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<metadesc>Book review siteExpert, with books full book reviews from the many most walks of literary life - ; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life non- [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. Itchildren's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, & self-published books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|plus author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|& top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.</metadesc>
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff SomersSylvie Cathrall|title=The Eternal PrisonA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=This There are few greater joys than a book stands out in the high-energy, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genre, in that it covers two stories at the same time. In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North America, being told which lives up to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the world, by other, almost as important people, in the cruel mix of powerplays that make up the current politicsa compelling premise. In the other corner And this is Cates, being thrown in prison - one of those basic, hell-on-earth, surrounded by miles of desert, prisons. Here, too, he will be told to do jobs for other people..them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A.Roger Ekirch 0008517061|title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fictionFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on facthas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. So it was in There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the case future of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Mannering''his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and at least three othersher daughter Diana, all as moving in together would mean a lot of which can point 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 saga of James Annesley future she wants for inspirationherself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laila Lalami 1786482126|title=Secret SonThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'Secret Son'' is apartments - when they discovered the story bones of Youssef El-Mekkia child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the slum-dwelling teenage son of single mother RachidaDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Youssef has always been told It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that his father she is dead, so when he finds out pregnant with his mother has lied to conceal child as a result of the fact that he was born out of wedlock, he plunges headlong into an identity crisisone night they spent together some three months ago. He tracks down his real father Her condition will be obvious before long, a wealthy businessman called Nabil Amrani who not least because Ruth is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate son's arrival. Nabil has recently fallen out with his daughter and he seizes this opportunity prone to mould Youssef into the obedient son he has always wantedsudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bonnie Hearn Hill0008551324|title=Star Crossed: Aries RisingThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Ordinary teen Logan McRae discovers an old book called 'Fearless AstrologyIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Can Neither side likes or has any respect for the book help her other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and her friends get he's prepared to tell the boys they want, catch police where the vandals body of a missing person is buried and who are shocking their school with prankswas responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and win her it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the approval remainder of cantankerous English teacher Mr his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'Frankensteint think so and she' Franklin? This s even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is a novel written for teens – of course it cankept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762436700</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gabrielle Lord0008405026|title=January A Stranger in the Family (Conspiracy 365Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Callum is wandering along home on New YearIt's Eve when crazed itinerant accosts himsixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. ''They killed your Now, her mother, Helena, and her father! They'll kill you! You must survive the next 365 days!'' The man is carted off are dead in an ambulancetheir bed. Initially, and Cal tries to shrug off the incident it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but itthere's not easy. How did something about the positioning of the man know his name? How did he know bodies that Cal's father makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was dead? Who could possibly want going to kill be an open-and-shut case is now a run of the mill adolescent like him? What complex double murder. Kerrigan is the Ormond Singularity convinced that the man kept shouting about? And the thing is, Calexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's father had written to him shortly before returning home already in the throes of a fatal illness. His father was vague on detailboss, but is pretty sure he was on to something bigUna Burt) are less convinced. Could there be a connection? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996447</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Feasey0571379877|title=Changeling: Blood WolfThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Trey Edward Jevons is the last living hereditary werewolf - or so he thinks. So when he discovers he has a longworking-lost uncleclass young man, he shrugs off all objections from obsessed with his vampire guardianupper-class friends, Lucien Robert and catches the first available plane to CanadaStanza. When he arrives, he finds that not all werewolves are fearsome, forbidding and courageous creatures Robert's a theatre director. And they He're certainly not all familys also self-friendly. His uncle is oldobsessed, demanding, half-blind handsome and entitled and alcoholicuses Edward to run errands for him. He lives Edward has been in filth love with Stanza since their university days - and he couldn't give a fig for Treys drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. But there is Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a pack out there, and itrelationship had begun between them but he's vicious, bloodthirsty and rapidly spinning out not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of controlthem kissing in a dark passageway. