I am going to nail my colours to the mast and say that this genre is way outside my comfort zone. I get why these books are popular in the way that I get why certain songs/artists have hit records but not only are these not to my taste, I find them annoying. It is not generally Americana I have a problem with either because I listen to a lot of Americana music and there is a lot of American culture that I do enjoy, just not this version of it!

So to the book. The heroine is Claire DeWitt, the self-proclaimed ‘best detective in the world’ (groan) who seems to have supernatural powers as a woman as she regularly has fisticuffs with physically more powerful men – and never loses, as she likes to boast. To take this seriously, you really do have to take leave of your senses.

The story is set in three different eras which kind of connect and whilst reading, you have to keep remembering which era and hence which substory you are reading. The story bowls along at a good pace and I read the book quickly; I was keen to get to the end! There were many instances where I thought ‘Oh dear, I can’t believe she just wrote that’. There is also, to my mind, lots of gratuitous bad language which I found jarring. (Maybe that’s my Catholic upbringing?) So, thriller, who-done-it or fantasy? I don’t know but just not for me. 1.5/5

What a trial and what a struggle to get to the end! Claire De Witte is a PI who reckons she is the best ever at the job, a fact she repeats ad nauseum. She is also a superhero as she was able to run, fight etc, even though she was badly injured and running on uppers. The time jumps between past cases and her present one are annoying and confuse each other. I thought there were a lot of stereotypes in the cops and artists. The whole story was like the script of a black and white Sam Spade style film, only far more sleazy. How did she avoid getting pulled over for driving stolen cars? Totally unbelievable.

I didn’t finish this book for several reasons. I found the level of bad language unnecessary, and I struggled with the main character, not least because of her questionable morals. The structure, with its different storylines, felt confusing rather than intriguing, and I didn’t feel motivated enough to keep going - I just wasn’t interested enough to find out how it finished.

For starters I felt that the first 100 pages could be ignored. The rest of the book was not only confusing but made me feel uncomfortable. It just wasn’t for me.

Baffling. Highly rated on Goodreads. Not my genre, I didn't enjoy reading it so maybe didn't pay sufficient attention to the various story lines. Elements were completely disjointed and confusing. Claire DeWitt, unpleasant, gun carrying, car stealing, pill popping, obsessed private detective. The best detective in fact. She has three mysteries to solve. What happened to her teenage friend Tracy, the death of Merritt Underwood and Belle, missing daughter of Jacques Silette?

A book of two halves. Once the detective action was underway it was bearable - just. All the utter nonsense of I am the world's best detective is for the selfie generation who love to parade their perfection and are tedious in the extreme. I seriously considered just not reading to the end. I found the drug taking and "philosophy" pretentious. Some good points were made but well hidden in the dross. If I were being kind, I would say a modern Philip Chandler except, he was a wordsmith and ironically laughed at himself. I fear this writer takes herself seriously.

I didn't particularly enjoy this book. I persisted with it because I write about a female cop, and I wanted to pick up tips from this writer on how to portray a flawed crime-fighting female protagonist. I want my character to be likeable, interesting and credible, and I worry that she's a bit too 'nice'. I want to make her more 'edgy'. But this leading character, Claire DeWitt, isn't pleasant at all. She's a drug user, a liar, she steals cars and robs innocent people to get whatever she wants. There were interlinked stories being explored, which confused me a bit, and constant references to past cases; maybe I would have got more out of the book if I'd read earlier ones in the series first. But by the end I wasn't really interested in the conclusion. I won't be reading any more by this writer.

I found this book very difficult to follow. I did not like the central character and found the self-treatment of serious injuries tedious. I also do not like the jumping around of timelines. I have read a number of books recently that graphically cover the taking of substances which is much like having graphic sex scenes in the text. For me it doesn't add to the story and I don't want it in my head. There are no likeable characters and the super-rich again hold no interest for me. I have tried to find positives but couldn't and unsurprisingly I didn't finish it.

Reviewed in March 2026 but I have a different view. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the characters, flaws and all. My biggest LOL moment was when one the residents said that paying to have sex in the shed with the gardener was good as it took your mind off humbugs…. Who knew….

This was the story of Poppy Minkel who was of Jewish descent and heiress to a mustard company fortune. She’s not the most attractive but after her father drowns on the Titanic she is allowed to pursue her very varied lifestyle. The ‘unfortunates’ are the servants who work for them and the less wealthy people of New York. At the age of 21 she comes into her fortune, marries and goes to France on honeymoon. From there we follow her through France, England and New York in her very full life. This was a very interesting and likeable read.

