Recently in Crime fiction Category

The third Elizabethan novel featuring London lawyer Matthew Shardlake, now joined by sidekick Barak, a familiar face from Dark Fire, this book's predecessor.

Sovereign is set in Tudor England in 1541, with Shardlake and Barak destined to cross the path of The Royal Progress, which sees King Henry VIII and No 4 Queen, Catherine Howard, the Court and and their vast entourage making a slow journey through the unruly Midlands and The North. The purpose of the progress is to demonstrate royal power and to quench once and for all the flames of rebellion ignited in the Pilgrimage of Grace five years earlier. Shardlake meets the King at York, which is the setting for the murders and mystery that form the focus of this excellent plot.

Amazon.co.uk: Sovereign - C J Sansom

An American from the military base at Vincenza is found floating in the Venice lagoon, and Commissario Guido Brunetti's instincts tell him that it's no accidental death or mugging gone wrong. Calling upon informants ranging from his aristocratic father-in-law to a local petty criminal and his Sicilian mother, Guido finds himself delving into the murky waters of international corporate crime....

Death in a Strange Country has rewhetted my appetite for Donna Leon, if only the Barbican Library can oblige...

Oh - I've just read on the dust jacket that this is the second in the Brunetti series, which explains why some of the more familiar faces are missing, including the excellent Signorina Elettra.

Amazon.co.uk: Death in a Strange Country - Donna Leon
Leon's Brunetti books in Order

The latest Scarpetta novel, and written in a much briefer sentence style which took me a bit of getting used to. The other odd feature which takes some getting used to is Marino's character change - whilst I don't think it's a sudden shift (but I'd need to have read Blow Fly/Trace/Predator more recently to be sure of the gradual build), but this is the first book where he is clearly so unpleasant and bent on destroying his relationship with Kay (and Benton and Lucy).

As one Amazon reviewer put it "Everything is so dark and bleak" - and that applies to the main characters just as much as the criminal storyline, so much so that having only finished the book a few days ago I can't even remember the plot - just the sadness I felt for the characters I've followed for years.

amazon.co.uk link: Book of the Dead - Patricia Cornwell

amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

I read a lot of Ellis Peters as a teenager, but this is the first historical crime fiction I've picked up for a while. There were a bunch of good reviews of the latest Matthew Shardlake novel, Revelation and when I spotted this in the most recent book sale in St Giles church, it was a obvious purchase.

Set in Tudor London in the latter years of Henry VIII's reign our hero, hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, is called upon once more by Thomas Cromwell, this time to track down a recently unearthed barrel of Greek Fire. In return, Cromwell gives a fortnight's reprieve to Elizabeth Wentworth, the neice of a former client of Shardlake who stands accused of murdering her cousin. Accompanied by one of Cromwell's thugs for hire, the plot takes us through the murky streets and waterways of London in a race against time - if Shardlake cannot establish Elizabeth's innocence she will be pressed to death, and if Cromwell cannot demonstrate Greek Fire to the King his period as the second most powerful man in the land will end - and the balance of power will swing back to the Catholic Howard clan.

A very enjoyable read, with plenty of period detail particularly in the religious upheaval wrought by Reformation and the uncertainty that prevailed as a result.

Amazon.co.uk link: Dark Fire - C J Sansom

One of Michael Connolly's best crime novels featuring Harry Bosch.

In City of Bones Harry seems a much younger version of the grizzled, cynical, persistent and effective LAPD homicide detective than he must be in terms of when the book is written/set. He's still the jazz loving cop, with sidekicks Jerry Edgar and Kiz Rider, but there's no mention of his ex wife and child and instead the love interest focus is on rookie cop Julia Brasher who he meets investigating the murder of a child whose bones are unearthed in the Hollywood Hills.

Amazon.co.uk: City of Bones - Michael Connelly

Michael Dibdin's last book, and the end of Aurelio Zen's adventures. He (Zen) isn't the same character as he was in earlier novels, but then we all change as we grow older.

