MR. BRIGG'S HAT

TITLE: MR. BRIGGS’ HAT

          A Sensational Account of Britain’s First Railway Murder

AUTHOR: KATE COQUHOUN

Pages: 339

Date: 15/01/2012

Grade: 4.5

Details: Non-Fiction

            Review copy received from Waterstones

On 9 July 1864 two bank clerks enter a first class train compartment only to discover that it is covered in blood, with no sign of an injured person or body although they do find a walking stick, an empty leather bag and a hat.

Shortly afterwards Thomas Briggs, a senior bank clerk, is found, fatally injured a short way back along the railway line. When Briggs dies without regaining consciousness shortly, a murder investigation commences.

The investigation is headed by Richard Tanner of the still relatively new Scotland Yard Detective Division of the Metropolitan Police.

Faced with a murder without witnesses and few clues, Tanner is conducting a very difficult investigation that only appears to break when a tip seems to point at a good suspect. Soon Tanner finds himself chasing Franz Muller, the young German tailor who appears to be at the centre of the horrific attack, across the Atlantic in an effort to bring him to justice in a case that will be decided by the ownership of two hats.

This was a fascinating read. The murder and its setting, a closed off train compartment, are truly mysterious. The only evidence available being very circumstantial leads to the answers suggested being highly ambiguous. It is hard to read this book without being both horrified at and fascinated by the standards of crime investigation at the time and the way the justice system worked in those days.

But it is not just the crime that makes this book so interesting. The author paints a great picture of England at the height of the industrial revolution, the ambivalent feelings this rapid progress awakened in people and the ins and outs of daily life in London.

I enjoyed comparing investigative methods, court proceedings and journalistic standards of the time with those we are used to today and can only be glad of the progress we have made in the 150 years since this case hit the headlines.

I feel that this well written and thoroughly researched book would be a great read for anyone with an interest in true crime, history, and/or social studies.

THE END OF THE WASP SEASON

TITLE: THE END OF THE WASP SEASON

AUTHOR: DENISE MINA

Pages: 404

Date: 13/01/2012

Grade: 4

Details: no. 2 Kate Morrow

Library

In a wealthy suburb of Glasgow a young woman is brutally murdered by two intruders into her house.

DS Kate Morrow, five months pregnant with twins and a past she chooses to deny, investigates the murder while her station faces internal unrest.

In Kent, millionaire banker Lars Anderson hangs himself from a tree in front of his house, leaving his fragile family to deal with his dubious and hateful legacy.

When the two deaths are connected, the depth of Anderson’s selfishness and the harm it has caused are fully exposed and the fall-out appears enormous.

For Morrow bringing this case to a successful conclusion means she can resolve some issues with her own past and family.

This book is not really a mystery, at least not for the reader. The perpetrators of the vicious murder are identified right at the start of the book. While Ds. Kate Morrow and her colleagues are trying to find out who committed the murder and why, the big question for the reader is if it is going to happen again, and how the police investigation is ever going to get to the solution.

But even with the investigation as conducted by Morrow being described in detail, I don’t think that was the real subject of this book. For me this book was more about relationships and the various forms they take. The relationships we cherish, those we want to deny, and those we’re stuck with whether we like it or not.

I do feel that the picture the author paints of people is rather coloured by prejudice. It would appear that the rich and powerful are all bad, selfish and out to better themselves, regardless of who they might destroy in the process, while the less well off, although by no means described as angels, all have redeeming features and softness shining through the rough exterior.

I haven’t read any other books by Denise Mina, so I have no way of knowing if this contrast is one that features in all her work or unique to this book. I liked her writing in this book enough to pick up something else by her in the future, if only to find an answer to that question, though.

This is a very well written story. It is hard not to be fascinated by the selfishness of some of the characters, not to feel sorry for those who were at their mercy and not to cheer for those who make it despite the odds apparently being stacked against them.

