132,610
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYSylvie Cathrall|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted Letter to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...'' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1399702289|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=After There are few greater joys than a harsh winter, the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springbook which lives up to a compelling premise. But something And this is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir one of the Sûreté du Québec. Gamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jean-Guy, it had always been the other way around. Now they're both in the village and neither can fathom what's happening. Armand will soon find that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his lifethem.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287110008517061|title=CDC: The happy years with Death in a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'Lonely Place|author=Hans BodmerStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pagesFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the shortfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, but explosiveLivia and her daughter Diana, history as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the Control Data Company, CDC, future she wants for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in a mixture of technological summary the present and wry anecdoteputting the future on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293566601786482126|title=The SanctuaryJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Emma HaughtonElly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was the quiet which woke Zoey up going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - or, rather, when they discovered the absence bones of the noise which was a constant in New Yorkchild beneath a doorway. Here it There was silent and the heat was overwhelmingno skull. When she looked out of the window all she could see was the desert. Was this a ritual killing or murder? How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting for Uncle Dan and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with Franny and Rocco last nightDCI Harry Nelson. She knew that she It'd had quite a lot to drink s difficult as Ruth knows, but how could Nelson doesn't, that she have got to the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but is pregnant with his child as she thought back, a memory result of sirensthe one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, flashing lights and of being pushed into a car snagged on the edge not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of her mindsickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Golden0008551324|title=Road of BonesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=The Kolyma Highway… It's unusual for anyone from the 'Road of Bones'… Hardie family to approach the R504police. Stretching Neither side likes or has any respect for over a thousand miles across Siberia, itthe other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's one of prepared to tell the world's most notorious routes. For months of police where the year it's a spread body of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dustmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian mineralsThis person, and because he wanted to give too many people a lessonpromises, is someone big and it legendarily cost a life every metre it coverswill be worth the police doing what he wants. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, for one of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, And what he wants is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project be transferred to fruition an open prison to claw back some serve the remainder of the funds he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projectshis sentence and to get an early parole date. They pick up their oh-Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, and fetch up at the guideshe's childhood village. And even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain thatDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387761840008405026|title=Her Majesty A Stranger in the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=S J BennettJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It''The Queen, like the sunrise s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the tides, was generally a reliable way of marking time.'' It seemed investigation ground to begin as a coldhalt. Hardly surprisingNow, really, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting better. Hopefullyher mother, the Queen thoughtHelena, and her cold would go the same wayfather are dead in their bed. SheInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there'd probably caught it from one s something about the positioning of the great-grandchildrenbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Unfortunately, What looked as though it didn't get better was going to be an open-and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flushut case is now a complex double murder. She and the Duke were due to go to Sandringham by train Kerrigan is convinced that day but the doctor put his foot down. Heexplanation lies in Rosalie'd have preferred that the queen have a few dayss disappearance: others (such as Derwent' bed rest before venturing out but had to be satisfied with the thought that they'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today and Her Majesty did not like to disappoints boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones0571379877|title=Conversations with NatureThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrime|summary= One of the comments made when I was offered this beautiful book for review was that itEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's not very longa theatre director. Having read the book twice overHe's also self-obsessed, demanding, Ihandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he'm brought back inescapably s drunkenly confided how he feels to the Spanish proverb Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that Life may be short, a relationship had begun between them but it he's not like most men: Edward is broad. In this case I'm brought left to stumble upon the idea that the length two of life is not the point; the point is its depth. Peter Owen Jones dives deepthem kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1912992418
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1916459943Jo Callaghan|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Much as mothers love their babiesWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, there's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to sleep: insteadthe case alongside her sidekick, he just lies on his blanket and ''wails''. The sea offers to helpthe AI detective Lock. It rocks Baby gently and the waves sing ''hushs their first live case together, hush''having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a sandy beach potential serial killer and you have the sound perfectlya very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. The mermaids join Will they be able to solve the case in - ''la loutime, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, la lay...'' And for out of a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyes. Then a seagull '''shouts''' and we know exactly what's going to happen next.career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robin Stevens1399613073|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=May Wong is Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a long way from her family in Hong Kongcentury. She’s stuck in her schoolOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Deepdean, and desperate which is a bonus when you aim to get away, be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and do something useful to help end the war and to get homea trauma doctor. She just knows that she would make Anjali is the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by free spirit of the Ministry, group and she takes matters into her own hands, along with becomes a boy she meets outside the Ministry, EricGP. They both go undercover in When we first meet them they're at a large country house, pretending drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be evacuees, in an attempt to prove eerily similar event that someone there is passing secrets to will impact the Nazisthree friends. But there is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a murder sceneThis time, with even more to try to unravel and solveit's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=0241429862
