Monthly Archives: December 2010

2010 – The Charts (well most of them)

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Paying homage to books via coloured charts is now one of my favourite things to do at the end of each blogging year and as I have finished the last book I am going to finish for the year here they are in all their chartish goodness.

I have only been keeping a close record of the books I’ve been reading for four years but even in that short time it’s becoming clear that I am reading more than I used to.

However my print reading has probably evened out over the past couple of years. Although I have finished 35 more books in 2010 than last year, only a handful of the extras have been in some version of print (physical + eBook). The rest of the increase is attributable to audio books (thank you audible).

I read a total of 35,890 pages this year but it doesn’t look very interesting on a chart. My total hours listened however does show one thing: I was pretty lazy in all months except January, April and December. I mainly listen to audio books while walking for exercise so you can see that I have more downs than ups when it comes to motivation.

This year I read roughly the same number of male and female authors, which is much more even than last year’s reading. I didn’t make a conscious effort to do this but it’s probably got something to do with the fact I read less cosy mysteries this year (which tend to be written by women*) and even selected some noir (which tend to be written by men*). The ‘other’ column is not (as far as I know) populated by trans gendered individuals but includes books by multiple authors and those written by authors in disguise :)

Countries visited virtually in 2010

Thanks in no small part to the Global Reading Challenge I visited 37 countries via my reading (up from 28 last year). Frankly with all the security theatre, snow delays and volcanic ash bringing the airline industry to a standstill I think my version of travel is a heck of a lot easier than the real thing (Australia is a wonderful place to live but it is a long way from just about everywhere and when you’re nearly 6ft tall spending 20 hours in a plane is not a bundle of laughs). I’m aiming to complete lots of location-based challenges in 2011 so I hope to be able to continue my virtual travel. Amy’s Eastern European challenge looks like it will provide the most…er…challenging spots to visit.

This final chart simply tells you that I buy a lot of books, mostly new. Which means bad things for my bank account but at least I am supporting my favourite art in some small way.

I will be posting my list of favourite books for the year tomorrow with another couple of charts included because once you start charting you can’t stop :)

*yes, I know this is a generalisation

Review: The Overlook by Michael Connelly

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I plucked this one from my TBR shelves as part of my Good Reads group’s summer reading challenge. Connelly’s name was one of only five names that popped up when I typed new author Elly Griffiths into the Literature Map. Other than a character called Harry I have no clue what characteristics the website’s database thinks the two authors share.

Detective Harry Bosch is waiting for the first callout to a job with the LAPD’s Homicide Special squad which he has recently moved to from his previous placement. When the call comes after midnight one night it’s to a case unlike those Harry normally deals with. A man has been killed in what seems to be an execution and the authorities are worried. The dead man was a doctor who dealt with radioactive substances routinely used for cancer treatments but which could, in the wrong hands, be used for terrorism. Soon the FBI and a half-dozen other alphabet agencies are involved in back-tracking the man’s movements and when his wife is found bound and frightened in their home the race is on. Harry and his new partner Iggy Ferras struggle to retain any control or even involvement in the case as the various Federal Government agencies take over the witnesses and evidence.

I learned via the author interview at the end of this book that it was originally published as a serialised story in an American magazine which probably explains the length (it’s short by modern standards at 260 pages with lots of white space) and the fact that there is really only one central storyline, no detours, no sidetracks. I wouldn’t want all my books to be so straightforward but I have to admit in my current holiday mood when the other book I was reading was boring me senseless this one hit the spot. It’s a really fast read with a good, logical plot and if the twist at the end is was fairly predictable I was definitely engaged enough to see exactly how the author would resolve it. Connelly writes clearly and without pretension

I see from reviews that some existing fans of Harry Bosch didn’t like this installment of the series and I can see why that might be as there isn’t much character development in it. However for someone like me who is new to the series it was a good introduction because, presumably due to the serialisation, it provided more information about the main character’s back story than you’d normally expect to find in a book so late in a series. At this point I’m not sure I like Harry overly much, my take is that he’s an arrogant know-it-all, but I did see enough that I am interested in reading more about him. I liked the way Connelly explored Harry’s frustration with the way governments and their agents are so ready to exploit fears of terrorism these days, often to the detriment of sense and practicality. I see parallels to this in my own day job, where things like predictions of disease pandemics get blown out of all proportion, and this aspect of The Overlook had an extra ring of truth for me.