There are one or two characters though I still can’t make up my mind about; I’m still not sure if Thomas especially was just plain bad, mad, a bit of both or just too neglected and too much of a teenager to use good judgment. And while I like it when a book stays with me after I finish the last page, I’m not sure how much I enjoy this level of confusion about a character’s motivation.

All in all this was a book that intrigued me, but not only for the right reasons.

SOLACE

TITLE: SOLACE

AUTHOR: BELINDA MCKEON

Pages: 341

Date: 09/01/2012

Grade: 4+

Details: Read for Book Club

Own

Mark Casey is a doctoral student in Dublin, struggling to find any enthusiasm for the thesis he is supposed to be writing while also trying to balance his father’s demands for help on the Longford farm with his own needs. While the gap between Mark and his father appears to be getting wider, his mother tries to keep a fragile peace between the two men.

Joanne Lynch is a trainee solicitor and the daughter of a man Mark’s father has considered an enemy ever since he was wronged by him twenty years ago.

When Joanne and Mark meet at a party the attraction is instant and before long they are in the middle of a love affair. With their relationship still in its early stages, Joanne finds herself pregnant and before they’ve had a real chance to get to know each other, Mark and Joanne find themselves the parents of a baby girl.

Just when the new family are starting to find their feet and some balance in their lives, disaster strikes. In the subsequent months both Mark and his father have to reassess their lives and priorities in an effort to keep on living and moving forward.

This was a quiet and unsentimental story, although the emotions and feelings of the main characters are firmly at the centre of it. While the content of the story has all the makings of an emotional roller-coaster, the subdued tone in which the story is told means that those emotions are only implied. The reader has to dig deep to actually feel the love, pain and despair which the characters have to be going through in the context of the story. At the same time though, the story does leave the reader with a lot to think about and images that linger even after the book has been closed.

This book deals with the contrasts between life in the city and in the country-side, between the traditional expectations of the older generation versus the hopes and dreams of the younger. The story succeeds very well in describing live and relations in small Irish towns, where everybody knows everything about everybody and nothing ever stays hidden. It also gives a realistic picture of the devastation a big loss has on a person’s life and how such a loss can lead to confusion about what is a priority or even what is normal behaviour.

I had a few, minor, issues with the story. For starters, I could at no point while reading sympathise with Mark. From the start of the book I wanted to tell him to grow up, make up his mind, make a decision and stick to it. For a 30 year old man he had very little idea of what he really wanted and never seemed to be able to make a real decision. I also wasn’t entirely sure about the ending of the book. It seemed to me that nothing had been resolved when I closed the book and that the issues that had been introduced at the start of the story where still unresolved.

Having said all of that, I was intrigued by the story, its characters and their lives. The characters were almost too realistically human in that they just muddled on and didn’t really face up to the issues in their lives. And the book was very well written. The language is beautiful and the words flow in such a way that I had a hard time putting the book down.

This is an ambitious and well written novel and a very promising debut by an author I know I will be following from now on.

THE PADRE PUZZLE

TITLE: THE PADRE PUZZLE

AUTHOR: DAVID HARRY

Date: 06/01/2012

Grade: 4.5

Details: E-book received from author

            No. 1 Padre Island Mysteries

Own

Before I say anything else about this book I want to mention that if it were possible I would have rated this book 4.5 stars. It may not be perfect, but it is a very good read.

Jimmy Redstone is a Texas Ranger currently on leave after having been shot in the shoulder during an operation which would have seen him charged with murder if it had not been for that injury.

Now, in a last ditch effort to get re-instated to the job that is his life, he's on South Padre Island trying to rehab his shoulder through an intensive work-out programme.

On South Padre Island, located on the Gulf of Mexico near the border between the USA and Mexico, Redstone meets up with Markus Cruses, the son of a former partner of his, who is the local Coast Guard Chief.

Redstone goes out with Markus on patrol after a call out, only to discover that the emergency they thought they were responding to doesn't exist. When they return to the Coast Guard base they discover that a body has been found on the beach and the police have started an investigation.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Redstone starts asking questions about the murdered man himself. Before long he is asked by his superior in the Rangers to conduct an unofficial and under-cover investigation into the murder since the victim on the beach was a Texas Ranger, working under-cover in a drug-running gang.

