If you were going to kill someone, would you choose to do it in front of witnesses, and inside a locked room? I don’t feel like I’m going out on a limb here when I say that, no, I don’t think you would. But then, if you were going to kill someone and even confess […]
‘Nine days before her daughter disappeared, Morgan Vine paid her twenty-third visit to HMP Dungness.’ Now tell me that opening hasn’t got you hooked. Why is Morgan there? Why does her daughter disappear? How are the two connected? (Since the construction of that sentence tells you they are.) Of course, if you’re reading the opening […]
I like to watch TV series in installments: ideally no more than one episode a night so I can savour each one, digesting the ideas and developments before moving on to the next. Gary A. Braunbeck’s collection of short stories requires the same approach. There are 40 stories in total but to gorge yourself on […]
Beginning a trilogy by reading the finale probably isn’t the greatest idea I’ve ever had. Who is Angela Grainger? Why did she try to shoot Carl Logan? Why did Logan’s agency, the JIA (Joint Intelligence Agency) disown him? I had no idea, but hoped I would find out in this ‘action-packed finale’. What’s it about? […]
When you make a decision, what influences you? You might expect that your past experiences would have an impact – and they certainly do – but are you sufficiently aware of the other factors influencing your decision-making process? From who orders first in a round of drinks to which new TV we buy, we’re constantly […]
This is so good that when I picked it up to check if I read it last year, I ended up reading it again. ‘This’ is ‘The Unremarkable Heart’, a short story by well-established crime writer Karin Slaughter, and, yes, that is her birth name. (She has said previously that it’s a good thing she […]
Have you ever considered murder as a form of entertainment? How about murder as an art form? Popular cultural historian Dr Lucy Worsley has. What’s it about? ‘A Very British Murder’ is described in Worsley’s introduction as ‘an exploration of how the British enjoyed and consumed the idea of murder, a phenomenon that dates from […]
‘Can you recommend a book of spells to raise pets from the dead? Just animals you understand – not people. I don’t want my husband coming back.’ Jen Campbell, bookseller at Ripping Yarns and author of ‘Weird Things Customers say in Bookshops’ is back with, well, more weird things customers have said to some poor, […]
It’s a truth widely known that I love Jane Austen. And, as always, when I’m interested in a topic, I enjoy reading about it, so I’ve gradually built up a collection of materials on Austen. This is one of my latest finds (thank you Waterstones!) and it does exactly what it promises to do: celebrates […]
Forgetting what you did on a drunken night out is bad enough. Forgetting what you’ve done for the last ten years must be terrifying. This is the problem facing Alice Love in Liane Moriarty’s intriguing novel, ‘What Alice Forgot’. What’s it about? Alice bumps her head at the gym and is utterly astonished to find […]