Set in a provincial capital in Calabria, a location even more remote than Naples from Zen's Venetian roots, we find Zen in the apparently unlooked for position of interim Chief of Police, covering for the native incumbent who is temporarily hors de combat due to an unfortunately self inflicted foot wound. Zen's final investigation combines the old, unchanging world of the native Calabrese with the modern hi tech world of the West Coast of the USA. The clash of cultures between northerner Zen and his southerner colleagues and the community for which he finds himself responsible is less marked, but always there. And as Dibdin's final novel brings to life a suitably wide range of characters, it is noticable that his handling of the modern (American) world is better than in Back to Bologna with references to the worlds of online gaming and Google Earth far more natural than the celebrity reality TV setting of Back to Bologna.

But the focus of End Games is Calabria, and its ancient ways of life which continue apparently impervious to incomers, whether Greek, Roman, Norman, Spanish, Albanian.... However, in this novel the incomers of interest are Alaric the Goth at the time of the Roman Empire and 21st century Americans, returning sons of Italian emigrants, entrepreneurial second generation Vietnamese and Microsoft millionaires.

Whilst End Games brings to a close - for the reader at least - the career of Aurelio Zen, I do at least have a trio of earlier investigations to enjoy - Vendetta (1990), Dead Lagoon (1994) and Cosi Fan Tutti (1996) - and I hope that in these earlier novels I'll get to see a bit more of the man himself.

Amazon.co.uk link: End Games - Michael Dibdin

From the Yemen to Los Angeles, for a rendezvous with Harry Bosch, himself returned to the LAPD and working alongside former cop partner Kiz Rider. This time round they are part of the Open-Unsolved Unit, doing what Harry and Kiz do best: solving old, cold cases - in this case, the murder of Becky Verloren, a high school student, 17 years previously.

Connelly's novel brings in the racial tensions of the late 1980s, in particular the institutional racism characterised by the police beating of Rodney King and the resultant race riots of 1992. Did the initial investigators deliberately overlook the fact that Becky was the daughter of a white mother and a black father, or were they persuaded to look elsewhere by Harry's nemesis, Irvin Irving?

There's also Becky's secret abortion to explain and the exact role petty criminal Roland Mackey played in 1988 - scientific advances have allowed the police to identify his DNA from a skin sample caught in the trigger of the gun that killed Becky.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Closers - Michael Connelly

Having loved Mma Ramotswe, I thought I'd see how I got on with Alexander McCall Smith's Scottish variation on the lady detective theme. The answer is, Very Well. So if like me you're looking for some light reading in between Botswana-based books, I'd recommend you get acquainted with Isabel Dalhousie, an erudite Edinburgh lady of independent means whose outlook on life is reflects the intellectual and philosophical inheritance of the Scottish setting.

I'd previously been somewhat put off by the The Sunday Philosophy Club title, but the club only features in a supporting role, serving to underline the importance of philosophy in Isabel's world and to demonstrate that she and her friends and acquaintances have the same foibles and weaknesses as we ordinary mortals; the club hasn't managed to meet for months.

Indeed, the main plot is more concerned with love and money and Machiavellian motivations as Isabel tries to find the answer to that age old conundrum "Did he fall or was he pushed?" - after witnessing a young man's fall to his death during an opera concert at the Usher Hall.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith

On a roll with Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, Property of Blood offered a much easier plot than The Monster of Florence - Olivia Brunamonti, American model-turned-Florentine-aristo-cum-designer, is kidnapped by dastardly Sardinians.

The novel provides gripping account of the "kidnappee's" experience, blindfolded and temporarily rendered deaf so as to be unable to identify her captors, Olivia finds herself striking up a friendship with one of the kinder members of the gang - à la Stockholm syndrome.

Guarnaccia brings his usual common sense approach to tracking down the kidnappers and the victim. He also manages to persuade the family to cooperate with the police - no mean feat given Italy's range of anti-kidnapping laws which kick in as soon as the kidnapping is reported, freezing the victim's assets and forcing the families to negotiate through police channels. Fascinating.