From there on things move quickly. A second man dies and Redstone soon finds himself officially included in the investigations, partnered with Angella Martinez, a beautiful rookie police-woman. The investigations appear to include every law-enforcement agency known to men and Redstone can't help thinking that he is not getting all the available information.

When Markus ends up in hospital, people start threatening Redstone, demanding he hand over something he doesn't have and Trich, Markus' fiancée turns out to be the daughter of an important Mexican drug-runner, things get murky and confusing.

But never in his wildest imaginations could Redstone have foreseen the magnitude of the threat South Padre Island, he and the USA as a whole face.

I was asked by David Harry to read and review this book for him. I'm usually a bit wary about requests like that because I haven't quite figured out what I will do if it turns out I don't like the book. But, fortunately, this was not the occasion where I had to answer that question.

This is a very well told story. Jimmy Redstone is a wonderful and very realistic main character, and the tale is told at a brisk pace while it also takes the time to give the reader a good picture of the characters and landscapes involved.

I downloaded a copy of this book to my ancient e-reader and for some reason something went wrong with the formatting. This resulted in the book showing up on the reader in sentences that were only one word long, spread over nearly 4900 pages. As soon as I noticed this I knew that the story had better be good and captivating if I were to read it to the end. The fact that I not only made it to the end, despite the desperate reading format, but also gave the book this 4.5 star rating proves beyond any doubt that this is a great mystery. 

I look forward to reading the sequel in the future.

My reading: Reflecting on 2011 and looking forward to 2012

At the start of 2011 I set myself the goal of reading at least 100 books over the course of the year. Now that the year is behind me again, I’m glad to be able to say that I managed to read 125 books in all.

2011 was the year during which I started receiving books to be reviewed by me. Although I had been blogging about every book I read for years by that stage, writing reviews that were intended to be read by others was a whole new, but very gratifying, experience. Receiving books to review also meant that I got to read several books that might otherwise have slipped by me, in genres that I had not been pursuing in the past few years.

It was nice to discover that I do still enjoy the occasional Fantasy and Science Fiction titles. What was even nicer that a few authors have since started to offer their books to me for reviews, which I interpret as meaning that I must be doing something right.

In numbers, the past year looks as follows:

Ø      Books read: 125

Ø      Books owned by me: 62

Ø      Books from the library: 63

Ø      Young Adult/Juvenile Fiction: 15

Ø      Non-Fiction: 6

Ø      Graphic Novels: 1

Ø      Short Story Collections: 2

Ø      Books I graded 5 or higher: 18

And the following were my favourite reads of 2011, in alphabetical order:

Ø      Down These Green Streets, Irish Crime Writing in the 21^st Century, edited by Declan Burke (NF)

Ø      The Drop by Michael Connelly

Ø      A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Ø      Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

Ø      Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

Ø      Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Ø      The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Ø      A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (YA)

Ø      State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Ø      The Watchers by Jon Steele

Ø      Before I go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

All  though all these books were marked 5 or higher, not all books marked as such are mentioned here. These are the books that proved to be most memorable for me. 

I participated in one reading challenge last year; The Ireland Reading Challenge hosted by Carrie Kitzmiller on her Books and Movies Blog. I far exceeded the goal I had set myself of reading 6 books that were related to Ireland, but since that’s where I live, that is hardly surprising.

I will be taking part in the Ireland Reading Challenge for 2012 as well. This year the challenge has been spiced up a bit. I’ve now committed myself to reading more then 10 books that are either set in Ireland, written by an Irish author or have some other link to Ireland, as well as to read books in as many of 11 different genres as I can. I’m excited about this because there are one or two genres there, like poetry, that I don’t normally read.

Other than that I haven’t set myself any reading goals for next year yet, but that could easily change over the next few weeks. I do hope to continue reviewing books and also intend to read a few more books in my mother-tongue, Dutch. Last year I read exactly two books by Dutch authors, and that just isn’t good enough.