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330470493</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Pamela Fraidy has gotten herself locked in When a man is found crucified on the attic with top of a leggy spider. Her fellow frightfully friendly ghosties are doing all they can hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to help the case alongside hersidekick, but itthe AI detective Lock. It's not easy to pick up their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a key potential serial killer and carry it up the stairs if you don't have a body. In the process very high profile case that draws a lot of rescuing unwanted attention to their friends, AI Future Policing project. Will they also decide be able to make friends with solve the still-alives who inhabit their house. The ghosties are fed up of the still-alives being so mean - running case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off screaming every time the ghosties say hello.case and, potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249930</amazonuk>139851120X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga1399613073|title=The White TigerMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionThrillers|summary=Balram HalwaiOlivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a Bangalore entrepreneur (quarter of sorts) and a natural philosophercentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, hears that there which is a planned visit from the Chinese leader bonus when you aim to India to learn the source of Indian entrepreneurial talentbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. Balram knows that the story he will be told by the Indian leader will be Laura is a long way from the true story of modern Indian life, perfectionist and so resolves, over a trauma doctor. Anjali is the course free spirit of seven nights, to write to the Chinese premier with the story of his life group and his own journey from she becomes a poor son of GP. When we first meet them they're at a rickshaw driver drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the head of his own businesstragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843547228</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Casey0241636604|title=The MissingTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability 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=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1992, Sarah FinchIt's twelve year old brother Charlie says twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to her the English country village where she grew up. She''Tell mum I'll be s back soonnow because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole' Sixteen years laters close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, his family are still waiting to find out what happened say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to himthe village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Now Even though they were in her twentiesbusiness together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, Sarah is teaching at she worked in a local private school while looking after cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her uncaring motherlife, who since Charlie's disappearance has slid into alcoholismwas murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091935997</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate MortonSunny Singh|title=The Forgotten GardenHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionThrillers |summary=Just before The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the First World War terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a little girl was found abandoned on wartime photographer and Abhi, the wharf after a dreadful sea voyage from England to Australiahotel manager. She appears not As Abhi continues to know her name – or is unwilling try to tell it – and all she will say is that care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a mysterious lady she calls the Authoress had promised bond with Sam who refuses to look after be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her. Thereroom to try to capture what's no trace of happened through her though and the little girl was taken in a by a friendly familyphotography. She forgot all about Although they only ever talk over the events until many years later when phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her adopted father told her what had happenedkeep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330449605</amazonuk>086154742X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1529153298|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line List of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=Samuel Bonner|title=PlaygroundJennie Godfrey|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jonah grew up in London but his motherIt'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, getting increasingly worried about social disintegration and increasing crimethey've been murdered, has moved them up but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to Nottinghammove the family 'Down South'. Jonah When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a bright lad frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and halfway through a media course, but heshe's finding it difficult ll do anything to fit inprevent that. He She's also finding not worried about the new racial mix a problem - theredangers or that her Mum's palpable tension between black and brownstopped talking -skinned people on campus, and he often feels alienated and a bit like a fish out of waterto anyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902835190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Morrall1398524085|title=The Man Who DisappearedHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I Charlotte Salter was drawn to this book straight awayexpected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. FirstlyHer children, the jacket cover is lovelysons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. The subliminal message are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is read me, please read menot. We are introduced to the Kendall family; motherShortly afterwards, father Etty and three children. All leading unremarkableGreg, rather ordinary lives. The find the body of Greg's father, FelixDuncan Ackerley, works hard to provide for his family. He loves them all dearly. They all love him backin the river. It is a secure family unit. Until - completely out of was an easy assumption for the blue - police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he simply disappearscouldn't stand the guilt. His family is distraught The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and mystifiedwonder about what really happened. We all know that a person cannot simply disappear. But Felix Kendall has taken himself off the radar. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994274</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ellie Sandall1035906708|title=BirdsongDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=One by one the birds land on the branch. Each is a different speciesWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, each has different plumageNew York, in December 1923 and most importantly each has only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a different call. The chorus of birdsong builds up and up mother who mercilessly exploited her and up until the biggest bird made no secret of all lands on the branchher preference for her elder sister, with his loud shriekJackie. Ah, but who's this about to land on the branch with him?