Ultimately I think I’d like something that combines the character development of The Lincoln Lawyer with the pace of this novel and I’m keen to read more Connelly to see if such a thing exists. I can certainly recommend this book to people like me who are interested in trying the Harry Bosch series but don’t have the energy to go back to the beginning. Regardless of any format constraints Connelly writes cleanly and crisply and this novel was a fast-paced treat.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Overlook has been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise and Petrona

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My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Allen & Unwin [2007]
ISBN 9781741752557
Length 260 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I mooched it

2011 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

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OK, I lied the other day when I posted about my last challenge for next year. But I didn’t realise someone was hosting a historical fiction challenge and I already own lots of books that would qualify so it seems a little crazy not to sign up, right? Plus I have really been enjoying the historical crime fiction I’ve read over the past year or two (thanks once again to Norman of the excellent Crime Scraps for reawakening my interest in this genre via his wonderful reviews of historical fiction).

The challenge is being hosted by the bloggers at Historical Tapestry and has several levels to aim for. I’m being conservative and going for the Daring and Curious level which requires the reading of 5 books but I’ll see how I go and might aim higher if I reach this level early in the year.

These are the qualifying books sitting on my shelves, eReader or iPod awaiting consumption

  • Ariana Franklin – City of Shadows & The Serpent’s Tale
  • Arturo Perez-Reverte – Purity of Blood
  • C. J. Sansom – Dissolution
  • David Ebershoff – The 19th Wife (a book I read half of 2 years ago and forgot to finish)
  • Dianne Day – The Strange Files of Fremont Jones, Fire and Fog , The Bohemian Murders & Death Train to Boston (I hope I like this author as I have four of her books without having read one of ‘em – that’s the way things roll when you use bookmooch though – you don’t collect books in order and I wanted to start with the first book)
  • Edward Marston – The Railway Viaduct (plus I’d like to start his theatre series next year)
  • Elizabeth Peters -The Snake, The Crocodile and the Dog
  • Ernesto Mallo – Needle in a Haystack
  • Iain Pears – An Instance of the Fingerpost
  • Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth (one day I will finish this, have read the first half twice which should count for something)
  • Maureen Jennings – Except the Dying (a book I mooched because I liked the TV series based on the books – I rarely enjoy books after I’ve seen the TV shows but we’ll see)
  • Phil Rickman – The Bones of Avalon
  • Rory Clements – Revenger (actually I don’t own this one yet, but I have pre-ordered the paperback version due in February)
  • S J Parris – Heresy

2010 End of Year Book Survey

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Jamie at Perpetual Page Turner posted this survey about books and blogging at the beginning of December but I felt I had to wait until the official end of my year’s reading before posting my answers. You just never know when a brilliant (or terrible) book is going to jump out at you. I’ve got three books on the go at the moment that are likely to be my last reads of the year but as I seem to have completely abandoned reading as my preferred entertainment this week I’m unlikely to finish any of them.

Best Book of 2010: Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road tops my ‘best of’ list this year. Its combination of beautiful writing, great storytelling, heart-wrenching characters and humour won me over completely. All that and Australian too. The rest of my top ten (or so) will be revealed later in the week when I have whittled it down from its current 30-ish.

Worst Book of 2010: I don’t talk about the books not finished anymore (after a run-in with a grumpy author whose book I didn’t finish) so of those that I finished Luis Miguel Rocha’s The Last Pope stands out as the most egregious waste of dead trees.

Most Disappointing Book of 2010: I think it has to be Tom Rob Smith’s The Secret Speech. It wasn’t terrible but it just didn’t hook me in or make me care about its characters in the way its predecessor did.

Most Surprising (in a good way) Book of 2010: Jo Nesbo’s The Redbreast. I had abandoned the book a year earlier and only picked it up again after responses to my poll forced me into it. Happily I managed to get past the things that had made me abandon the book and I fell in love with its main character Harry Hole.

Book You Recommended the Most to People in 2010: Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road, Elly Griffiths’ The Crossing Places. Or any of the other books I discuss in this post.