However, when, eventually, a ransom is demanded of Olivia's family we see two very different reactions from her son and her daughter....

Amazon.co.uk link: Property of Blood - Magdalen Nabb

My first foray into the Florentine world of Marshal Guarnaccia. A less self assured investigator than Aurelio Zen or Commissario Guido Brunetti, but Magdalen Nabb makes you fully aware that this self effacing family man is highly valued by his colleagues and others.

That said, The Monster of Florence wasn't that easy a read - the complicated plot featured lots of dastardly Sicilians with similar names and complex connections, as suspects into a series of ritual killings of courting couples that had spanned several decades. Even with the added advantage of Guarnaccia being Sicilian by birth himself, having reached the end of the book I still wasn't sure "whodunnit", but that's probably due to having read the book piecemeal as bedtime chapters rather than in one long stint.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Monster of Florence - Magdalen Nabb

One of Michael Connelly's better Harry Bosch novels, with the action, as well as drugs, moving between LA the US/Mexico border towns, and between good and bad cops inside and outside the local police forces.

As to where it fits in the overall timeline, I'm not entirely sure - but Harry's certainly having far more sex than in other novels, so I'd guess it's an earlier rather than later story! I'm also sure that there should be some significance to the "The" in the title, I just can't work it out.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Black Ice - Michael Connelly

Another excellent encounter with detective Harry Bosch in his first big case following his return to LAPD after an early retirements and stint as a PI. Again the story revolves around one of Hollywood's many open-unsolved cases - the disappearance and presumed murder of a young woman - which Harry first investigated 13 years previously; only now it looks like she was one of many victims of a serial killer.

A few familiar faces turn up to help out Harry in his quest to track down the murderer, and the truth - and given that politicians and elections come into the mix too Harry faces even more dirty double dealings (and plot twists and turns) than usual.

Amazon.co.uk link: Echo Park - Michael Connelly

Sod's law in operation as far as the timing of reading this Harry Bosch novel goes.... I'd already picked up that The Poet tells a key event in Harry's life and career but I'd not been able to find it at the library, and it turns out that The Narrows is, in effect, a sequel to The Poet. Anyway, The Poet will make interesting reading when I do lay my hands on a copy.

The key players are the serial killer known as The Poet, ex cop private eye Bosch and FBI agent Rachel Walling. As the FBI investigate a mass grave in the Nevada desert, Bosch and Walling are lured, by separate means and with differing motivations, towards the same spot - but the climax takes place back in Harry's LA heartland.

A jump forward in time (and sequence) from Death in La Fenice, Uniform Justice deals with the apparent suicide of a young soldier at Venice's prestigious military school. The story reveals the lives and morals of the privileged families who control the army, politics and Venetian society, and the disdain most - but, importantly, not all - have for law and the police, good government and the proletariat.

Amazon.co.uk link: Uniform Justice - Donna Leon
Leon's Brunetti books in Order

I'd chanced upon this, the first Brunetti novel, on my most recent trip to the library, which meant I was able to read it as we travelled through France and northern Italy to Jess and Mike's wedding in Milan.

The plot concerns the murder of Helmut Wellauer, a world famous, albeit rather unpleasant, conductor, in the middle of a performance in Venice's La Fenice opera theatre. Commissario Brunetti's investigations reveal a multitude of motives and suspects, but the truth turns out to be both simpler (in fact) and more complex (in motivation) than first appears.

Amazon.co.uk link: Death in La Fenice - Donna Leon
Leon's Brunetti books in Order

Jed Rubenfeld brings together psychology, sociology and sleuthing in this highly readable murder-mystery.

The plot is set in New York in the early part of the 20th century, when money, power and social standing were all still controlled of the upper classes dynasties. However tradition is under threat as the cityscape and more egalitarian society we know today start to emerge.