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405247371</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan BradyChristopher Edge|title=VenomBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=David Marion isn't used to finding hitmen standing Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at his front doortheir local cinema, though you wouldn't be able to tell a place that such a thing might be true, given has the speed and competency with which Marion dispatches said hitman and then disappears, seemingly, off the face nickname of the Earth. Dr. Helen Freyl is a physicist working for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world'The Black Hole'. She is also, up until his disappearanceAll big movie fans, David Marionthey's sometime lover and is grief-stricken re looking forward to the point lots of distraction by his sudden absence from her lifeexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as she believes him to be dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0743267907</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cathy Marie Buchanan |title=The Day The Falls Stood Still|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=I imagined this title as a 'Gone With the Wind' sort of novelmovie starts, a saga-esque historical romancethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, with a characterful heroine and page-turning story line that necessitates reading late they are swept up into the nightan adventure they couldn't even imagine. WellBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, I wasn't disappointed in this paperback edition of can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the hardbackcinema, already a best-seller in the U.S.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091925967</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anu Stohner and Henrike WilsonRachel Greenlaw|title=Charlotte Compass and the WolvesBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Hot on ''I can hear the heels song of her adventure in [[Brave Charlotte by Anu Stohner and Henrike Wilson|Brave Charlotte]], the brave little sheep is backsea. She's as bold as ever, and the older sheep have stopped worrying about her wild ways. Added into the mix are a gang The call of teenage sheep who call themselves The Wolves and worry the lambs. When real wolf howls can be hearddeep, but not by the shepherd or Jack the old sheepdog, itanswering beat in my heart.''s down to Charlotte to save the day again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802589</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Glenn DakinJames Sherwood Metts|title=Candle Man: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Birthdays Things have been a bit sticky for Theo are not exactly how we would recognise themthe Earthlings. One blandAI and automation have been proceeding apace, forgettable present from each of the three people who live in his householdoften replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Some pink cake at the best of times. A trip Just as they were beginning to get used to the cemetery, with the butler making sure nobody else is in sight. But all this one is different - some person unknown leaves something for him. And by the time burglars break in, technological change and force Theo starting to leave the confines think of his bedroom other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and find some of the secrets of the house, along with it is too late - Theo is set on a nightmarish trail between two warring forces, as all the truths of his destiny, his origins, and his hands, come to the foremany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405246766</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher IsherwoodMatthew Tree|title=A Single ManWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you've ever wanted Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to know what goes on inside someone's mind you'll love this short novel, first published back in 1964. We join George Falconer just at the moment he awakes be different from sleep and witness his innermost thoughts as he goes about father, a typical day. It all sounds pretty dull drunk and monotonous but what makes this exciting is that George isn't just chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any old professor living the American Dream, oh no, he's so detached from the banal normality of the world that he's almost outside his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his own body at timesdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548828</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Celine Kiernan1529900360|title=The Poison Throne (Moorehawke Trilogy)Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=TeensCrime|summary=In It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'The Poison Throne'' what s fault that Alex Delaware had been a benevolent kingdom has become characterised by repression badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and torture (-shut cases which didn't need the book graphically describes)help of a psychologist only worked for a while. The magical aspects of the kingdom Finally, its talking cats and ghostsit was Robin, have been suppressed, while AlberonDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the heir to involvement was something that the throneman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, has vanishedthough. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. Wynter, along with AlberonHe was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's half brother Razi and his friend Christopher are increasingly at risk as they attempt to deal with this situationnot the Italian.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498211</amazonuk> But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Chan1529395224|title=Harvard Business School ConfidentialLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: Secrets The Secret Life of Successa Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Business Animals and FinanceWildlife|summary=Harvard Business School has an almost unrivalled reputation for schooling some of the greatest business leaders (Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and George W Bush!). Former graduateRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Emily Chan, who went particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on to his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work for leading management consultancy Boston Consulting Group and experience with a family friend who is now was a director in vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a family direct investment business in Hong Kongchild. If anything, promises he'd wanted to offer the secrets she learnt therebe a professional footballer. Does she succeed?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0470822392</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brand0861541774|title=The More You Ignore MeA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alice The Perfect Passion Company is growing up in a cottage dating agency in Herefordshire with her gentleEdinburgh, hippy father run by Ness and her motheroperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, Gina, who spends tailored service. Ness has asked her days standing around like a chain-smoking zombie because younger cousin Katie if she is kept on medication could come and has been for years. Gina's first psychotic episode occured look after Alice's birth. Then there was the episode Alice remembersbusiness, the day her mother climbed onto the roof, naked, holding Smelly the hamster, and refused as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to come downget away for a while. From that dayKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, the old Gina, boisterous and unconventional as she was, fell silent under so jumps at the numbing impact of constant medicationchance to come home to Edinburgh. Jo Brand tells the And so begins this new story of how Alice coped with the loneliness and worry of growing up