Category: books

Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I enjoyed the 2023 biography of Agatha Christie.

A surprising life story for such a successful author.

Enter historian Lucy Worsley, whose declared intention is to rescue Christie, who died in 1976 at the age of 85, from the misperceptions that cling to her life and her works of fiction. …

… she revisits the most notorious episode of Christie’s life: her disappearance for 11 days in December 1926 …

Her gift for dialogue and for manipulating social stereotypes, as Worsley demonstrates, was formidable, keenly attuned to the proliferating class anxieties of the 20th century; numerous characters are, interestingly, transitional or dispossessed in some way …

Guardian Review

Over the past few years I’ve been reading her 70+ books. Many are very good.

Agatha Christie 1950

Despite the books, magazines, TV adaptations, movies — Agatha had money troubles most of her life.

When asked “occupation“, Agatha stated “House Wife” her entire life.

She loved buying and maintaining homes. Loved shopping. Did have a social life.

Yet she was incredibly prolific and productive as a writer. Her plots she jotted down in notebooks.

One of the things I like best about Agatha are her books in exotic settings. She loved to travel. And her second husband was an archeologist. Agatha spent a lot of time with him on his digs in the Middle East.

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Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes

On By Rick McIn books, governmentLeave a comment

FROM JULIUS CAESAR TO ANGELA MERKEL–A RETELLING FOR OUR TIMES

… fast-moving encapsulation of German history …

… Hawes sees the birth of Germany as we know it with the partition of Charlemagne’s kingdom into West Frankish (France) and East Frankish (Germany) …

Kirkus

I read this wanting to know more about the history of Germany. It’s not nearly so well known to me as Great Britain and/or France.

The author argues that historically and culturally, eastern Germany is quite different from the rest.

It’s been true for hundreds of years. And was true in 1933 when the east of Germany voted more for Hitler.

Eastern Germans are more likely to be anti-American, anti-NATO and anti-Western.

Some are pro-Putin.

Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is one of your typical right wing hate groups: anti LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, anti-Gay marriage, anti-everything.

Here’s where the AfD party was most popular in the 2017 federal election.

The author almost argues that it would have been better if Germany had not unified.

Despite trillions in subsidy provided by the west, many in the east would rather go back to the Soviet Union.

If there is ever a referendum on separation, I hope it happens.

The Lightning Rod by Brad Meltzer

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Second in the series after The Escape Artist.

This one’s better.

Jim “Zig” Zigarowski, a mortician who spent most of his career at Dover Air Force Base. 

Nola Brown is a badass. And a U.S. Army’s artist-in-residence–a painter.

Zig is called in to personally work his magic on the body of Mint, a former member of the military whose colleagues insist on an open-casket funeral.

Zig comes through …

… an even bigger surprise when Nola Brown, the infamous mystery woman who saved his life in THE ESCAPE ARTIST, shows up at the funeral.

What could possibly be their connection? …

bookreporter review

Well researched. This crazy plot is based on real technology.

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The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

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A TV quiz show host became one of our most successful murder mystery authors when he published The Thursday Murder Club novel in 2020.

The most borrowed library book one year in England.

The sequel — The Man Who Died Twice — was a big hit, as well.

The Bullet That Missed is #3. Also charming and funny.

As this installment opens, the four septuagenarian members of the club—former MI6 agent Elizabeth Best, retired nurse Joyce Meadowcroft, psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif, and longtime union organizer Ron Ritchie—are investigating another murder from their cold-case files.

It seems that Bethany Waites, a local TV journalist, was about to crack a huge tax avoidance scheme when her car went over a cliff 10 years ago …

The mysteries are complex, the characters vivid, and the whole thing is laced with warm humor and—remarkably, considering the body count—good feeling.

Kirkus

Reviews are great. But I personally found this the weakest of the 3 books.

The silly plot dragged.

Quite a few new characters. Too many?

The more Ibrahim Arif, the better. He’s my favourite.

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Phantom by Jo Nesbø

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I really shouldn’t read Nesbø.

Too dark. Too much gore.

I should quit as I quit Karen Slaughter. And for the same reasons.

Phantom is the ninth novel featuring crime detective Inspector Harry Hole. …

Inspector Harry Hole is returned from his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong when he is told that Oleg, the son of his on-off girlfriend Rakel Fauke, has been arrested for murder …

Since Hole has become a father figure to Oleg, he comes to Norway to determine the truth …

Hole discovers that the drug scene in Oslo no longer revolves around heroin, but around a highly-addictive morphine-based drug called violin. …

Hole becomes convinced that the police have the wrong suspect and that Oleg has been arrested to take the heat off the real violin dealers. …

 

Book trailer videos are typically the very worst on YouTube. This one is far better than usual.