The main cast comprise Sigmund Freud and acolytes, on their first visit to the United States and at a key time in the acceptance of Freud's theories on psychoanalysis. Their arrival coincides with the sexually-motivated murder of a beautiful young socialite and within days there is a second attack in a similar vein.

Despite the erudition, it's not a literary masterpiece - more CSI meets Cracker in an Edith Wharton setting - but a good read nevertheless.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfeld

Having thoroughly enjoyed Fatal Remedies, I rushed headlong into Friends in High Places. Well worth paying the penalty of starting Donna Leon's Brunetti novels with zero knowledge of the order in which they were written.

In Friends in High Places the Brunettis are informed by a planning officer that their flat doesn't exist, despite solid physical evidence to the contrary. We are introduced to all the weird and wonderful "logic" of Italian bureaucracy, and the Brunettis immediate instinct as to how to deal with the risk of losing their family home? To turn to friends and family in high places.....

The book's title takes on a more sinister meaning with the planning officer is found dead, apparently having fallen from one of Venice's many old building's being restored. And that charming old couple Brunetti sees in Piazza San Marco? Evil money lenders who call in such valuable properties in lieu of unpaid/unpayable debts.

Amazon.co.uk link: Friends in High Places - Donna Leon
Leon's Brunetti books in Order

Another Italian sleuth recommendation from John Gyford, and handily he'd left two Donna Leons at the caravan for our August visit. For some reason I'd always assumed that as Donna Leon is American, she would be writing novels set in America. How wrong I was!

Commissario Guido Brunetti is Aurelio Zen with a settled family life and less violent crimes to solve. Set in modern day Venice, I get the feeling the two should know one another, at the very least. From the picture drawn by the two authors, there can't be that many honest senior cops in that part of Italy!

In Fatal Remedies, Brunetti is faced with the dilemma of how to "investigate" his wife's principles-led act of vandalism - throwing a brick through the window of a travel agency she believes caters for child sex tourism to South East Asia. Not having read the preceding novels, it's hard to assess the full extent of the pressure this puts on the Brunetti's marriage. They seem a strong committed couple, but this commitment comes into conflict with their commitments to their principles - Guido to upholding the law, Paola's to protesting against social evils that appear to be beyond the long arm of the law.

The plot isn't entirely focused on the Brunettis - when the owner of the travel agency dies, more sinister crimes than Paola's come in to play. And I love Signorina Eletra, the mild mannered secretary with a vast network of contacts in Italy's organs of state, and l33t hacker skillz. She brings a bit of the world of James Bond to the tale.

Amazon.co.uk link: Fatal Remedies - Donna Leon
Leon's Brunetti books in Order

Set in 19th century London (in the main), this novel mixes historical fiction with biography to suggest a backstory for Edgar Allen Poe (the boy of the book's title), his childhood in England and parentage.

Told by his schoolmaster and one-time soldier Thomas Shield, the story covers mystery and murder, love, lust and lechery, financial scandal and social ruin. There's the high society balls and dinner parties of the country elite, the honest poor making ends meet in London's labyrinthine tenements and the ne'er-do-wells of both worlds.

It's not an easy read, but ultimately it is a worthwhile one.

Amazon.co.uk: The American Boy - Andrew Taylor

Our hero, Harry Bosch, has now retired from the LAPD; his years as a detective having made him well versed in the underbelly of Californian life. With time on his hands, and no one to share it with, he carries on sleuthing, looking into cold cases which his (former) fellow officers have no time to pursue. Harry's unofficial investigation into the murder of a young woman who'd worked in the film industry brings him into contact with a former colleague paralysed in the course of duty, the FBI, weathly film financiers... and although Harry ties up everything at the end, there's an unexpected twist which left me wondering where things would go next!

Amazon.co.uk tells me that Lost Light is book 9 in the Harry Bosch series, and that book number 2 (next on the library list) is The Black Ice, so that leaves at least seven more installments to track down, starting with The Black Echo. Plus I'd never realised Amazon had these "Series" pages.... very handy!

