May 2005 Archives

Hot on the heels of H is for Homicide, I induldged in a bank holiday excess of amercian crime fiction with the follow up case for Californian PI, Kinsey Millhone.

I is for Innocent deals with the priveledged and wealthy of St Theresa county, in contrast to the gangland culture in the previous book. The characters are equally rich, with Kinsey picking up the the investigative trail followed by another PI, whose fatal heart attack proves not to be quite as innocent as it first seemed.

Buy it: Amazon link

Investigating the murder of a former colleague, Kinsey gets embroiled with an on-the-run modern day gangster's moll, and ends up going undercover with the insurance scam gang, where more of her dark side is revealed when she joins in with the fake accident and whiplash episodes.

A fun read.

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.... "or every girl's big book of trains".

Quite why the third alternative title doesn't make it onto the cover is a mystery, and an almost fatal one in my case is it's taken me 5 months to pick up this book, which was another ex-Wishlist item.

And the loss would have been mine.

It's had to explain why this is such a good book, and it's hard to work out if I liked it purely because of my own character and background. Just don't reject this book on the basis that it's a trainspotter's guide because it most definitely isn't. Ian Marchant knows his stuff when it comes to trains and all things train-related, but he's not an engine-spotting-list-ticker. Rather, he's a bohemian bloke who loves the railways and their role in British history - all the way from the first horse-drawn tracks to Network Rail, via Stephenson's rocket and the railway mania of the 1800s; Beeching and privatisation.

Parallel lines is part social history, part political commentary, part autobiography, in a style akin to Nick Hornby and Bill Bryson - but with less knowing cleverness, and more heartfelt passion.

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Another good read from Sue Grafton, doing exactly what it says on the cover. There are a few more backward-looking references and a bit more action for Kinsey, on a variety of fronts: she travels to a Mojave desert community to locate a missing old lady, and winds up with a hitman on her tail, a body guard and a mystery that turns into multiple murder.....

Now all I need to do is find H is for .... in the Barbican library when I take this one back!

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Bought for me by dad and Jean for Christmas 2004, this collection tells the real life stories of a range of 20th century chinese women, some of whom are living lives that sound, to a Western woman, like they are set centuries ago. I can't remember where I read the review that prompted me to add this book to my Wishlist, but I'm very glad that I did. In each chapter, radio presenter and journalist Xinran, tells us about the listener's life, and in each case highlights an issue that affects women in China, and elsewhere. In translation, the narrative sounds a little stilted, but the stories are hugely powerful, and provide an amazing insight into female chinese society and the changes China and her people have seen in the 20th century.

Buy it: Amazon link