Very Agatha Christie, I’d say the 4th book in the Hawthorne series is best, so far.

A great writer, these books are unique in that the author writes himself into the story. A bumbling Watson to Hawthorne’s Holmes.

“I’m sorry but the answer’s no.” Reluctant author, Anthony Horowitz, has had enough. He tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne that after three books he’s splitting and their deal is over. …

His new play, a thriller called Mindgame, is about to open at the Vaudeville Theater in London’s West End. Not surprisingly, Hawthorne declines a ticket to the opening night.

The play is panned by the critics. In particular, Sunday Times critic Margaret Throsby gives it a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next day, Throsby is stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which turns out to belong to Anthony, and has his fingerprints all over it.

Anthony is arrested by an old enemy . . . Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw. She still carries a grudge from her failure to solve the case described in the second Hawthorne adventure, The Sentence is Death, and blames Anthony. Now she’s out for revenge.

Thrown into prison and fearing for both his personal future and his writing career, Anthony is the prime suspect in Throsby’s murder and when a second theatre critic is found to have died in mysterious circumstances, the net closes in. Ever more desperate, he realizes that only one man can help him.

But will Hawthorne take the call?

Amazon

Oddly, Harry Hole starts this book happy. He’s typically an angry drunk in these books.

Married to Rakel, love of his life. Working as a popular and sober lecturer at Police College.

A woman is found dead after a Tinder date, and marks left on her body indicate that the killer used iron teeth to kill her, and then drink her blood. Oslo’s ex-detective Harry Hole reluctantly gets involved in a search for a vampirist. …

Crime Review

Harry is blackmailed into coming back for just one more case.

I’d say this book is not bad. Not great.

Despite the impossible plot, this book does keep you guessing.

Recommended.

You’ll feel smarter for reading Nesbø. Interesting dialogue. Pop culture references to books, music, film.

The Devil’s Star (Norwegian: Marekors, literally “The Nightmare Cross”, 2003) is a crime novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø, the 5th in the Harry Hole series.  …

The story moves between two parallel themes – the appearance of a new serial killer terrorizing Oslo, and Harry Hole’s ongoing feud with the corrupt and utterly ruthless fellow police officer Tom Waaler, which was already a major part of the plot of the two previous books, “The Redbreast” and “Nemesis“.

Eventually, the two issues converge – enabling Harry to resolve both in the course of a single cataclysmic night. …

Click PLAY or watch an interview on YouTube.

Nilanjana Sudeshna “Jhumpa” Lahiri (born 1967) is a Bengali American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.

Her debut collection of short-stories Interpreter of Maladies (1999) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. …

Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the Indian state of West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was three …

The stories are about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans who are caught between their roots and the “New World”.

Good, not great is my review.

Of course I’m not much of a fan of short stories.

Not great.

London Rules is the 2022 book in the Slough House series — where the failed MI5 spies (Slow Horses) are sent when there is no way to fire them.

There are some mentions of Covid.

In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. 

But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last? Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence’s First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? …

There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm …

Amazon

I’d been enjoying the Slow Horses series of books.

BUT this one #8 is not great, in my opinion.

It’s still getting good reviews ➙ Amazon.

In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.
 
Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .
 
And with winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible for killing a slow horse breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.