Amazon.co.uk link: Lost Light - Michael Connelly

Another heartwarming tale from Botswana, even if Mma Ramotswe rather surprised me by starting to worry about her traditionally built figure! The crimes and misdemeanours range from staff pilfering to fears of witchcraft to cheeky apprentices, and the philosophical asides cover feminism and offender rehbilitation.

Amazon.co.uk link: Blue Shoes and Happiness - Alexander McCall Smith

Having read all of (now sadly departed) Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels, and being up to date with both Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Alphabet and (to the best of my knowledge - my reading has been a bit hotchpotch here) Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, I am in need of some fresh crime fiction and a new detective hero/heroine.

I tried The Closers a few months ago but gave up after a few pages as the book needed to go back to the library, but I'd picked this one up for a pound at a S&S charity book sale, and found it much easier to get into. Set in LA, not a million miles from Kinsey Millhone's Santa Theresa turf, The Black Echo deals with a much darker world - the crimes investigated by the homicide team in the not so whiter than white LAPD.

In this novel, less than perfect Harry Bosch is digging into the drug-related death of a fellow Vietnam veteran and getting caught up in the more complex world of the FBI and sophisticated high value bank vault robberies.

If you like The Wire, then I think you'll like Harry Bosch.

And having just looked up the Amazon.co.uk link, I see that this is the first Harry Bosch novel. Excellent - no need to try to work out how best to backtrack to the start of the story... I just need to know which one comes next....

Amazon.co.uk link: The Black Echo - Michael Connelly

Another episode from early in Dr Kay Scarpetta's career, where she still smokes and hasn't yet settled into her relationships with Marino and Benton Wesley. What makes this novel all the wierder, for someone reading the books out of order, is the part Mark plays in the plot. In fact, not just the part, but his very existence is all rather strange, upsetting the balance between all the other, more familiar, characters.

Amazon.co.uk link: Body of Evidence - Patricia Cornwell

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

I couldn't quite believe I'd missed out reading The Body Farm - it's one of the most well known of Patricia Cornwell's Dr Kay Scarpetta novels, and covers the two key events in the lives of Dr Kay Scarpetta, her genius neice Lucy and FBI profiler Benton Wesley. I shall say no more, other than if you like the series and haven't yet read The Body Farm, put it at the top of your Books To Read list!

Amazon.co.uk link: The Body Farm - Patricia Cornwell

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

Unlike recent reads, I really enjoyed this Aurelio Zen mystery, although the man himself didn't make an appearance until well past page 40. Set in the independent minded mountain borderlands between Italy and Switzerland, this Zen outing provides a darker by more credible plot stetching back 30 years, and Zen's sleuthing reveals relationships and careers based on lies and deceit. Zen seems at his best when he's an outsider, and when Michale Dibdin keeps Zen's personal life playing a remote second fiddle to his detective work and police force politicking.

Amazon.co.uk link: Medusa - Michael Dibdin

Unlike recent reads, I really enjoyed this Aurelio Zen mystery, although the man himself didn't make an appearance until well past page 40. Set in the independent minded mountain borderlands between Italy and Switzerland, this Zen outing provides a darker by more credible plot stetching back 30 years, and Zen's sleuthing reveals relationships and careers based on lies and deceit. Zen seems at his best when he's an outsider, and when Michale Dibdin keeps Zen's personal life playing a remote second fiddle to his detective work and police force politicking.

Amazon.co.uk link: Medusa - Michael Dibdin

At last - I spotted the latest instalment in Sue Grafton's alphabetised crime series featuring Californian Private Eye, Kinsey Millhone.

S is for Silence sees Kinsey sleuthing away from her Santa Theresa base, travelling to the small inland town of Serena Station to investigate the whys and wherefors of the disappearance of good time girl, Violet Sulivan, on 4th July 1953..... Did Violet run off to escape her abusive husband or to be with an unknown lover, or was she killed - and if so, why?