Best Series You Discovered in 2010: I thought I should probably have read more than one book for a series to qualify for this list so these are my two top picks

  • Elly Griffiths’ books featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway are entertaining, intelligent and funny. What’s not to like? This year I read the first two books in the series (The Crossing Places and The Janus Stone) and have ordered the third book, The House at Seas End, to be on its way to me as soon as it is published in early January.
  • I also read two books from Nevada Barr’s series featuring American national parks ranger Anna Pigeon this year. Borderline and Hunting Season were both excellent books, evoking a wonderful sense of their location and teaching me a thing or three about American history. I listened to both in audio format by an award winning narrator Barbara Rosenblat and have added several more of the series to my audible download queue for next year.

Honourable mentions go to the following writers whose first book in a series I read this year and in each case I am eagerly awaiting the next installment. It probably says a lot about me and my preferences that there is a political edge to all of these stories that I am looking forward to seeing explored further in future books:

  • Barbara Fister whose first book featuring Chicago private detective Anni Koskinen, In the Wind, combined politics and entertainment in a very satisfying way
  • Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men used a wealthy amateur sleuth and his friends to explore the fascinating political events of New South Wales in the 1930′s
  • P M Newton’s first book to feature a Vietnamese/Australian police woman Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly was called The Old School and it captured early 90′s Sydney to perfection
  • Teresa Solana’s A Not So Perfect Crime is about non-identical twin brothers who are private detectives (of a sort) in Barcelona and manages to be funny as well as thought-provoking

Favourite New Authors Discovered in 2010: 82 of the books I read this year were by new (to me) authors and I discussed these at length a few days ago (although since that post I read Martyr by Rory Clements which I hadn’t intended to read yet). I’m not sure yet which of the authors will become long-lasting favourites but I suspect that Ariana Franklin, Belinda Bauer, Hakan Nesser, Jo Nesbo, Kwei Quartey, Martin Edwards, Rob Kitchin and Shona MacLean are going to stick with me in addition to the authors mentioned above.

Most Hilarious Read of 2010: (Colin) Bateman’s Mystery Man which was responsible for me becoming one of the (many) crazies on public transport (though I maintain that my giggling is less annoying than someone shouting into their cell phone about what they’re having for dinner).

Most Thrilling Unputdownable Read of 2010: Both of the South African thrillers I read by Deon Meyer (Dead at Daybreak and Thirteen Hours) were heart-stopping page turners as were Linwood Barclay’s Never Look Away and Alex Scarrow’s Last Light. I would happily recommend any of these to anyone (except insomniacs).

Books You Most Anticipated in 2010: After being captivated by his first novel in 2009 I was very much looking forward to Swedish author Johan Theorin’s second book The Darkest Room this year. Happily it did not disappoint and though a quite different tale to his first was equally absorbing.

Most Memorable Character of 2010: The aforementioned Harry Hole (from Jo Nesbo’s series) and Ruth Galloway (from Elly Griffiths’) are definite highlights and people I will revisit often. But I think it might be Belinda Bauer’s creation, 12-year old Steven Lamb who appeared in Blacklands who sticks in my mind the longest as a standalone character. He is a wonderful creation: starved for affection and determined to ‘fix’ his broken family he is a truly compelling and memorable character. I also keep reflecting on Garbiel Alzira, a man who has been told by a psychic that he will kill someone before he turns 30, and his mother who is obsessed with him from Luiz Garcia Alfredo-Roza’s Southwesterly Wind.

Most Beautifully Written Book of 2010: two Australian writers snag this title for me. Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road and Peter Temple’s Truth (which I never did manage to write a sensible review of). The writing in both is very different but both are brilliant examples of their craft.

Book That Had the Greatest Impact on You in 2010: Books impact me for different reasons but A Thousand Cuts (also published as Rupture) by Simon Lelic is truly a superb piece of writing about bullying and the impact that even innocent-seeming words and actions have on those around us. Every time there is some kind of shooting or incident that appears impossible to explain on the news I am reminded of this book and I wonder what events in the perpetrator’s life led to them carrying out their actions. I also wonder if there was a point at which such a thing could have been averted if the right words had been spoken. Or not.

Book You Can’t Believe You Waited Until 2010 to Read: Roseanna by Swedish husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo was written and published two years before I was born so I could have gotten to it much earlier than 2010. Happily it is not dated at all and was as good a read this year as I’m sure it was 45 years ago and if the nine subsequent books in the Martin Beck series are as good then I have lots of treats ahead.

