An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.
ingLove to read about what others have in their TBR stack. I just finished Love, Death and the Toyman by Robert Napier. Also wrote a review on the book. What intrigues me (and I know Bob personally) is that his character Jack Lorentz has such great one-liners and a Chandleresque style. On a different PI flavor note, I saw where a reviewer said that the story had overtones of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer plots involving dysfunctional families. Lorentz, isn't a PI, however. He's a toy collector/evaluator and former investigative reporter.
And , then, I've gone to the other end of the spectrum, (GA mysteries) and am rereading A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery. Fun to think of the Winnie the Pooh author having this mystery/puzzle bent.
I'm reading Sandra Parshall's new book, Disturbing the Dead. I'm about halfway through and enjoying it. This is a traditional mystery set in a small community in West Virginia US. The central crime revolves around a cold case 10 years old, thought to have been a disappearance but now obviously it was murder. The accurately presented rural mountain atmosphere and attitudes of one segment of that society toward another enhance a good storyline.
--Dianne
I'm always reading a couple books at a time. Right now is -
1) Christine Falls - A little slow going so far. It seems to be losing the race in terms of vying for my attention. But I do plan on finishing it real soon.
2) Ice - A translated Russian Science fiction dystopian all around weird book. The translation is great but it may need a re-read before I can wrap my brain around everything.
3) Cast of Shadows - Really good so far. I saw a discussion about this book here actually. I'm really digging it so far . The writing is top shelf, the plotting is tight, the characterizations are spot on.
4) The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden - A stunning book. A modern 1001 Nights. This is an intricate book of nested stories that is just phenomenal
The Wicker Man. The book of Tobit--who knew there were demon lovers in the Bible? Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith. Every writer should read this book! Some rather lame book on witchcraft. Have abandoned the Marquis de Sade because repetitive sodomy gets dull, dull, dull. (Oops--can I say that here?)
Just finished RESTLESS by William Boyd. I'm a sucker for a good spy novel, and this is an excellent one. Next is either Ake Edwardson's NEVER END, or THE LATE-NIGHT NEWS by Petros Makaris. On a Eurocrime spree at the moment.
And best of all I've got Rupert Thomson's new novel DEATH OF A MURDERER sitting on my desk, and I'm saving it up to read it over Easter.
I just finished THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS by John Connolly. It's a sort of dark, twisted fairy tale retelling--the protag is a 12-year-old boy, but it's pretty gruesome for kids of that age, I think. Well, most of them. I probably would have enjoyed it at that age. :o) Now I'm starting on one of Kate Sedley's Roger the Chapman historical mystery series books, THE WICKED WINTER.