The book is set in the heat of summer in 1989 and the action takes place around Wiltshire. It is the story of two very different men and their passion for creating crop circles; Redbone is the one who crafts the designs and Calvert scopes out the right fields. They get a kick out of their nocturnal endeavours; the secrecy and mystery they create that leaves people puzzled. Other characters appear, such as a posh drunken toff who thinks Redbone is the son of the groundskeeper. There are fly tippers, the men out lamping, hippies and professors, all the stereotypes that gather, like flies, around weird phenomena. What motivates these two very different characters, each with their own demons? How does their tentative friendship develop? Do they get caught? Myers’ prose is as good as ever, with powerful descriptions of the land, the sky, animals and birds. Beauty gives hope.

Reviewed in March 2026

Another detective story, but, thankfully, Israel Armstrong is not the Best Detective in the world! (See The Infinite Blacktop above.) Israel is a librarian and newly arrived in Northern Ireland to run a town library, only to find on arrival that the library has just been closed down because of funding difficulties. This is an easy read and an antidote to The Infinite Blacktop. It is funny and well written but I did tire of the constant mocking and ill-treatment of poor old Israel. Israel's main problem - he has many - is that the books have disappeared and it is somehow his fault. A short read and as I said, a perfect antidote to pretension.

Gabriel Dax partly remembers the night his mother died and he blames himself for what happened. His dreams seem to confirm his guilt. As an adult, he becomes a travel writer, documenting Europe during the Cold War. He is given the opportunity to interview a politician and his life is never the same again. He is recruited into the world of espionage, falls in love with his handler and becomes mistrustful of everyone and every situation. When his work shines a light on his own family, Gabriel is forced to make a decision. A very good read.

The life of Sybil is revealed in her exchange of letters and emails. At 73 (2013) through to 2021, she reveals her childhood, career, marriage and divorce, children and the death of one of them, her failing eyesight and her accidental DNA search. It’s an easy read but it gets sentimental towards the end but not overly so.

The story follows Julia a concert pianist recovering from personal tragedy, who returns to Wharton Park—the estate where she spent much of her childhood. The discovery of a diary sparks a dual timeline story full of secrets, emotional revelations, atmospheric settings - Riley’s signature blend of romance, mystery, and family history. In my opinion it has a slightly orchestrated, “just one more revelation” feeling and I felt the author was pulling strings to heighten the drama near the end. But despite that, an enjoyable read with the atmosphere and characters carrying you along.

Sherlock Holmes - somebody bought me a beautiful and huge book for Christmas: 'The complete Sherlock Holmes'. I've never read any of these before. The first story is A Study in Scarlet, in which Dr Watson meets Holmes, and they take up shared lodgings in Baker Street. Watson describes his early impressions of Holmes, and how he soon gets invited to share in his investigations. The story is told in sections: murders are discovered, Holmes visits the crime scenes, and through his remarkably perceptive skills of deduction soon pinpoints the killer, Jefferson Hope, making the resident cops look dim in the process.

Section two is a short story in itself: an account of what happened years earlier when the Mormons were heading to Salt Lake City, and something that so angered Jefferson Hope that he thirsted for revenge on two men and eventually got it. Then in the third section, after being arrested, Hope happily explains exactly how he committed the crimes.

Something about the layout of the story, revealing who the killer was quite early, and of course the observational skills of Holmes, reminded me of Columbo! The writing style took a bit of getting used to, but I will read more of these, just not all at once!

The eponymous Dolly is Grenville’s grandmother and the novel leans on family history and archives to create what is a really good read. Grenville does Dolly proud and although she isn’t likeable, you have to admire her.

Jay had the traditional Irish devout upbringing and now lives in London with her girlfriend. She likes to live in the moment but that changes when her older brother, a priest, is killed in an accident. The problem is, the Vatican is trying to make him a saint. She can’t stay in the Catholic closet and has to face up to her family and her upbringing. It’s easy to get emotionally invested in this book.

I can see why it won the Booker Prize but it still seemed hard work to read to the end of (only!) 200 pages. She can write and it's got really interesting info about how astronauts train and how they live in space, but there's no actual story. The 6 astronauts are named and there's a small effort to distinguish them but, at the end of the day, they're all the same. It's interesting to read descriptions of lightning seen from space and light forcing its way through the atmosphere but this is outweighed by the endless description/lists of where they are travelling over at any time.