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19196350170241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Thief to Catch a Killer|author=Kitt Townsend|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother...}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the DogConfession|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=First If you were to bring up an image of all, it was the earthquake, deep a city banker in the ocean flooryour mind, which created you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the tsunami pin-stripe suit and thishis background is the East End, in turnwhere he was familiar with violence, caused the nuclear meltdownpoverty and injustice. The result There was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the loss London School of livelihoods was widespreadEconomics. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but Stevenson is bright - six months after the tsunami extremely bright - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered and he has a dog outside a convenience storefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment also realised that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa most rich people expect poor people to open be stupid. It was his car door and Tamon the dog jumped inability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291530501035021803|title=BritainThe Antique Hunter's Best Political Cartoons 2022Guide to Murder|author=Tim BensonC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=HumourCrime|summary=Seeking some light relief from It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''BritainEnglish country village where she grew up. She's Best Political Cartoons back now because of 2022a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're Arthur was the reason why Freya had not yet through been back to the yearvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022profession she loved. Who can imagine what there will be to come After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the 2023 edition?love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa GrayAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Dark RoomAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come across a photograph .'' I've heard it said that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place and time? This 'technology' is what happens to Leonard in this storyafter you're eighteen. He is an ex-crime reporter for Well, I must confess that there have been more than a newspaper, and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls few decades of film and develops them technology in his own dark room at homemy lifetime. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he I've kept up reasonably well with what'thoughts advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it' he had watched die in front s all getting away from me. Some of him one night in a hotelit is - frankly - quite frightening. He'd felt guilty ever since that nightOf course, I could research the possibilities and lost everything because of it - his fiancee the probabilities and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadnend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they't really died re talking about or the night she was with him, what on earth actually happened?|isbn=154203535Xlatest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings and Alex T SmithSunny Singh|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in its sleepan unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group.'' And thus Hiding from the Frost Fair could happen – people trading terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won'tsite, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt forthere is Sam, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – wartime photographer and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyesAbhi, more or less – in the four years since, eitherhotel manager. But into As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the dark, frosted London comes Inigohotel, he forms a bond with supreme magical powersSam who refuses to be cowed by events, and a willingness keeps on venturing out of her room to try to help Thomasinacapture what's happened through her photography. Not Although they only can he introduce her to ever talk over the fantastical Other Frost Fairphone, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her world keep safe and they both wait to its coresee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=0008496056086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 1529153298|title=The Book List of Hope Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society General Fiction|summary= The done thing It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to read a book all have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the way through before family 'Down South'. When you sit down to review it're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. I’m making an exception here For Miv, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing bookmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, I want and she'll do anything to capture it as it hits meprevent that. And it is hitting me She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15295047671398524085|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Susan Charlotte Salter was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destinationdaughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. She neednShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg't have worried though as she went s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to the home of Mr make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and Mrs Russell, who then committed suicide when he couldn't have been kinder to herstand the guilt. She even had her own room - all The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to herself. Gradually think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she relaxed was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and began only moved to enjoy her lifeAthens when she was thirteen. SheHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'd help Mrs Russell with the baking and when Callas' to make it came to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on more manageable in the Christmas treeStates. The best surprise happened When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the following morningNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)Christopher Edge|title=Red as BloodBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, Lucas and his friends are all the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with the policebooked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, so instead he enlists a place that has the help nickname of Arora'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, a financial investigator. She manages they're looking forward to persuade Flosi that they will need the help lots of the policeexciting films, and she calls her detective friendmany, Danielmany snacks! However, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Togetheras the movie starts, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearancevery quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, trying not and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to arouse the suspicion of anyonenext, since can they have no idea who figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the kidnappers might becinema, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things become.and to their real lives?|isbn=19145853211839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0861541995Rachel Greenlaw|title=Wolf Pack|author=Will DeanCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on ''I can hear the road north song of Visbergthe sea. She sees blood on The call of the road and a creature on its side near deep, the pine treesanswering beat in my heart. It will turn out to be Bronco'' Rosevear, a Swedish Elkhoundremote and partially forgotten island, who has been attacked by a wolfsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Tuva takes Bronco and his ownerMira, Bengt Nyberglike her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the vetruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. Bronco didn't make it but on But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the waywrecking, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missing. Shethey capture the island'd been working at Rose Farm s leader and MoodysonMira's journalist's instincts are soon brought father. Desperate to the fore. Rose Farm save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is now home secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a group of survivalists but back family secret that lies buried deep in 1987 the then ownersea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, Johan Svenson murdered his wifeas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, and his two eldest children and then killed himself. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the disappearance future of Elsa Nyberg?her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesJames Sherwood Metts|title=FlyPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is Things have been a very impressive readbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as it does a lot of what mainstream teen they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy starting to think of the first-person narration from Flyother, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsynew ways to spend time, a along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away along with calling him Flyit, all the many daily social interactions on which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses itthey depend so heavily.|isbn=15253058321736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=3791388398Matthew Tree|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and Pastries|author=Laurel KratochvilaWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=This is probably one of the most unusual baking books I've encountered. It's built around 99 recipes for breadsTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, brioches a drunk and pastries but the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and baking - have changed in the twentieth and early twenty-first centurieswho had endless crises of self confidence. We start with the basics - the equipment you'll need (there's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and the ingredientsSo Tim applied himself to his studies, where the author is particular. You might not have realised that different salts can change the flavour cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and sensation on the tongue of the finished product set himself high but, apparently, they doachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew GivlerA G Slatter|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Briar Book 1)of the Dead|rating=45