Flashbacks to 1953 provide the background on the community's characters, motives and events, and the focus is much more on the lives and loves of people other than Kinsey. It's not that I don't enjoy following Kinsey's personal story, but it must be difficult for Sue Grafton to come up with fresh plotlines for our feisty heroine.

Now I only need wait another year or so for T is for .....

Amazon.co.uk link: S is for Silence

A change of genre after so much historical fiction, biography and travel writing .... I picked up this 2004 novel by Ruth Rendell not long after the Ipswitch serial murders. Set in modern day London, this is a strikingly similar tale of one man's murdering spree, set against a backdrop of a West London antiques shop, peopled by its owner/occupier , the tenants living in the flats above and the people they know and love. Patricia Cornwell is more gruesome, but The Rottweiler takes place closer to home.

Amazon.co.uk link: The Rottweiler - Ruth Rendell

This most recent Aurelio Zen mystery proved a bit of a disappointment. I've missed out on Medusa, the novel that covers events between And then you die and Back to Bologna, which turn out to have been pretty key in relation to Zen's romantic life. I dislike reading things in the wrong order - it spoils my enjoyment of the discovery of what happens in the book I've missed out.

Another aspect of Back to Bologna which irked me was the cast of 21st century stereotypes: celebrity chef, rich kid football hooligan, illegal economic migrant, oligarchical football club owner. It felt like I was reading reportage in Grazia or Hello, "with the names changed to protect the innocent". And Zen didn't seem to contribute much to the final outcome; in fact he did't appear to do much apart from mope about his failing love life.

Buy it: Amazon link

Rather annoyingly, realised that I'd picked up the 6th in Alexander McCall Smith's gentle and enjoyable series featuring the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and whilst waiting in LHR for my departure to Islamabad I opened In the Company of Cheerful Ladies to discover that Mma Precious Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni are now married and I have to wait until I get back from my holidays to find out the detail!!

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies introduces a new character to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, after Mma Ramostwe knocks Mr Polopetsi off his bicycle, and Mma Grace Makutsi finds true love at last, after taking up dancing lessons. In the meantime, one of the apprentices find religion, the other gets entangled with an older, married woman and Mma Ramotse first husband, no good Note Mokoti, returns from South Africa, bringing nothing but trouble....

Buy it: Amazon link

The Kalahari Typing School for Men continues to feature the personal and professional life of Mma Grace Makutsi - who sets up a typing school for men, and a boyfriend, but alas, whilst the school is a success, the nascent love life is less so.

The cases handled by Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi include a man who wishes to atone for misdeeds of his youth and a female physiotherapist who turns to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency having become a dissatsfied client of the recently opened Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency, run by the rather unpleasant Cephas Buthelezi.

Buy it: Amazon link

With work calling in crazy hours, I was definitely in need of some lightweight fiction in September for the rare moments when I felt the desire and had the energy to read. So I was very happy to find the next four books in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series in the library.

In Morality for Beautiful Girls we find Mr J L B Matekoni suffering from depression, and Mma Precious Ramotswe called upon to do some detective work into the morals of the four finalists in the Miss Glamorous Botswana competition, and the relationships at play in the family of the nameless Government Man. In the meantime, Mma Ramotswe and fiance Mr J L B Matekoni bring their respective businesses under one roof, and Mma Makutsi displays unexpected skills at managing Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors' two workshy apprentices.

Buy it: Amazon link

Still manic at work, so a bank holiday weekend at Forty Acres offered the perfect opportunity for restocking from the second hand bookshop and the Paperback Exchange, sadly shutting down (but that allowed for plenty of purchases at rock bottom prices).

I raced through this over the bank holiday weekend at Forty Acres. The first in the Kay Scarpetta series, and a very different read from the later ones I've been reading more recently. Worth reading with care to see how the key characaters are introduced.

Amazon.co.uk link: Amazon link

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

Another unsettling whodunnit featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta, this time with heavy emphasis on the psychological aspects - particularly Benton's criminal profiling and the long term affects of child abuse. As the plot unfolds, you soon realise that you're not at all sure who exactly is watching who.