I had listened to the book as a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime around the time it won the Booker Prize and having now read the it, I tried to listen to this again - I recall liking the music that accompanied it - but it's disappeared from BBC sounds. I fully appreciate why some people would be fascinated by the book and absolutely love it. For me it was mainly a struggle to get to the end - although there isn't an end - but I'm glad to have read it.! A marmite book, I think. And I cannot in a million years imagine why anyone would want to be an astronaut…..

Tearne is a wonderful writer and her novels embrace diverse subjects, from bomb torn July in Brixton Beach to Mosquito, a tale of love set against civil war. This novel is an atmospheric telling of the life of a community in the shadow of World War II. Set in August 1939, it covers the intertwined Maudsley and Molinello families. Set in a coastal town, where people know everything about each other, or so they think, we see loyalties to family and country questioned and blown apart. Tragedy, jealousy, regret, love and loss play out as world leaders face similar challenges. This book does not disappoint.

Maconie goes in search of ‘Middle England’ and goes exploring in Bath, Tonbridge Wells and various other places, using his dry and witty way, looking for what lies at the heart of this concept. If you are a fan of Maconie, and I am, having read a couple of his earlier books, you will lap this up and it is laugh out loud funny in places. However, if you are an unsuspecting Daily Mail reader, then this might jar with you a bit!

This book was written in the 1970s to little acclaim due to its content, genre and the author being openly gay. It has had a recent resurgence as dystopian fiction is gaining popularity. The plot is a reminder of how the arts and culture can be so easily manipulated by those in power, the ‘They’ of the title. Novels, art, sculpture, poetry, plays, all could be removed from your home and if you resist, then you are sent to a tower, where you will lose everything that makes you normal and unique. The focus is on a group of people who are trying to stay sane, who want to love and not lose hope. You aren’t allowed to express deep emotions and one character is told by a doctor that she can only experience the pain of her twisted ankle for two weeks and after that she must never refer to it again. The author is highlighting the need for individual and intellectual freedoms as she thought back in the 1970s, they were being eroded. She celebrates creativity and thought but warns about what could happen if we given to the ‘They’ of the title. Lots to think about.

Nicholai Hel is part German and part Russian, the protégé of a Japanese Go Master and happens to be the world’s most wanted man. He is an accomplished lover and assassin, a mystic, a genius and strives to reach the personal excellence known as shibumi. His world is disturbed when a stranger, needing help, turns up at his door and Hel finds out his biggest enemy is watching him. The two are locked in a power struggle, one that also pits power and corruption against shibumi.

Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi.

Vernice, an orphan raised by her aunt, and Annie, abandoned soon after birth and raised by her grandma, are cradle friends until their paths diverge as young adults. Vernice goes to college, Annie in search of her mother. Their stories then continue in parallel but come together again with a tragic ending.

This is the story about an antique violin and the lives it touches from being built in the early 19th century through to date. I like the premise of the book, to take a very old instrument and tell the story of its life and the life of its owners. The problem is that the good idea was spoiled in the execution. There were too many flights of fancy for me and the author couldn’t decide if the book was meant to be a thriller, a romcom or whatever.

Cahokia was a pre-Columbian city from 600 to 1400 CE, near present day St Louis. It is brought into present day for a story set in 1922 in prohibition America. It is ruled by native Americans and also occupied by Africans and Europeans. The book is a murder investigation with multiple layers of deceit and power struggles. Well written, but it’s hard to follow the political undertones as that’s not something I am familiar with.

The second of Louise Hare’s novels set in London and on board a ship sailing to New York. We again have a mixed race female lead (like the author) who is a professional jazz singer working in a dingy London club. A man, purporting to be an old friend of her father, offers the chance to move to New York to star in a show off Broadway. Of course, it is too good to be true and she is being duped. The story moves from the West End of London to the Queen Mary, where various murders are committed and Lena, our heroine, goes through many trials and tribulations. This is not my comfort zone but there was much that I enjoyed and Louise Hare is good at building characters we want to root for. There is a follow up novel called Harlem After Midnight.

Dawn is coming to terms with marriage and a newborn baby. When Hazel enters Dawn’s life there is an attraction so strong that Dawn has to make a decision. Her husband has public opinion on his side and Dawn has no choice but to leave him and her daughter in his custody. Dawn’s secret will be revealed to her daughter Maggie, but is it too late? It made me cry and get angry.

Sheep follow the herd and some may count sheep to go to sleep but sheep may be more than we think. Like people, each sheep has its own personality and may be affectionate or aggressive and some like to be the leader. Young uses her experience as a farmer to reveal to us that sheep are in fact complex and intelligent animals. She encourages us to pay more attention to the animals that surround us as we can learn more about ourselves from our observations.