Book with the best ending: Ken Bruen’s The Dramatist. It’s like being punched in the stomach by a heavyweight boxer and though horrid is the perfect ending for the story. I am utterly fed up with good books being spoiled by rubbishy endings that wrap things up neatly and/or fancifully that I am in awe of Bruen for doing it the hard way.

Strangest reading phenomenon This is my own category prompted by the fact I have met 4 great characters called Harry this year. We’ve talked about Harry Hole (who I am in love with from the Jo Nesbo books) but there is also DCI Harry Nelson from the Elly Griffiths books. In The Janus Stone in particular he shines as a really engaging, well-rounded character. I’m also reading about two new (to me) Harry characters right now: Harry Devlin is a lawyer in Liverpool in England and though I’ve only just started Martin Edwards’ Waterloo Sunset I can see I am going to enjoy this Harry’s sense of humour and I have finally gotten around to meeting Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch in The Overlook and think I might be able to see what all the fuss is about. So it’s the year of the Harry for me :)

Feel free to tell me your books in any (or all) of these categories.

Review: Martyr by Rory Clements

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Rory Clements has set this work of fiction against the backdrop of genuinely dark times for England. As the book opens it is 1587 and Queen Elizabeth is deciding whether or not to approve the execution of her treasonous cousin Mary, Queen of Scots while the Spanish armada is being assembled ready to invade the country. Clements has created a fictional older brother for playwright William Shakespeare as the hero of this novel. John Shakespeare is an investigator for Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary Francis Walsingham and is kept very busy. He must try to establish who killed Lady Howard, a young cousin of the Queen’s whose body was found in a burned out house and was defiled with what appear to be Catholic symbols. He must also find and stop the assassin who has been hired to kill Sir Francis Drake, the sea captain in whom is vested England’s hope for defeating the Spanish. All the while Shakespeare is hindered in his efforts by having to fight Richard Topcliffe, known (for good reason if the details of the book are even vaguely accurate) as Elizabeth’s principle torturer and whose particular interest was in capturing Catholic priests.

I’m not an expert on the Elizabethan period but the historical elements of this book certainly ring true which is enough for me to have thoroughly enjoyed it. Clements has used research, details (mostly of the ewwww-inducing kind) and just the right amount of period-specific language. In addition, fictional events and characters are interwoven with real ones with consummate skill and the result is a brilliant and far from romantic, depiction of a period full of violence, torture, religious persecution, war and the ever-present smell of excrement. As is the case with all the best historical fiction I was gripped with equal parts fascination and gratitude that I didn’t have to live through the reality.

I’m not sure that making the protagonist a fictional older brother of William Shakespeare added much value to the book (William appears only briefly) but as it didn’t detract either I’m open to seeing what he does with this aspect of the character in subsequent novels. Clements’ characters, whether entirely fictional or his interpretations of real people, do come to life and they are another highlight of the novel. John Shakespeare is a mostly likable young man (though occasionally a bit soppy for me) who is intelligent and at least has doubts about the more extreme methods his Queen approves of for dealing with Catholics. And Topcliffe is the perfect nemesis, being entirely devoid of humanity but very clever and having the support of the Queen so feeling free to indulge in all manner of torture. There are some marvellous minor characters including some amusing prostitutes and Shakespeare’s faithful, limping manservant who does a nice line in dry humour when he is tasked with guarding the irrepressible Sir Francis Drake.

On the crime fiction front I thought the book lacked a little oomph. The solving of the mystery of Lady Howard’s death was really quite straight forward and the hunt for the assassin was more of the swashbuckling thrills variety of story than a crime solving one and it did seem to go round in circles at times. But in the end this didn’t matter all that much as I was fascinated by the weaving of the fictional events into the historical backdrop and enjoyed the depiction of the interplay of politics and crime solving that I suspect doesn’t change much no matter what historical period we’re in. I would highly recommend the book to fans of historical fiction though you’ll need a strong stomach as the descriptions of the torture that was routinely carried out during these times is described in pretty graphic detail.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I am now eagerly awaiting the arrival of Clement’s second John Shakespeare book, Revenger, on my doorstep. This book won the CWA Ellis Peters Award for historical fiction in 2010.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5
Publisher John Murray [this edition 2010, original edition 2009]
ISBN 9781848540781
Length 432 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I bought it

The 2011 Eastern European Reading Challenge

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What I think will be my final challenge for next year is the Eastern European Reading Challenge being hosted by Amy of The Black Sheep Dances who was responsible for this year’s highly successful Scandinavian Reading Challenge.

