1917 dir. by Sam Mendes
I wasn’t too sure what I was going to make of this film before I saw it. War films can be very hit or miss with me, and I’d come across...
12 January 2020
Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas
Reread in April 2015 and it was just as good as I remembered. Original review from 22nd April 2006. ISBN: 0098461560 Trans from the French: David Bellos Yes again a cover...
14 April 2015
Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
reread 24th Sept 2018 for my bookclub. And on rereading I still really enjoyed this book. I still think that some of it is a little forced, and the first person...
10 May 2012
Deadline by Mira Grant
Newsflesh book 2
It is alwasy difficult to blurb about the second book in a series. Giving the details of the start of this book will reveal the end of Feed, and that would be just plain mean, so I’m not going to do that. Instead I’ll just say you should read book one and then go pick this one up, and then wait, with me, because book three isn’t out yet :(
25 July 2011
The chalk circle man by Fred Vargas
Author: Fred Vargas ; trans from the french by Sian Reynolds
An Adamsberg novel
Chief Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg has recently been transferred to Paris. His police methods aren’t exactly standard procedure and his inspectors have a lot to get used to. But they can have no doubt that he is a born policeman, and while even he is unable to explain how he arrives at his conclusions he is usually correct. In this case he thinks that there is something strange about the blue chalk circles that have been appearing in the Parisian streets. He is convinced that there is something sinister about them.
15 May 2010
This Night’s Foul Work
Author: Fred Vargas
Trans: Sian Reynolds
As you may already know I’m a big fan of Fred Vargas’ work and while this one is a library copy I’ll be buying this when it comes out in the proper size. I can’t stand these trade publications versions. They make no sense to me. All the negatives of a hardback with none of the positives. But enough about that; on to the plot.
The most straight-forward way of describing this book is to say that it is a murder-mystery. But with characters like Adamsberg there is no such thing as a straight-forward case. So when he spots something a little “off” about the two bodies that have shown up he decides that this case his rather than giving them over to the Drugs Squad.
18 May 2008
Wash this blood clean from my hand by Fred Vargas
trans. Sian Reynolds
I’m a huge fan of Fred Vargas’ work. And this book is no exception. The star, once more, is Commissaire Adamsberg. The plot revolves around a series of murders, the first in 1943, the latest takes place in the present of the book. Adamsberg has a special interest in this case, and the judge he believes to have committed these crimes. In each case the murder victim is killed by three stab wounds. And in each case an assailant has been found, always suffering from amnesia but also having a murder weapon in his possession. In each case the police decide that this individual is responsible and, there you go, case closed. Adamsberg is not so sure.
18 February 2008
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Author: Irene Nireovsky
Two novellas and some appendices make up this book. The two fiction pieces were intended to be part of a series of books about France during World War II, but the author, Irene Nemirovsky died in a concentration camp in August 1942, and that is what makes up the non-fiction element of this book. Of course the real like story of Nemirovsky, and how this book came to be published makes up a large element of the media coverage surrounding the novel, but the fiction element alone deserves attention. The background, and fact that it was written as these events were taking place, adds to the work as a whole.
19 February 2007
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
The first Vargas book I read was Seeking Whom He May Devour, which I loved, and the reason I picked it up was because I liked the cover, well, this one doesn’t have quite such a gripping cover, but it really did grow on me. It is quite simple, just a tree picked out by a shaft of light in a garden, everything else is half hidden in the darkness. It really suits the story.
As I’ve mentioned before characters are what make, or break, a book for me. And this book has great, if slightly odd, stars. Eccentric is probably the polite term.
10 January 2007
Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine
Lucretia Again posted this great news. A new Alexandre Dumas novel has been found and it to be published. Believed to be the great writer’s last work, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine...
24 March 2005
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