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The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson

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Definitely a slow start.

But there’s something weirdly compelling to the suspense.

In THE MIST, readers follow series protagonist Hulda Hermansdottir as she returns to work following a personal leave necessitated by an undefined tragedy.

Hulda will soon face a disturbing – and puzzling – case: a mysterious death at a remote farmhouse in the Icelandic countryside, where two bodies have been found.

Weaving together Hulda’s personal life with an extended flashback at the farm in the lead-up to our victims’ deaths, THE MIST is a complex and heartbreaking mystery, a feather in the cap of an already-exceptional crime fiction series.

If you’re in the market for elegant suspense that relies more on atmosphere and character development than blood and gore, Ragnar Jonasson’s superb Hidden Iceland trilogy might just be your perfect match. …

Crime by the Book

The Hidden Iceland series is told backwards chronologically. In Book One, THE DARKNESS, readers meet police officer Hulda Hermansdottir at the end of her career with the Icelandic police. In Book Two, THE ISLAND, readers rewind in time, and meet Hulda in the middle of her career. Finally, in Book Three, THE MIST, readers meet Hulda early on in her career, when she is just finding her footing and establishing herself in the police force. …

The Island by Ragnar Jonasson

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BOOK #2 IN THE HIDDEN ICELAND trilogy.

Slow burn. But it’s well worth reading all 3 books.

Elliðaey is an isolated island off the Icelandic coast. It has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain – and an easy place to vanish.

At the peak of her career Hulda Hermannsdóttir is sent to discover what happened when a group of friends visited Elliðaey – but one failed to return.

Could this have links to the disappearance of a couple ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts? …

ragnar-jonasson

You’ve seen photos of Elliðaey island.

In 1953, the white structure seen in the images was built by the Elliðaey Hunting Association. Anyone who wants to visit is allowed to do so.

Several tour companies operating in the Vestmannaejar peninsula offer day trips to Elliðaey, as well. See the puffins.

The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh

On By Rick McIn books, government, human rights, IslamLeave a comment

I’ve never been to Pakistan. But am keen to go as there is terrific hiking in the Himalaya.

I read this excellent book as research.

Sadly, in terms of progress, India has done far better since Partition .

The invasion in 1979 by the Soviet Union was a huge setback, of course.

Declan Walsh is an Irish author and journalist who is the Chief Africa Correspondent for The New York Times. 

Walsh was expelled from Pakistan in May 2013—an experience he wrote about in his 2020 book The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State—but continued covering the country from London.

In fact, Walsh was ejected just prior to the 2013 Pakistani general election when Nawaz Sharif was just barely elected.

The subtitle of the book is Dispatches from a Divided Nation and the author criss-crosses those political, religious, ethnic and generational fault lines, assembling a portrait of the vast country of 220 million people through his travels and the lives of the nine compelling protagonists.

Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. …

What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people. …

Guardian Review

“Above all, Pakistanis are survivors. Yet a country, like a person, may only have nine lives. Rather than fate to overtake them, some of the people I met in the Insha’Allah nation took matters into their own hands…”

Book Review: The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh

Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon

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Very good.

Death in a Strange Country (1993) is the second novel in Donna Leon‘s Commissario Brunetti mysteries set in Venice and the sequel to Death at La Fenice (1992).

In fact, a good series to dig into.

The Leopard by Jo Nesbø

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This Nesbø novel (2009) is a good example of why I don’t like the Harry Hole books.

Too complicated. Too dark. No characters to cheer for ➙ certainly not Harry.

There are better Jo Nesbø books, of course. Skip this one.

Following the traumatic Snowman case, former police inspector Harry Hole has exiled himself in Hong Kong.

Kaja Solness, a new Norwegian Crime Squad officer, tracks down Hole and asks for his help investigating possible serial killings in Oslo.

Hole is convinced to return when told that his father, Olav, is seriously ill and will not live much longer.

He returns to Norway to find that the Crime Squad is in the middle of a power struggle with Kripos and its power-hungry head, Mikael Bellman, who seeks to put his agency in sole charge of the country’s murder cases.

Hole finds himself the target of Bellman’s hostility, though Bellman is keen to take credit for the results of Hole’s work. …