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=''Matt has a terrible life. Seriously—itThere's awfula part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a blissful life in exchange for his soulwhile.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith1529395224|title=Super GhostLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Paragon City has been lucky Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to have follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the great Doctor Extraordinary, their very own superhero taking care of themstrain that being on-call put on his father's life. Whenever When he was seventeen he took the evil Captain Chaos has come up opportunity of doing work experience with another cunning plan (usually involving a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there to thwart her mischief family friend who was a vet and save was convinced this was the dayjob for him. But one day the Doctor and the Captain are trapped together inside Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a giant robot that then explodeschild. If anything, and the hero and the villain are no morehe'd wanted to be a professional footballer. Or are they…?|isbn=0241470536
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B7289HKQ0861541774|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul Nye of AmericaPheasants|author=Kari LoyaSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, by the way) wanted has taken a short holiday in Singapore to spend some time meet up with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do itan old ally, Guy Trueman. The decision Maik was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon involved in a street brawl - all 4250 miles of it he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - in 2015and he killed a Ghurka. They had 73 days Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to do it - slightly less than light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would man. Now he could be for most people who considered taking it onfacing the death penalty. Merv Loya was 75 years old Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimerwouldn'st help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher BowdenAlexander McCall Smith|title=Mr MagentaThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel The Perfect Passion Company is a patient untangling of dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a seemingly ordinary woman's lifemore personal, carried out by tailored service. Ness has asked her nephew younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after she has died. The aunt who always provided the business, as Ness is planning to take a safe harbour and trip to Canada to get away for a little bit while. Katie is coming out of indulgence to a young nephew had had break up with a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised bad boyfriend, and it seems so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to him an obligation Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to find it all outcharm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17395939010811771741|title=22 Ideas About The FutureInstaKnits for Baby|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=Science FictionCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'InstaKnits for Baby' I've got gives us a couple collection of confessions knits from toys to makeblankets. ISome will be quick knits - others are of the 'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to long, cosy afternoons in front of the bookfire' variety. ThereThe projects are divided by the time they's got ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to be a very compelling hook ten hours, ten to keep me engagedtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's All the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-buildingprojects are attractive, modern and useable. ItI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved itbeing picky.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405951184Dean Koontz|title=The Girls Who Disappeared|author=Claire DouglasBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=Back in November 1998Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, Olivia Rutherford was driving her three friends home after a night outhe loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. As she passed through the darklyOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-wooded Devilsized object to his home, and it's Corridorpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, a figure appeared in Benny is the roadvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. Olivia swerved to avoid him and the car smashed into He is a tree, leaving her trappednice person. When she regained consciousness her three friends had disappearedA really nice person. Ralph MiddletonSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who lived in the woods helped her before the police and ambulance arrivedhas been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. But what had happened Spike is going to Sally Thornetake care of Benny, Tamsin Cole and Hetty Riding? Their disappearance would be yet another mysterious happening in the Stafferbury area will certainly take care of Wiltshire. It was thought of as AveburyBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's poor relationwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=3949666079Adam Stower|title=Noema|author=Dael AkkermanMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a story about some things ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that happened to me about twelve thousand years agothe answer for both could well be.... no.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=194241028X1529431735|title=Azabu Getaway (Detective Hiroshi)The Winter Visitor|author=Michael PronkoJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It''You can't put 'good at golf' on your tombstones February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, can you?'' When we meet Patrick Walsh he's outside his familywhich made Bruce Hopkins's home in return all the Azabu district of Tokyo, hoping that his key will still work but prepared to break in if it doesn'tmore surprising. He's there to remove his daughters, Jenna and Kiri, and take them back to Honolulud been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. ItThe return has come about because he's had a quick day tripletter from his ex-wife, with just one purpose in mind. Patricksaying that she's employed by Nine Dragons Wealth Management ill and for the past year, he's been working in Wyoming because the privacy laws there are conducive to the business he's in. His wife, Miyuki, hasn't been in Wyoming with him and is in the process of divorcing him after photographs sent long to her anonymously suggested that Patrick had not been faithful to herlive. PatrickIt's plan didn't work out hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and he finds himself on the run sent to a watery grave in Tokyo with the two girlsboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09SGWCXQ8Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Night Watch (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil LancasterGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Fergus Grigor went out for Eli is a run. The lawyer was on his honeymoon but his body was found dashed to pieces below busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the cliffs evening a helper at Dunnett Headthe dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Was it suicide Eli lives with his lovely gran, or did he - too – for some reason - climb over there is a generation missing in the stone wall and fall family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to his death? Or was he pushed? On balancethe titular race, it looked like an accident but then his 'accident' was linked a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the deaths company of others associated with hima magical beast. Scott Paterson was released after This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a 'not-proven' verdict meant that Scotland's confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most notorious criminal wasn't facing life imprisonment. Paterson was Grigor's last clienthates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
}}