Given that I only have one book in my TBR that qualifies for this challenge and I am trying not to add too much to that pile I am only going to aim for the tourist level of the challenge. This requires me to read 4 books set in one of these countries: Croatia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, Belarus, Estonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Rep., Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, Moldova, or Kosovo.

I’ve got Entanglement by Zygmunt Miłoszewski to read which is set in Poland and I’ll need to find three other books over the course of the year. Any suggestions of translated crime fiction from these countries would be most welcome.

Review: In the Wind by Barbara Fister

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Anni Koskinen resigned from the Chicago Police Department after testifying against a fellow officer and finding she no longer had the support of her colleagues. She has obtained a private investigator’s license, though hasn’t yet put it to much use, when she is asked by a local priest to help a woman called Rosa Saenz. However it turns out the FBI believe Rosa is responsible for the murder of one of their agents in the 1970′s when she was a member of a radical group in the American-Indian Movement. In a further complication for Anni, the agent that Rosa is accused of murdering is the father of her good friend Jim Tilquist. While Anni becomes aware of inconsistencies in the FBI’s case against Rosa she is also aware of the impact that revealing these might have on the Tilquists who are experiencing additional hardships due to the mental illness of their teenage daughter.

Too often books that try to explore political themes get bogged down by those issues and forget that the primary aim of fiction is to entertain but In The Wind is a thoroughly engaging example of how to write political themed fiction properly. The ripping yarn, which I devoured in two sittings, does a great job of depicting the inevitable tug-of-war between police and the communities they are charged with protecting by offering characters with a range of beliefs and ways of handling complex and sensitive issues. While it’s not too difficult to discern the author’s overall leanings I liked the fact the book wasn’t a diatribe for or against one particular stance but rather explored the dangers of extremism on either end of the scale.

It’s probably unavoidable that Anni Koskinen will be compared to other female PI’s like Sara Paretsky’s VI Warshawski and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone but she is well able to hold her own in that company. She has an intriguing, believable back-story that reveals the reasons behind her strong relationships with her autistic brother Martin and the Tilquist family but Fister has also left enough gaps to fill in later books should she be so inclined. Anni is tenacious, caring and principled and I liked her very much. The rest of the novel is populated by equally engaging characters and it will be interesting to see which of these continue in what I hope will become a long series.

Ultimately though In The Wind is first and foremost a great story, with tension building nicely towards a surprising but believable ending. The intertwining storylines from past and present are both entertaining and thought-provoking and make for a highly recommended first novel in a series. Fortunately for me the second book was released earlier this year and is now making its way to me in the belly of a plane.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In The Wind has also been reviewed at Petrona

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My rating 4/5
Publisher St Martin’s Minotaur [2008]
ISBN 9780312374914
Length 308 pages
Format hardback
Source I bought it second hand

Review: The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith

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It is 1956 in Russia. Former MGB Officer Leo Demidov and his wife Raisa are trying to make a life for their odd little family. Raisa has only recently fallen in love with the man she was married to for many years before that but she could not love him while he carried out the brutal instructions of his superiors in the Stalinist regime but Leo had an epiphany three years earlier (depicted in the first book in this planned trilogy, Child 44) and stopped his violent activities. Now they are adoptive parents to Elena and Zoya whose parents were killed in an incident in which Leo participated and while 7 year old Elena is happy enough to join the new family 14 year old Zoya cannot forgive Leo for his role in her parents’ death. When Stalin’s successor Nikita Kkrushchev, gives a speech denouncing and apologising for the brutalities committed by the state under Stalin, one woman from Leo’s past who now calls herself Fraera begins a program of violent revenge which involves taking from Leo everything he holds dear.

