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A Song for the Dark Times (2020) is the 23rd Rebus book by Ian Rankin.

I’ve read them all.

This one is as good as ever. Despite Rebus being long retired. I said goodbye (the first time) in 2007 with Exit Music.

Rebus had to move to ground floor residence as he can no longer do stairs. And he keeps his inhaler at the ready.

Brexit looms. But there’s no talk of COVID-19.

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days.

Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect.

He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?

ianrankin.net

My brother Randy linked to this video of a recent discussion of aging characters: Rebus v Harry Bosch.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Code to Zero (2000) … follows Luke, an amnesic who spends the duration of the book learning of his life, and slowly uncovering secrets of a conspiracy to hold America back in the space race.

It’s set in 1958.

Luke wakes up in a men’s room with no recollection of his past.

His clothing, associates and surroundings suggest to him that he is an alcoholic derelict, however his behaviour, intelligence, morals and instinct lead him to investigate and research his past. 

As always with Follett, the plot is intriguing. The love story passionate.

There was talk of a TV adaptation, but I’m not sure that happened.

I was keen to get my hands on this book.

The author won the 2020 Hugo Award for her debut novel A Memory Called Empire (2019).

Arkady Martine is the pen name of AnnaLinden Weller, a historian and city planner in New Mexico.

AnnaLinden was a SciFi geek from a young age. A big reader too.

The book starts well.

A young female ambassador is sent from tiny Lsel Station to the home planet of the Teixcalaanli Empire.

She’s a fish-out-of-water. Unsophisticated. But with a secret technology.

I was hooked.

But about half way through I was tempted to give up. The palace intrigue not intriguing enough for me.

Not enough action.

Most people love this book. I made it through. But I won’t continue with the inevitable sequel.

related – The Verge – A Memory Called Empire is a brilliant blend of cyberpunk, space opera, and political thriller

Excellent. 

Based on a true story. 

Tom Holland will play the lead in the Hollywood movie adaptation.

For some reason I’d never thought about Italy during WW II — before reading this book.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

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