with from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an ill mother. Most importantlyEdinburgh we already love, as I'm sure thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the teenage Alice would see itIsabel Dalhousie novels, we are shown the birth and life of her obsession but with Morrissey of The Smithssome new characters who quickly begin to charm. In his music she finds escapism and comfort and Katie has no experience in him she finds running a figure to adore. Her friends can't understand business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her fixation abilities, and there's always her mother understands fixation a little too well very helpful (the local weatherman having been the object of one of her fervent obsessionsand rather handsome). Morrissey sings with such sensitivity and angst that surelyneighbour, Alice thinksWilliam, if she could just meet him and tell him her story he could help her and she could help him...to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755322320</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit 0811771741|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely FriendshipInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrafts|summary=In early 2005, a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman to confirm and prepare Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a telephone interview about day collection of knits from toys to day life blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in Baghdad, and about her thoughts on front of the forthcoming elections therefire' variety. May The projects are divided by the time they's detailed ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Beethan twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and a friendship develops between the two womenuseable. They tell each other I perhaps show my age when I wonder about their work, relationships and family lives'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana Wynne-JonesDean Koontz|title=Enchanted GlassThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Andrew Hope, Benny is having a rather woolly professorterrifically bad day. He loses his job, learns that he loses his magical grandfather has diedfiancee, leaving him and his house and his field-of-caregets trashed. Andrew remembers some things from when he was Oh, and someone has delivered a little boyreally weird, such as disturbing coffin-sized object to his grandfather leaving vegetables on the roof of the shed for someonehome, and it's possible that whoever or somethingwhatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to eat each nightdeserve all this bad luck. He also remembers is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that there the delivery to his house is something special about the beautifula new friend, old coloured glass above the kitchen doora bad weather friend called Spike, but not exactly what that who has been sent to help him since Benny isclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. It seems he has forgotten a lot Spike is going to take care of what his grandfather taught himBenny, including the mystery and will certainly take care of the field-of-care Benny's enemies, if he has inherited. But with the entrance of Aidan Cain, an orphanBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into his house and his life the mysteries deepen. The two Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are drawn to each other, however, and slowly start to unravel the truth that surrounds them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007320787</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James DelgadoAdam Stower|title=Kamikaze: History's Greatest Naval DisasterMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers |summary=When Mongol leaderMurray is supposed to be a humble, Khubilai Khantidy and friendly cat, achieved what his Grandfather Genghis had failed one who is able to do in conquering Chinasleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he inherited the world's largest and most sophisticated navy. Howevera bad magician's cat, in attempting to utilise this to expand so his empire further to Javafavourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Vietnam and mainly Japanthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, he lost not into the entire armada in regular back garden, but into a few short yearsworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. New marine archeological evidence from Japan This time round it drops them into a Viking land, ironically with the site discovered in the 1990s in the construction of new defences from the weatherwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, has raised questions on the traditional view that the defeat of the two Japanese invasion forces of 1274 and particlularly 1281 were solely due to the intervention of the weather be honest, but he's turned up and what Japanese culture claim was a Kamikaze (or he''divine wind'') summoned by the Gods.ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532581</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''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 the answer for both could well be.... no.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Conway and Melanie Williamson1529431735|title=The Great Nursery Rhyme DisasterWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Little Miss Muffet It's February 1991 and Essex is fed up of being constantly scared by bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a spiderletter from his ex-wife, so saying that she ups sticks 's ill and heads for a different page of the bookhasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to see if his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the characters boot of another nursery rhyme will let her join ina stolen Ford Sierra. She tries one rhyme after another, but things never quite work to plan. Will she find Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a nursery rhyme that suits her problem closer to a Thome?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340945087</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair DuncanAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Norwood Author - Arthur Conan Doyle and the Norwood Years (1891 - 1894)Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the funeral. Laurel - Lolly to those that love her - Eli is concentrating very hard and trying desperately to turn into a busy lad – by day an ice lolly. Ice lollies are frozen, you seeapprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and they don't feel so much. They can't miss people - mothers - who are gone in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and people who are still around can't hurt themruns. A frozen heart Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a sad thinggeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, but itEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a safe thingglobe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. Auntie Ellen doesn't like This has made the race anathema to the music pair – but when a bad incident at the serviceeatery leads to a confession from gran, she thinks it's inappropriate. It isn't even a hymn. But it was one Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of Laurel's mother's favourites, and Laurel think it's just perfect. Specialmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281730</amazonuk>0571382231
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