Category Archives: Robin Bowles (Aus)

Extreme Reading

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10

I have officially completed the extreme level of the 2010 Global Reading Challenge.

This required me to read 3 books set in different countries of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America, South America plus two books set in Antarctica and a wildcard book set in any time or place new to me. Because that wasn’t quite complicated enough I added my own slant that all the books had to be by new-to-me authors.

Participating in this challenge opened my reading up to 21 new authors, many of whom I wouldn’t otherwise have read. For some of them a single exposure will be enough but many will be reappearing on my reading list in the not too distant future. In fact I’ve already read and/or ordered additional titles from several of the terrific authors discovered on my virtual tour around the globe where I met an array of fascinating people and learned a thing or three I didn’t know.

Here’s my final list of 21 books

Africa

Antarctica

Asia

Australasia

Europe

North America

South America

Wildcard (any time or place new to me)

And here are all the places I’ve visited virtually


View Larger Map

Thanks to Dorte of DJs Krimiblog for conceiving of and hosting the 2010 Global Reading Challenge. It was a hoot and lived up to all aspects of its name and I would encourage you to sign up for the 2011 version of the challenge (in which I am reliably informed you won’t have to read books set in Antarctica to be considered an extremist).

Review: The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo by Robin Bowles

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I bought this book when I visited one of Australia’s very few bookstores that specialises in crime fiction in Melbourne last year (actually it’s the only one I know of in the country). I’d never heard of the book but I loved the title. I’m counting it as my book set in Australia by a new-to-me author for the 2010 global reading challenge.

In suburban Melbourne Cornelia Finnigan starts work as a private investigator at the firm of the son of her next door neighbour. The cases come thick and fast as she tries to find a young woman who has disappeared, investigates the suspicious arson attack on a $350,000 Ferrari and ascertains who poisoned two Pekinese puppies. All the while she’s trying to get her hands on a golden yo-yo that was once owned by Elvis Presley for a client who is desperate for the item’s return and some nefarious crooks are trying to get their hands on whatever is hidden in Cornelia’s new apartment.

Perhaps needing a break from her work as one of Australia’s leading true crime writers Bowles appears to have had a lot of fun writing this modern-day caper and that energy translated to me as a reader. This was a fun book to read.

Claudia has big feet, loves to shop but works hard too and has a nice line in sarcastic internal monologue. The references to fashion labels were a bit wasted on me (I am assuming they’re fashion labels) but easily ignored and I liked the fact she was depicted as being clever alongside being ‘girlie’. So often we see one or the other in fiction. As is the way of books in which mayhem ensues from the get go there are a plethora of wacky characters including 2 potential love interests who nearly come to blows, Claudia’s flamboyantly gay brother, a flatulent dog called Kissiface and a host of eccentric clients.

Reading this book felt like going to a theme park for the day: filled with loads of laughs and odd things to look at with the occasional moment of eye-covering terror thrown in and a nice contented feeling at the end. It’s probably not the kind of thing everyone would like but it reminded me of the first couple of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels that I read and enjoyed if that helps you at all.

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My rating 3.5/5

Publisher: Five Mile Press [2007];  ISBN: 9781741785333; Length 262 pages;

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