In an author interview included in my edition of this book Smith declared he wanted to write something with the excitement of the TV show 24 and I think he has succeeded (although I’ve only ever seen a handful of episodes of that show). It is a thriller in the Robert Ludlum style with action and plot twists a-plenty. We move at breakneck speed from Moscow to a prison ship to a Gulag to occupied Hungary and we watch people turn on each other again and again until this reader could barely keep track of who was on which side.

I couldn’t help but compare this book to its predecessor which was one of my top ten reads of last year and the comparison is fairly unflattering. Where Child 44 provided subtle and intimate portraits of a range of people and depicted a quite breathtaking range of emotional stories The Secret Speech has a singular bludgeoning, violent tone and is full of people motivated primarily by self-interest, vengeance or both. There is really only one character whose motives are different and sadly she is not terribly well developed. For me the least impressive part of Child 44 was the final quarter of the tale which moved from careful psychological suspense to Hollywood style thriller and The Secret Speech has continued that later aspect without incorporating the pervading sense of oppression and fear that made the  first book so compelling. Reading this book I never once forgot that I was reading a fictional tale whereas the first book was so absorbing that you could believe those decisions had been made and emotions had been felt by real people.

The story here is overly complex and relies too heavily on a string of coincidences and unlikely escapes and the book is driven mostly by narrative instead of its characters. Leo is a far less complicated character in this novel, although there are glimpses of his insightful introspection when he considers the problem of his interactions with his adopted daughter. But whereas in the first book I could sense his angst about having done bad things for what he thought at the time were good reasons here he seems to have no compunction about doing bad things, presumably because the good reasons are different ones than before?

The character of Fraera is used to advance much of the plot but I found her motivations confused and overall she was not convincing. She demands her gang members behave in exactly the same way as the State demanded of its workers like Leo (i.e. blind obedience regardless of the instructions up to and including murder) and I’m not convinced that having one of the characters point this out excuses the fact that it is a fairly blunt plot device (and really just increases the body count).

If you’re after an adrenalin-filled thriller with loads of fighting and in-the-nick-of-time escapes then you will enjoy The Secret Speech and probably won’t need to have read the first book as Smith has done a good job of incorporating information from the previous book without making it too boring for those who have read it. It does weave real and fictional events together well too and if you’re anything like me it will send you off to ‘research’ (i.e. google) which of the events that were depicted were real. If you’re looking for something extra, like the intimate character portraits of Child 44 then I think you might be disappointed, though perhaps I was being unreasonable in expecting a second exceptional book.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Secret Speech has been reviewed at Euro Crime

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My rating 3/5
Publisher Pocket Books [this edition 2010, original edition 2009]
ISBN 9781847391605
Length 449 pages
Format paperback
Source I bought it

Review: Rolling Thunder by Chris Grabenstein

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At the start of summer in the fictional holiday town of Sea Haven, New Jersey a new roller coaster is opened with much fanfare. Celebrations hit a bit of a hurdle though when the owner’s wife, Jackie O’Malley, dies of a heart attack during the ride’s inaugural run, despite the heroic efforts of local policemen John Ceepak and Danny Boyle to resuscitate her. At first this event is viewed as merely a sad incident but when a local woman is found dismembered and packed into suitcases Ceepak and Boyle’s investigation leads them to uncover some dark secrets in the town in general and the O’Malley family in particular.

The characters of John Ceepak, a former military policeman in Iraq who lives by a strict moral code that doesn’t allow him to lie, cheat or steal, and Danny Boyle, a laid-back young man who fell into policing by accident and does a nice line in wisecracks, are the highlights of this enchanting series. In this outing Ceepak once again has to deal with his poisonous, mean father and even has to choose whether or not to let the man he despises die when the opportunity arises. Although he still shows his juvenile side occasionally Danny is maturing nicely and really growing into his job and his role as an investigator (and crack shot). The relationship between the two moving from one of mentorship to friendship and it’s a really engaging aspect of this novel.

Grabenstein is a master at plotting these tales, weaving the lighter elements of resort life with the darker aspects of human behaviour. In Rolling Thunder it becomes clear that some of the town’s business and political leaders are engaged in rather unsavoury activities and corruption, at a number of levels, is uncovered via the diligence of Ceepak and Boyle who refuse to allow themselves to be corrupted though temptation is readily available.