DODELIJKE HOBBIE

TITLE: DODELIJKE HOBBIE (Deadly Hobby)
AUTHOR: M.P.O. BOOKS
Date: 02/01/2012
Grade: 4+
Details: no. 6 District Heuvelrug

            Free E-Book
            Read in Dutch, the original language
Own  

Andre Lourier is looking forward to a quiet Christmas. He has been asked to house-sit for his favourite cousin and her husband, who is not fond of Lourier at all.
Although he has been given strict instructions, Lourier forgets to set the house alarm on the first night and disaster strikes. The house is broken into and the priceless collection of porcelain houses, collected by his cousin's husband, is stolen.
Initially Lourier hopes that the police will solve the case and return the collection before its owners return. But when a triple murder is committed in a nearby town the police have to allocate all their resources there and the theft is firmly placed on the back-burner.
Desperate not to have his negligence exposed, Lourier starts investigating the theft himself and appears to be on the right track.
Unfortunately he has no idea how much danger he has been in, a danger that is still lurking, waiting for a second chance...

This is the sixth book in the "District Heuvelrug" series. I haven't read any of the previous books, but that didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this novella at all.
This was a well plotted mystery. While the reader knows that the theft and the tripple murder almost certainly have to be connected, there is no way they are going to figure out how or why until the moment the author decides to reveal the solution. And even when everything has been made clear, the danger for our main character has not yet been averted.
I received a free e-book copy of this book and was happily surprised when I read it. I really enjoyed reading this story and will probably try to get my hands on other books in this series when I'm next visiting The Netherlands.

NORWEGIAN WOOD

TITLE: NORWEGIAN WOOD

AUTHOR: HARUKI MURAKAWI

Pages:386

Date: 30/12/2011

Grade: 4.5

Library

When Toru Watanabe hears the song Norwegian Wood he is transported 20 years back in time. Memories come flooding back and he remembers all the tragedies of his late teens and early twenties. When Watanabe was 17 his best friends were Kizuki and his girlfriend Noaka. When Kizuki, for reasons that are unclear to his friends, commmits suicide Watanabe has to come to terms with death and loss for the first time. Shortly afterwards Watanabe starts studying in Tokyo where he for a short while ...moreWhen Toru Watanabe hears the song Norwegian Wood he is transported 20 years back in time. Memories come flooding back and he remembers all the tragedies of his late teens and early twenties. When Watanabe was 17 his best friends were Kizuki and his girlfriend Noaka. When Kizuki, for reasons that are unclear to his friends, commmits suicide Watanabe has to come to terms with death and loss for the first time. Shortly afterwards Watanabe starts studying in Tokyo where he for a short while reconnects with Noaka. He gets close to her but Noaka soon finds herself struggling with mental problems and moving away to a institution where she hopes to get better. Alone in Tokyo, Watanabe finds himself caught up in the excitement of the late 1960's, early 1970's. Free love, student unrest and uneasy friendships keep him yearning for his past and Noaka, who doesn't appear to be getting any better. When he meets the exciting and inconventional Midori, she forces him to make a choice between the memories of the past and the possibilies of the future. But before he can make such a choice, Watanabe has to come to terms with all the loss he has encountered in his life and give himself permission to go on. This was a fascinating read, but not a light one. It deals with death on several levels; the death of friends, the death of parents, and suicide. It is in many ways a coming of age story, with Watanabe having to learn to deal with the losses he suffers without giving in to the despair and feelings of guilt he feels. Almost to balance all the deaths the book also deals liberally with sex. The setting of the story puts us firmly in the age of free love and not only is there lots of that in the story, it also gets described in detail through the very frank characters in the story. At some level I can't help feeling that I probably missed some level of this story due to cultural differences and my ignorance of all things Japanese. However, on another level this was just a beautiful story about a boy growing up reluctantly while having to deal with devastating loss after devasting loss and as such it was a compelling read. I'm delighted to have discovered Murakami's books and look forward to reading something else by him in the near future