Amazon.co.uk link: Predator - Patricia Cornwell

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

Another purchase from Hereford's second hand/charity shop - as was All That Remains - and another random dip into the world of Dr Kay Scarpetta. This time I found myself somewhere in between All That Remains and Black Notice - the last two Patricia Cornwell novels that I've read. Come the end of the book, I realised that Black Notice picks up where Point of Origin finishes.

In fact, Point of Origin provides the detail on Benton's death at the hands of escaped psychopath Carrie Gethin, Lucy's manipulative former lover who Kay, Marino and Benton had (almost) put behind bars. It comes in the context of Lucy's having left the FBI and having joined a speciliast team of fire investigators (she's also learned how to fly helicopters), which comes in handy when Kay et al find themsleves investigating a series of gruesome murders that are not *quite* covered up by arson. Deliberately so, as it turns out.

Despite the many references to Carrie and Lucy's affair in the Kay Scarpetta novels I've read, I've not so far managed to find the one in which it takes place, and similiarly having seen Benton's role leap from professional rival to murdered live in lover in recent reads I seem to have managed to miss out on the part where he and Kay get it together, at his wife's expense. All of which means that I'm going to make the effort to read the series from the start.

Amazon.co.uk link: Point of Origin - Patricia Cornwell

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

A quick one-day read over the weekend at Walton, which came as a bit of a surprise as I'd expected this Kay Scarpetta novel to last me rather longer. Then again, it's one of the earlier instalments in the series and I'm realising that the more recent novels are much longer - Blowfly and Trace in particular.

A satisfying read though, with Kay and Marino uncovering the connection and killer behind a series of double murders that turn out to stetch back decades, and unlike many other novels featuring Kay Scarpetta, this one stretches over many months. In addtion to the murder mysteries themselves, the plot also features politics a-plenty, and bitter rivalry and deliberate obfustication between the various law enforcement agencies that get involved. In fact, everyone seems to have their own agenda; from the drugs czar who is not only one of america's most powerful women, a potential presidential candidate in fact, but also the mother of the girl whose murder opens the novel, to Benton Wesley who Kay encounters heading up the FBI team.....

Two additional points of interest in this novel, particularly if - like me - you've read some of Patricia Cornwell's later novels first: (1) it features Mark as Kay's love interest; and (2) Kay's interest in Benton Wesley is purely professional, and she dislikes and distrusts him.

Having just been to explore www.patricia-cornwell.com and finding the publication timelines, I realise that this must be the earliest Kay Scarpetta novel I've read. Clearly I need to read its two predecessors: Post Mortem and Body of Evidence - if only to learn more about Kay's relationships.

Amazon.co.uk link: All That Remains - Patricia Cornwell

Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

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)

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?

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After two relatively erudite novels, I felt the need to induldge in a spot of American crime - the CSI of literature, to my mind. This was the "oldest" Kay Scarpetta novel I could find on the library shelves, and it deals with a time when Scarpetta is still working out her feelings for Benton, and getting over the death of her previous lover, Mark. Lucy is in the early years of her career and still honing her skills as an FBI agent. In other parts of the plot, Patricia Cornwell offers dismembered bodies both sides of the Atlantic, and a mutant smallpox epidemic spread by postal deliveries. See, very CSI.

Amazon.co.uk link: Unnatural Exposure - Patricia Cornwell
Amazon.co.uk list: Kay Scarpetta Collection (in order)

I knew it had to happen sometime; I'd find myself reading a Kinsey Millhone mystery that I'd read before.... after all, I didn't discover Sue Grafton's heroine with A is for Alibi (which it looks like I've managed to overlook!) - I suspect that I thought Q is for Quarry was just an interesting title. So here we are, re-reading a crime story but this time with 16 books-worth of character development and background information, all of which makes certain parts more enjoyable (Henry's love interest) and other parts more significant (the appearance of Aunt Susanna). I'm not racing through it however....

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