Even though I know it’s a good bet that in the wrap up of one of these novels the good guys will have triumphed over the bad ones but Grabenstein is a talented enough writer to keep me guessing about whether or not this will be the time when things don’t work out neatly. Which of course means I have to walk extra blocks to find out what happens (as walking is when I ‘read’ my audio books) and make sure my favourite characters are out of harm’s way. Frankly my only disappointment is that it’s apparently going to be 18 months until the next book in the series is published.

What about the audio book?

As this is the sixth book in this series that Jeff Woodman has read to me it feels like meeting up with an old, much-loved friend. I can’t imagine reading these books any other way and the series is one that I highly recommend as an introduction to audio books if you’re thinking of giving the format a try.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I had forgotten that Jen Forbus of the great crime fiction blog Jen’s Book Thoughts was included as a character in Grabenstein’s newest novel until I heard her name as the Sea Haven police’s newest recruit and star interviewer, it must be all that practice she has at interviewing crime writers that make her so good at getting secrets out of criminal types.

Other reviews of Rolling Thunder can be found at Lesa’s Book Critiques, Jen’s Book Thoughts, Spinetingler

My reviews of the first four books in this series are Tilt-a-Whirl, Mad Mouse, Whack A Mole and Hell Hole. (Although I read the fifth book in the series, Mind Scrambler, in July this year I seem to have forgotten to review it).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 3.5/5
Narrator Jeff Woodman
Publisher Audible Inc [2010]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 8 hours 11 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Source I bought it

Review: The Edge by Dick Francis

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I know Francis wasn’t Canadian but I am including this book as the 10th in my Canadian Book Challenge because it is not only set there but celebrates the natural beauty of the country via its depiction of a great train journey from the east to west coast.

In a recent court case against English racing identity Julius Filmer for conspiracy to murder all the prosecution witnesses mysteriously disappeared or ‘forgot’ their evidence and he was acquitted. When he gets himself on board the The Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train which will take a week to cross Canada from Toronto to Vancouver full of international race horse owners and their horses people in authority are worried about what he plans. They ask Tor Kelsey, who works for the British Jockey Club’s security services to go on the train undercover to prevent Filmer from doing anything to disrupt the train or the events planned in towns across the country.

This is a re-read for me as I bought a bunch of Dick Francis audio books on sale recently and happily it is as good as I remember.  What I like most about it is the really thoughtful characterisations. Tor Kelsey, who is independently wealthy but works anyway ‘to avoid the temptation of being able to have every sweet in the sweet shop’ is a typical Francis protagonist: intelligent, self-reliant, morally sound without being self-righteous and also has a sense of humour. It’s easy to dismiss this kind of character as unrealistic but apart from liking to think there are good people in the world I was struck by the credibility of Tor’s thoughts and actions all the way along. At one point in the story for example things are set up for two trains to crash and when Tor, given the task of stopping one of the trains before it rams the other, believes he has failed his emotional response is very real indeed. He not only worries about the possible injuries and damage but can also see into his own future and predict how terrible it will be to have to live with his failure every day. That combination of self-interest and concern for others felt very realistic to me.

Among the passengers on the train is the Lorimer family who are very wealthy and well-known but are happy to ‘do their bit for the good of Canadian racing’. Mercer, his wife Bambi and their two teenage children appear to have it all but as the story progresses the pain that the family is experiencing is teased out in a very touching way. The character of Filmer in some ways is very under-developed because we actually don’t see much of him until the end but it seems to me that he is explored via his impact on those around him as he sets out to exploit people’s fears over the possibility of having their personal secrets revealed.

As always with a Dick Francis novel there is lots of great detail about his chosen subjects, this time train trivia features prominently as do wonderful descriptions of Canada that made me want to get my passport out immediately. The plot is, of course, resolved very satisfactorily though there is some sadness too and overall I think this is one of Francis’ best yarns.

What about the audio book?

Tony Britton, who has narrated a bunch of Francis’ novels, again does a great job, especially has he’s had to include a load of accents (Canadians might disagree that these are realistic but I don’t know the accent well enough to spot this and thought he did a fine job). I gather this recording has been transferred from an older format to a digital one and there is a bit of background noise (tape hiss?) that is audible at some points but not nearly enough to bother me.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5
Narrator Tony Britton
Publisher BBC WW [this edition 2005, original edition 1988]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 11 hours 23 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Source I bought it