May 2006 Archives
Luckily Katie had brought in Tears of the Giraffe as well as No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency for me to borrow, so I was able to carry on reading about the sleuthing and romancing of Mma. Ramotswe, Bostwana's only lady private eye. In this, the second novel in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith again creates a cast and a plot that balance the good and the bad of Botswana - ranging from fostering orphans to solving the long-ago murder of an idealistic young american to out-witting lazy and dishonest house-keepers.
Precious Ramotswe is a good woman, and in Alexander McCall Smith's novels (so far at least) decency, kindness, optimism and common sense win out.
Buy it: Amazon link
Lent to me by Katie Carter, I raced through No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in one cool, wet Bank Holiday Saturday spent in the caravan at Walton-on-the-Naze.
Like many others (I'm sure), I'd picked up the first of Alexander McCall Smith's tales featuring ("starring", surely?) Precious Ramotswe many a time, in the library, at the airport, in bookshops... but I'd never actually bought it - the blurb just didn't sound enticing enough.
My mistake! Yes, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reads like a gentle, calm tale, but it's one that carries many a sting: death and abandonment, murder and witchcraft; but Mma. Ramotswe and her merry men and women steer a safe, thoughtful and overwhelmingly positive path through it all to the happiness and contentment you can't but help feel they deserve.
A modern day Aesop's fable - I'm amazed this book hasn't got more Amazon reviews.
Buy it: Amazon link
I still can't believe that I managed to get through all of the Kinsey Millhone novels (the ones published so far at least), in order, without having actually read the first in the series!!!
Well, I've remedied that glaring omission. Before I started A is for Alibi, I wasn't sure whether to expect the familiar scene setting and key character sketching that opens most of Sue Grafton's series or some deeper background detail backing up developments that have emerged over the 19 novels to date.
In fact it was the former, but with some interesting quirks for those readers who are able to look into Kinsey's future. There is an early and for me unexpected appearance by a strangely unfamiliar Robert Dietz, and the development of other, more fully formed, characters who are destined never to appear again - Arlette the lady motel owner in particular. The same goes for events - unless I've forgotten references to Kinsey shooting someone, or of her narrowly escaping being murdered by a recent lover..... and none of these are elements that feature frequently in the series as a whole!
It's not the best of Sue Grafton's novels, but it is by no means the worst (or to be more accurate, the one I liked the least). More importantly, it is the first of the alphabet series which makes it the best place to start if you've not read any others so far, and one that you'll need to read if you have.
Buy it: Amazon link
It was a bit disorienting reading this novel starring chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, police captain Pete Marino and genius niece Lucy. All my own fault of course, given my random approach to reading Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels. In Unnatural Exposure which was the last one I read, Kay was still resisting Benton's charms, and the one before that, The Last Precinct, is the one that immediately follows this!
That said, I rather enjoyed the fact that everything in this novel takes on a greater significance knowing what happens next, and it would be interesting to know how far in advance Patricia Cornwell plots her novels. It would also be of interest to know whether or not the critical Amazon.co.uk reviewers read this novel in sequence, given that most of them slated it.
Set in the year following Benton's death, Black Notice covers some of the key events and characters that feature in the overarching plotline developed during the course of later novels: rival alpha-female Diane Bray, love interest (that came as a surprise!) Jay Talley and Le Loup-Garou Jean-Baptiste Chandonne.
It also shows Dr Scarpetta at her most vulnerable, barely in control of her professional life and totally at a loss how to come to terms with the grief in her personal life, let alone in a position to deal with Lucy's trigger-happy reaction to Benton's murder.
Amazon.co.uk link: Black Notice - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)
An enjoyable birthday present from Karen, a mixture of modern and historical fiction in the mould of The Da Vinci Code. As the name suggests, The Last Templar features the Knights Templar , but this time the leading couple (both americans in this version, with the female as the academic, and her love interest a New York FBI agent) unearth a different long hidden secret that explains and the Templars' strained relationship with the Roman Catholic church.
A definite page turner, which you'd expect as the author - Raymond Khoury - is a script writer, but if you didn't find The Da Vinci Code erudite enough, I suspect this isn't a novel for you.
Buy it: Amazon link
On loan from Rachel, in lieu of a Lisa Jewell duplicate, I whizzed through this in a week. A modern morality tale for thirtysomethings both sides of the Atlantic, demonstrating that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the "married with children" line.
Buy it: Amazon link
At last, Kinsey rediscovers her love life and her libido!! I get the feeling that Sue Grafton had second thoughts about writing off Cheney Philips as a potential lover in her last novel, and managed to finagle him back into batchelorhood, and as prime candidate for Kinsey's attentions. At the same time, Robert Dietz is written off as an absent object of Kinsey's affections and the door closed firmly on her affair from the early alphabet novels.
Added to this upturn in Kinsey's affairs of the heart is the tension between her neighbour Henry and his brothers, clashing over the romantic attentions of a youthful seventy-something they'd met on a recent cruise.
And added to that we have Reba, the ex-con Kinsey agrees to chaperone for the first few days on parole, and who shows up Kinsey as a goody two shoes. A contrast that's no mean feat given Kinsey's track record of lock picking and law bending. A cracking story, although the baddies could have been drawn more darkly, and where of where has the long-lost-family subplot gone to?
Buy it: Amazon link