Conspiracy (S.J. Parris, 2016)

In the fifth book of the series, Giordano Bruno goes to visit an old friend, a priest involved with the fanatical Catholic League, to seek forgiveness from the Catholic Church. Soon after, the same priest is found dead. Bruno soon finds himself investigating three murders, which he is convinced are connected, playing off the Duke of Guise and King Henri III, not to mention the King's mother Catherine de Medici, and her harem of beautiful spies, in his attempts to discover the truth about the murders and the conspiracy.

Four stars. I haven't read any books in this series before, but Conspiracy worked well as a standalone. I immediately fell in love with Bruno, despite his frustrating ability to land himself in dangerous, and often deadly, situations, and he is joined by a cast of fascinating characters, practically all of whom the reader suspects at some point in the novel. There is a lot going on in this, fairly hefty, book, and it kept me guessing and made me want to keep reading until the end.


I Let You Go (Clare Mackintosh, 2014)

The first part of I Let You Go alternates between Jenna Gray, who relocates to an isolated cottage in the village of Penfach and tries to learn to live with the grief and to move on with her life, and the Bristol CID police team, led by DI Ray Stephens, who are trying, with little success, especially after the disappearance of the victim's mother, to track down the driver of the car who hit Jacob and then drove away. And then comes the twist.

Five stars. I love the way that this book blends two genres together and devoting adequate time to each, so that the reader sees Ray struggling to make progress on the hit-and-run investigation, while trying to convince his boss that he is ready for promotion and trying to maintain a home-work balance, as his son gets into deeper trouble at school and grows more distant at home. But they also get to see Jenna consumed by grief and guilt, trying to rebuild her life. I Let You Go is not what I expected, and if you still haven't read it, I urge you to stop what you're doing and read it.

More books with jaw-dropping plot twists:
1. Before I Go to Sleep (S.J. Watson, 2011)
2. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn, 2012)
3. The Ice Beneath Her (Camilla Grebe, 2015)


Runemarks (Joanne Harris, 2007)

It's been five hundred years since the end of the world and society has rebuilt itself anew. The old Norse gods are no longer revered. Their tales have been banned. Magic is outlawed, and a new religion - the Order - has taken its place. In a remote valley in the north, fourteen-year-old Maddy Smith is shunned for the ruinmark on her hand. But what the villagers don't know is that Maddy has skills. According to One-Eye, the secretive Outlander who is Maddy's only real friend, her ruinmark - or runemark, as he calls it - is a sign of Chaos blood, magical powers and gods know what else.

Five stars. I don't read a lot of fantasy and I knew next to nothing about Norse mythology before I began Runemarks, but I like challenging myself with my reading choices, and I loved Gentlemen and Players (also by Joanne Harris). And I found myself completely immersed in this sweeping tale of gods, myth, and magic, so much so that, once I started the final section, finishing the book became a much higher priority than sleep. I've now added The Gospel of Loki to my to-read list.


A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central (Anja de Jager, 2016)

Detective Lotte Meerman is back at work, and while she has has been cleared by Internal Investigations, she is acutely aware that she can't afford to make any mistakes on this case. But that's easier said than done. The death of Frank Stapel, a painter and decorator, appears to be an accident, but then Lotte and Frank's widow, Tessa, find a skeleton in a luggage locker Frank rented in Amsterdam Central train station, and Lotte is convinced that the two incidents are connected. Lotte's colleagues are far from interested, until the arm bone of a major criminal, who has recently gone missing, is discovered alongside a skeleton from the Second World War.

Four stars. I really liked Lotte's character and the way she was portrayed, and the mystery itself was complex enough to keep me hooked throughout, but far from convoluted. The only thing I would say, is that there were some details of Lotte's past which weren't fully explained, presumably details from the first book in the series (which I haven't read). Otherwise, I found A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central to be a highly enjoyable read, with some interesting twists on a solid genre.

More crime fiction series with great characterisation:
1. Kill the Father (Sandrone Dazieri, 2017)
2. Naked in Death (J.D. Robb, 1995)
3. Silent Scream (Angela Marsons, 2015)


We Should All Be Feminists (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2014)

It's all in the title. If you haven't read it yet, stop what you're doing and read it now.


The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902-15)

The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably the best known of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and rightly so. With murder, mist-shrouded moors, and a legend of a supernatural hound, what more could you want? The Valley of Fear is an equally gripping read, in which Holmes faces Professor Moriarty once more. The solution to the death of a man, killed in a house cut off from the rest of the town by a moat, lies halfway across the world in the Valley of Fear.

Four stars. I love Sherlock Holmes and the way in which he goes about solving a case, as he does so excellently in these two short stories. They're both quick, but thought-provoking, reads with chilling atmospheres and brilliant characterisation.


Instructions for a Heatwave (Maggie O'Farrell, 2013)

It's July 1976, London, and the heatwave gripping the country is the least of Gretta Riordan's problems, when her husband leaves the house to buy a newspaper and doesn't come back. The family gather together to search for Robert: Matthew Francis, the eldest, on the brink of a divorce; Monica, the favourite, estranged from her sister and determined to make her second marriage work; and Aoife, the black sheep of the family (and my personal favourite), trying to make a life for herself in New York.

Five stars. Maggie O'Farrell is just an incredible writer. She uses third-person narration in this one to move seamlessly between the characters, all of whom are beautifully and realistically portrayed. I flew through Instructions for a Heatwave, and would highly recommend it as the perfect summer read.

More books perfect for summer reading:
1. The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922)
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling, 2003)
3. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep (Joanna Cannon, 2015)


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1979)

On the day that the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, Arthur Dent is lying in front of a bulldozer, trying to stop his house being demolished for a similiar, if more earthly, reason. But Arthur, with the help of his best friend Ford Prefect, who is actually an alien, survives, and soon finds himself travelling through space on a brand new ship, stolen by the ex-President of the Universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Arthur and Ford are accompanied by Zaphod himself, Trillian, a mathematician and astrophysicist and fellow human, Marvin, a paranoid android, and, of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with its quirky definitions of everything you could want to know about the galaxy.

Five stars. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me laughing out loud at its bizarre plotlines, ironic authorial comments, and hilarious definitions from the eponymous guide. I read a review which perhaps sums up my experience of reading this book better than I can: "To read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is to step into the garden shed of a maverick genius while he’s out, to discover what ideas he has left lying around."


Pietr the Latvian (Georges Simenon, 1931)

Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train bathroom? Or is he all of these men? Inspector Maigret, in the first of the series, tracking a mysterious adversary and a trail of bodies, must bide his time before the answer comes into focus.

Four stars. Maigret is a fascinating character, and I particularly enjoyed the way he rushed about according to a plan evident only to him. The reader spends most of the book trying to keep up with Maigret, as his colleagues also seem to, as he tries to identify four men, one or all of whom could be the infamous Pietr the Latvian. It's also a very short book, which adds to the tension and speed of the investigation as well as allowing it to be read in one sitting (as I did), and leaving the reader wanting more.