, tracking down a murderer and making sure one’s humans don‘t come to harm. All the stars.
Leviathan Falls (The Expanse #9) by James S.A. Corey — A well done ending to the series. I did not expect it to go into the direction it did, so that was satisfying. It ends bittersweet, with some sadness, but also hope.
Revelation (Matthew Shardlake, #4) by C.J. Sansom — Historically pretty sound, as far as I can tell. Very homogenous. Full of suspense towards the end, could not put it down anymore. The murders are gruesome and reminiscent of a famous 90s movie. With the context of Henry VIII, his dissolution of the monasteries and the religious upheaval of that time it works well.
Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega, #6) by Patricia Briggs — The FBI shows up at the doorstep of Anna and Charles and asks for help. A village in the mountains has disappeared and something potentially evil lurks in the woods.
The Whale Library by Zidrou, Judith Vanistendael — Pretty watercolours, a mature story about a whale who contains a large library, a postman delivering sea mail, his wife and a smattering of sailors, pirates, fish, sea turtles, octopi and more…
Besides this one I also read some very good more traditional graphic novels. But that probably needs another entry…
In yesterday‘s review of Fated I mentioned other novels with a similar setting and feel. And because I haven‘t posted those review here before (well, ok, pretty sure I talked about Peter Grant plenty), I give you another Blast from the Past…
I struggled a bit in the first third of the book. For an over 2000 years old druid this guy seems to be pretty silly and not very smart or wise. The talking dog is a tad annoying, too. It sometimes sounds very smart and at other times it’s pretty much like I would expect a dog to be. In the beginning you also get swamped with every supernatural being you can think of and you’re pummeled with a ton of complicated, celtic names. The werewolves could do with being fleshed out a bit more. And a tad of world building would not go amiss. Thor? Really? I was prepared to be royally disappointed and give up. But I stuck with it and the action picked up eventually. The fight scenes are well written. The bad guys are pretty stupid, though. And the author is not as funny as he thinks he is, Maybe he is trying too hard. Or I am too old to be that easily amused. Take your pick. But I ended up reading pretty much two thirds of the book in one sitting and I enjoyed myself. Go figure. I might even get the next book of the series.
PS: I threw in the towel after book 7 of the series…
My first re-read, six years later and having read and liked all the other available full-length novel. I liked it a lot better than the first time around, although it still felt a bit slow in the middle. I didn‘t remember much of the plot and it was interesting to see, how much this world has developed with the consecutive books.
I guess the perceived slowness was probably due to Aaronovitch spending time on world building and introducing various characters, which are relevant in later books. The plot suffered a bit for it. It was worth reading this again, though. And if this is your first read and you are maybe not totally sold yet, please give the next book a chance.
April 2012, original review:
Modern day London, a copper takes a witness statement, not realising that he is interviewing a ghost. He ends up working for the last wizard of England in a special police unit dealing with the supernatural.
I read the first 70 pages in one sitting. Fresh, witty, great plot, I laughed a lot and had fun. Murder, sleuthing, magic, talking to ghosts. And then those rivers started showing up and the story wandered off into the distance aimlessly. The plot lost its way and I lost interest. I kept putting the book down for days on end, to read something more interesting. Finally I forced myself to finish it with a fair bit of skimming.
What shame. I really wanted to like this book. There was too much going on that had nothing to do with the actual plot. I wish the author had just stuck to the murder mystery and concentrated on developing the three central characters of of Peter Grant, Inspector Nightingale and Lesley. Instead he sidetracked into the story of Mother Thames, her daughters and the Old Man. Which was a nice plot bunny by itself, but had nothing to do with the murder mystery. In the end it was boring and frustrating, because it was so scattered.
PS: Re-reading the first book spawned into a re-read of the entire series and this is currently one of my favourite UF novels written by a male author. Currently waiting for book #9, due to be published in April 2022! Instabuy / pre-ordered!
Love the Endless Purse, I want one! What an excellent read. Liked it right from the start, Harry is a guy who likes his sarcasm and has a sense of humour. Harry Potter has grown up and moved to Chicago. Thoroughly enjoyable, good suspense story, well fleshed out characters, and the tension just keeps on rising.
PS: I threw in the towel after book #5. There was zero character development and Harry was just too immature for my taste.
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 